It is shown that broad-line region (BLR) line profiles ranging from the classic "logarithmic" profile to double-peaked, disk-like profiles are readily explained by the distribution of BLR gas proposed by Gaskell, Klimek, & Nazarova (2007; GKN) without any need to invoke fundamental differences in the AGNs other than differing viewing angles. It is argued that the highly-variable thermal energy generation in AGNs originates off axis in regions that cannot be axially symmetric. This off-axis model readily explains the varying degrees of temporal correlation found in multi-wavelength variability studies, the strong, variable asymmetry of BLR line profiles, the varying time delays in the response of the BLR to different continuum events, how narrow velocity ranges of line profiles will often appear to respond differently or not at all to continuum variability, complex changes in the Balmer decrement with velocity, inconsistent and variable inflow/outflow signatures found in velocity-resolved reverberation mapping, the diversity of velocity-dependent polarizations observed, and polarization variability. The fundamentally non-axisymmetric nature of AGN continuum variability severely limits what can be learned from reverberation mapping. In particular, high-fidelity reverberation mapping is not possible. There will be systematic orientation-dependent errors in black hole mass determinations. The effects of off-axis emission will mask subtle signatures of possible close supermassive black hole binaries. Some tests of the off-axis-variability model are proposed.
Abridged. We have performed an ecliptic survey of the Kuiper belt, with an areal coverage of 8.9 square degrees to a 50% limiting magnitude of r'=24.7, and have detected 88 Kuiper belt objects, roughly half of which received follow-up one to two months after detection. Using this survey data alone, we have measured the luminosity function of the Kuiper belt, thus avoiding any biases that might come from the inclusion of other observations. We have found that the Cold population defined as having inclinations less than 5 degrees has a luminosity function slope alpha=0.82+-0.23, and is different from the Hot population, which has inclinations greater than 5 degrees and a luminosity function slope alpha=0.35+-0.21. As well, we have found that those objects closer than 38 AU have virtually the same luminosity function slope as the Hot population. This result, along with similar findings of past surveys demonstrates that the dynamically cold Kuiper belt objects likely have a steep size distribution, and are unique from all of the excited populations which have much shallower distributions. This suggests that the dynamically excited population underwent a different accretion history and achieved a more evolved state of accretion than the cold population. As well, we discuss the similarities of the Cold and Hot populations with the size distributions of other planetesimal populations. We find that while the Jupiter family comets and the scattered disk exhibit similar size distributions, a power-law extrapolation to small sizes for the scattered disk cannot account for the observed influx of comets. As well, we have found that the Jupiter Trojan and Hot populations cannot have originated from the same parent popuation, a result that is difficult to reconcile with scattering models similar to the NICE model.
Galaxy clusters pose a "cooling-flow problem", where the X-ray emission from their cores is not accompanied by enough cold gas or star formation. This requires a continuous energy source that balances the cooling rate over the whole core volume. We address the feasibility of a gravitational heating mechanism, utilizing the gravitational energy released by the gas that streams into the potential well of the cluster dark-matter halo. We focus here on a specific form of gravitational heating in which the energy is transferred to the medium thorough the drag exerted on inflowing gas clumps. Using spheri-symmetric hydro simulations with a subgrid representation of these clumps, we confirm our earlier estimates that in haloes >=10^13 solar masses the gravitational heating is more efficient than the cooling everywhere. The worry was that this could overheat the core and create an instability that might push it away from equilibrium. However, we find that the overheating does not change the global halo properties, and that convection can stabilize the cluster by carrying energy away from the overheated core. In a typical rich cluster of 10^{14-15} solar masses, with ~5% of the accreted baryons in gas clumps of 10^8 solar masses, the simulated temperature and entropy profiles are consistent with those observed in cool-core clusters, and so are the predicted density and mass of cold gas and the level of turbulence.
The Galactic Centre S-stars orbiting the central supermassive black hole reach velocities of a few percent of the speed of light. The GR-induced perturbations to the redshift enter the dynamics via two distinct channels. The post-Newtonian regime perturbs the orbit from the Keplerian (Zucker et al., 2006, Kannan & Saha 2009), and the photons from the Minkowski (Angelil & Saha 2010). The inclusion of gravitational time dilation at order v^2 marks the first departure of the redshift from the line-of-sight velocities. The leading-order Schwarzschild terms curve space, and enter at order v^3. The classical Keplerian phenomenology dominates the total redshift. Spectral measurements of sufficient resolution will allow for the detection of these post-Newtonian effects. We estimate the spectral resolution required to detect each of these effects by fitting the redshift curve via the five keplerian elements plus black hole mass to mock data. We play with an exaggerated S2 orbit - one with a semi-major axis a fraction of that of the real S2. This amplifies the relativistic effects, and allows clear visual distinctions between the relativistic terms. We argue that spectral data of S2 with a dispersion of about 10km/s would allow for a clear detection of gravitational redshift, and about 1 km/s would suffice for leading-order space curvature detection.
We use WIRC, IR images of the Antennae (NGC 4038/4039) together with the extensive catalogue of 120 X-ray point sources (Zezas et al. 2006) to search for counterpart candidates. Using our proven frame-tie technique, we find 38 X-ray sources with IR counterparts, almost doubling the number of IR counterparts to X-ray sources first identified in Clark et al. (2007). In our photometric analysis, we consider the 35 IR counterparts that are confirmed star clusters. We show that the clusters with X-ray sources tend to be brighter, K_s ~16 mag, with (J-K_s) = 1.1 mag. We then use archival HST images of the Antennae to search for optical counterparts to the X-ray point sources. We employ our previous IR-to-X-ray frame-tie as an intermediary to establish a precise optical-to-X-ray frame-tie with <0.6 arcsec rms positional uncertainty. Due to the high optical source density near the X-ray sources, we determine that we cannot reliably identify counterparts. Comparing the HST positions to the 35 identified IR star cluster counterparts, we find optical matches for 27 of these sources. Using Bruzual-Charlot spectral evolutionary models, we find that most clusters associated with an X-ray source are massive, ~10^6 M_sun, young, ~10^6 yr, with moderate metallicities, Z=0.05.
We report on observations of the unusual neutron-star binary system FIRST J102347.6+003841 carried out using the XMM-Newton satellite. This system consists of a radio millisecond pulsar in an 0.198-day orbit with a ~0.2 solar-mass Roche-lobe-filling companion, and appears to have had an accretion disk in 2001. We observe a hard power-law spectrum (\Gamma = 1.26(4)) with a possible thermal component, and orbital variability in X-ray flux and possibly hardness of the X-rays. We also detect probable pulsations at the pulsar period (single-trial significance ~4.5 sigma from an 11(2)% modulation), which would make this the first system in which both orbital and rotational X-ray pulsations are detected. We interpret the emission as a combination of X-rays from the pulsar itself and from a shock where material overflowing the companion meets the pulsar wind. The similarity of this X-ray emission to that seen from other millisecond pulsar binary systems, in particular 47 Tuc W (PSR J0024-7204W) and PSR J1740-5340, suggests that they may also undergo disk episodes similar to that seen in J1023 in 2001.
We measure the radial velocity curve of the eclipsing detached white dwarf binary NLTT 11748. The primary exhibits velocity variations with a semi-amplitude of 273 km/s and an orbital period of 5.641 hr. We do not detect any spectral features from the secondary star, or any spectral changes during the secondary eclipse. We use our composite spectrum to constrain the temperature and surface gravity of the primary to be Teff = 8690 (140) K and log g = 6.54 (0.05), which correspond to a mass of 0.18 Msol. For an inclination angle of 89.9 deg. derived from the eclipse modeling, the mass function requires a 0.76 Msol companion. The merger time for the system is 7.2 Gyr. However, due to the extreme mass ratio of 0.24, the binary will most likely create an AM CVn system instead of a merger.
We present an extension of TRAPHIC, the method for radiative transfer of ionising radiation in smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations that we introduced in Pawlik & Schaye (2008). The new version keeps all advantages of the original implementation: photons are transported at the speed of light, in a photon-conserving manner, directly on the spatially adaptive, unstructured grid traced out by the particles, in a computation time that is independent of the number of radiation sources, and in parallel on distributed memory machines. We extend the method to include multiple frequencies, both hydrogen and helium, and to model the coupled evolution of the temperature and ionisation balance. We demonstrate that close to sources the grey approximation asymptotes to the multi-frequency result if photo-heating rates are computed in the optically thin limit, but that it breaks down everywhere if, as is often done, the optically thick limit is assumed. We test our methods by performing a set of simulations of increasing complexity and including a small cosmological reionisation run. The results are in excellent agreement with exact solutions, where available, and also with results obtained with other codes if we make similar assumptions and account for differences in the atomic rates used.
We present a detailed spatially-resolved spectroscopic analysis of two X-ray observations (with a total integration time of 73280 seconds) made of the luminous northwestern rim complex of the Galactic supernova remnant (SNR) G266.2-1.2 (RX J0852.0-4622) with the Chandra X-ray Observatory. G266.2-1.2 is a member of a class of Galactic SNRs which feature X-ray spectra dominated by non-thermal emission: in the cases of these SNRs, the emission is believed to have a synchrotron origin and studies of the X-ray spectra of these SNRs can lend insights into how SNRs accelerate cosmic-ray particles. The Chandra observations have clearly revealed fine structure in this rim complex and the spectra of these features are dominated by non-thermal emission. We have measured the length scales of the upstream structures at eight positions along the rim and derive lengths of 0.02-0.08 pc (assuming a distance of 750 pc to G266.2-1.2). We have also extracted spectra from seven regions in the rim complex and fit these spectra with such models as a simple power law as well as the synchrotron models SRCUT and SRESC. We have constrained our fits to the latter two models using estimates for the flux densities of these filaments at 1 GHz as determined from radio observations made with the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA). Statistically-acceptable fits to all seven regions are derived using each model: differences in the fit parameters (such as photon index and cutoff frequency) are seen in the different regions, which may indicate variations in shock conditions and the maximum energies of the cosmic-ray electrons accelerated at each region. Finally, we estimate the maximum energy of cosmic-ray electrons accelerated along this rim complex to be approximately 40 TeV. We include a summary of estimated maximum energies for both Galactic SNRs as well as SNRs located in the Large Magellanic Cloud.
Transit light curves for stellar continua have only one minimum and a "U" shape. By contrast, transit curves for optically thin chromospheric emission lines can have a "W" shape because of stellar limb-brightening. We calculate light curves for an optically thin shell of emission and fit these models to time-resolved observations of Si IV absorption by the planet HD209458b. We find that the best fit Si IV absorption model has R_p,SIV/R_*= 0.34+0.07-0.12, similar to the Roche lobe of the planet. While the large radius is only at the limit of statistical significance, we develop formulae applicable to transits of all optically thin chromospheric emission lines.
We study the behaviour of multiple radiative cooling algorithms implemented in six Semi-Analytic Models (SAMs) of galaxy formation, including a new model we propose in this paper. We use versions of the models without feedback and apply them to dark matter haloes growing in a cosmological context, which have final masses that range from 10^{11}Msun to 10^{14}Msun. First, using simplified smoothly-growing halo models, we demonstrate that the different algorithms predict cooling rates and final cold gas masses that differ by a factor of ~5 for massive haloes (>10^{12}Msun). The algorithms are in better agreement for less massive haloes because they cool efficiently and, therefore, their cooling rates are largely limited by the halo accretion rate. However, for less massive haloes, all the SAMs predict less cooling than corresponding 1D hydrodynamic models. Second, we study the gas accretion history of the central galaxies of dark matter haloes using merger trees. The inclusion of mergers alters the cooling history of haloes by locking up gas in galaxies within small haloes at early times. For realistic halo models, the dispersion in the cold gas mass predicted by the algorithms is 0.5 dex for high mass haloes and 0.1 dex for low mass haloes, while the dispersion in the accretion rate is about two times larger. Comparing to cosmological SPH simulations, we find that most SAMs systematically under-predict the gas accretion rates for low-mass haloes but over-predict the gas accretion rates for massive haloes. Although the models all include both "rapid" and "slow" mode accretion, the transition between the two accretion modes varies between models and also differs from the simulations. Finally, we construct a new model that explicitly incorporates cold halo gas to illustrate that such a class of models can better match the results from cosmological hydrodynamic simulations.
We introduce a novel method for weak-lensing measurements, which is based on a mathematically exact deconvolution of the moments of the apparent brightness distribution of galaxies from the telescope's PSF. No assumptions on the shape of the galaxy or the PSF are made. The (de)convolution equations are exact for unweighted moments only, while in practice a compact weight function needs to be applied to the noisy images to ensure that the moment measurement yields significant results. We employ a Gaussian weight function, whose centroid and ellipticity are iteratively adjusted to match the corresponding quantities of the source. The change of the moments caused by the application of the weight function can then be corrected by considering higher-order weighted moments of the same source. Because of the form of the deconvolution equations, even an incomplete weighting correction leads to an excellent shear estimation if galaxies and PSF are measured with a weight function of identical size. We demonstrate the accuracy and capabilities of this new method in the context of weak gravitational lensing measurements with a set of specialized tests and show its competitive performance on the GREAT08 challenge data. A complete C++ implementation of the method can be requested from the authors.
We report here the discovery of an new near-equal mass Trans-Neptunian Binaries (TNBs) L5c02 and the and the putative detection of a second TNB (L4k12) among the year two and three detections of the Canada-France-Eclipic Plane Survey (CFEPS). These new binaries (internal designation L4k12 and L5c02) have moderate separations of 0.4" and 0.6" respectively. The follow-up observation confirmed the binarity of L5c02, but L4k12 are still lack of more followup observations. L4k12 has a heliocentric orbital inclination of ~ 35?degree, marking this system as having the highest heliocentric orbital inclination among known near-equal mass binaries. Both systems are members of the classical main Kuiper belt population. Based on the sample of objects searched we determine that the fraction of near-equal mass wide binaries with separations > 0.4" is 1.5% to 20% in the cold main classical Kuiper belt and, if our detection the binarity L4k12 holds, 3% to 43% in the hot main classical objects are binary. In this manuscript we describe our detection process, the sample of objects surveyed, our confirmation observations.
We present a deep and wide $I$ luminosity function for galaxies in Abell 1689 ($z=0.183$) from a mosaic of HST WFPC2 images covering $10'$ on the side. The main result of this work is the detection of a steep upturn in the dwarf galaxy LF, with $\alpha \sim -2$. The dwarf to giant ratio appears to increase outwards, but this is because giant galaxies are missing in the cluster outskirts, indicating luminosity segregation. The red sequence LF has the same parameters, within errors, as the total LF, showing that the faint end upturn consists of red quiescent galaxies. We speculate that the upturn is connected to the `filling-in' of the red sequence at $z < 0.4$ and may represent the latest installment of `downsizing' as the least massive galaxies are being quenched at the present epoch.
We aim to (1) set up simple and general analytical expressions to estimate mass-loss rates of evolved stars, and (2) from those calculate estimates for the mass-loss rates of asymptotic giant branch (AGB), red supergiant (RSG), and yellow hypergiant stars in our galactic sample. Rotationally excited lines of CO are a very robust diagnostic in the study of circumstellar envelopes (CSEs). When sampling different layers of the CSE, observations of these molecular lines lead to detailed profiles of kinetic temperature, expansion velocity, and density. A state-of-the-art, nonlocal thermal equilibrium, and co-moving frame radiative transfer code that predicts CO line intensities in the CSEs of late-type stars is used in deriving relations between stellar and molecular-line parameters, on the one hand, and mass-loss rate, on the other. We present analytical expressions for estimating the mass-loss rates of evolved stellar objects for 8 rotational transitions of the CO molecule, apply them to our extensive CO data set covering 47 stars, and compare our results to those of previous studies. Our expressions account for line saturation and resolving of the envelope, thereby allowing accurate determination of very high mass-loss rates. We argue that, for estimates based on a single rotational line, the CO(2-1) transition provides the most reliable mass-loss rate. The mass-loss rates calculated for the AGB stars range from 4x10^-8 Msun/yr up to 8x10^-5 Msun/yr. For RSGs they reach values between 2x10^-7 Msun/yr and 3x10^-4 Msun/yr. The estimates for the set of CO transitions allow time variability to be identified in the mass-loss rate. Possible mass-loss-rate variability is traced for 7 of the sample stars. We find a clear relation between the pulsation periods of the AGB stars and their derived mass-loss rates, with a levelling off at approx. 3x10^-5 Msun/yr for periods exceeding 850 days.
We have performed extensive simulations to explore the possibility of detecting eclipses and transits of close, sub-stellar and planetary companions to white dwarfs in WASP light-curves. Our simulations cover companions $\sim0.3\Re<{\rm R}_{pl}<12\Re$ and orbital periods $2{\rm h}<P<15{\rm d}$, equivalent to orbital radii $0.003{\rm AU} < a < 0.1{\rm AU}$. For Gaussian random noise WASP is sensitive to transits by companions as small as the Moon orbiting a $\textrm{V}\simeq$12 white dwarf. For fainter white dwarfs WASP is sensitive to increasingly larger radius bodies. However, in the presence of correlated noise structure in the light-curves the sensitivity drops, although Earth-sized companions remain detectable in principle even in low S/N data. Mars-sized, and even Mercury-sized bodies yield reasonable detection rates in high-quality light-curves with little residual noise. We searched for eclipses and transit signals in long-term light-curves of a sample of 194 white dwarfs resulting from a cross-correlation of the McCook $\&$ Sion catalogue and the WASP archive. No evidence for eclipsing or transiting sub-stellar and planetary companions was found. We used this non-detection and results from our simulations to place tentative upper limits to the frequency of such objects in close orbits at white dwarfs. While only weak limits can be placed on the likely frequency of Earth-sized or smaller companions, brown dwarfs and gas giants (radius $\approx \Rjup$) with periods $<0.1-0.2$~days must certainly be rare ($<10\%$). More stringent constraints likely requires significantly larger white dwarf samples, higher observing cadence and continuous coverage. The short duration of eclipses and transits of white dwarfs compared to the cadence of WASP observations appears to be one of the main factors limiting the detection rate in a survey optimised for planetary transits of main sequence stars.
We provide an overview of stellar variability in the first quarter of data from the Kepler mission. The intent of this paper is to examine the entire sample of over 150,000 target stars for periodic behavior in their lightcurves, and relate this to stellar characteristics. These data constitute an unprecedented study of stellar variability given its great precision and complete time coverage (with a half hour cadence). Because the full Kepler pipeline is not currently suitable for a study of stellar variability of this sort, we describe our procedures for treating the "raw" pipeline data. About half of the total sample exhibits convincing periodic variability up to two weeks, with amplitudes ranging from differential intensity changes less than 10^{-4} up to more than 10 percent. K and M dwarfs have a greater fraction of period behavior than G dwarfs. The giants in the sample have distinctive quasi-periodic behavior, but are not periodic in the way we define it. Not all periodicities are due to rotation, and the most significant period is not necessarily the rotation period. We discuss properties of the lightcurves, and in particular look at a sample of very clearly periodic G dwarfs. It is clear that a large number of them do vary because of rotation and starspots, but it will take further analysis to fully exploit this.
We present a study of protoclusters associated with high redshift radio galaxies. We imaged MRC1017-220 (z=1.77) and MRC0156-252 (z=2.02) using the near-infrared wide-field (7.5'x7.5') imager VLT/HAWK-I in the Y, H and Ks bands. We present the first deep Y-band galaxy number counts within a large area (200 arcmin2). We then develop a purely near-infrared colour selection technique to isolate galaxies at 1.6<z<3 that may be associated with the two targets, dividing them into (i) red passively evolving or dusty star-forming galaxies or (ii) blue/star-formation dominated galaxies with little or no dust. Both targeted fields show an excess of star-forming galaxies with respect to control fields. No clear overdensity of red galaxies is detected in the surroundings of MRC1017-220 although the spatial distribution of the red galaxies resembles a filament-like structure within which the radio galaxy is embedded. In contrast, a significant overdensity of red galaxies is detected in the field of MRC0156-252, ranging from a factor of 2-3 times the field density at large scales (2.5Mpc, angular distance) up to a factor of 3-4 times the field density within a 1Mpc radius of the radio galaxy. Half of these red galaxies have colours consistent with red sequence models at z~2, with a large fraction being bright (Ks<21.5, i.e. massive). In addition, we also find a small group of galaxies within 5" of MRC0156-252 suggesting that the radio galaxy has multiple companions within ~50 kpc. We conclude that the field of MRC0156-252 shows many remarkable similarities with the well-studied protocluster surrounding PKS1138-262 (z=2.16) suggesting that MRC0156-252 is associated with a galaxy protocluster at z~2.
We present the evolution of the radio emission from the 2.8-s pulsar of the double pulsar system PSR J0737-3039A/B. We provide an update on the Burgay et al. (2005) analysis by describing the changes in the pulse profile and flux density over five years of observations, culminating in the B pulsar's radio disappearance in 2008 March. Over this time, the flux density decreases by 0.177 mJy/yr at the brightest orbital phases and the pulse profile evolves from a single to a double peak, with a separation rate of 2.6 deg/yr. The pulse profile changes are most likely caused by relativistic spin precession, but can not be easily explained with a circular hollow-cone beam as in the model of Clifton & Weisberg (2008). Relativistic spin precession, coupled with an elliptical beam, can model the pulse profile evolution well. This particular beam shape predicts geometrical parameters for the two bright orbital phases which are consistent and similar to those derived by Breton et al. (2008). However, the observed decrease in flux over time and B's eventual disappearance cannot be easily explained by the model and may be due to the changing influence of A on B.
Using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and the FIRST (Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty Centimeters) catalogs, we examined the optical environments around double-lobed radio sources. Previous studies have shown that multi-component radio sources exhibiting some degree of bending between components are likely to be found in galaxy clusters. Often this radio emission is associated with a cD-type galaxy at the center of a cluster. We cross-correlated the SDSS with the FIRST catalog and measured the richness of the cluster environments surrounding both bent and straight multi-component sources. This led to the discovery and classification of a large number of galaxy clusters out to a redshift of z ~ 0.5. We divided our sample into smaller subgroups based on their optical and radio properties. We find that FR I radio sources are more likely to be found in galaxy clusters than FR II sources. Further, we find that bent radio sources are more often found in galaxy clusters than non-bent radio sources. We also examined the environments around single-component radio sources and find that single-component radio sources are less likely to be associated with galaxy clusters than extended, multi-component radio sources. Bent, visually-selected sources are found in clusters or rich groups ~78% of the time. Those without optical hosts in SDSS are likely associated with clusters at even higher redshifts, most with redshifts of z > 0.7.
By using a hydrodynamic atmospheric escape mechanism (Levi and Podolak 2009) we show how the unusually high mass density of Quaoar could have been predicted (constrained), without any knowledge of a binary companion. We explain the recent spectroscopic observations of Orcus and Charon (Delsanti et al. 2010, Cook and Desch 2007}. We present a simple relation between the detection of certain volatile ices and the body mass density and diameter. As a test case we implement the relations on the KBO $2003$ AZ$_{84}$ and give constraints on its mass density.
The discovery of quasars with redshifts higher than six has prompted a great deal of discussion in the literature regarding the role of quasars, both as sources of reionization, and as probes of the ionization state of the IGM. However the extreme ultra-violet (EUV) spectral index cannot be measured directly for high redshift quasars owing to absorption at frequencies above the Lyman limit, and as a result, studies of the impact of quasars on the intergalactic medium during reionization must assume a spectral energy distribution in the extreme ultra-violet based on observations at low redshift, z<1. In this paper we use regions of high Ly-alpha transmission (near-zones) around the highest redshift quasars to measure the quasar EUV spectral index at z~6. We jointly fit the available observations for variation of near-zone size with both redshift and luminosity, and propose that the observed relation provides evidence for an EUV spectral index that varies with absolute magnitude in the high redshift quasar sample, becoming softer at higher luminosity. Using a large suite of detailed numerical simulations we find that the typical value of spectral index for a luminous quasar at z~6 is constrained to be alpha=1.3+/-0.4 for a specific luminosity of the form L\propto\nu^{-alpha}. We find the scatter in spectral index among individual quasars to be in the range ~0.75-1.25. These values are in agreement with direct observations at low redshift, and indicate that there has been no significant evolution in the EUV spectral index of quasars over 90% of cosmic time.
We present a detailed analysis of Spitzer-IRAC images obtained toward six Herbig-Haro objects (HH 54/211/212, L 1157/1448, BHR 71). Our analysis includes: (1) comparisons in morphology between the four IRAC bands (3.6, 4.5, 5.8 and 8.0 um), and H2 1-0 S(1) at 2.12 um for three out of six objects; (2) measurements of spectral energy distributions (SEDs) at selected positions; and (3) comparisons of these results with calculations of thermal H2 emission at LTE (207 lines in four bands) and non-LTE (32-45 lines, depending on particle for collisions). We show that the morphologies observed at 3.6 and 4.5 um are similar to each other, and to H2 1-0 S(1). This is well explained by thermal H2 emission at non-LTE if the dissociation rate is significantly larger than 0.002-0.02, allowing thermal collisions to be dominated by atomic hydrogen. In contrast, the 5.8 and 8.0 um emission shows different morphologies from the others in some regions. This emission appears to be more enhanced at the wakes in bow shocks, or less enhanced in patchy structures in the jet. These tendencies are explained by the fact that thermal H2 emission in the 5.8 and 8.0 um band is enhanced in regions at lower densities and temperatures. Throughout, the observed similarities and differences in morphology between four bands and 1-0 S(1) are well explained by thermal H2 emission. The observed SEDs are categorized into:- (A) those in which the flux monotonically increases with wavelength; and (B) those with excess emission at 4.5-um. The type-A SEDs are explained by thermal H2 emission, in particular with simple shock models with a power-law cooling function. Our calculations suggest that the type-B SEDs require extra contaminating emission in the 4.5-um band. The CO vibrational emission is the most promising candidate, and the other contaminants discussed to date are not likely to explain the observed SEDs.
We present new ATCA observations at 3.3 mm of 27 young stellar objects in the rho-Oph young cluster. 25 of these sources have been detected. We analyze the sub-millimeter and millimeter SED for a subsample of 17 isolated class II protoplanetary disks and derive constraints on the grain growth and total dust mass in the disk outer regions. All the disks in our sample show a mm slope of the SED which is significantly shallower than the one observed for the ISM at these long wavelengths. This indicates that 1) class II disks in Ophiuchus host grains grown to mm/cm-sizes in their outer regions, 2) formation of mm/cm-sized pebbles is a fast process and 3) a mechanism halting or slowing down the inward radial drift of solid particles is required to explain the data. These findings are consistent with previous results in other star forming regions. We compare the dust properties of this sample with those of a uniformly selected sample in Taurus-Auriga and find no statistical evidence of any difference in terms of grain growth between the two regions. Finally, in our sample the mm slope of the SED is not found to correlate with indicators of grain growth to micron sizes in the surface layers of the inner disk.
In this paper, we will use $\delta \mathcal{N}$-formalism to calculate the primordial curvature perturbation for the curvaton model with a Lagrange multiplier field. We calculate the non-linearity parameters $f_{NL}$ and $g_{NL}$ in the sudden-decay approximation in this kind of model, and we find that one could get a large non-Gaussinity even if the curvaton dominates the total energy density before it decays, and this property will make the curvaton model much richer. We also calculate the probability density function of the primordial curvature perturbation in the sudden-decay approximation, as well as some moments of it.
(Abridged) In our previous work we found a statistically significant offset Delta V = 27 m/s between the radial velocities of the HC3N(2-1) and NH3(1,1) transitions observed in molecular cores from the Milky Way. This may indicate that the electron-to-proton mass ratio, mu = m_e/m_p, increases by 3x10^{-8} when measured under interstellar conditions with matter densities of more than 10 orders of magnitude lower as compared with laboratory (terrestrial) environments. We now map four molecular cores L1498, L1512, L1517, and L1400K selected from our previous sample in order to estimate systematic effects in Delta V due to possible velocity gradients. We find that in two cores L1498 and L1512 the NH3(1,1) and HC3N(2-1) transitions closely trace the same material and show an offset of Delta V = 26.9 +/- 1.2_stat +/- 3.0_sys m/s throughout the entire clouds. The measured velocity offset, being expressed in terms of Delta mu = (mu_obs - mu_lab)/mu_lab, gives Delta mu = (26 +/- 1_stat +/- 3_sys)x10^{-9}.
The secondary spectra of the gravitons induced by a waterfall-like field are computed and the general bounds on the spectral energy density of the tensor modes of the geometry are translated into explicit constraints on the amplitude and slope of the waterfall spectrum. The obtained results are compared with the primary gravitational wave spectra of the concordance model and of its neighboring extensions as well as with the direct Ligo/Virgo bounds on stochastic backgrounds of relic gravitons. Space-borne interferometers (such as Lisa, Bbo, Decigo) seem to be less relevant but their potential implications are briefly outlined.
We present results from observations of the magnetar 1E 1547.0-5408 (SGR J1550-5418) taken with the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) following the source's outbursts in 2008 October and 2009 January. During the time span of the Chandra observations, which covers days 4 through 23 and days 2 through 16 after the 2008 and 2009 events, respectively, the source spectral shape remained stable, while the pulsar's spin-down rate in the same span in 2008 increased by a factor of 2.2 as measured by RXTE. The lack of spectral variation suggests decoupling between magnetar spin-down and radiative changes, hence between the spin-down-inferred magnetic field strength and that inferred spectrally. We also found a strong anti-correlation between the phase-averaged flux and the pulsed fraction in the 2008 and 2009 Chandra data, but not in the pre-2008 measurements. We discuss these results in the context of the magnetar model.
The largest uncollapsed inhomogeneity in the observable Universe is statistically represented in the quadrupole signal of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) sky maps as observed by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP). The constant temporal offset of -25.6 ms between the timestamps of the spacecraft attitude and observational data records in the time-ordered data (TOD) of the WMAP observations was suspected to imply that previously derived all-sky CMB maps are erroneous, and that the quadrupole is in large part an artefact. The optimal focussing of bright objects in the Galactic Plane plays a key role in showing that no error occurred at the step of mapmaking from the calibrated TOD. Instead, the error had an effect when the uncalibrated TOD were calibrated. Estimates of the high-latitude quadrupole based on the wrongly calibrated WMAP maps are overestimated by about 15-60%.
The expanding magnetic flux in coronal mass ejections (CMEs) often forms a cavity. A spherical model is simultaneously fit to STEREO EUVI and COR1 data of an impulsively accelerated CME on 25 March 2008, which displays a well-defined extreme ultraviolet (EUV) and white-light cavity of nearly circular shape already at low heights ~ 0.2 Rs. The center height h(t) and radial expansion r(t) of the cavity are obtained in the whole height range of the main acceleration. We interpret them as the axis height and as a quantity proportional to the minor radius of a flux rope, respectively. The three-dimensional expansion of the CME exhibits two phases in the course of its main upward acceleration. From the first h and r data points, taken shortly after the onset of the main acceleration, the erupting flux shows an overexpansion compared to its rise, as expressed by the decrease of the aspect ratio from k=h/r ~ 3 to k ~ (1.5-2.0). This phase is approximately coincident with the impulsive rise of the acceleration and is followed by a phase of very gradual change of the aspect ratio (a nearly self-similar expansion) toward k ~ 1.5 at h ~ 10 Rs. The initial overexpansion of the CME cavity can be caused by flux conservation around a rising flux rope of decreasing axial current and by the addition of flux to a growing, or even newly forming,flux rope by magnetic reconnection. Further analysis will be required to decide which of these contributions is dominant. The data also suggest that the horizontal component of the impulsive cavity expansion (parallel to the solar surface) triggers the associated EUV wave, which subsequently detaches from the CME volume.
Resluts of 3D numerical simulations in the framework of pair starved polar cap model (PSPC) for millisecond pulsars are presented. In the investigated PSPC model electric field structure highly depends on the pulsar inclination which is clearly visible in the computed spectra of electrons escaping pulsar magnetosphere which become bimodal with the increasing inclination. This is an important result for modelling very high energy radiation from globular clusters where currently the standard power law or monoenergetic electron distributions are used.
Our peculiar velocity with respect to the CMB rest frame is known to induce a large dipole in the CMB. However, the motion of an observer has also the effect of distorting the anisotropies at all scales, as shown by Challinor and Van Leeuwen (2002), due to aberration and Doppler effects. We propose to measure independently our local motion by using off-diagonal two-point correlation functions for high multipoles. We study the observability of the signal for temperature and polarization anisotropies. We point out that Planck can measure the velocity $\beta$ with an error of about 10%-20% and the direction with an error of about 5-10 degrees. This method constitutes a cross-check, which can be useful to verify that our CMB dipole is due mainly to our velocity or to disentangle the velocity from other possible intrinsic sources. Although in this paper we focus on our peculiar velocity, a similar effect would result also from other intrinsic vectorial distortion of the CMB which would induce a dipolar lensing. Measuring the off-diagonal correlation terms is therefore a test for a preferred direction on the CMB sky.
We present the first results of a high-spectral-resolution survey of the carbon-rich evolved star IRC+10216 that was carried out with the HIFI spectrometer onboard Herschel. This survey covers all HIFI bands, with a spectral range from 488 to 1901GHz. In this letter we focus on the band-1b spectrum, in a spectral range 554.5-636.5GHz, where we identified 130 spectral features with intensities above 0.03 K and a signal-to-noise ratio >5. Detected lines arise from HCN, SiO, SiS, CS, CO, metal-bearing species and, surprisingly, silicon dicarbide (SiC2). We identified 55 SiC2 transitions involving energy levels between 300 and 900 K. By analysing these rotational lines, we conclude that SiC2 is produced in the inner dust formation zone, with an abundance of ~2x10^-7 relative to molecular hydrogen. These SiC2 lines have been observed for the first time in space and have been used to derive an SiC2 rotational temperature of ~204 K and a source-averaged column density of ~6.4x10^15 cm^-2. Furthermore, the high quality of the HIFI data set was used to improve the spectroscopic rotational constants of SiC2.
We present near-IR observations of the 2010 outburst of U Sco. JHK photometry is presented on ten consecutive days starting from 0.59 days after outburst. Such photometry can gainfully be integrated into a larger database of other multi-wavelength data which aim to comprehensively study the evolution of U Sco. Early near-IR spectra, starting from 0.56 days after outburst, are presented and their general characteristics discussed. Early in the eruption, we see very broad wings in several spectral lines, with tails extending up to ~10000km/s along the line of sight; it is unexpected to have a nova with ejection velocities equal to those usually thought to be exclusive to supernovae. From recombination analysis, we estimate an upper limit of 10^-4.64[+0.92.-0.74]Msun for the ejected mass.
The possibility that the stellar initial mass function (IMF) arises mostly from cloud structure is investigated with fractal Brownian motion (fBm) clouds that have power-law power spectra. An fBm cloud with a realistic projected power spectrum slope of $\beta=2.8$ is found to have a mass function for clumps exceeding a threshold density that is a power-law with a slope of $\alpha=2.35$, the same as in the Salpeter IMF. Any hierarchically structured cloud has a clump mass function with about the same slope. This result implies that turbulent interstellar clouds produce dense substructure with the observed pre-stellar core mass function built in from the start. Details of the clump formation processes are not critical. The conversion of clumps into stars involves a second step. A one-to-one correspondence between clump mass and star mass is not necessary to convert the clump mass spectrum into an IMF with the same power-law slope. As long as clumps have an internal stellar IMF from sub-fragmentation, protostellar accretion, coalescence and other processes, and the characteristic mass for this internal IMF scales with the clump mass, then the IMF slope above the minimum characteristic mass will equal the clump mass slope. A detailed review of IMF models illustrates the prominence of cloud structure as a major component in a wide class of theories. Tests are proposed to determine the relative importance of cloud structure and competitive accretion in the IMF.
To revisit the long-standing problem of possible inconsistency concerning the oxygen composition in the current galactic gas and in the solar atmosphere (i.e., the former being appreciably lower by ~0.3 dex) apparently contradicting the galactic chemical evolution, we carried out oxygen abundance determinations for 64 mid- through late-B stars by using the O I 6156-8 lines while taking into account the non-LTE effect, and compared them with the solar O abundance established in the same manner. The resulting mean oxygen abundance was <A(O)> = 8.71 (+/- 0.06), which means that [O/H] (star-Sun differential abundance) is ~-0.1, the difference being less significant than previously thought. Moreover, since the 3D correction may further reduce the reference solar oxygen abundance (8.81) by ~0.1 dex, we conclude that the photospheric O abundances of these B stars are almost the same as that of the Sun. We also determined the non-LTE abundances of neon for the sample B stars from Ne I 6143/6163 lines to be <A(Ne)> = 8.02 (+/- 0.09), leading to the Ne-to-O ratio of ~0.2 consistent with the recent studies. This excludes a possibility of considerably high Ne/O ratio once proposed as a solution to the confronted solar model problem.
XMS is a multi-channel wide-field spectrograph designed for the prime focus of the 3.5m Calar-Alto telescope. The instrument is composed by four quadrants, each of which contains a spectrograph channel. An innovative mechanical design -at concept/preliminary stage- has been implemented to: 1) Minimize the separation between the channels to achieve maximal filling factor; 2) Cope with the very constraining space and mass overall requirements; 3) Achieve very tight alignment tolerances; 4) Provide lens self-centering under large temperature excursions; 5) Provide masks including 4000 slits (edges thinner than 100\mu). An overview of this extremely challenging mechanical design is here presented.
Off-axis telescopes with unobstructed pupils offer great advantages in terms of emissivity, throughput, and diffractionlimited energy concentration. For most telescope designs, implementation of an off-axis configuration imposes enormous penalties in terms of cost, optical difficulty and performance, and for this reason off-axis telescopes are rarely constructed. However, for the reflective Schmidt design, implementation of an off-axis configuration is very straightforward, and involves only a modest optical penalty. Moreover, the reflective Schmidt gets particular benefits, avoiding the obstruction of its large focal plane and support column, and gaining a highly accessible, gravity-invariant prime focus, capable of accommodating very large instrumentation. We present an off-axis f/8 reflective Schmidt design for the proposed 'KDUST' Chinese infrared telescope at Dome A on the Antarctic plateau, which offers simultaneous diffraction-limited NIR imaging over 1 degree, and close to diffraction-limited imaging out to 2 degrees for fibre-fed NIR spectroscopy.
A 'PILOT-Like Telescope' is likely to have differences in science goals to the original PILOT. Furthermore, our understanding of the environmental conditions at Dome C has changed significantly since the start of the PILOT design study in June 2007. Therefore, it is timely to re-examine some of the basic design decisions. We present here one alternative concept: a silicon-carbide, GLAO-assisted, three-mirror anastigmat, and possibly equatorial, PILOT-Like-Telescope.
Statistical properties of turbulent magnetic fields in radio-synchrotron sources should imprint on the statistics of polarimetric observables. In search of these imprints, we calculate correlation and cross-correlation functions from a set of observables containing the total intensity I, the polarized intensity P and the Faraday depth phi. The correlation functions are evaluated for all combinations of observables up to fourth order in the magnetic field B. We derive these as far as possible analytically and from first principles only using some basic assumptions such as Gaussian statistics of the underlying magnetic field in the observed region and statistical homogeneity. We further assume some simplifications to reduce the complexity of the calculations, as for a start we were interested in a proof of concept. Using this statistical approach, we show that it is in principle possible to gain information about the helical part of the magnetic power spectrum, namely via the correlation functions <P(k)phi(k')phi(k'')> and <I(k)phi(k')phi(k'')>. Using this insight, we construct an easy-to-use test for helicity, called LITMUS (Local Inference Test for Magnetic fields which Uncovers heliceS). For now, all calculations are given in a Faraday-free case, but set up in a way so that Faraday rotational effects could be included later on.
We present a first application of the recently proposed LITMUS test for magnetic helicity, as well as a thorough study of its applicability under different circumstances. In order to apply the test to the galactic magnetic field, the newly developed critical filter formalism is used to produce an all-sky map of the Faraday depth. The test does not detect helicity in the galactic magnetic field. To understand the significance of this finding, an applicability study is performed, showing that a definite conclusion about the absence of magnetic helicity in the galactic field is not yet reached. This study is conducted via the test's application to simulated observational data. We consider simulations in a flat sky approximation as well as all-sky simulations, both with constant electron densities assumed and with realistic distributions of thermal and cosmic ray electrons. Our results suggest that the LITMUS test does indeed perform very well in cases where constant electron densities can be assumed, both in the flat-sky limit and in the galactic setting. Non-trivial distributions of thermal and cosmic ray electrons, however, may complicate the scenario to the point where helicity in the magnetic field can escape detection.
In their HST/NICMOS observations, Terebey et al. 1998 detected a candidate protoplanet, TMR-1C, that lies at a separation of about 10" (~1000 AU) from the Class I protobinary TMR-1 (IRAS 04361+2547). A narrow filament-like structure was observed extending south-east from the central proto-binary system towards TMR-1C, suggesting a morphology in which the candidate protoplanet may have been ejected from the TMR-1 system. Follow-up low-resolution spectroscopy could not confirm if this object is a protoplanet or a low-luminosity background star. We present two epochs of near-infrared photometric observations obtained at the CFHT of TMR-1C. The time span of ~7 years between the two sets of observations provides with an opportunity to, (a) check for any photometric variability similar to that observed among young stellar objects, which would indicate the youth of this source, and, (b) determine the proper motion. TMR-1C displays large photometric variability between 1 and 2 mag in both the H- and Ks-bands. From our 2002 observations, we find a (H-Ks) color of 0.3 mag, which is much bluer than the value of 1.3 mag reported by T98 from HST observations. Also, we observe brightening in both the H- and Ks-bands when the colors are bluer, i.e. the object gets redder as it becomes fainter. We have explored the possible origins for the observed variability, and find extinction due to the presence of circumstellar material to be the most likely scenario. The observed large-amplitude photometric variations, and the possible presence of a circumstellar disk, are strong arguments against this object being an old background star.
We investigate the cosmological perturbations in f(T) gravity. Examining the pure gravitational perturbations, we extract the corresponding dispersion relation, which provides a constraint on the f(T) ansatzes that lead to a theory free of instabilities. Additionally, upon inclusion of the matter perturbations, we derive the fully perturbed equations of motion, and we study the growth of matter overdensities. We show that f(T) gravity with f(T) constant coincides with General Relativity, both at the background as well as at the first-order perturbation level. Applying our formalism to the power-law model we find that on large subhorizon scales (O(100 Mpc) or larger), the evolution of matter overdensity differs markedly from LambdaCDM cosmology.
HERSCHEL-HIFI observations of water from the intermediate mass protostar NGC7129 FIRS 2 provide a powerful diagnostic of the physical conditions in this star formation environment. Six spectral settings, covering four H216O and two H218O lines, were observed and all but one H218O line were detected. The four H2 16 O lines discussed here share a similar morphology: a narrower, \approx 6 km/s, component centered slightly redward of the systemic velocity of NGC7129 FIRS 2 and a much broader, \approx 25 km/s component centered blueward and likely associated with powerful outflows. The narrower components are consistent with emission from water arising in the envelope around the intermediate mass protostar, and the abundance of H2O is constrained to \approx 10-7 for the outer envelope. Additionally, the presence of a narrow self-absorption component for the lowest energy lines is likely due to self-absorption from colder water in the outer envelope. The broader component, where the H2O/CO relative abundance is found to be \approx 0.2, appears to be tracing the same energetic region that produces strong CO emission at high J.
We present measurements of the V and I band magnitudes of red clump stars in 15 nearby galaxies obtained from recently published homogenous HST photometry. Supplementing these results with similar data for another 8 galaxies available in the literature the populational effects on the V and I band magnitudes of red clump stars were investigated. Comparing red clump magnitudes with the I-band magnitude of the TRGB in a total sample of 23 galaxies possessing very different environments we demonstrate that population effects strongly affect both the V and I band magnitude of red clump stars in a complex way. Our empirical results basically confirm the theoretical results of Girardi and Salaris, and show that optical (VI) photometry of red clump stars is not an accurate method for the determination of distances to nearby galaxies at the present moment, as long as the population effects are not better calibrated, both empirically and theoretically. Near infrared photometry is a much better way to measure galaxy distances with red clump stars given its smaller sensitivity to population effects.
The Very Local Interstellar Medium (VLISM) contains clouds which consist of partially-ionized plasma. These clouds can be effectively diagnosed via high resolution optical and ultraviolet spectroscopy of the absorption lines they form in the spectra of nearby stars. Among the information provided by these spectroscopic measurements are the root-mean-square velocity fluctuation due to turbulence in these clouds and the ion temperature, which may be partially determined by dissipation of turbulence. We consider whether this turbulence resembles the extensively studied and well-diagnosed turbulence in the solar wind and solar corona. Published observations are used to determine if the velocity fluctuations are primarily transverse to a large-scale magnetic field, whether the temperature perpendicular to the large scale field is larger than that parallel to the field, and whether ions with larger Larmor radii have higher temperatures than smaller gyroradius ions. Although a thorough investigation of the data is underway, a preliminary examination of the published data shows neither evidence for anisotropy of the velocity fluctuations or temperature, nor Larmor radius-dependent heating. These results indicate differences between solar wind and Local Cloud turbulence.
Debris disc analysis and modelling provide crucial information about the structure and the processes at play in extrasolar planetary systems. In binary systems, this issue is more complex because the disc should in addition respond to the companion star's perturbations. We explore the dynamical evolution of a collisionally active debris disc for different initial parent body populations, diverse binary configurations and optical depths. We focus on the radial extent and size distribution of the disc at a stationary state. We numerically follow the evolution of $10^{5}$ massless small grains, initially produced from a circumprimary disc of parent bodies following a size distribution in $dN \propto s^{-3.5}$ds . Grains are submitted to both stars' gravity as well as radiation pressure. In addition, particles are assigned an empirically derived collisional lifetime. For all the binary configurations the disc extends far beyond the critical semimajor axis $a_crit$ for orbital stability. This is due to the steady production of small grains, placed on eccentric orbits reaching beyond $a_crit$ by radiation pressure. The amount of matter beyond acrit depends on the balance between collisional production and dynamical removal rates: it increases for more massive discs as well as for eccentric binaries. Another important effect is that, in the dynamically stable region, the disc is depleted from its smallest grains. Both results could lead to observable signatures. We have shown that a companion star can never fully truncate a collisionally active disc. For eccentric companions, grains in the unstable regions can significantly contribute to the thermal emission in the mid-IR. Discs with sharp outer edges, especially bright ones such as HR4796A, are probably shaped by other mechanisms.
We phenomenologically put local constraints on the rotation of distant masses by using the planets of the solar system. First, we analytically compute the orbital secular precessions induced on the motion of a test particle about a massive primary by a Coriolis-like force, treated as a small perturbation of first order in the rotation, in the case of a constant angular velocity vector \Psi directed along a generic direction in space. The semimajor axis a and the eccentricity e of the test particle do not secularly precess, contrary to the inclination I, the longitude of the ascending node \Omega, the longitude of the pericenter \varpi and the mean anomaly M. Then, we compare our prediction for <\dot\varpi> with the corrections \Delta\dot\varpi to the usual perihelion precessions of the inner planets recently estimated by fitting long data sets with different versions of the EPM ephemerides. We obtain |\Psi_z| <= 0.0006-0.013 arcsec cty^-1, |\Psi_x| <= 0.1-2.7 arcsec cty-1, |\Psi_y| <= 0.3-2.3 arcsec cty^-1. Interpreted in terms of models of space-time involving cosmic rotation, our results are able to yield constraints on cosmological parameters like the cosmological constant \Lambda and the Hubble parameter H_0 not too far from their values determined with cosmological observations and, in some cases, several orders of magnitude better than the constraints usually obtained so far from space-time models not involving rotation. In the case of the rotation of the solar system throughout the Galaxy, occurring clockwise about the North Galactic Pole, our results for \Psi_z are in disagreement with the expected value of it at more than 3-\sigma level.
We study the quantum measurement problem in the context of an infinite, statistically uniform space, as could be generated by eternal inflation. It has recently been argued that when identical copies of a quantum measurement system exist, the standard projection operators and Born rule method for calculating probabilities must be supplemented by estimates of relative frequencies of observers. We argue that an infinite space actually renders the Born rule redundant, by physically realizing all outcomes of a quantum measurement in different regions, with relative frequencies given by the square of the wave function amplitudes. Our formal argument hinges on properties of what we term the quantum confusion operator, which projects onto the Hilbert subspace where the Born rule fails, and we comment on its relation to the oft-discussed quantum frequency operator. This analysis unifies the classical and quantum levels of parallel universes that have been discussed in the literature, and has implications for several issues in quantum measurement theory. It also shows how, even for a single measurement, probabilities may be interpreted as relative frequencies in unitary (Everettian) quantum mechanics. We also argue that after discarding a zero-norm part of the wavefunction, the remainder consists of a superposition of indistinguishable terms, so that arguably "collapse" of the wavefunction is irrelevant, and the "many worlds" of Everett's interpretation are unified into one. Finally, the analysis suggests a "cosmological interpretation" of quantum theory in which the wave function describes the actual spatial collection of identical quantum systems, and quantum uncertainty is attributable to the observer's inability to self-locate in this collection.
The conceptual definition and understanding of time, both quantitatively and qualitatively is of the utmost difficulty and importance. As time is incorporated into the proper structure of the fabric of spacetime, it is interesting to note that General Relativity is contaminated with non-trivial geometries which generate closed timelike curves. A closed timelike curve (CTC) allows time travel, in the sense that an observer that travels on a trajectory in spacetime along this curve, may return to an event before his departure. This fact apparently violates causality, therefore time travel and it's associated paradoxes have to be treated with great caution. The paradoxes fall into two broad groups, namely the consistency paradoxes and the causal loops. A great variety of solutions to the Einstein field equations containing CTCs exist and it seems that two particularly notorious features stand out. Solutions with a tipping over of the light cones due to a rotation about a cylindrically symmetric axis and solutions that violate the energy conditions. All these aspects are analyzed in this review paper.
In this handbook, I collect the basic (and eventually upgraded) PHP scripts used for building the AMIDAS website (this http URL), an online interactive simulation/data analysis system for direct Dark Matter detection experiments. Some basic, often used commands of (X)HTML, CSS, JavaScript, HTML DOM, and PHP are also given in the appendix.
The quantum field theoretic prediction for the vacuum energy density leads to a value for the effective cosmological constant that is incorrect by between 60 to 120 orders of magnitude. We review an old proposal of replacing Einstein's Field Equations by their trace-free part (the Trace-Free Einstein Equations), together with an independent assumption of energy--momentum conservation by matter fields. We confirm that while this does not solve the fundamental issue of why the cosmological constant has the value it has, it is indeed a viable theory that resolves the problem of the discrepancy between the vacuum energy density and the observed value of the cosmological constant. We also point out that this proposal may have a valid quantum field theory basis in terms of a spin-2 field theory for the graviton interaction with matter.
The fluid model for the dark sector of the universe (darkon fluid) introduced previously in \cite{PRD} is reformulated as a modified model involving only variables from physical phase space. The Lagrangian of the model does not possess a free particle limit and hence the particles it describes, darkons, exist only as a self-gravitating fluid. This darkon fluid presents a dynamical realisation of the zero-mass Galilean algebra extended by anisotropic dilational symmetry with dynamical exponent $z=\frac{5}{3}$. The model possesses cosmologically relevant solutions which are identical to those of \cite{PRD}. We derive also the equations for the cosmological perturbations at early times and determine their solutions. In addition, we discuss also some implications of adding higher spatial-derivative terms.
The assumption that a complete description of an early state of the universe does not privilege any position or direction in space leads to a unified account of probability in cosmology, macroscopic physics, and quantum mechanics. Such a description has a statistical character. Deterministic laws link it to statistical descriptions of the cosmic medium at later times, and because these laws do not privilege any position or direction in space, the same must be true of these descriptions. If the universe is infinite, we can identify the probability that the energy density at a particular instant and a particular point in space (relative to a system of spacetime coordinates in which the postulated spatial symmetries are manifest) lies in a given range with the fractional volume occupied by points where the energy density lies in this range; and similarly with all other probabilities that figure in the statistical description. The probabilities that figure in a complete description of the cosmic medium at any given moment thus have an exact and objective physical interpretation. The statistical entropy and the information associated with each cosmological probability distribution are likewise objective properties of the universe, defined in terms of relative frequencies or spatial averages.
We study in detail the properties of gravitationally-bounded multi-state configurations, made of spin-zero bosons, in the Newtonian regime. We show that the properties of such configurations, in particular their stability, depend upon how the particles are distributed in the different states they are composed of. Numerical techniques are used to distinguish between stable and unstable solutions, and to determine the final configurations they evolve towards to. Multi-state equilibrium configurations can be used as models of galactic halos made of scalar field dark matter, whose rotation curves appear more realistic than in the case of single-state configurations.
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We present a new analysis of the stellar population of the Orion Nebula Cluster (ONC) based on multi-band optical photometry and spectroscopy. We study the color-color diagrams in BVI, plus a narrow-band filter centered at 6200A, finding evidences that intrinsic color scales valid for main-sequence dwarfs are incompatible with the ONC, while a better agreement is found employing synthetic intrinsic colors obtained constraining the typical lower surface gravity of young stars. We refine these model colors even further, empirically, by comparison with a sample of ONC stars with no accretion and no extinction. We consider the stars with known spectral types from the literature, and add 65 newly classified stars from slit spectroscopy and 182 M-type from narrow-band photometry; in this way we isolate a sample of about 1000 stars with known spectral type. We introduce a new method to self-consistently derive reddening and accretion excess from the location of each star in the BVI color-color diagram. This enables us to accurately determine the extinction of the ONC members. We adopt a lower distance for the ONC than previously assumed, based on recent parallax measurements. With a careful choice also of the spectral type-temperature transformation, we produce the new H-R diagram of the ONC population, more populated than previous works. With respect to previous works, we find higher luminosity for late-type stars and a lower luminosity for early types. We determine the age distribution of the population, peaking at 2-3 Myr, a higher age than previously estimated. We study the distribution of the members in the mass-age plane, and find that taking into account selection effects due to incompleteness removes an apparent correlation between mass and age. We derive the IMF for low- and intermediate-mass members of the ONC, which turns out to be model-dependent, and shows a turn-over at ~<0.2Msun.
Population III stars are theoretically expected to be prominent around redshifts z ~ 20, consisting of mainly very massive stars with M_* >~ 10 M_sun$, but there is no direct observational evidence for these objects. They may produce collapsar gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), with jets driven by magnetohydrodynamic processes, whose total isotropic-equivalent energy could be as high as E_iso >~ 10^{57} erg over a cosmological-rest-frame duration of t_d >~ 10^4 s, depending on the progenitor mass. Here we calculate the afterglow spectra of such Pop. III GRBs based on the standard external shock model, and show that they will be detectable with the Swift BAT/XRT and Fermi LAT instruments. We find that in some cases a spectral break due to electron-positron pair creation will be observable in the LAT energy range, which can put constraints on the ambient density of the pre-collapse Pop. III star. Thus, high redshift GRB afterglow observations could be unique and powerful probes of the properties of Pop. III stars and their environments. We examine the detection threshold of the BAT instrument in detail, focusing on the image trigger system, and show that the prompt emission of Pop. III GRBs could also be detected by BAT. Finally we briefly show that the late-time radio afterglows of Pop. III GRBs for typical parameters, despite the large distances, can be very bright: ~ 140 mJy at 1 GHz, which may lead to a constraint on the Pop. III GRB rate from the current radio survey data, and ~2.4 mJy at 70 MHz, which implies that Pop. III GRB radio afterglows could be interesting background source candidates for 21 cm absorption line detections.
We have conducted a search for extended energy deposition trails left by ultra-relativistic magnetic monopoles interacting in Antarctic ice. The non-observation of any satisfactory candidates in the 31 days of accumulated ANITA-II flight data results in an upper limit on the diffuse flux of relativistic monopoles. We obtain a 90% C.L. limit of order 10^{-19}/(cm^2-s-sr) for values of Lorentz boost factor 10^{10}<gamma at the anticipated energy E=10^{16} GeV. This bound is stronger than all previously published experimental limits for this kinematic range.
The immense volume of data generated by the suite of instruments on SDO requires new tools for efficient identifying and accessing data that is most relevant to research investigations. We have developed the Heliophysics Events Knowledgebase (HEK) to fill this need. The HEK system combines automated data mining using feature-detection methods and high-performance visualization systems for data markup. In addition, web services and clients are provided for searching the resulting metadata, reviewing results, and efficiently accessing the data. We review these components and present examples of their use with SDO data.
Large ground-based telescopes equipped with adaptive optics (AO) systems have ushered in a new era of high-resolution infrared photometry and astrometry. Relative astrometric accuracies of <0.2 mas have already been demonstrated from infrared images with spatial resolutions of 55-95 mas resolution over 10-20'' fields of view. Relative photometric accuracies of 3% and absolute photometric accuracies of 5%-20% are also possible. I will review improvements and current limitations in astrometry and photometry with adaptive optics of crowded stellar fields. These capabilities enable experiments such as measuring orbits for brown dwarfs and exoplanets, studying our Galaxy's supermassive black hole and its environment, and identifying individual stars in young star clusters, which can be used test the universality of the initial mass function.
Stars slightly more massive than the sun develop small convective cores during their Main Sequence phase of evolution. At the edges of these convective cores there is a rapid variation in the sound speed which influences the frequencies of acoustic oscillations. In this paper we build on earlier work by Cunha and Metcalfe, to investigate further the impact that these rapid structural variations have on different p-mode frequency combinations, involving modes of low degree. In particular, we adopt a different expression to describe the sound speed variation at the edge of the core, which we show to reproduce more closely the profiles derived from the equilibrium models. We analyse the impact of this change on the frequency perturbation derived for radial modes. Moreover, we consider three different small frequency separations involving, respectively, modes of degree l = 0, 1, 2, 3; l = 0, 1; and l = 0, 2, and show that they are all significantly affected by the sharp sound speed variation at the edge of the core. In particular, we confirm that the frequency derivative of the diagnostic tool that combines modes of degree up to 3 can potentially be used to infer directly the amplitude of the relative sound speed variation at the edge of the core. Concerning the other two diagnostic tools, we show that at high frequencies they can be up to a few {\mu}Hz smaller than what would be expected in the absence of the rapid structural variation at the edge of the core. Also, we show that the absolute values of their frequency derivatives are significantly increased, in a manner that is strongly dependent on stellar age.
We investigate the physics and chemistry of the gas and dust in dense photon-dominated regions (PDRs), along with their dependence on the illuminating UV field. Using Herschel-HIFI observations, we study the gas energetics in NGC 7023 in relation to the morphology of this nebula. NGC 7023 is the prototype of a PDR illuminated by a B2V star and is one of the key targets of Herschel. Our approach consists in determining the energetics of the region by combining the information carried by the mid-IR spectrum (extinction by classical grains, emission from very small dust particles) with that of the main gas coolant lines. In this letter, we discuss more specifically the intensity and line profile of the 158 micron (1901 GHz) [CII] line measured by HIFI and provide information on the emitting gas. We show that both the [CII] emission and the mid-IR emission from polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) arise from the regions located in the transition zone between atomic and molecular gas. Using the Meudon PDR code and a simple transfer model, we find good agreement between the calculated and observed [CII] intensities. HIFI observations of NGC 7023 provide the opportunity to constrain the energetics at the surface of PDRs. Future work will include analysis of the main coolant line [OI] and use of a new PDR model that includes PAH-related species.
It is a longstanding problem that HII regions and very young stellar
populations in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) have the nitrogen abundances
([N/H]) by a factor of ~7 lower than the solar value. We here discuss a new
scenario in which the observed unusually low nitrogen abundances can be closely
associated with recent collision and subsequent accretion of HI high velocity
clouds (HVCs) that surround the Galaxy and have low nitrogen abundances. We
show that if the observed low [N/H] is limited to very young stars with ages
less than ~10^7 yr, then the collision/accretion rate of the HVCs onto the LMC
needs to be ~ 0.2 M_sun/yr (corresponding to the total HVC mass of 10^6-10^7
M_sun) to dilute the original interstellar medium (ISM) before star formation.
The required accretion rate means that even if the typical mass of HVCs
accreted onto the LMC is ~ 10^7 M_sun, the Galaxy needs to have ~2500 massive
HVCs within the LMC's orbital radius with respect to the Galactic center. The
required rather large number of massive HVCs drives us to suggest that the HVCs
are not likely to efficiently dilute the ISM of the LMC and consequently lower
the [N/H]. We thus suggest the transfer of gas with low [N/H] from the Small
Magellanic Cloud (SMC) to the LMC as a promising scenario that can explain the
observed low [N/H].
Using our new Binary Population and Spectral Synthesis (BPASS) code we explore the affect of binary populations on the integrated spectra of galaxies. We also explore the interplay of binary populations and a varying maximum stellar mass. We compare our synthetic populations to observations of H$\alpha$ emission from isolated clusters and H$\alpha$ and FUV observations of galaxies. We find that observations tend to favour a pure stochastic sampling of the initial mass function although the evidence is not significant. We also find that binaries make a stellar population less susceptible to the stochastic effects of filling the IMF. Therefore making it more difficult to determine if there is a variable maximum stellar mass.
The Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) is a NASA Small Explorer mission that will carry the first focusing hard X-ray (5 -- 80 keV) telescope to orbit. NuSTAR will offer a factor 50 -- 100 sensitivity improvement compared to previous collimated or coded mask imagers that have operated in this energy band. In addition, NuSTAR provides sub-arcminute imaging with good spectral resolution over a 12-arcminute field of view. After launch, NuSTAR will carry out a two-year primary science mission that focuses on four key programs: studying the evolution of massive black holes through surveys carried out in fields with excellent multiwavelength coverage, understanding the population of compact objects and the nature of the massive black hole in the center of the Milky Way, constraining explosion dynamics and nucleosynthesis in supernovae, and probing the nature of particle acceleration in relativistic jets in active galactic nuclei. A number of additional observations will be included in the primary mission, and a guest observer program will be proposed for an extended mission to expand the range of scientific targets. The payload consists of two co-aligned depth-graded multilayer coated grazing incidence optics focused onto solid state CdZnTe pixel detectors. To be launched in early 2012 on a Pegasus rocket into a low-inclination Earth orbit. Data will be publicly available at GSFC's High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center (HEASARC) following validation at the science operations center located at Caltech.
The Galactic Arecibo L-band Feed Array HI (GALFA-HI) survey is mapping the entire Arecibo sky at 21-cm, over a velocity range of -700 to +700 km/s (LSR), at a velocity resolution of 0.18 km/s and a spatial resolution of 3.5 arcmin. The unprecedented resolution and sensitivity of the GALFA-HI survey have resulted in the detection of numerous isolated, very compact HI clouds at low Galactic velocities, which are distinctly separated from the HI disk emission. In the limited area of ~4600 deg$^2$ surveyed so far, we have detected 96 of such compact clouds. The detected clouds are cold with a median T$_{k,max}$ (the kinetic temperature in the case in which there is no non-thermal broadening) of 300 K. Moreover, these clouds are quite compact and faint, with median values of 5 arcmin in angular size, 0.75 K in peak brightness temperature, and $5 \times 10^{18}$ cm$^{-2}$ in HI column density. Most of the clouds deviate from Galactic rotation at the 20-30 km/s level, and a significant fraction show evidence for a multiphase medium and velocity gradients. No counterparts for these clouds were found in other wavebands. From the modeling of spatial and velocity distributions of the whole compact cloud population, we find that the bulk of the compact clouds are related to the Galactic disk, and their distances are likely to be in the range of 0.1 to a few kpc. We discuss various possible scenarios for the formation and maintenance of this cloud population and its significance for Galactic ISM studies.
We describe our newly developed two different, three dimensional magneto hydrodynamical codes. One of our code is written in the Newtonian limit (NMHD) and the other is in the full general relativistic code (GRMHD). Both codes employ Adaptive Mesh Refinement and, in GRMHD, the metric is evolved with the "Baumgarte-Shapiro-Shibata- Nakamura" formalism known as the most stable method at present. We have done several test problems and calculated the gravitational collapse of a 15Msun as our first practical test. This is the first 3DMHD simulation for the collapse of a massive star on the fully dynamical background. Main results are; (1) High velocity bipolar outflow is driven from the proto-neutronstar and rolls through along the rotational axis in the strongly magnetized models (~10^12G at pre-collapse stage); (2) A one-armed spiral structure appears which we consider originated from the low-|T/W| instability; (3) In weakly magnetized model (10^9G at pre-collapse stage), the convective over turn highly deforms the magnetic field configuration. However, we do not find exponential growth of the magnetic field seen if the magneto rotational instability operates. We estimate the wave length of the magneto rotational instability in linear mode and found that our numerical resolution is not adequate, approximately 10 times, to capture the linear mode amplification; (4) By comparing GRMHD and NMHD models, the maximum density increases about ~30% in the vicinity of the center. Roughly speaking, however, the dynamical evolutions, such as the time of core bounce or formation of the bipolar outflow, are similar.
We have determined the current and near-future allowed regions of the parameter spaces of two representative models of diffuse neutrino flux from AGN: one by Koers & Tinyakov (KT) and another by Becker & Biermann (BB). Our observable has been the predicted number of down- and upgoing muon-neutrinos at IceCube, after 5 years of exposure, in the range 10^5<E_\nu/GeV<10^8. The lower boundary of the allowed regions has been fixed by the projected sensitivity of the completed IceCube array, while for the upper boundary we have used either the AMANDA upper bound on the neutrino flux or a projected, tighter, upper bound, found by assuming no detected signal at the half-completed IceCube array (IC40). We have varied the spectral index of the power-law fluxes, \alpha, and two parameters of the BB model: the ratio between the boost factors of neutrinos and cosmic rays, \Gamma_\nu/\Gamma_{CR}, and the maximum redshift of the sources, z_{CR}^{max}. For the KT model, we have considered a scenario where the number density of AGN does not evolve with redshift and one in which it evolves strongly. If we take 2.7 to be the true value of \alpha, the latter scenario is excluded by the IC40 bound. The AMANDA bound allows both scenarios, with \alpha<3.04(2.8) for no (strong) evolution. In the BB model, \alpha=2.7 is allowed only within a very narrow region, with \Gamma_\nu/\Gamma_{CR}<2 and z_{CR}^{max}=0.03. Also, with 2.7 as benchmark, \Gamma_\nu/\Gamma_{CR}>10 is not allowed. Finally, we have analysed the capacity of IceCube to discriminate between the models within the parameter regions where they are simultaneously allowed. We have found that their predictions are indistinguishable only inside a small region where \Gamma_\nu/\Gamma_{CR}=1.2(4.5)-2.2(7), \alpha=2.55(2.15)-2.68(2.3), for no (strong) evolution, and z_{CR}^{max}=0.01-0.03. Outside this region, the predictions can be clearly separated.
We used the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) to obtain 40 GHz and 95 GHz observations of a number of sources that were selected from the Australia Telescope Compact Array 20 GHz (AT20G) survey . The aim of the observations was to improve the spectral coverage for sources with spectral peaks near 20 GHz or inverted (rising) radio spectra between 8.6 GHz and 20 GHz. We present the radio observations of a sample of 21 such sources along with optical spectra taken from the ANU Siding Spring Observatory 2.3m telescope and the ESO-New Technology Telescope (NTT). We find that as a group the sources show the same level of variability as typical GPS sources, and that of the 21 candidate GPS sources roughly 60% appear to be genuinely young radio galaxies. Three of the 21 sources studied show evidence of being restarted radio galaxies. If these numbers are indicative of the larger population of AT20G radio sources then as many as 400 genuine GPS sources could be contained within the AT20G with up to 25% of them being restarted radio galaxies.
We performed 2D, axisymmetric, MHD simulations with Cosmos++ in order to
examine the growth of the magnetorotational instability (MRI) in core--collapse
supernovae. We have initialized a non--rotating 15 solar mass progenitor,
infused with differential rotation and poloidal magnetic fields. The collapse
of the iron core is simulated with the Shen EOS, and the parametric Ye and
entropy evolution. The wavelength of the unstable mode in the post--collapse
environment is expected to be only ~ 200 m. In order to achieve the fine
spatial resolution requirement, we employed remapping technique after the iron
core has collapsed and bounced.
The MRI unstable region appears near the equator and angular momentum and
entropy are transported outward. Higher resolution remap run display more
vigorous overturns and stronger transport of angular momentum and entropy. Our
results are in agreement with the earlier work by Akiyama et al. (2003) and
Obergaulinger et al. (2009).
We investigate dynamics of a flat FRW cosmological model with a barotropic matter and a non-minimally coupled scalar field (both canonical and phantom). In our approach we do not assume any specific form of a potential function for the scalar field and we are looking for generic scenarios of evolution. We show that dynamics of universe can be reduced to a 3-dimensional dynamical system. We have found the set of fixed points and established their character. These critical points represent all important epochs in evolution of the universe : (a) a finite scale factor singularity, (b) an inflation (rapid-roll and slow-roll), (c) a radiation domination, (d) a matter domination and (e) a quintessence era. We have shown that the inflation, the radiation and matter domination epochs are transient ones and last for a finite amount of time. The existence of the radiation domination epoch is purely the effect of a non-minimal coupling constant. We show the existence of a twister type solution wandering between all these critical points.
The mean mass densities of cosmic dark matter is larger than that of baryonic matter by a factor of about 5 in the $\Lambda$CDM universe. Therefore, the gravity on large scales should be dominant by the distribution of dark matter in the universe. However, a series of observations incontrovertibly show that the velocity and density fields of baryonic matter are decoupling from underlying dark matter field. This paper shows our attemps to unveil the physics behind this puzzle. In linear approximation, the dynamics of the baryon fluid is completely governed by the gravity of the dark matter. Consequently, the mass density field of baryon matter $\rho_b({\bf r},t)$ will be proportional to that of dark matter $\rho_{\rm dm}({\bf r},t)$, even though they are different from each other initially. In weak and moderate nonlinear regime, the dynamics of the baryon fluid can be sketched by Burgers equation. A basic feature of the Burgers dynamics is to yield shocks. When the Reynolds number is large, the Burgers fluid will be in the state of Burgers turbulence, which consists of shocks and complex structures. On the other hand, the collisionless dark matter may not show such shock, but a multivalued velocity field. Therefore, the weak and moderate nonlinear evolution leads to the IGM-dark matter deviation. Yet, the velocity field of Burgers fluid is still irrotational, as gravity is curl-free. In fully nonlinear regime, the vorticity of velocity field developed, and the cosmic baryonic fluid will no longer be potential, as the dynamics of vorticity is independent of gravity and can be self maintained by the nonlinearity of hydrodynamics. In this case, the cosmic baryon fluid is in the state of fully developed turbulence, which is statistically and dynamically decoupling from dark matter. This scenario provides a mechanism of cohenent explanation of observations.
Modulated reheating scenario is one of the most attractive models that predict possible detections of not only the primordial non-Gaussianity but also the tensor fluctuation through future CMB observations such as the Planck satellite, the PolarBeaR and the LiteBIRD satellite experiments. We study the baryonic-isocurvature fluctuations in the Affleck-Dine baryogenesis with the modulated reheating scenario. We show that the Affleck-Dine baryogenesis can be consistent with the modulated reheating scenario with respect to the current observational constraint on the baryonic-isocurvature fluctuations.
The distribution of acoustic power over sunspots shows an enhanced absorption near the umbra--penumbra boundary. Earlier studies revealed that the region of enhanced absorption coincides with the region of strongest transverse potential field. The aim of this paper is to (i) utilize the high-resolution vector magnetograms derived using Hinode SOT/SP observations and study the relationship between the vector magnetic field and power absorption and (ii) study the variation of power absorption in sunspot penumbrae due to the presence of spine-like radial structures. It is found that (i) both potential and observed transverse fields peak at a similar radial distance from the center of the sunspot, and (ii) the magnitude of the transverse field, derived from Hinode observations, is much larger than the potential transverse field derived from SOHO/MDI longitudinal field observations. In the penumbra, the radial structures called spines (intra-spines) have stronger (weaker) field strength and are more vertical (horizontal). The absorption of acoustic power in the spine and intra-spine shows different behaviour with the absorption being larger in the spine as compared to the intra-spine.
We report results of a numerical-relativity simulation for the merger of a black hole-neutron star binary with a variety of equations of state (EOSs) modeled by piecewise polytropes. We focus in particular on the dependence of the gravitational waveform at the merger stage on the EOSs. The initial conditions are computed in the moving-puncture framework, assuming that the black hole is nonspinning and the neutron star has an irrotational velocity field. For a small mass ratio of the binaries (e.g., MBH/MNS = 2 where MBH and MNS are the masses of the black hole and neutron star, respectively), the neutron star is tidally disrupted before it is swallowed by the black hole irrespective of the EOS. Especially for less-compact neutron stars, the tidal disruption occurs at a more distant orbit. The tidal disruption is reflected in a cutoff frequency of the gravitational-wave spectrum, above which the spectrum amplitude exponentially decreases. A clear relation is found between the cutoff frequency of the gravitational-wave spectrum and the compactness of the neutron star. This relation also depends weakly on the stiffness of the EOS in the core region of the neutron star, suggesting that not only the compactness but also the EOS at high density is reflected in gravitational waveforms. The mass of the disk formed after the merger shows a similar correlation with the EOS, whereas the spin of the remnant black hole depends primarily on the mass ratio of the binary, and only weakly on the EOS. Properties of the remnant disks are also analyzed.
We show existence of strong negative correlation between the temporal variations of magnetic field toroidal component of the solar tachocline (the bottom of convective zone) and the Earth magnetic field (Y-component). The possibility that hypothetical solar axions, which can transform into photons in external electric or magnetic fields (the inverse Primakoff effect), can be the instrument by which the magnetic field of convective zone of the Sun modulates the magnetic field of the Earth is considered. We propose the axion mechanism of "solar dynamo-geodynamo" connection, where an energy of axions, which form in the Sun core, is modulated at first by the magnetic field of the solar tachocline zone (due to the inverse coherent Primakoff effect) and after that is absorbed in the liquid core of the Earth under influence of the terrestrial magnetic field, thereby playing the role of an energy source and a modulator of the Earth magnetic field. Within the framework of this mechanism new estimations of the strength of an axion coupling to a photon (gag about 5*10^-9 GeV^-1) and the axion mass (ma about 30 eV) have been obtained.
We present a new code for solving the molecular and atomic excitation and radiation transfer problem in a molecular gas and predicting emergent spectra. This code works in arbitrary three dimensional geometry using unstructured Delaunay latices for the transport of photons. Various physical models can be used as input, ranging from analytical descriptions over tabulated models to SPH simulations. To generate the Delaunay grid we sample the input model randomly, but weigh the sample probability with the molecular density and other parameters, and thereby we obtain an average grid point separation that scales with the local opacity. Our code does photon very efficiently so that the slow convergence of opaque models becomes traceable. When convergence between the level populations, the radiation field, and the point separation has been obtained, the grid is ray-traced to produced images that can readily be compared to observations. Because of the high dynamic range in scales that can be resolved using this type of grid, our code is particularly well suited for modeling of ALMA data. Our code can furthermore deal with overlapping lines of multiple molecular and atomic species.
A sterile neutrino with mass in the eV range, mixing with the electron antineutrino, is allowed and possibly even preferred by cosmology and oscillation experiments. If such eV-mass neutrinos exist they provide a much better target for direct detection in beta decay experiments than the active neutrinos which are expected to have sub-eV masses. Their relatively high mass would allow for an easy separation from the primary decay signal in experiments such as KATRIN.
There exist power contrast in even and odd multipoles of WMAP power spectrum at low and intermediate multipole range. This anomaly is explicitly associated with the angular power spectrum, which are heavily used for cosmological model fitting. Having noted this, we have investigated whether even(odd) multipole data set is consistent with the WMAP concordance model. Our investigation shows WMAP concordance model does not make a good fit for even(odd) multipole data set, and there exist tension between two data subsets. Noting tension is highest in primordial power spectrum parameters, we have additionally considered a running spectral index, but find tension increases to even a higher level. We believe these parametric tensions may be indications of unaccounted contamination or imperfection of the model.
We present the analysis of three XMM observations of the Seyfert 2 galaxy NGC 7590. The source was found to have no X-ray absorption in the low spatial resolution ASCA data. The XMM observations provide a factor of 10 better spatial resolution than previous ASCA data. We find that the X-ray emission of NGC 7590 is dominated by an off-nuclear ULX and extended emission from the host galaxy. The nuclear X-ray emission is rather weak comparing with the host galaxy. Based on its very low X-ray luminosity as well as the small ratio between the 2-10 keV and the [O III] fluxes, we interpret NGC 7590 as Compton-thick rather than being an "unobscured" Seyfert 2 galaxy. Future higher resolution observations such as Chandra are crucial to shed light on the nature of NGC 7590 nucleus.
In the last few years there has been some interest in WIMP Dark Matter models featuring a velocity dependent cross section through the Sommerfeld enhancement mechanism. The idea is to have light bosons mediate a force between the WIMPs, which gives rise to a Yukawa-potential. In the first part of this article, we analyse the Sommerfeld enhancement in detail. We find analytic expressions for the boost factor for three different modelpotentials, Coulomb, the spherical well and the spherical cone well and compare with the numerical solution in the Yukawa case. In the second part of the article, we perform a detailed computation of the Dark Matter relic density for models having Sommerfeld enhancement by solving the Boltzmann equation numerically. As an application we compare the expected distortions of the CMB blackbody spectrum to the bounds set by FIRAS.
We report the discovery of multiple condensations in the prestellar core candidate SMM1A in the R~CrA cloud, which may represent the earliest phase of core fragmentation observed thus far. The separation between the condensations is between 1000 and 2100 AU, and their masses range from about 0.1 to 0.2 M_sun. We find that the three condensations have extremely low bolometric luminosities (< 0.1 L_sun) and temperatures (< 20 K), indicating that these are young sources that have yet to form protostars. We suggest that these sources were formed through the fragmentation of an elongated prestellar core. Our results, in concert with other observed protostellar binary systems with separations in the scale of 1000 AU, support the scenario that prompt fragmentation in the isothermal collapse phase is an efficient mechanism for wide binary star formation, while the fragmentation in the subsequent adiabatic phase may be an additional mechanism for close (< 100 AU) binary star formation.
We report on initial results from a Spitzer program to search for very low-mass brown dwarfs in Ophiuchus. This program is an extension of an earlier study by Allers et al. which had resulted in an extraordinary success rate, 18 confirmed out of 19 candidates. Their program combined near-infrared and Spitzer photom- etry to identify objects with very cool photospheres together with circumstellar disk emission to indicate youth. Our new program has obtained deep IRAC pho- tometry of a 0.5 deg2 field that was part of the original Allers et al. study. We report 18 new candidates whose luminosities extend down to 10-4 L\cdot which sug- gests masses down to ~ 2 MJ if confirmed. We describe our selection techniques, likely contamination issues, and follow-on photometry and spectroscopy that are in progress.
We present the first observations of the transverse component of photospheric magnetic field acquired by the imaging magnetograph Sunrise/IMaX. Using an automated detection method, we obtain statistical properties of 4536 features with significant linear polarization signal. Their rate of occurrence is 1-2 orders of magnitude larger than values reported by previous studies. We show that these features have no characteristic size or lifetime. They appear preferentially at granule boundaries with most of them being caught in downflow lanes at some point in their evolution. Only a small percentage are entirely and constantly embedded in upflows (16%) or downflows (8%).
In this paper, we discuss our first attempts to model the broadband persistent emission of magnetars within a self consistent, physical scenario. We present the predictions of a synthetic model that we calculated with a new Monte Carlo 3-D radiative code. The basic idea is that soft thermal photons (e.g. emitted by the star surface) can experience resonant cyclotron upscattering by a population of relativistic electrons threated in the twisted magnetosphere. Our code is specifically tailored to work in the ultra-magnetized regime; polarization and QED effects are consistently accounted for, as well different configurations for the magnetosphere. We discuss the predicted spectral properties in the 0.1-1000 keV range, the polarization properties, and we present the model application to a sample of magnetars soft X-ray spectra.
We carry out a multi-wavelength study of individual galaxies detected by the Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope (BLAST) and identified at other wavelengths, using data spanning the radio to the ultraviolet (UV). We develop a Monte Carlo method to account for flux boosting, source blending, and correlations among bands, which we use to derive deboosted far-infrared (FIR) luminosities for our sample. We estimate total star-formation rates for BLAST counterparts with z < 0.9 by combining their FIR and UV luminosities. Star formation is heavily obscured at L_FIR > 10^11 L_sun, z > 0.5, but the contribution from unobscured starlight cannot be neglected at L_FIR < 10^11 L_sun, z < 0.25. We assess that about 20% of the galaxies in our sample show indication of a type-1 active galactic nucleus (AGN), but their submillimeter emission is mainly due to star formation in the host galaxy. We compute stellar masses for a subset of 92 BLAST counterparts; these are relatively massive objects with a median mass of 10^11 M_sun. We argue that BLAST is bridging the mass gap at 0 < z < 2 between the 24um-selected population and the SCUBA objects. The bulk of the BLAST counterparts at z < 0.9 appear to be run-of-the-mill star-forming galaxies, typically spiral in shape, with intermediate stellar masses (< 10^11 M_sun) and constant specific star-formation rates. On the other hand, the high-z, high-mass tail of the BLAST counterparts significantly overlaps with the SCUBA population, in terms of both star-formation rates and stellar masses, with observed trends of specific star-formation rate that support strong evolution and downsizing.
Combined Spitzer, Chandra, XMM-Newton, and VLA observations of the giant radio galaxy NGC 1316 (Fornax A) show a radio jet and X-ray cavities from AGN outbursts likely triggered by a merger with a late-type galaxy at least 0.4 Gyr ago. We detect a weak nucleus with an SED typical of a low-luminosity AGN with a bolometric luminosity of 2.4x10^42 erg/s. The Spitzer IRAC and MIPS images show dust emission strongest in regions with little or no radio emission. The large infrared luminosity relative to the galaxy's K-band luminosity implies an external origin for the dust. The dust mass implies that the merger spiral galaxy had a stellar mass of 1-6x10^10 M_sun and a gas mass of 2-4x10^9 M_sun. Chandra images show a small ~15"(1.6 kpc) cavity coincident with the radio jet, while the XMM-Newton image shows two large X-ray cavities lying 320"(34.8 kpc) east and west of the nucleus, each approximately 230"(25 kpc) in radius. The radio lobes lie at radii of 14.3'(93 kpc) and 15.6'(101 kcp), more distant from the nucleus than the detected X-ray cavities. The relative morphology of the large scale 1.4 GHz and X-ray emission suggests they were products of two distinct outbursts, an earlier one creating the radio lobes and a later one producing the X-ray cavities. Alternatively, if a single outburst created both the X-ray cavities and the radio lobes, this would require that the morphology is not fully defined by the 1.4 GHz emission. For the more likely two outburst scenario, we use the buoyancy rise times to estimate an age for the more recent outburst of 0.1 Gyr and use the associated PV work done by the expanding plasma to create the X-ray cavities to estimate the outburst's energy of 10^58 ergs. The present size and location of the large radio lobes implies that the AGN outburst that created them happened ~0.4 Gyr ago and released ~5x10^58 ergs. (abridged)
Semi-analytic models of self-gravitating discs often approximate the angular momentum transport generated by the gravitational instability using the phenomenology of viscosity. This allows the employment of the standard viscous evolution equations, and gives promising results. It is, however, still not clear when such an approximation is appropriate. This paper tests this approximation using high resolution 3D smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) simulations of self-gravitating protostellar discs with radiative transfer. The nature of angular momentum transport associated with the gravitational instability is characterised as a function of both the stellar mass and the disc-to-star mass ratio. The effective viscosity is calculated from the Reynolds and gravitational stresses in the disc. This is then compared to what would be expected if the effective viscosity were determined by assuming local thermodynamic equilibrium or, equivalently, that the local dissipation rate matches the local cooling rate. In general, all the discs considered here settle into a self-regulated state where the heating generated by the gravitational instability is modulated by the local radiative cooling. It is found that low-mass discs can indeed be represented by a local "alpha-parametrisation", provided that the disc aspect ratio is small (H/R < 0.1) which is generally the case when the disc-to-star mass ratio q <0.5. However, this result does not extend to discs with masses approaching that of the central object. These are subject to transient burst events and global wave transport, and the effective viscosity is not well modelled by assuming local thermodynamic equilibrium. In spite of these effects, it is shown that massive (compact) discs can remain stable and not fragment, evolving rapidly to reduce their disc-to-star mass ratios through stellar accretion and radial spreading.
We obtained relatively high signal-to-noise X-ray spectral data of the early massive star tau Sco (B0.2V) with the Suzaku XIS instrument. This source displays several unusual features that motivated our study: (a) redshifted absorption in UV P Cygni lines to approximately +250 km/s suggestive of infalling gas, (b) unusually hard X-ray emission requiring hot plasma at temperatures in excess of 10 MK whereas most massive stars show relatively soft X-rays at a few MK, and (c) a complex photospheric magnetic field of open and closed field lines. In an attempt to understand the hard component better, X-ray data were obtained at six roughly equally spaced phases within the same epoch of tau Sco's 41 day rotation period. The XIS instrument has three operable detectors: XIS1 is back illuminated with sensitivity down to 0.2 keV; XIS0 and XIS2 are front illuminated with sensivitity only down to 0.4 keV and have overall less effective area than XIS1. The XIS0 and XIS3 detectors show relatively little variability. In contrast, there is a 4sigma detection of a 4% drop in the count rate of the XIS1 detector at one rotational phase. In addition, all three detectors show a 3% increase in count rate at the same phase. The most optimistic prediction of X-ray variability allows for a 40% change in the count rate, particularly near phases where we have pointings. Observed modulations in the X-ray light curve on the rotation cycle is an order of magnitude smaller than this, which places new stringent constraints on future modeling of this interesting magnetic massive star.
To study the three-dimensional (3D) magnetic field topology and its long-term evolution associated with the X3.4 flare of 2006 December 13, we investigate the coronal relative magnetic helicity in the flaring active region (AR) NOAA 10930 during the time period of December 8-14. The coronal helicity is calculated based on the 3D nonlinear force-free magnetic fields reconstructed by the weighted optimization method of Wiegelmann, and is compared with the amount of helicity injected through the photospheric surface of the AR. The helicity injection is determined from the magnetic helicity flux density proposed by Pariat et al. using Solar and Heliospheric Observatory/Michelson Doppler Imager magnetograms. The major findings of this study are the following. (1) The time profile of the coronal helicity shows a good correlation with that of the helicity accumulation by injection through the surface. (2) The coronal helicity of the AR is estimated to be -4.3$\times$10$^{43}$ Mx$^{2}$ just before the X3.4 flare. (3) This flare is preceded not only by a large increase of negative helicity, -3.2$\times$10$^{43}$ Mx$^{2}$, in the corona over ~1.5 days but also by noticeable injections of positive helicity though the photospheric surface around the flaring magnetic polarity inversion line during the time period of the channel structure development. We conjecture that the occurrence of the X3.4 flare is involved with the positive helicity injection into an existing system of negative helicity.
We report on a successful, simultaneous observation and modelling of the millimeter (mm) to near-infrared (NIR) flare emission of the Sgr A* counterpart associated with the supermassive black hole at the Galactic centre (GC). We present a mm/sub-mm light curve of Sgr A* with one of the highest quality continuous time coverages and study and model the physical processes giving rise to the variable emission of Sgr A*.
Using photometric data of infrared surveys, young stellar object (YSO) status is verified for 141 objects selected in our previous papers in the Cassiopeia and Camelopardalis segment of the Milky Way bounded by Galactic coordinates (l, b) = (132--158 deg, p/m 12 deg). The area includes the known star-forming regions in the emission nebulae W3, W4 and W5 and the massive YSO AFGL 490. Spectral energy distribution (SED) curves between 700 nm and 160 microns, constructed from the GSC2, 2MASS, IRAS, MSX, Spitzer and AKARI data, are used to estimate the evolutionary stages of these stars. We confirm the YSO status for most of the objects. If all of the investigated objects were YSOs, 45 % of them should belong to Class I, 41 % to class II and 14 % to Class III. However, SEDs of some of these objects can be affected by nearby extended infrared sources, like compact H II regions, infrared clusters or dusty galaxies.
General relativity predicts the existence of black holes, compact objects whose spacetimes depend on only their mass and spin (the famous "no hair" theorem). As various observations probe deeper into the strong fields of black hole candidates, it is becoming possible to test this prediction. Previous work suggested that such tests can be performed by measuring whether the multipolar structure of black hole candidates has the form that general relativity demands, and introduced a family of "bumpy black hole" spacetimes to be used for making these measurements. These spacetimes are black holes with the "wrong" multipoles, where the deviation from general relativity depends on the spacetime's "bumpiness." In this paper, we show how to compute the Geroch-Hansen moments of a bumpy black hole, demonstrating that there is a clean mapping between the deviations used in the bumpy black hole formalism and the Geroch-Hansen moments. We also extend our previous results to define bumpy black holes whose {\it current} moments, analogous to magnetic moments of electrodynamics, deviate from the canonical Kerr value.
A Lifshitz scalar with the dynamical critical exponent z = 3 obtains scale-invariant, super-horizon field fluctuations without the need of an inflationary era. Since this mechanism is due to the special scaling of the Lifshitz scalar and persists in the presence of unsuppressed self-couplings, the resulting fluctuation spectrum can deviate from a Gaussian distribution. We study the non-Gaussian nature of the Lifshitz scalar's intrinsic field fluctuations, and show that primordial curvature perturbations sourced from such field fluctuations can have large non-Gaussianity of order f_NL = O(100), which will be detected by upcoming CMB observations. We compute the bispectrum and trispectrum of the fluctuations, and discuss their configurations in momentum space. In particular, the bispectrum is found to take various shapes, including the local, equilateral, and orthogonal shapes. Intriguingly, all integrals in the in-in formalism can be performed analytically.
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Using the 12m APEX telescope, we have detected redshifted emission from the 157.74micron [CII] line in the z=4.4074 quasar BRI1335-0417. The linewidth and redshift are in good agreement with previous observations of high-J CO line emission. We measure a [CII] line luminosity, L_[CII] = (16.4 +/- 2.6)x10^9 Lsun, making BRI~1335-0417 the most luminous, unlensed [CII] line emitter known at high-redshift. The [CII]-to-FIR luminosity ratio of (5.3+/-0.8)x10^-4 is ~3x higher than expected for an average object with a FIR luminosity L_FIR = 3.1x10^13 Lsun, if this ratio were to follow the trend observed in other FIR-bright galaxies that have been detected in [CII] line emission. These new data suggest that the scatter in the [CII]-to-FIR luminosity ratio could be larger than previously expected for high luminosity objects. BR1335-0417 has a similar FIR luminosity and [CII]/CO luminosity compared to local ULIRGS and appears to be a gas-rich merger forming stars at a rate of a few thousand solar masses per year.
We explore the cosmological halo-to-halo scatter of the distribution of mass within dark matter halos utilizing a well-resolved statistical sample of clusters from the cosmological Millennium simulation. We find that at any radius, the spherically-averaged dark matter density of a halo (corresponding to the ``smooth-component'') and its logarithmic slope are well-described by a Gaussian probability distribution. At small radii (within the scale radius), the density distribution is fully determined by the measured Gaussian distribution in halo concentrations. The variance in the radial distribution of mass in dark matter halos is important for the interpretation of direct and indirect dark matter detection efforts. The scatter in mass profiles imparts approximately a 25 percent cosmological uncertainty in the dark matter density at the Solar neighborhood and a factor of ~3 uncertainty in the expected Galactic dark matter annihilation flux. The aggregate effect of halo-to-halo profile scatter leads to a small (few percent) enhancement in dark matter annihilation background if the Gaussian concentration distribution holds for all halo masses versus a 10 percent enhancement under the assumption of a log-normal concentration distribution. The Gaussian nature of the cluster profile scatter implies that the technique of ``stacking'' halos to improve signal to noise should not suffer from bias.
We compare optical and hard X-ray identifications of AGNs using a uniformly selected (above a flux limit of f_2-8 keV = 3.5e-15 erg/cm2/s) and highly optically spectroscopically complete ( > 80% for f_2-8 keV > 1e-14 erg/cm2/s and > 60% below) 2-8 keV sample observed in three Chandra fields (CLANS, CLASXS, and the CDF-N). We find that empirical emission-line ratio diagnostic diagrams misidentify 20-50% of the X-ray selected AGNs that can be put on these diagrams as star formers, depending on which division is used. We confirm that there is a large (2 orders in magnitude) dispersion in the log ratio of the [OIII]5007A to hard X-ray luminosities for the non-broad line AGNs, even after applying reddening corrections to the [OIII] luminosities. We find that the dispersion is similar for the broad-line AGNs, where there is not expected to be much X-ray absorption from an obscuring torus around the AGN nor much obscuration from the galaxy along the line-of-sight if the AGN is aligned with the galaxy. We postulate that the X-ray selected AGNs that are misidentified by the diagnostic diagrams have low [OIII] luminosities due to the complexity of the structure of the narrow-line region, which causes many ionizing photons from the AGN not to be absorbed. This would mean that the [OIII] luminosity can only be used to predict the X-ray luminosity to within a factor of ~3 (one sigma). Despite selection effects, we show that the shapes and normalizations of the [OIII] and transformed hard X-ray luminosity functions show reasonable agreement, suggesting that the [OIII] samples are not finding substantially more AGNs at low redshifts than hard X-ray samples.
Recent work indicates that star-forming early-type galaxies (ETGs) residing in the blue cloud migrate rapidly to the red sequence within around a Gyr, passing through several phases of increasingly strong AGN activity in the process (Schawinski et al. 2007, MNRAS, 382, 1415; S07 hereafter). We show that natural depletion of the gas reservoir through star formation (i.e. in the absence of any feedback from the AGN) induces a blue-to-red reddening rate that is several factors lower than that observed in S07. This is because the gas depletion rate due to star formation alone is too slow, implying that another process needs to be invoked to remove gas from the system and accelerate the reddening rate. We develop a simple phenomenological model, in which a fraction of the AGN's luminosity couples to the gas reservoir over a certain 'feedback timescale' and removes part of the gas mass from the galaxy, while the remaining gas continues to contribute to star formation. We use the model to investigate scenarios which yield migration times consistent with the results of S07. We find that acceptable models have feedback timescales <0.2 Gyrs. The mass fraction in young stars in the remnants is <5% and the residual gas fractions are less than 0.6%, in good agreement with the recent literature. At least half of the initial gas reservoir is removed as the galaxies evolve from the blue cloud to the red sequence. If we restrict ourselves to feedback timescales similar to the typical duty cycles of local AGN (a few hundred Myrs) then a few tenths of a percent of the luminosity of an early-type Seyfert (10^11 LSun) must couple to the gas reservoir in order to produce migration times that are consistent with the observations.
We propose a formation channel for the previously unexplained helium-rich subdwarf O (He-rich sdO) stars in which post-subdwarf B (sdB) stars (i.e. hybrid COHe white dwarfs) reignite helium burning in a shell after gaining matter from their helium white-dwarf (WD) companions. Such short-period binaries containing post-sdB WDs and helium WDs are predicted by one of the major binary formation channels for sdB stars. In the majority of cases, mass transfer is expected to lead to a dynamically unstable merger event, leaving a single-star remnant. Calculations of the evolution of these stars show that their properties are consistent with the observed He-rich sdO stars. The luminosity of these stars is about an order of magnitude higher than that of canonical sdB stars. We also suggest that binary systems such as PG 1544+488 (Ahmad et al. 2004) and HE 0301-3039 (Lisker et al. 2004), which each contain two hot subdwarfs, could be the outcome of a double-core common-envelope phase. Since this favours intermediate-mass progenitors, this may also explain why the subdwarfs in these systems are He-rich.
We present the results of our systematic infrared 2.5-5 micron spectroscopy of 60 luminous infrared galaxies (LIRGs) with infrared luminosities L(IR) = 10^11-12 Lsun, and 54 ultraluminous infrared galaxies (ULIRGs) with L(IR) > 10^12 Lsun, using AKARI IRC. AKARI IRC slit-less spectroscopy allows us to probe the full range of emission from these galaxies, including spatially extended components. The 3.3 micron polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) emission features, hydrogen recombination emission lines, and various absorption features are detected and used to investigate the properties of these galaxies. Because of the relatively small effect of dust extinction in the infrared range, quantitative discussion of these dusty galaxy populations is possible. For sources with clearly detectable Br beta (2.63 micron) and Br alpha (4.05 micron) emission lines, the flux ratios are found to be similar to that predicted by case B theory. Starburst luminosities are estimated from both 3.3 micron PAH and Br alpha emission, which roughly agree with each other. In addition to the detected starburst activity, a significant fraction of the observed sources display signatures of obscured AGNs, such as low PAH equivalent widths, large optical depths of dust absorption features, and red continuum emission. The energetic importance of optically elusive buried AGNs in optically non-Seyfert galaxies tends to increase with increasing galaxy infrared luminosity, from LIRGs to ULIRGs.
It is common practice among young astrophysicists these days to invest research time conservatively in mainstream ideas that have already been explored extensively in the literature. This tendency is driven by peer pressure and job market prospects, and is occasionally encouraged by senior researchers. Although the same phenomenon existed in past decades, it is alarmingly more prevalent today because a growing fraction of observational and theoretical projects are pursued in large groups with rigid research agendas. In addition, the emergence of a ``standard model'' in cosmology (albeit with unknown dark components) offers secure ``bonds'' for a safe investment of research time. In this short essay, which summarizes a banquet lecture at a recent conference, I give examples for both safe and risky topics in astrophysics (which I split into categories of ``bonds,'' ``stocks,'' and ``venture capital''), and argue that young researchers should always allocate a small fraction of their academic portfolio to innovative projects with risky but potentially highly profitable returns. In parallel, selection and promotion committees must find new strategies for rewarding candidates with creative thinking.
In this paper we examine the cosmological consequences of fourth order Galileon gravity. We carry out detailed investigations of the underlying dynamics and demonstrate the stability of one de Sitter phase. The stable de Sitter phase contains a Galileon field $\pi$ which is an increasing function of time (\dot{\pi}>0). Using the required suppression of the fifth force, supernovae, BAO and CMB data, we constrain parameters of the model. We find that the $\pi$ matter coupling parameter $\beta$ is constrained to small numerical values such that $\beta$<0.02. We also show that the parameters of the third and fourth order in the action (c_3,c_4) are not independent and with reasonable assumptions, we obtain constrains on them. We investigate the growth history of the model and find that the sub-horizon approximation is not allowed for this model. We demonstrate strong scale dependence of linear perturbations in the fourth order Galileon gravity.
We use archival HST observations of resolved stellar populations to derive the star formation histories (SFHs) of 18 nearby starburst dwarf galaxies. In this first paper we present the observations, color-magnitude diagrams, and the SFHs of the 18 starburst galaxies, based on a homogeneous approach to the data reduction, differential extinction, and treatment of photometric completeness. We adopt a star formation rate (SFR) threshold normalized to the average SFR of the individual system as a metric for classifying starbursts in SFHs derived from resolved stellar populations. This choice facilitates finding not only currently bursting galaxies but also "fossil" bursts increasing the sample size of starburst galaxies in the nearby (D<8 Mpc) universe. Thirteen of the eighteen galaxies are experiencing ongoing bursts and five galaxies show fossil bursts. From our reconstructed SFHs, it is evident that the elevated SFRs of a burst are sustained for hundreds of Myr with variations on small timescales. A long >100 Myr temporal baseline is thus fundamental to any starburst definition or identification method. The longer lived bursts rule out rapid "self-quenching" of starbursts on global scales. The bursting galaxies' gas consumption timescales are shorter than the Hubble time for all but one galaxy confirming the short-lived nature of starbursts based on fuel limitations. Additionally, we find the strength of the H{\alpha} emission usually correlates with the CMD based SFR during the last 4-10 Myr. However, in four cases, the H{\alpha} emission is significantly less than what is expected for models of starbursts; the discrepancy is due to the SFR changing on timescales of a few Myr. The inherently short timescale of the H{\alpha} emission limits identifying galaxies as starbursts based on the current characteristics which may or may not be representative of the recent SFH of a galaxy.
Context: Recent attention has been directed to abundance variations among
very young stars.
Aims: To perform a detailed abundance study of the Herbig Ae star HD 101412,
taking advantage of its unusually sharp spectral lines.
Methods: High-resolution spectra are measured for accurate wavelengths and
equivalent widths. Balmer-line fits and ionization equlibria give a relation
between Teff, and log(g). Abundance anomalies and uncertain reddening preclude
the use of spectral type or photometry to fix Teff. Excitation temperatures are
used to break the degeneracy between Teff and log(g).
Results: Strong lines are subject to an anomalous saturation that cannot be
removed by assuming a low microturbulence. By restricting the analysis to weak
(<= 20 m[A]) lines, we find consistent results for neutral and ionized species,
based on a model with Teff = 8300K, and log(g)=3.8. The photosphere is depleted
in the most refractory elements, while volatiles are normal or, in the case of
nitrogen, overabundant with respect to the sun. The anomalies are unlike those
of Ap or Am stars.
Conclusions: We suggest the anomalous saturation of strong lines arises from
heating of the upper atmospheric layers by infalling material from a disk. The
overall abundance pattern may be related to those found for the Lambda Boo
stars, though the depletions of the refractory elements are milder, more like
those of Vega. However, the intermediate volatile zinc is depleted, precluding
a straightforward interpretation of the abundance pattern in terms of gas-grain
separation.
Giant double-lobed radio source 4C34.47 displays a straight one-sided jet, measuring a record length of 380kpc, in its double-lobed radio structure. Assuming an intrinsically symmetric two-sided jet structure the radio source jet axis must be at least 33 degrees away from the sky plane, that is within 57 degrees from the line of sight. The radio polarization properties indicate that this giant source has largely outgrown the depolarizing halo generally associated with the host galaxies of powerful radio sources. The measured small depolarization asymmetry is nevertheless in accordance with its inferred orientation. All data for this giant radio source are in agreement with its preferred orientation as predicted within the unification scheme for powerful radio sources. Seen under a small aspect angle the radio source is large but not excessively large. The global properties of 4C34.47 do not differ from other giant (old) FR2 radio sources: it is a slowly expanding low-luminosity radio source.
In this paper we study the evolution of cosmological perturbations in the presence of dynamical dark energy, and revisit the issue of dark energy perturbations. For a generally parameterized equation of state (EoS) such as w_D(z) = w_0+w_1\frac{z}{1+z}, (for a single fluid or a single scalar field ) the dark energy perturbation diverges when its EoS crosses the cosmological constant boundary w_D=-1. In this paper we present a method of treating the dark energy perturbations during the crossing of the $w_D=-1$ surface by imposing matching conditions which require the induced 3-metric on the hypersurface of w_D=-1 and its extrinsic curvature to be continuous. These matching conditions have been used widely in the literature to study perturbations in various models of early universe physics, such as Inflation, the Pre-Big-Bang and Ekpyrotic scenarios, and bouncing cosmologies. In all of these cases the EoS undergoes a sudden change. Through a detailed analysis of the matching conditions, we show that \delta_D and \theta_D are continuous on the matching hypersurface. This justifies the method used[1-4] in the numerical calculation and data fitting for the determination of cosmological parameters. We discuss the conditions under which our analysis is applicable.
Early rebrightenings at a post-burst time of 10^2 - 10^4 s have been observed in the afterglows of some gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). Unlike X-ray flares, these rebrightenings usually last for a relatively long period. The continuous energy injection mechanism usually can only produce a plateau in the afterglow light curve, but not a rebrightening. Also, a sudden energy injection can give birth to a rebrightening, but the rebrightening is a bit too rapid. Here we argued that the early rebrightenings can be produced by the ring-shaped jet model. In this scenario, the GRB outflow is not a full cone, but a centrally hollowed ring. Assuming that the line of sight is on the central symmetry axis of the hollow cone, we calculate the overall dynamical evolution of the outflows and educe the multiband afterglow light curves. It is found that the early rebrightenings observed in the afterglows of a few GRBs, such as GRBs 051016B, 060109, 070103 and 070208 etc, can be well explained in this framework. It is suggested that these long-lasted early rebrightenings in GRB afterglows should be resulted from ring-shaped jets.
We give an account, at non-expert and quantitative level, of physics behind the CMB temperature anisotropy and polarization and their peculiar features. We discuss, in particular, how cosmological parameters are determined from the CMB measurements and their combinations with other observations. We emphasize that CMB is the major source of information on the primordial density perturbations and, possibly, gravitational waves, and discuss the implication for our understanding of the extremely early Universe.
We have redetermined the parallax and proper motion of the nearby isolated neutron star RX~J185635-3754. We used eight observations with the high resolution camera of the HST/ACS taken from 2002 through 2004. We performed the astrometric fitting using five independent methods, all of which yielded consistent results. The mean estimate of the distance is 123 (+11, -15) pc (1 sigma), in good agreement with our earlier published determination.
There is a general consensus about the fact that the magnetar scenario provides a convincing explanation for several of the observed properties of the Anomalous X-ray Pulsars and the Soft Gamma Repeaters. However, the origin of the emission observed at low energies is still an open issue. We present a quantitative model for the emission in the optical/infrared band produced by curvature radiation from magnetospheric charges, and compare results with current magnetars observations.
We report on the successful science verification phase of a new observing mode at the Keck interferometer, which provides a line-spread function width and sampling of 150km/s at K'-band, at a current limiting magnitude of K'~7mag with spatial resolution of lam/2B ~2.7mas and a measured differential phase stability of unprecedented precision (3mrad at K=5mag, which represents 3uas on sky or a centroiding precision of 10^-3). The scientific potential of this mode is demonstrated by the presented observations of the circumstellar disk of the evolved Be-star 48Lib. In addition to indirect methods such as multi-wavelength spectroscopy and polaritmetry, the here described spectro-interferometric astrometry provides a new tool to directly constrain the radial density structure in the disk. We resolve for the first time several Pfund emission lines, in addition to BrGam, in a single interferometric spectrum, and with adequate spatial and spectral resolution and precision to analyze the radial disk structure in 48Lib. The data suggest that the continuum and Pf-emission originates in significantly more compact regions, inside of the BrGam emission zone. Thus, spectro-interferometric astrometry opens the opportunity to directly connect the different observed line profiles of BrGam and Pfund in the total and correlated flux to different disk radii. The gravitational potential of a rotationally flattened Be star is expected to induce a one-armed density perturbation in the circumstellar disk. Such a slowly rotating disk oscillation has been used to explain the well known periodic V/R spectral profile variability in these stars, as well as the observed V/R cycle phase shifts between different disk emission lines. The differential line properties and linear constraints set by our data lend support to the existence of a radius-dependent disk density perturbation.
We present an efficient separable approach to the estimation and reconstruction of the bispectrum and the trispectrum from observational (or simulated) large scale structure data. This is developed from general CMB (poly-)spectra methods which exploit the fact that the bispectrum and trispectrum in the literature can be represented by a separable mode expansion which converges rapidly (with $n_\textrm{max}={\cal{O}}(30)$ terms). With an effective grid resolution $l_\textrm{max}$ (number of particles/grid points $N=l_\textrm{max}^3$), we present a bispectrum estimator which requires only ${\cal O}(n_\textrm{max} \times l_\textrm{max}^3)$ operations, along with a corresponding method for direct bispectrum reconstruction. This method is extended to the trispectrum revealing an estimator which requires only ${\cal O}(n_\textrm{max}^{4/3} \times l_\textrm{max}^3)$ operations. The complexity in calculating the trispectrum in this method is now involved in the original decomposition and orthogonalisation process which need only be performed once for each model. However, for non-diagonal trispectra these processes present little extra difficulty and may be performed in ${\cal O}(l_\textrm{max}^4)$ operations. A discussion of how the methodology may be applied to the quadspectrum is also given. An efficient algorithm for the generation of arbitrary nonGaussian initial conditions for use in N-body codes using this separable approach is described. This prescription allows for the production of nonGaussian initial conditions for arbitrary bispectra and trispectra. A brief outline of the key issues involved in parameter estimation, particularly in the non-linear regime, is also given.
A post-CME current sheet (CS) is a common feature developed behind an erupting flux rope in CME models. Observationally, white light observations have recorded many occurrences of a thin ray appearing behind a CME eruption that closely resembles a post-CME CS in its spatial correspondence and morphology. UV and X-ray observations further strengthen this interpretation by the observations of high temperature emission at locations consistent with model predictions. The next question then becomes whether the properties inside a post-CME CS predicted by a model agree with observed properties. In this work, we assume that the post-CME CS is a consequence of Petschek-like reconnection and that the observed ray-like structure is bounded by a pair of slow mode shocks developed from the reconnection site. We perform time-dependent ionization calculations and model the UV line emission. We find that such a model is consistent with SOHO/UVCS observations of the post-CME CS. The change of Fe XVIII emission in one event implies an inflow speed of ~10 km/s and a corresponding reconnection rate of M_A ~ 0.01. We calculate the expected X-ray emission for comparison with X-ray observations by Hinode/XRT, as well as the ionic charge states as would be measured in-situ at 1 AU. We find that the predicted count rate for Hinode/XRT agree with what was observed in a post-CME CS on April 9, 2008, and the predicted ionic charge states are consistent with high ionization states commonly measured in the interplanetary CMEs. The model results depend strongly on the physical parameters in the ambient corona, namely the coronal magnetic field, the electron density and temperature during the CME event. It is crucial to obtain these ambient coronal parameters and as many facets of the CS properties as possible by observational means so that the post-CME current sheet models can be scrutinized more effectively.
We present the first results from a new, deep (200ks) Chandra observation of the X-ray luminous galaxy cluster surrounding the powerful (L ~10^47 erg/s), high-redshift (z=1.067), compact-steep-spectrum radio-loud quasar 3C186. The diffuse X-ray emission from the cluster has a roughly ellipsoidal shape and extends out to radii of at least ~60 arcsec (~500 kpc). The centroid of the diffuse X-ray emission is offset by 0.68(+/-0.11) arcsec (5.5+/-0.9 kpc) from the position of the quasar. We measure a cluster mass within the radius at which the mean enclosed density is 2500 times the critical density, r_2500=283(+18/-13)kpc, of 1.02 (+0.21/-0.14)x10^14 M_sun. The gas mass fraction within this radius is f_gas=0.129(+0.015/-0.016). This value is consistent with measurements at lower redshifts and implies minimal evolution in the f_gas(z) relation for hot, massive clusters at 0<z<1.1. The measured metal abundance of 0.42(+0.08/-0.07) Solar is consistent with the abundance observed in other massive, high redshift clusters. The spatially-resolved temperature profile for the cluster shows a drop in temperature, from kT~8 keV to kT~3 keV, in its central regions that is characteristic of cooling core clusters. This is the first spectroscopic identification of a cooling core cluster at z>1. We measure cooling times for the X-ray emitting gas at radii of 50 kpc and 25 kpc of 1.7(+/-0.2)x10^9 years and 7.5(+/-2.6)x 10^8 years, as well as a nominal cooling rate (in the absence of cooling) of 400(+/-190)M_sun/year within the central 100 kpc. In principle, the cooling gas can supply enough fuel to support the growth of the supermassive black hole and to power the luminous quasar. The radiative power of the quasar exceeds by a factor of 10 the kinematic power of the central radio source, suggesting that radiative heating may be important at intermittent intervals in cluster cores.
We report recent ground-based photometry of the transiting super-Earth exoplanet GJ1214b at several wavelengths, including the infrared near 1.25 microns (J-band). We observed a J-band transit with the FLAMINGOS infrared imager and the 2.1-meter telescope on Kitt Peak, and we observed several optical transits using a 0.5-meter telescope on Kitt Peak and the 0.36-meter Universidad de Monterrey Observatory telescope. Our high-precision J-band observations exploit the brightness of the M-dwarf host star at this infrared wavelength as compared to the optical, as well as being significantly less affected by stellar activity and limb darkening. We fit the J-band transit to obtain an independent determination of the planetary and stellar radii. Our radius for the planet (2.61^+0.30_-0.11 Earth radii) is in excellent agreement with the discovery value reported by Charbonneau et al. based on optical data. We demonstrate that the planetary radius is insensitive to degeneracies in the fitting process. We use all of our observations to improve the transit ephemeris, finding P=1.5804043 +/- 0.0000005 days, and T0=2454964.94390 +/- 0.00006 BJD.
Ly-alpha emitters (LAEs) are seen everywhere in the redshift domain from local to z~7. Far-infrared (FIR) counterparts of LAEs at different epochs could provide direct clues on dust content, extinction, and spectral energy distribution (SED) for these galaxies. We search for FIR counterparts of LAEs that are optically detected in the GOODS-North field at redshift z~2.2 using data from the Herschel Space Telescope with the Photodetector Array Camera and Spectrometer (PACS). The LAE candidates were isolated via color-magnitude diagram using the medium-band photometry from the ALHAMBRA Survey, ancillary data on GOODS-North, and stellar population models. According to the fitting of these spectral synthesis models and FIR/optical diagnostics, most of them seem to be obscured galaxies whose spectra are AGN-dominated. From the analysis of the optical data, we have observed a fraction of AGN or composite over source total number of ~0.75 in the LAE population at z~2.2, which is marginally consistent with the fraction previously observed at z=2.25 and even at low redshift (0.2<z<0.45), but significantly different from the one observed at redshift ~3, which could be compatible either with a scenario of rapid change in the AGN fraction between the epochs involved or with a non detection of obscured AGN in other z=2-3 LAE samples due to lack of deep FIR observations. We found three robust FIR (PACS) counterparts at z~2.2 in GOODS-North. This demonstrates the possibility of finding dust emission in LAEs even at higher redshifts.
Two recent observing campaigns provide us with moderate dispersion spectra of more than 230 cluster and 370 field B stars. Combining them and the spectra of the B stars from our previous investigations ($\sim$430 cluster and $\sim$100 field B stars) yields a large, homogeneous sample for studying the rotational properties of B stars. We derive the projected rotational velocity $V\sin i$, effective temperature, gravity, mass, and critical rotation speed $V_{\rm crit}$ for each star. We find that the average $V\sin i$ is significantly lower among field stars because they are systematically more evolved and spun down than their cluster counterparts. The rotational distribution functions of $V_{\rm eq}/V_{\rm crit}$ for the least evolved B stars show that lower mass B stars are born with a larger proportion of rapid rotators than higher mass B stars. However, the upper limit of $V_{\rm eq}/V_{\rm crit}$ that may separate normal B stars from emission line Be stars (where rotation promotes mass loss into a circumstellar disk) is smaller among the higher mass B stars. We compare the evolutionary trends of rotation (measured according to the polar gravity of the star) with recent models that treat internal mixing. The spin-down rates observed in the high mass subset ($\sim 9 M_\odot$) agree with predictions, but the rates are larger for the low mass group ($\sim 3 M_\odot$). The faster spin down in the low mass B stars matches well with the predictions based on conservation of angular momentum in individual spherical shells. Our results suggest the fastest rotators (that probably correspond to the emission line Be stars) are probably formed by evolutionary spin up (for the more massive stars) and by mass transfer in binaries (for the full range of B star masses).
We have conducted an intensive search for any material that may orbit Rhea, using images obtained by the Cassini ISS narrow-angle camera. We find no evidence for any such material, contradicting an earlier and surprising inference that Rhea, the second-largest moon of Saturn, possesses a system of narrow rings embedded in a broad circum-satellite disk or cloud (Jones et al. 2008, Science). If one accepts the calculations of the previous authors, our results would require any narrow rings around Rhea to be composed of objects no smaller than 10 meters in radius, in order to be massive enough to account for the observed charged-particle absorptions but diffuse enough to evade detection in our images. Such a particle-size distribution is unrealistic given that erosion processes will break down 10-meter objects to smaller sizes, which would then have been seen in our images. Furthermore, Jones et al. (2008) assumed that the absorption of electrons by hypothetical circum-Rhea particles is proportional to the volume of the particles, even when they are much larger than the electron penetration depth (van Allen 1983, 1987, JGR). If we assume instead that large particles can only absorb electrons efficiently near their surfaces, then our results rule out any solid material orbiting Rhea as the explanation for the absorptions detected by Jones et al. (2008), regardless of particle size, by a margin of four (for narrow rings) or two (for a broad diffuse cloud) orders of magnitude. We conclude that the anomalous electron absorptions reported by Jones et al. (2008) are the signature of a new and hitherto unknown magnetospheric process.
Spitzer IRS spectroscopy supports the interpretation that BP Piscium, a gas and dust enshrouded star residing at high Galactic latitude, is a first-ascent giant rather than a classical T Tauri star. Our analysis suggests that BP Piscium's spectral energy distribution can be modeled as a disk with a gap that is opened by a giant planet. Modeling the rich mid-infrared emission line spectrum indicates that the solid-state emitting grains orbiting BP Piscium are primarily composed of ~75 K crystalline, magnesium-rich olivine; ~75 K crystalline, magnesium-rich pyroxene; ~200 K amorphous, magnesium-rich pyroxene; and ~200 K annealed silica ('cristobalite'). These dust grains are all sub-micron sized. The giant planet and gap model also naturally explains the location and mineralogy of the small dust grains in the disk. Disk shocks that result from disk-planet interaction generate the highly crystalline dust which is subsequently blown out of the disk mid-plane and into the disk atmosphere.
Recently, the CoGeNT experiment has reported events in excess of expected background. We analyze dark matter scenarios which can potentially explain this signal. Under the standard case of spin independent scattering with equal couplings to protons and neutrons, we find significant tensions with existing constraints. Consistency with these limits is possible if a large fraction of the putative signal events is coming from an additional source of experimental background. In this case, dark matter recoils cannot be said to explain the excess, but are consistent with it. We also investigate modifications to dark matter scattering that can evade the null experiments. In particular, we explore generalized spin independent couplings to protons and neutrons, spin dependent couplings, momentum dependent scattering, and inelastic interactions. We find that some of these generalizations can explain most of the CoGeNT events without violation of other constraints. Generalized couplings with some momentum dependence, allows further consistency with the DAMA modulation signal, realizing a scenario where both CoGeNT and DAMA signals are coming from dark matter. A model with dark matter interacting and annihilating into a new light boson can realize most of the scenarios considered.
Mirror dark matter offers a framework to explain the existing dark matter direct detection experiments. Here we confront this theory with the most recent experimental data, paying attention to the various known systematic uncertainties, in quenching factor, detector resolution, galactic rotational velocity and velocity dispersion. We perform a detailed analysis of the DAMA and CoGeNT experiments assuming a negligible channeling fraction and find that the data can be fully explained within the mirror dark matter framework. We also show that the mirror dark matter candidate can explain recent data from the CDMS/Ge, EdelweissII and CRESSTII experiments and we point out ways in which the theory can be further tested in the near future.
Central to the gravitational wave detection problem is the challenge of separating features in the data produced by astrophysical sources from features produced by the detector. Matched filtering provides an optimal solution for Gaussian noise, but in practice, transient noise excursions or ``glitches'' complicate the analysis. Detector diagnostics and coincidence tests can be used to veto many glitches which may otherwise be misinterpreted as gravitational wave signals. The glitches that remain can lead to long tails in the matched filter search statistics and drive up the detection threshold. Here we describe a Bayesian approach that incorporates a more realistic model for the instrument noise allowing for fluctuating noise levels that vary independently across frequency bands, and deterministic ``glitch fitting'' using wavelets as ``glitch templates'', the number of which is determined by a trans-dimensional Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm. We demonstrate the method's effectiveness on simulated data containing low amplitude gravitational wave signals from inspiraling binary black hole systems, and simulated non-stationary and non-Gaussian noise comprised of a Gaussian component with the standard LIGO/Virgo spectrum, and injected glitches of various amplitude, prevalence, and variety. Glitch fitting allows us to detect significantly weaker signals than standard techniques.
Inspired by the decaying dark matter (DM) which can explain cosmic ray anomalies naturally, we consider the supersymmetric Standard Model with three right-handed neutrinos (RHNs) and R-parity, and introduce a TeV-scale DM sector with two fields \phi_{1,2} and a $Z_3$ discrete symmetry. The DM sector only interacts with the RHNs via a very heavy field exchange and then we can explain the cosmic ray anomalies. With the second right-handed neutrino N_2 dominant seesaw mechanism at the low scale around 10^4 GeV, we show that \phi_{1,2} can obtain the vacuum expectation values around the TeV scale, and then the lightest state from \phi_{1,2} is the decay DM with lifetime around \sim 10^{26}s. In particular, the DM very long lifetime is related to the tiny neutrino masses, and the dominant DM decay channels to \mu and \tau are related to the approximate \mu-\tau symmetry. Furthermore, the correct DM relic density can be obtained via the freeze-in mechanism, the small-scale problem for power spectrum can be solved due to the decays of the R-parity odd meta-stable states in the DM sector, and the baryon asymmetry can be generated via the soft leptogensis.
The shadowing of cosmic ray primaries by the the moon and sun was observed by the MINOS far detector at a depth of \unit[2070]{mwe} using 83.54 million cosmic ray muons accumulated over 1857.91 live-days. The shadow of the moon was detected at the \unit[5.6]{$\sigma$} level and the shadow of the sun at the \unit[3.8]{$\sigma$} level using a log-likelihood search in celestial coordinates. The moon shadow was used to quantify the absolute astrophysical pointing of the detector to be 0.17\pm 0.12^\circ. Hints of Interplanetary Magnetic Field effects were observed in both the sun and moon shadow.
We analytically work out the cumulative, i.e. averaged over one orbital revolution, time variations of the radial velocity v_r of a typical S star orbiting the Supermassive Black Hole (SBH) hosted by the Galactic Center (GC) in Sgr A* caused by several dynamical eff?ects. They are the general relativistic gravitoelectromagnetic (GEM) fields of the SBH, its quadrupole mass moment Q2, and a diffuse dark matter distribution around the SBH. All of them induce non-zero secular radial accelerations proportional to the eccentricity e of the orbit. By taking the S2 star, orbiting the SBH along a highly eccentric (e = 0.8831) ellipse with a period Pb = 15.9 yr, we numerically compute the magnitudes of its radial accelerations (Abridged).
The mass density of dust particles that form from asteroids and comets in the interplanetary medium of the solar system is, near 1 AU, comparable to the mass density of the solar wind. It is mainly contained in particles of micrometer size and larger. Dust and larger objects are destroyed by collisions and sublimation and hence feed heavy ions into the solar wind and the solar corona. Small dust particles are present in large number and as a result of their large charge to mass ratio deflected by electromagnetic forces in the solar wind. For nano dust particles of sizes 1 - 10 nm, recent calculations show trapping near the Sun and outside from about 0.15 AU ejection with velocities close to solar wind velocity. The fluxes of ejected nano dust are detected near 1AU with the plasma wave instrument onboard the STEREO spacecraft. Though such electric signals have been observed during dust impacts before, the interpretation depends on several different parameters and data analysis is still in progress.
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Pulsar timing is a promising technique for detecting low frequency sources of gravitational waves. Historically the focus has been on the detection of diffuse stochastic backgrounds, such as those formed from the superposition of weak signals from a population of binary black holes. More recently, attention has turned to members of the binary population that are nearer and brighter, which stand out from the crowd and can be individually resolved. Here we show that the timing data from an array of pulsars can be used to recover the physical parameters describing an individual black hole binary to good accuracy, even for moderately strong signals. A novel aspect of our analysis is that we include the distance to each pulsar as a search parameter, which allows us to utilize the full gravitational wave signal. This doubles the signal power, improves the sky location determination by an order of magnitude, and allows us to extract the mass and the distance to the black hole binary.
The Durham GALFORM semi-analytical galaxy formation model has been shown to reproduce the observed rest-frame 1500\AA\ luminosity function of galaxies well over the whole redshift range z=5-10. We show that in this model, this galaxy population also emits enough ionizing photons to reionize the Universe by redshift z=10, assuming a modest escape fraction of 20 per cent. The bulk of the ionizing photons is produced in faint galaxies during starbursts triggered by galaxy mergers. The bursts introduce a dispersion up to ~ 5 dex in galaxy ionizing luminosity at a given halo mass. Almost 90 per cent of the ionizing photons emitted at z=10 are from galaxies below the current observational detection limit at that redshift. Photo-ionization suppression of star formation in these galaxies is unlikely to affect this conclusion significantly, because the gas that fuels the starbursts has already cooled out of their host halos. The galaxies that dominate the ionizing emissivity at z=10 are faint, with M_{1500, AB} ~ -16, have low star formation rates, \dot{M_{*}} ~ 0.06 h^{-1} M_sun yr^{-1}, and reside in halos of mass M ~ 10^9 h^{-1} M_sun.
We describe a new, free and open source semi-analytic model of galaxy formation, Galacticus. The Galacticus model was designed to be highly modular to facilitate expansion and the exploration of alternative descriptions of key physical ingredients. We detail the Galacticus engine for evolving galaxies through a merging hierarchy of dark matter halos and give details of the specific implementations of physics currently available in Galacticus. Finally, we show results from an example model that is in reasonably good agreement with several observational datasets. We use this model to explore numerical convergence and to demonstrate the types of information which can be extracted from Galacticus.
The minimum of solar cycle 24 is significantly different from most other minima in terms of its duration as well as its abnormally low levels of activity. Using available helioseismic data that cover epochs from the minimum of cycle 23 to now, we study the differences in the nature of the solar rotation between the minima of cycles 23 and 24. We find that there are significant differences between the rotation rates during the two minima. There are differences in the zonal-flow pattern too. We find that the band of fast rotating region close to the equator bifurcated around 2005 and recombined by 2008. This behavior is different from that during the cycle 23 minimum. By auto-correlating the zonal-flow pattern with a time shift, we find that in terms of solar dynamics, solar cycle 23 lasted for a period of 11.7 years, consistent with the result of Howe et al. (2009). The autocorrelation coefficient also confirms that the zonal-flow pattern penetrates through the convection zone.
Rest-frame UV emission lines offer the exciting possibility to directly image the gas around high-redshift galaxies with upcoming optical instruments. We use a suite of large, hydrodynamical simulations to predict the nature and detectability of emission lines from the intergalactic medium at 2<z<5. The brightest emission comes from H I Ly-alpha and the strongest metal line, C III, is about an order of magnitude fainter. The highest surface brightness regions for C IV, Si III, Si IV and O VI are fainter than the brightest C III by factors of a few. The N V and Ne VIII lines, as well as He II H-alpha, are substantially weaker but their maximum surface brightnesses still exceed 10^2 photon/s/cm^2/sr at z=2. Lower ionisation lines typically arise in denser and colder gas that produces clumpier emission. The brightest H I Ly-alpha emission arises exclusively in highly overdense gas (rho>10^3 rho_mean), but the highest surface brightness emission from high-ionisation metal lines traces a much wider range of overdensities. Bright metal-line emission traces gas with temperatures close to the peak of the corresponding emissivity curve. While H I Ly-alpha, He II H-alpha, C III, Si III, and Si IV are excellent probes of cold accretion flows and the colder parts of outflows, C IV, N V, O VI, and Ne VIII are powerful tracers of the diffuse warm-hot intergalactic medium and galactic winds. A comparison of results from simulations with varying physical prescriptions demonstrates that the predictions for the brighter emission are robust to within factors of a few. The Cosmic Web Imager, operating on Palomar, may be able to detect the emission from C III, C IV, Si III, Si IV and O VI lines at 2<z<3 and H I Ly-alpha emission up to z=5. Emission from higher redshifts and other lines should be within reach of the VLT Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer, and of the Keck Cosmic Web Imager. (Abridged)
We report on sensitive new 1.4-GHz VLA radio observations of the pulsar wind nebula G21.5-0.9, powered by PSR J1833-1034, and its environs. Our observations were targeted at searching for the radio counterpart of the shell-like structure seen surrounding the pulsar wind nebula in X-rays. Some such radio emission might be expected as the ejecta from the <~ 1000 yr old supernova expand and interact with the surrounding medium. We find, however, no radio emission from the shell, and can place a conservative 3-sigma upper limit on its 1-GHz surface brightness of 7 x 10^-22 W/m^2/Hz/sr, comparable to the lowest limits obtained for radio emission from shells around other pulsar-wind nebulae. Our widefield radio image also shows the presence of two extended objects of low-surface brightness. We re-examine previous 327-MHz images, on which both the new objects are visible. We identify the first, G21.64-0.84, as a new shell-type supernova remnant, with a diameter of ~13' and an unusual double-shell structure. The second, G21.45-0.59, ~1' in diameter, is likely an HII region.
(Abridged) In 1999, Chandra revealed a 150"-radius X-ray halo surrounding the 40"-radius PWN G21.5-0.9. A 2005 imaging study showed that the halo is limb-brightened, and suggested this feature is a candidate for the long-sought SNR shell. We present a spectral analysis of G21.5-0.9, using the longest effective observation to date (578.6 ks with ACIS, 278.4 ks with HRC) to study unresolved questions about the spectral nature of remnant features, such as the limb-brightening of the X-ray halo and the bright knot in the northern part of the halo. The Chandra analysis favours the non-thermal interpretation of the limb. Its spectrum is well fit with a power-law model with a photon index $\Gamma$ = 2.13 (1.94-2.33) and a luminosity of L_x (0.5-8 keV) = (2.3 +/- 0.6) x 10^33 erg/s (at an assumed distance of 5.0 kpc). An srcut model was also used to fit the spectrum between radio and X-ray energies. We find that the maximum energy to which electrons are accelerated at the shock ranges from ~60-130 TeV (B/10$\mu$G)^(-1/2), where B is the magnetic field in units of $\mu$G. For the northern knot, we constrain previous models and find that a two-component power-law (or srcut) + pshock model provides an adequate fit, with the pshock model requiring a very low ionization timescale and solar abundances for Mg and Si. Our spectroscopic study of J1833-1034, the highly energetic pulsar powering G21.5-0.9, shows that its spectrum is dominated by hard non-thermal X-ray emission with some evidence of a thermal component that represents ~9% of the observed non-thermal emission and that suggests non-standard rapid cooling of the neutron star. Finally, the ACIS and HRC-I images provide the first evidence for variability in the PWN, a property observed in other PWNe such as the Crab and Vela.
We present six new transits of the hot Jupiter OGLE-TR-113b observed with MagIC on the Magellan Telescopes between January 2007 and May 2009. We update the system parameters and revise the planetary radius to R_p=1.084 pm 0.029 R_J, where the error is dominated by stellar radius uncertainties. The new transit midtimes reveal no transit timing variations from a constant ephemeris of greater than 13 pm 28 seconds over two years, placing an upper limit of 1-2 M_Earth on the mass of any perturber in a 1:2 or 2:1 mean-motion resonance with OGLE-TR-113b. Combining the new transit epochs with five epochs published between 2002 and 2006, we find hints that the orbital period of the planet may not be constant, with the best fit indicating a decrease of dP/dt=-60 pm 15 milliseconds per year. If real, this change in period could result from either a long-period (more than 8 years) timing variation due to a massive external perturber, or more intriguingly from the orbital decay of the planet. The detection of a changing period is still tentative and requires additional observations, but if confirmed it would enable direct tests of tidal stability and dynamical models of close-in planets.
The composite galaxy NGC 4102 hosts a LINER nucleus and a starburst. We mapped NGC 4102 in the 12.8 micron line of [NeII], using the echelon spectrometer TEXES on the NASA IRTF, to obtain a data cube with 1.5" spatial and 25 km/s spectral, resolution. Combining near-infrared, radio, and the [NeII] data shows that the extinction to the starburst is substantial, more than 2 magnitudes at K band, and that the neon abundance is less than half solar. We find that the star formation in the nuclear region is confined to a rotating ring or disk of 4.3" (~300 pc) diameter, inside the Inner Lindblad Resonance. This region is an intense concentration of mass, with a dynamical mass of ~3 x 10^9 solar masses, and of star formation. The young stars in the ring produce the [NeII] flux reported by Spitzer for the entire galaxy. The mysterious blue component of line emission detected in the near-infrared is also seen in [NeII]; it is not a normal AGN outflow.
High energy electrons and positrons from annihilating dark matter can imprint unique angular anisotropies on the diffuse gamma-ray flux by inverse Compton scattering off the interstellar radiation field. We develop a numerical tool to compute gamma-ray emission from such electrons and positrons diffusing in the smooth host halo and in substructure halos with masses down to 10^(-6) M_sun. We show that, unlike the total gamma-ray angular power spectrum observed by Fermi-LAT, the angular power spectrum from inverse Compton scattering is exponentially suppressed below an angular scale determined by the diffusion length of electrons and positrons. For TeV scale dark matter with a canonical thermal freeze-out cross section 3 x 10^(-26) cm^3/s, this feature may be detectable by Fermi-LAT in the energy range 100-300 GeV after more sophisticated foreground subtraction. We also find that the total flux and the shape of the angular power spectrum depends sensitively on the spatial distribution of subhalos in the Milky Way. Finally, the contribution from the smooth host halo component to the gamma-ray mean intensity is negligibly small compared to subhalos.
A discrepancy has emerged between the cosmic lithium abundance inferred by
the WMAP satellite measurement coupled with the prediction of the standard
big-bang nucleosynthesis theory, and the constant Li abundance measured in
metal-poor halo dwarf stars (the so-called Spite plateau). Several models are
being proposed to explain this discrepancy, involving either new physics, in
situ depletion, or the efficient depletion of Li in the pristine Galaxy by a
generation of massive first stars. The realm of possibilities may be narrowed
considerably by observing stellar populations in different galaxies, which have
experienced different evolutionary histories.
The WCen stellar system is commonly considered as the remnant of a dwarf
galaxy accreted by the Milky Way (MW). We investigate the Li content of a
conspicuous sample of unevolved stars in this object.
We obtained moderate resolution (R=17000) spectra for 91 main-sequence/early
sub-giant branch (MS/SGB) WCen stars using the FLAMES-GIRAFFE/VLT spectrograph.
Li abundances were derived by matching the equivalent width of the LiI
resonance doublet at 6708A, to the prediction of synthetic spectra computed
with different Li abundances. Synthetic spectra were computed using the SYNTHE
code along with ATLAS9 model atmospheres. The stars effective temperatures are
derived by fitting the wings of the Ha line with synthetic profiles.
We obtain a mean content of A(Li)=2.19+-0.14~dex for WCen MS/SGB stars. This
is comparable to what is observed in Galactic halo field stars of similar
metallicities and temperatures.
The Spite plateau seems to be an ubiquitous feature of old, warm metal-poor
stars. It exists also in external galaxies, if we accept the current view about
the origin of WCen. This implies that the mechanism(s) that causes the
"cosmological lithium problem" may be the same in the MW and other galaxies.
In order to better understand the possibility of coronal heating by MHD waves, we analyze Fe xii 195.12{\AA} data observed with EUV Imaging Spectrometer (EIS) onboard Hinode. We performed a Fourier analysis of EUV intensity and Doppler velocity time series data in the active region corona. Notable intensity and Doppler velocity oscillations were found for two moss regions out of the five studied, while only small oscillations were found for five apexes of loops. The amplitudes of the oscillations were 0.4 - 5.7% for intensity and 0.2 - 1.2 kms-1 for Doppler velocity. In addition, oscillations of only Doppler velocity were seen relatively less often in the data. We compared the amplitudes of intensity and those of Doppler velocity in order to identify MHD wave modes, and calculated the phase delays between Fourier components of intensity and those of Doppler velocity. The results are interpreted in terms of MHD waves as follows: (1) few kink modes or torsional Alfv'en mode waves were seen in both moss regions and the apexes of loops; (2) upwardly propagating and standing slowmode waves were found inmoss regions; and (3) consistent with previous studies, estimated values of energy flux of the waves were several orders of magnitude lower than that required for heating active regions.
It is shown that the radio and gamma-ray emission observed from newly-found "GeV-bright" supernova remnants (SNRs) can be explained by a model, in which a shocked cloud and shock-accelerated cosmic rays (CRs) frozen in it are simultaneously compressed by the supernova blastwave as a result of formation of a radiative cloud shock. Simple reacceleration of pre-existing CRs is generally sufficient to power the observed gamma-ray emission through the decays of neutral pions produced in hadronic interactions between high-energy protons (nuclei) and gas in the compressed-cloud layer. This model provides a natural account of the observed synchrotron radiation in SNRs W51C, W44 and IC 443 with flat radio spectral index, which can be ascribed to a combination of secondary and reaccelerated electrons and positrons.
We present an analysis of the properties of HI holes detected in 20 galaxies that are part of "The HI Nearby Galaxy Survey" (THINGS). We detected more than 1000 holes in total in the sampled galaxies. Where they can be measured, their sizes range from about 100 pc (our resolution limit) to about 2 kpc, their expansion velocities range from 4 to 36 km/s, and their ages are estimated to range between 3 and 150 Myr. The holes are found throughout the disks of the galaxies, out to the edge of the HI; 23% of the holes fall outside R25. We find that shear limits the age of holes in spirals (shear is less important in dwarf galaxies) which explains why HI holes in dwarfs are rounder, on average than in spirals. Shear, which is particularly strong in the inner part of spiral galaxies, also explains why we find that holes outside R25 are larger and older. We derive the scale height of the HI disk as a function of galactocentric radius and find that the disk flares up in all galaxies. We proceed to derive the surface and volume porosity (Q2D and Q3D) and find that this correlates with the type of the host galaxy: later Hubble types tend to be more porous. The size distribution of the holes in our sample follows a power law with a slope of a ~ -2.9. Assuming that the holes are the result of massive star formation, we derive values for the supernova rate (SNR) and star formation rate (SFR) which scales with the SFR derived based on other tracers. If we extrapolate the observed number of holes to include those that fall below our resolution limit, down to holes created by a single supernova, we find that our results are compatible with the hypothesis that HI holes result from star formation.
Ams: We study the 12C/13C isotopic ratio in the disk of the central molecular zone and in the halo to trace gas accretion toward the Galactic center region in the Milky Way. Methods: Using the IRAM 30m telescope, we observe the J=1-0 rotational transition of HCO+, HCN, HNC and their 13C isotopic substitutions in order to measure the 12C/13C isotopic ratio. We observe 9 positions selected throughout the Galactic center region, including clouds at high latitude; locations where the X1 and X2 orbits associated with the barred potential are expected to intersect; and typical Galactic center molecular clouds. Results: We find a systematically higher 12C/13C isotopic ratio (>40) toward the halo and the X1 orbits than for the Galactic center molecular clouds (20-25). Our results point out to molecular gas which has undergone a different degree of nuclear processing than that observed in the gas towards the inner Galactic center region. Conclusions: The high isotopic ratios are consistent with the accretion of the gas from the halo and from the outskirts of the Galactic disk.
We constrain the chameleonic Sunyaev--Zel'dovich (CSZ) effect in the Coma cluster from measurements of the Coma radial profile presented in the WMAP 7-year results. The CSZ effect arises from the interaction of a scalar (or pseudoscalar) particle with the cosmic microwave background in the magnetic field of galaxy clusters. We combine this radial profile data with SZ measurements towards the centre of the Coma cluster in different frequency bands, to find Delta T_{SZ,RJ}(0)=-400+/-40 microKelvin and Delta T_{CSZ}^{204 GHz}(0)=-20+/-15 microKelvin (68% CL) for the thermal SZ and CSZ effects in the cluster respectively. The central value leads to an estimate of the photon to scalar (or pseudoscalar) coupling strength of g = (5.2 - 23.8) x 10^{-10} GeV^{-1}, while the 95% confidence bound is estimated to be g < (8.7 - 39.4) x 10^{-10} GeV^{-1}.
Magnetic fields play a crucial role at all stages of the formation of low mass stars and planetary systems. In the final stages, in particular, they control the kinematics of in-falling gas from circumstellar discs, and the launching and collimation of spectacular outflows. The magnetic coupling with the disc is thought to influence the rotational evolution of the star, while magnetised stellar winds control the braking of more evolved stars and may influence the migration of planets. Magnetic reconnection events trigger energetic flares which irradiate circumstellar discs with high energy particles that influence the disc chemistry and set the initial conditions for planet formation. However, it is only in the past few years that the current generation of optical spectropolarimeters have allowed the magnetic fields of forming solar-like stars to be probed in unprecedented detail. In order to do justice to the recent extensive observational programs new theoretical models are being developed that incorporate magnetic fields with an observed degree of complexity. In this review we draw together disparate results from the classical electromagnetism, molecular physics/chemistry, and the geophysics literature, and demonstrate how they can be adapted to construct models of the large scale magnetospheres of stars and planets. We conclude by examining how the incorporation of multipolar magnetic fields into new theoretical models will drive future progress in the field through the elucidation of several observational conundrums.
Deconvolution is essential for radio interferometric imaging to produce scientific quality data because of finite sampling in the Fourier plane. Most deconvolution algorithms are based on CLEAN which uses a grid of image pixels, or clean components. A critical matter in this process is the selection of pixel size for optimal results in deconvolution. As a rule of thumb, the pixel size is chosen smaller than the resolution dictated by the interferometer. For images consisting of unresolved (or point like) sources, this approach yields optimal results. However, for sources that are not point like, in particular for partially resolved sources, the selection of right pixel size is still an open issue. In this paper, we investigate the limitations of pixelization in deconvolving extended sources. In particular, we pursue the usage of orthonormal basis functions to model extended sources yielding better results than by using clean components.
With orbital periods of the order of tens of minutes or less, the AM Canum Venaticorum stars are ultracompact, hydrogen deficient binaries with the shortest periods of any binary subclass, and are expected to be among the strongest gravitational wave sources in the sky. To date, the only known eclipsing source of this type is the P = 28 min binary SDSS J0926+3624. We present multiband, high time resolution light curves of this system, collected with WHT/ULTRACAM in 2006 and 2009. We supplement these data with additional observations made with LT/RISE, XMM_Newton and the Catalina Real-Time Transient Survey. From light curve models we determine the mass ratio to be q = M2 / M1 = 0.041 +/- 0.002 and the inclination to be 82.6 +/- 0.3 deg. We calculate the mass of the primary white dwarf to be 0.85 +/- 0.04 solar masses and the donor to be 0.035 +/- 0.003 solar masses, implying a partially degenerate state for this component. We observe superhump variations that are characteristic of an elliptical, precessing accretion disc. Our determination of the superhump period excess is in agreement with the established relationship between this parameter and the mass ratio, and is the most precise calibration of this relationship at low q. We also observe a quasi-periodic oscillation in the 2006 data, and we examine the outbursting behaviour of the system over a 4.5 year period.
The Wide Field X-ray Telescope (WFXT) will provide tens of millions of AGN, with more than 4x10^5 expected at z>3. Here we review the issues present in the identification of (large) samples of faint and high-redshift X-ray sources, and describe a statistical, powerful tool that can be applied to WFXT catalogs. The depth of associated optical and near infrared catalogs, needed for a reliable and as much complete as possible identification, are also discussed, along with the combined synergies with existing or planned facilities
The goal of this article is to summarize the current state of play in the field of radio pulsar statistics. Simply put, from the observed sample of objects from a variety of surveys with different telescopes, we wish to infer the properties of the underlying sample and to connect these with other astrophysical populations (for example supernova remnants or X-ray binaries). The main problem we need to tackle is the fact that, like many areas of science, the observed populations are often heavily biased by a variety of selection effects. After a review of the main effects relevant to radio pulsars, I discuss techniques to correct for them and summarize some of the most recent results. Perhaps the main point I would like to make in this article is that current models to describe the population are far from complete and often suffer from strong covariances between input parameters. That said, there are a number of very interesting conclusions that can be made concerning the evolution of neutron stars based on current data. While the focus of this review will be on the population of isolated Galactic pulsars, I will also briefly comment on millisecond and binary pulsars as well as the pulsar content of globular clusters and the Magellanic Clouds.
The universe, with large-scale homogeneity, is locally inhomogeneous, clustering into stars, galaxies and larger structures. Such property is described by the smoothness parameter $\alpha$ which is defined as the proportion of matter in the form of intergalactic medium. If we take consideration of the inhomogeneities in small scale, there should be modifications of the cosmological distances compared to a homogenous model. Dyer and Roeder developed a second-order ordinary differential equation (D-R equation) that describes the angular diameter distance-redshift relation for inhomogeneous cosmological models. Furthermore, we may obtain the D-R equation for observational $H(z)$ data (OHD). The density-parameter $\Omega_{\rm M}$, the state of dark energy $\omega$, and the smoothness-parameter $\alpha$ are constrained by a set of OHD in a spatially flat $\Lambda$CDM universe as well as a spatially flat XCDM universe. By using of $\chi^2$ minimization method we get $\alpha=0.81^{+0.19}_{-0.20}$ and $\Omega_{\rm M}=0.32^{+0.12}_{-0.06}$ at $1\sigma$ confidence level. If we assume a Gaussian prior of $\Omega_{\rm M}=0.26\pm0.1$, we get $\alpha=0.93^{+0.07}_{-0.19}$ and $\Omega_{\rm M}=0.31^{+0.06}_{-0.05}$. For XCDM model, $\alpha$ is constrained to $\alpha\geq0.80$ but $\omega$ is weakly constrained around -1, where $\omega$ describes the equation of the state of the dark energy ($p_{\rm X}=\omega\rho_{\rm X}$). We conclude that OHD constrains the smoothness parameter more effectively than the data of SNe Ia and compact radio sources.
The Advanced Technology Large-Aperture Space Telescope (ATLAST) is a concept for an 8-meter to 16-meter UVOIR space observatory for launch in the 2025-2030 era. ATLAST will allow astronomers to answer fundamental questions at the forefront of modern astronphysics, including "Is there life elsewhere in the Galaxy?" We present a range of science drivers that define the main performance requirements for ATLAST (8 to 16 milliarcsec angular resolution, diffraction limited imaging at 0.5 {\mu}m wavelength, minimum collecting area of 45 square meters, high sensitivity to light wavelengths from 0.1 {\mu}m to 2.4 {\mu}m, high stability in wavefront sensing and control). We will also discuss the synergy between ATLAST and other anticipated future facilities (e.g., TMT, EELT, ALMA) and the priorities for technology development that will enable the construction for a cost that is comparable to current generation observatory-class space missions.
The dynamics of expansion and large scale structure formation in the multicomponent Universe with dark energy modeled by the minimally coupled scalar field with generalized linear barotropic equation of state (EoS) are analyzed. It is shown that the past dynamics of expansion and future of the Universe -- eternal accelerated expansion or turnaround and collapse -- are completely defined by the current energy density of a scalar field and relation between its current and early EoS parameters. The clustering properties of such models of dark energy and their imprints in the power spectrum of matter density perturbations depend on the same relation and, additionally, on the "effective sound speed" of a scalar field, defined by its Lagrangian. It is concluded that barotropic scalar fields with different values of these parameters are distinquishible in principle. This gives the possibility to constrain them by confronting the theoretical predictions with the corresponding observational data. For that we have used the 7-year WMAP data on CMB anisotropies, the Union2 dataset on Supernovae Ia and SDSS DR7 data on lumious red galaxies (LRG) space distribution. Using the Markov Chain Monte Carlo technique the marginalised posterior and mean likelihood distributions are computed for the scalar fields with two different Lagrangians: Klein-Gordon and Dirac-Born-Infeld ones. The properties of such scalar field models of dark energy with best fitting parameters and uncertainties of their determination are also analyzed in the paper.
The LMC star, SSTISAGE1C J050756.44-703453.9, was first noticed during a survey of EROS-2 lightcurves for stars with large irregular brightness variations typical of the R Coronae Borealis (RCB) class. However, the visible spectrum showing emission lines including the Balmer and Paschen series as well as many Fe II lines is emphatically not that of an RCB star. This star has all of the characteristics of a typical UX Ori star. It has a spectral type of approximately A2 and has excited an H II region in its vicinity. However, if it is an LMC member, then it is very luminous for a Herbig Ae/Be star. It shows irregular drops in brightness of up to 2 mag, and displays the reddening and "blueing" typical of this class of stars. Its spectrum, showing a combination of emission and absorption lines, is typical of a UX Ori star that is in a decline caused by obscuration from the circumstellar dust. SSTISAGE1C J050756.44-703453.9 has a strong IR excess and significant emission is present out to 500 micron. Monte Carlo radiative transfer modeling of the SED requires that SSTISAGE1C J050756.44-703453.9 has both a dusty disk as well as a large extended diffuse envelope to fit both the mid- and far-IR dust emission. This star is a new member of the UX Ori subclass of the Herbig Ae/Be stars and only the second such star to be discovered in the LMC.
I present a study of two Herbig Ae stars that are in completely different evolutionary stages: V892 Tau and PV Cep. Using sub arc-second interferometric observations obtained with the Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-wave Astronomy (CARMA) at the 1.3 and 2.7 mm wavelengths, I have for the first time resolved their disks. I deduce that the 5 Myr old V892 Tau has a low dust opacity index beta=1.1 and a disk mass of 0.03 Solar mass. These values correspond to the growth of its dust into large up to centimeters size structures. In contrast, the very young (<< 1Myr) PV Cep has a quite high opacity index beta =1.75 and a more massive disk 0.8 Solar mass. PV Cep has the youngest resolved disk around any Herbig Ae star. Unlike the youngest T Tauri and Class 0 stars, which contain large and processed grains, the young Herbig Ae star, PV Cep, disk contains ISM-like unprocessed dust. I also present high spatial resolution interferometric observations of the PV Cep outflow. The outflow inclination is consistent with the orientation of the known Herbig-Haro flow in that region, HH315.
Spectroscopic and photometric data for likely member stars of five Galactic globular clusters (M 3, M 53, M 71, M 92, and NGC 5053) and three open clusters (M 35, NGC 2158, and NGC 6791) are processed by the current version of the SEGUE Stellar Parameter Pipeline (SSPP), in order to determine estimates of metallicities and radial velocities for the clusters. These results are then compared to values from the literature. We find that the mean metallicity (<[Fe/H]>) and mean radial velocity (<RV>) estimates for each cluster are almost all within 2{\sigma} of the adopted literature values; most are within 1{\sigma}. We also demonstrate that the new version of the SSPP achieves small, but noteworthy, improvements in <[Fe/H]> estimates at the extrema of the cluster metallicity range, as compared to a previous version of the pipeline software. These results provide additional confidence in the application of the SSPP for studies of the abundances and kinematics of stellar populations in the Galaxy.
Certain covariant theories of the modified Newtonian dynamics paradigm seem to require an additional hot dark matter (HDM) component - either in form of heavy ordinary neutrinos or more recently light sterile neutrinos (SNs) with a mass around 11eV - to be relieved of problems ranging from cosmological scales down to intermediate ones relevant for galaxy clusters. Here we suggest using gravitational lensing by galaxy clusters to test such a "marriage" of neutrino HDM and modified gravity, adopting the framework of tensor-vector-scalar theory (TeVeS). Unlike conventional cold dark matter (CDM), such HDM is subject to strong phase-space constraints, which allows to check cluster lens models inferred within the modified framework for consistency. Since the considered HDM particles cannot collapse into arbitrarily dense clumps and only form structures well above the galactic scale, systems which indicate the need for dark substructure are of particular interest. As a first example, we study the cluster lens Abell 2390 and its impressive straight arc with help of numerical simulations. Based on our results, we outline a general and systematic approach to model cluster lenses in TeVeS which significantly reduces the calculation complexity. We further consider a simple bimodal lens configuration, capable of producing the straight arc, to demonstrate our approach. We find that such a model is marginally consistent with the hypothesis of 11eV SNs. Future work including more detailed and realistic lens models may further constrain the necessary SN distribution and help to conclusively assess this point. Cluster lenses could therefore provide an interesting discriminator between CDM and such modified gravity scenarios supplemented by SNs or other choices of HDM.
Particles with TeV mass and strong self-interactions generically have the right annihilation cross section to explain an observed excess of cosmic electrons and positrons if the end-product of the annihilation is charged leptons. We present an explicit model of strongly-coupled TeV-scale dark matter whose relic abundance related to the matter-antimatter asymmetry of the observed universe. The B - L asymmetry of the standard model is transfered to the dark sector by an operator carrying standard model lepton number. Lepton number violation naturally induces dark matter particle-antiparticle oscillations at late times, allowing dark matter-antimatter annihilations today. The dark matter annihilates into lighter strongly-interacting particles in the dark sector that decay to leptons via the transfer operator. The strong dynamics in the dark sector is at the weak scale due to supersymmetry breaking. The correct dark matter abundance is automatically obtained for natural values of dimensionless parameters, analogous to the situation for conventional WIMPs.
We present and compare different numerical schemes for the integration of the variational equations of autonomous Hamiltonian systems whose kinetic energy is quadratic in the generalized momenta and whose potential is a function of the generalized positions. We apply these techniques to Hamiltonian systems of various degrees of freedom, and investigate their efficiency in accurately reproducing well-known properties of chaos indicators like the Lyapunov Characteristic Exponents (LCEs) and the Generalized Alignment Indices (GALIs). We find that the best numerical performance is exhibited by the \textit{`tangent map (TM) method'}, a scheme based on symplectic integration techniques which proves to be optimal in speed and accuracy. According to this method, a symplectic integrator is used to approximate the solution of the Hamilton's equations of motion by the repeated action of a symplectic map $S$, while the corresponding tangent map $TS$, is used for the integration of the variational equations. A simple and systematic technique to construct $TS$ is also presented.
We numerically solve the mass-less test scalar field equation on the space-time background of boson stars and black holes. In order to do so, we use a numerical domain that contains future null infinity. We achieve this construction using a scri-fixing conformal compactification technique based on hyperboloidal constant mean curvature foliations of the space-time and solve the conformally invariant wave equation. We present two results: the scalar field shows oscillations of the quasi- normal-mode type found for black holes only for boson star configurations that are compact, and no signs of tail decay is found in the parameter space we explored. Even though our results do not correspond to the master equation of perturbations of boson star solutions, they indicate that the parameter space of boson stars as black hole mimickers is restricted to compact configurations.
Theoretical studies in gravitational wave astronomy often require the calculation of Fisher Information Matrices and Likelihood functions, which in a direct approach entail the costly step of computing gravitational waveforms. Here I describe an alternative technique that sidesteps the need to compute full waveforms, resulting in significant computational savings. I describe how related techniques can be used to speed up Bayesian inference applied to real gravitational wave data.
We explore dark matter mechanisms that can simultaneously explain the galactic 511 keV gamma rays observed by INTEGRAL/SPI, the DAMA/LIBRA annual modulation, and the excess of low-recoil dark matter candidates observed by CoGeNT. It requires three nearly degenerate states of dark matter in the 4-7 GeV mass range, with splittings respectively of order an MeV and a few keV. The top two states have the small mass gap and transitions between them, either exothermic or endothermic, can account for direct detections. Decays from one of the top states to the ground state produce low-energy positrons in the galaxy whose associated 511 keV gamma rays are seen by INTEGRAL. This decay can happen spontaneously, if the excited state is metastable (longer-lived than the age of the universe), or it can be triggered by inelastic scattering of the metastable states into the shorter-lived ones. We focus on a simple model where the DM is a triplet of an SU(2) hidden sector gauge symmetry, broken at the scale of a few GeV, giving masses of order \lsim 1 GeV to the dark gauge bosons, which mix kinetically with the standard model hypercharge. The purely decaying scenario can give the observed angular dependence of the 511 keV signal with no positron diffusion, while the inelastic scattering mechanism requires transport of the positrons over distances \sim 1 kpc before annihilating. We note that an x-ray line of several keV in energy, due to single-photon decays involving the top DM states, could provide an additional component to the diffuse x-ray background. The model is testable by proposed low-energy fixed target experiments.
A light Higgs boson is preferred by $M_W$ and $m_t$ measurements. A complex scalar singlet addition to the Standard Model allows a better fit to these measurements through a new light singlet dominated state. It then predicts a light Dark Matter (DM) particle that can explain the signals of DM scattering from nuclei in the CoGeNT and DAMA/LIBRA experiments. Annihilations of this DM in the galactic halo, $AA\rightarrow b\bar{b}, c\bar{c}, \tau^+\tau^-$, lead to gamma rays that naturally improve a fit to the Fermi Large Area Telescope data in the central galactic regions. The associated light neutral Higgs boson may also be discovered at the Large Hadron Collider.
The properties of neutron star matter above nuclear density are not precisely known. Gravitational waves emitted from binary neutron stars during their late stages of inspiral and merger contain imprints of the neutron-star equation of state. Measuring departures from the point-particle limit of the late inspiral waveform allows one to measure properties of the equation of state via gravitational wave observations. This and a companion talk by J. S. Read reports a comparison of numerical waveforms from simulations of inspiraling neutron-star binaries, computed for equations of state with varying stiffness. We calculate the signal strength of the difference between waveforms for various commissioned and proposed interferometric gravitational wave detectors and show that observations at frequencies around 1 kHz will be able to measure a compactness parameter and constrain the possible neutron-star equations of state.
We present a comparison of different numerical techniques for the integration of variational equations. The methods presented can be applied to any autonomous Hamiltonian system whose kinetic energy is quadratic in the generalized momenta, and whose potential is a function of the generalized positions. We apply the various techniques to the well-known H\'enon-Heiles system, and use the Smaller Alignment Index (SALI) method of chaos detection to evaluate the percentage of its chaotic orbits. The accuracy and the speed of the integration schemes in evaluating this percentage are used to investigate the numerical efficiency of the various techniques.
We study the bounds on tensor wave in a class of twisted inflation models where $D(4+2k)$-branes are wrapped on cycles in the compact manifold and wrap the KK-direction in the corresponding effective field theory. While the lower bound is found to be analogous to that in Type IIB models of brane inflation, the upper bound turns out to be significantly different. This is argued for a range of values for the parameter $g_s M$ satisfying the self-consistency relation and the WMAP data. Further, we observe that the wrapped $D8$-brane appears to be the most attractive from a cosmological perspective.
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Using a generalized self-similar secondary infall model, which accounts for tidal torques acting on the halo, we analyze the velocity profiles of halos in order to gain intuition for N-body simulation results. We analytically calculate the asymptotic behavior of the internal radial and tangential kinetic energy profiles in different radial regimes. We then numerically compute the velocity anisotropy and pseudo-phase-space density profiles and compare them to recent N-body simulations. For cosmological initial conditions, we find both numerically and analytically that the anisotropy profile asymptotes at small radii to a constant set by model parameters. It rises on intermediate scales as the velocity dispersion becomes more radially dominated and then drops off at radii larger than the virial radius where the radial velocity dispersion vanishes in our model. The pseudo-phase-space density is universal on intermediate and large scales. However, its asymptotic slope on small scales depends on the halo mass and on how mass shells are torqued after turnaround. The results largely confirm N-body simulations but show some differences that are likely due to our assumption of a one-dimensional phase space manifold.
The observation of a broad excess of sub-TeV cosmic rays compatible with the direction of the heliospheric tail (Nagashima et al. 1998) and the discovery of two significant localized excess regions of multi-TeV cosmic rays by the MILAGRO collaboration (Abdo et al. 2008), also from the same region of the sky, have raised questions on their origin. In particular, the coincidence of the most significant localized region with the direction of the heliospheric tail and the small angular scale of the observed anisotropy (~ 10deg) is suggestive a local origin and of a possible connection to the low energy broad excess. Cosmic ray acceleration from magnetic reconnection in the magnetotail is proposed as a possible source of the energetic particles.
The power of a relativistic jet depends on the number of leptons and protons carried by the jet itself. We have reasons to believe that powerful gamma-ray flat spectrum radio sources emit most of their radiation where radiative cooling is severe. This helps to find the minimum number of emitting leptons needed to explain the radiation we see. The number of protons is more uncertain. If there is one proton per electron, they dominate the jet power, but they could be unimportant if the emission is due to electron-positron pairs. In this case the total jet power could be much smaller. However, if the gamma-ray flux is due to inverse Compton scattering with seed photons produced outside the jet, the radiation is anisotropic also in the comoving frame, making the jet to recoil. This Compton rocket effect is strong for light, electron-positron jets, and negligible for heavy, proton dominated jets. No significant deceleration, required by fast superluminal motion, requires a minimum number of protons per lepton, and thus a minimum jet power. We apply these ideas to the blazar 3C 454.3, to find a robust lower limit to its total jet power: if the viewing angle theta_v ~ 1/Gamma the jet power is larger than the accretion luminosity L_d for any bulk Lorentz factor Gamma. For theta_v =0, instead, the minimum jet power can be smaller than L_d for Gamma<25. No more than ~10 pairs per proton are allowed.
We present L' band (3.8 $\mu m$) MMT/Clio high-contrast imaging data for the nearby star GJ 758, which was recently reported by Thalmann et al. (2009) to have one -- possibly two-- faint comoving companions (GJ 758B and ``C", respectively). GJ 758B is detected in two distinct datasets. Additionally, we report a \textit{possible} detection of the object identified by Thalmann et al as ``GJ 758C" in our more sensitive dataset, though it is likely a residual speckle. However, if it is the same object as that reported by Thalmann et al. it cannot be a companion in a bound orbit. GJ 758B has a H-L' color redder than nearly all known L--T8 dwarfs. Based on comparisons with the COND evolutionary models, GJ 758B has T$_{e}$ $\sim$ 560 K$^{^{+150 K}_{-90K}}$ and a mass ranging from $\sim$ 10--20 M$_{J}$ if it is $\sim$ 1 Gyr old to $\sim$ 25--40 M$_{J}$ if it is 8.7 Gyr old. GJ 758B is likely in a highly eccentric orbit, e $\sim$ 0.73$^{^{+0.12}_{-0.21}}$, with a semimajor axis of $\sim$ 44 AU$^{^{+32 AU}_{-14 AU}}$. Though GJ 758B is sometimes discussed within the context of exoplanet direct imaging, its mass is likely greater than the deuterium-burning limit and its formation may resemble that of binary stars rather than that of jovian-mass planets.
In this paper we examine properties of the variable source Sgr A* in the near-infrared (NIR) using a very extensive Ks-band data set from NACO/VLT observations taken 2004 to 2009. We investigate the variability of Sgr A* with two different photometric methods and analyze its flux distribution. We find Sgr A* is continuously variable (meaning the source is always `on' and varying) in the near-infrared, and there also appears to be some medium-term variability on timescales of weeks to months. The flux distribution can be described by a lognormal distribution at low intrinsic fluxes (less than about 5 mJy, dereddened with A_{Ks}=2.5). The lognormal distribution has a median flux of ~1.6 mJy, but above 5 mJy the flux distribution is significantly flatter (high flux events are more common) than expected for the extrapolation of the lognormal distribution to high fluxes. We make a general identification of the low level emission above 5 mJy as flaring emission and of the low level emission as the quiescent state. We also report here the brightest Ks-band flare ever observed (from August 5th, 2008) which reached an intrinsic Ks-band flux of 27.5 mJy (m_{Ks}=13.5). This flare was a factor 27 increase over the median flux of Sgr A*, close to double the brightness of the star S2 in the Ks-band, and 40% brighter than the next brightest flare ever observed from Sgr A*.
Diffusive nuclear burning of H by an underlying material capable of capturing protons can readily consume H from the surface of neutron stars (NSs) during their early cooling history. In the absence of subsequent accretion, it will be depleted from the photosphere. We now extend diffusive nuclear burning to He, motivated by the recent observation by Ho \& Heinke of a carbon atmosphere on the NS in the Cassiopeia A supernova remnant. We calculate the equilibrium structure of He on an underlying $\alpha$ capturing material, accounting for thermal, mass defect, and Coulomb corrections on the stratification of material with the same zeroth order $\mu_e = A/Z$. We show that Coulomb corrections dominate over thermal and mass defect corrections in the highly degenerate part of the envelope. We also show that the bulk of the He sits deep in the envelope rather than near the surface. Thus, even if the photospheric He abundance is low, the total He column could be substantially larger than the photospheric column, which may have implications for rapid surface evolution ($\approx 1$ yr timescales) of neutron stars. When nuclear reactions are taken into account, we find that for base temperatures $\gtrsim 1.6 \times 10^8$ K, He is readily captured onto C. As these high temperatures are present during the early stages of NS evolution, we expect that the primordial He is completely depleted from the NS surface like the case for primordial H. We also find that magnetic fields $\lesssim 10^{12}$ G do not affect our conclusions. Armed with the results of this work and our prior efforts, we expect that primordial H and He are depleted, and so any observed H or He on the surfaces of these NS must be due to subsequent accretion (with or without spallation). If this subsequent accretion can be prevented, the underlying mid-Z material would be exposed.
We show that by changing a single non-dimensional number, the thermal Rossby number, global atmospheric simulations with only axisymmetric forcing pass from an Earth-like atmosphere to a superrotating atmosphere that more resembles the atmospheres of Venus or Titan. The transition to superrotation occurs under conditions in which equatorward-propagating Rossby waves generated by baroclinic instability at intermediate and high latitudes are suppressed, which will occur when the deformation radius exceeds the planetary radius. At large thermal Rossby numbers following an initial, nearly axisymmetric phase, a global baroclinic wave of zonal wavenumber one generated by mixed barotropic-baroclinic instability dominates the eddy flux of zonal momentum. The global wave converges eastward zonal momentum to the equator and deposits westward momentum at intermediate latitudes during spinup and before superrotation emerges, and the baroclinic instability ceases once superrotation is established. A global barotropic mode of zonal wavenumber one generated by a mix of high- and low-latitude barotropic instability is responsible for maintaining superrotation in the statistically steady state. At intermediate thermal Rossby numbers, momentum flux by the global baroclinic mode is subdominant relative to smaller baroclinic modes, and thus strong superrotation does not develop.
We present an application of the da Cunha, Charlot & Elbaz (2008) model of the spectral energy distribution (SEDs) of galaxies from the ultraviolet to far-infrared to a small pilot sample of purely star-forming Ultra-Luminous Infrared Galaxies (ULIRGs). We interpret the observed SEDs of 16 ULIRGs using this physically-motivated model which accounts for the emission of stellar populations from the ultraviolet to the near-infrared and for the attenuation by dust in two components: an optically-thick starburst component and the diffuse ISM. The infrared emission is computed by assuming that all the energy absorbed by dust in these components is re-radiated at mid- and far-infrared wavelengths. This model allows us to derive statistically physical properties including star formation rates, stellar masses, as well as temperatures and masses of different dust components and plausible star formation histories. We find that, although the ultraviolet to near-infrared emission represents only a small fraction of the total power radiated by ULIRGs, observations in this wavelength range are important to understand the properties of the stellar populations and dust attenuation in the diffuse ISM of these galaxies. Furthermore, our analysis indicates that the use of mid-infrared spectroscopy from the Infrared Spectrograph on the Spitzer Space Telescope is crucial to obtain realistic estimates of the extinction to the central energy source, mainly via the depth of the 9.7-micron silicate feature, and thus accurately constrain the total energy balance. Our findings are consistent with the notion that, in the local Universe, the physical properties of ULIRGs are fundamentally different from those of galaxies with lower infrared luminosities and that local ULIRGs are the result of merger-induced starbursts. [abridged]
We report the discovery of 1RXS J173006.4+033813, a polar cataclysmic variable with a period of 120.21 min. The white dwarf primary has a magnetic field of B = 42+6-5 MG, and the secondary is a M3 dwarf. The system shows highly symmetric double peaked photometric modulation in the active state as well as in quiescence. These arise from a combination of cyclotron beaming and ellipsoidal modulation. The projected orbital velocity of the secondary is K2 = 390+-4 km/s. We place an upper limit of 830+-65 pc on the distance.
The asymmetric emission of gravitational waves produced during the coalescence of a massive black hole (MBH) binary imparts a velocity "kick" to the system that can displace the hole from the center of its host. Here we study the trajectories and observability of MBHs recoiling in three (one major, two minor) gas-rich galaxy merger remnants that were previously simulated at high resolution, and in which the pairing of the MBHs had been shown to be successful. We run new simulations of MBHs recoiling in the major merger remnant with Mach numbers in the range 1<M<6 km/s, and use simulation data to construct a semi-analytical model for the orbital evolution of MBHs in gas-rich systems. We show that: 1) in major merger remnants the energy deposited by the moving hole into the rotationally supported, turbulent medium makes a negligible contribution to the thermodynamics of the gas. This contribution is more significant in minor merger remnants, potentially allowing for electromagnetic signatures in this case; 2) in major mergers, the drag from high-density gas allows even MBHs with kick velocities of 1200 km/s to remain within 1 kpc from the host's center; 3) kinematically offset nuclei can be observed for timescales of a few Myr in major merger remnants in the case of recoil velocities in the range 700-1000 km/s; 4) in minor mergers remnants the effect of gas drag is weaker, and MBHs with recoil speeds in the range 300-600 km/s will wander through the host halo and may be detectable as spatially-offset active nuclei.
Monochromatic gamma-rays are thought to be the smoking gun signal for identifying the dark matter annihilation. However, the flux of monochromatic gamma-rays is usually suppressed by the virtual quantum effects since dark matter should be neutral and does not couple with gamma-rays directly. In the work we study the detection strategy of the monochromatic gamma-rays in a future space-based detector. The monochromatic gamma-ray flux is calculated by assuming supersymmetric neutralino as a typical dark matter candidate. We discuss both the detection focusing on the Galactic center and in a scan mode which detects gamma-rays from the whole Galactic halo are compared. The detector performance for the purpose of monochromatic gamma-rays detection, with different energy and angular resolution, field of view, background rejection efficiencies, is carefully studied with both analytical and fast Monte-Carlo method.
Simple closed-box (CB) models of chemical evolution are extended on two respects: (i) simple closed-(box+reservoir) (CBR) models allowing gas outflow from the box into the reservoir or gas inflow into the box from the reservoir with same composition as the preexisting gas and rate proportional to the star formation rate, and (ii) simple multistage closed-(box+reservoir) (MCBR) models allowing different stages of evolution characterized by different inflow or outflow rates. The stellar initial mass function is assumed to be universal, and mass conservation holds for the whole system (box+reservoir) while it is violated for each subsystem (box and reservoir). The theoretical differential oxygen abundance distribution (TDOD) predicted by the model, under the assumption of instantaneous recycling, is a continuous broken line, where different slopes are related to different inflow rates. For an application of the model (a) a fictitious sample is built up from two distinct samples and taken as representative of the inner Galactic halo, and (b) different [O/H]-[Fe/H] empirical relations are deduced from five different samples related to different methods, and two of them are selected for determining the empirical differential oxygen abundance distribution (EDOD) with regard to the fictitious sample. In both cases the EDOD is represented, to an acceptable extent, as a continuous broken line. If the inner halo and the metal-poor bulge (after the inflow stage) are represented by the box and the reservoir, respectively, then the inner halo fractional mass (normalized to the halo) is comparable with, or exceeds by a factor up to 4, the metal-poor bulge fractional mass (normalized to the bulge), for current estimates of the halo-to-bulge mass ratio of about 0.05-0.10.
Using two archival XMM-Newton observations, we identify strong X-ray flux variations in NGC 6946 X-1 indicating it is the most variable ultraluminous X-ray source (ULX) on mHz time scales known so far. The 1-10 keV lightcurve exhibits variability with a fractional rms amplitude of 60% integrated in the frequency range of 1-100 mHz. The power spectral density of the source shows a flat-topped spectrum that breaks at about 3 mHz with possible quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) near 8.5 mHz. Black hole binaries usually produce strong fast variability in the hard or intermediate state. The energy spectrum of NGC 6946 X-1 is dominated by two components, a 0.18~keV thermal disk and a power law with a photon index of ~2.2, which is consistent with the intermediate state. The characteristic time scales of the X-ray emission suggests that the ULX may contain a black hole with a mass on the order of 10^3.
The Rossby wave instability in astrophysical disks is as a potentially important mechanism for driving angular momentum transport in disks. We aim to understand this instability in an approximate three-dimensional disk model environment which we assume to be a single homentropic annular layer we analyze using disk shallow-water theory. We consider the normal mode stability analysis of two kinds of radial profiles of the mean potential vorticity: The first type is a single step and the second kind is a symmetrical step of finite width describing either a localized depression or peak of the mean potential vorticity. For single potential vorticity steps we find there is no instability. There is no instability when the symmetric step is a localized peak. However, the Rossby wave instability occurs when the symmetrical step profile is a depression, which, in turn, corresponds to localized peaks in the mean enthalpy profile. This is in qualitative agreement with previous two-dimensional investigations of the instability. For all potential vorticity depressions, instability occurs for regions narrower than some maximum radial length scale. We interpret the instability as resulting from the interaction of at least two Rossby edgewaves. We identify the Rossby wave instability in the restricted three-dimensional framework of disk shallow water theory. Additional examinations of generalized barotropic flows are needed. Viewing disk vortical instabilities from the conceptual perspective of interacting edgewaves can be useful.
What do advanced Josephson junction technologies, SQUIDs, coupled Josephson qubits and related superconducting devices used in nanotechnology have in common with the problem of dark matter in the early universe? A lot more than might seem obvious at first sight, as will be shown in this letter. One of the major candidates for dark matter in the universe is the axion. The equation of motion of the axion misalignment angle and that of the phase difference in a Josephson junction are identical if the symbols in the mathematical equations are properly re-interpreted. This allows for analogue simulation of early-universe physics using superconducting electronic devices such as SQUIDs and Josephson junctions. It also allows for new experimental setups that test axionic interaction strengths in a Josephson junction environment, similar in nature to recent experiments that test for quantum entanglement of two coupled Josephson qubits. The parameter values relevant for early-universe axion cosmology are accessible with present day's achievements in nanotechnology.
We investigate the possibility that the Moon develops an electric potential originating from the impinging particles on the Moon from cosmic rays and solar wind. The investigation includes all experimental data of the flux of charged particle for energies higher than 865 eV available from Apollo missions, satellites and balloon experiments in publications or from the Internet in 2008. A fictive electric potential of the Moon was calculated if the Moon material is an isolator for the Moon solar side and lee side,if the Moon material is a conductor for the whole Moon surface, and if the Moon is located in the geomagnetic tail of the Earth. The calculation for these four cases results in positive electric potentials of the Moon of 1789 V, 261 MV, 1789 V, and 96 MV. This is originated from the unequal distribution of positive and negative charges in the plasma of the cosmic rays and solar wind impinging on the Moon. As the cosmic rays arrive from deep space, these findings would imply a charge imbalance in the cosmos. This is in distinct conflict with a charge neutral universe. We suggest searching for a so far not measured low energy negative flux of charged particles in the cosmos or an interaction between charged objects in the universe with the vacuum.
Studying molecular gas properties in merging galaxies gives important clues
to the onset and evolution of interaction-triggered starbursts. The CO/13CO 1-0
line intensity ratio can be used as a tracer of how dynamics and star formation
processes impact the gas properties. The Medusa (NGC~4194) merger is
particularly interesting to study since its LFIR/LCO ratio rivals that of
ultraluminous galaxies (ULIRGs), despite the comparatively modest luminosity,
indicating an exceptionally high star formation efficiency (SFE) in the Medusa
merger.
Interferometric OVRO observations of CO and 13CO 1-0 in the Medusa show the
CO/13CO intensity ratio increases from normal, quiescent values (7-10) in the
outer parts (r>2 kpc) of the galaxy to high (16 to >40) values in the central
(r<1 kpc) starburst region. In the centre there is an east-west gradient where
the line ratio changes by more than a factor of three over 5" (945 pc). The
integrated 13CO emission peaks in the north-western starburst region while the
central CO emission is strongly associated with the prominent crossing
dust-lane. We discuss the central east-west gradient in the context of gas
properties in the starburst and the central dust lane. We suggest that the
central gradient is mainly caused by diffuse gas in the dust lane. In this
scenario, the actual molecular mass distribution is better traced by the 13CO
1-0 emission than the CO. The possibilities of temperature and abundance
gradients are also discussed. We compare the central gas properties of the
Medusa to those of other minor mergers and suggest that the extreme and
transient phase of the Medusa star formation activity has similar traits to
those of high-redshift galaxies.
Based on long-slit infrared spectroscopic observations, it has been suggested
that half of the carbon monoxide present in the atmosphere of comet C/1995 O1
(Hale-Bopp) close to perihelion was released by a distributed source in the
coma, whose nature (dust or gas) remains unidentified. We re-assess the origin
of CO in Hale-Bopp's coma from millimeter interferometric data and a
re-analysis of the IR lines.
Simultaneous observations of the CO J(1-0) (115 GHz) and J(2-1) (230 GHz)
lines were undertaken with the IRAM interferometer in single-dish and
interferometric modes. The diversity of angular resolutions (from 1700 to 42000
km diameter at the comet) is suitable to study the radial distribution of CO
and detect the extended source observed in the infrared. We used excitation and
radiative transfer models to simulate the observations. Various CO density
distributions were considered, including 3D time-dependent hydrodynamical
simulations which reproduce a CO rotating jet. The CO J(1-0) and J(2-1)
observations can be consistently explained by a nuclear production of CO.
Composite 50:50 nuclear/extended productions with characteristic scale lengths
of CO parent L_p > 1500 km are rejected.
Based on similar radiation transfer calculations, we show that the CO v = 1-0
ro-vibrational lines observed in comet Hale-Bopp at heliocentric distances less
than 1.5 AU are severely optically thick. The broad extent of the CO brightness
distribution in the infrared is mainly due to optical depth effects. Additional
factors can be found in the complex structure of the CO coma, and non-ideal
slit positioning caused by the anisotropy of dust IR emission.
We conclude that both CO millimeter and infrared lines do not provide
compelling evidence for a distributed source of CO in Hale-Bopp's atmosphere.
We used a sample of 11 nearby relaxed clusters of galaxies observed with the X-ray instruments XMM-Newton (EPIC) pn and MOS, Chandra ACIS-S and ACIS-I and BeppoSAX MECS to examine the cross-calibration of the energy dependence and normalisation of the effective area of these instruments as of December 2009. We also examined the Fe XXV/XXVI line ratio temperature measurement method for the pn and MOS. We performed X-ray spectral analysis on the XMM-Newton and Chandra data for a sample of 11 clusters. We obtained the information for BeppoSAX from DeGrandi & Molendi (2002). We compared the spectroscopic results obtained with different instruments for the same clusters in order to examine possible systematic calibration effects between the instruments. We did not detect any significant systematic differences between the temperatures derived in the 2-7 keV band using the different instruments. Also, the EPIC temperatures derived from the bremsstrahlung continuum agreed with those obtained from the Fe XXV/XXVI emission line ratio, implying that the energy dependence of the hard band effective area of the above instruments is accurately calibrated. On the other hand, the hard band EPIC/ACIS fluxes disagreed by 5-10% (i.e. at 6-25 sigma level) which indicates a similar level of uncertainty in the normalisations of the effective areas of these instruments in the 2--7 keV band. In the soft energy band (0.5-2.0 keV) there are greater cross-calibration differences between EPIC and ACIS. Due to the high statistical weight of the soft band data, the 0.5-7.0 keV band temperature measurements of clusters of galaxies with EPIC or ACIS are uncertain by ~10-15% on average.
The "Extreme starbursts in the local universe" workshop was held at the Insituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia in Granada, Spain on 21-25 June 2010. Bearing in mind the advent of a new generation of facilities such as JWST, Herschel, ALMA, eVLA and eMerlin, the aim of the workshop was to bring together observers and theorists to review the latest results. The purpose of the workshop was to address the following issues: what are the main modes of triggering extreme starbursts in the local Universe? How efficiently are stars formed in extreme starbursts? What are the star formation histories of local starburst galaxies? How well do the theoretical simulations model the observations? What can we learn about starbursts in the distant Universe through studies of their local counterparts? How important is the role of extreme starbursts in the hierarchical assembly of galaxies? How are extreme starbursts related to the triggering of AGN in the nuclei of galaxies? Overall, 41 talks and 4 posters with their corresponding 10 minutes short talks were presented during the workshop. In addition, the workshop was designed with emphasis on discussions, and therefore, there were 6 discussion sessions of up to one hour during the workshop. Here is presented a summary of the purposes of the workshop as well as a compilation of the abstracts corresponding to each of the presentations. The summary and conclusions of the workshop along with a description of the future prospects by Sylvain Veilleux can be found in the last section of this document. A photo of the assistants is included.
We study the expected properties of starbursts in order to provide the point of reference for interpretation of high-z galaxy surveys and of very metal-poor galaxies. We concentrate mainly on the UV characteristics such as the ionizing spectra, the UV continuum, the Ly alpha and HeII 1640 A line and two-photon continuum emission. We use evolutionary synthesis models covering metallicities from Pop III to solar and a wide range of IMFs. We also combine the synthetic SEDs with the CLOUDY photoionization code for more accurate predictions of nebular emission, and to study possible departures from case B assumed in the synthesis models. The ionizing fluxes, UV continuum properties, and predicted Ly alpha and HeII 1640 A line strengths are presented for synthesis models covering a wider range of parameter space than our earlier calculations. Strong departures from case B predictions are obtained for Ly alpha and two-photon continuum at low metallicities. At low nebular densities both are shown to be enhanced proportionally to the mean energy carried by the Lyman continuum photons emitted by the ionizing source. Larger Ly alpha equivalent widths are therefore predicted at low metallicity. The HeII 1640 A line can be weaker than case B predicts (in terms of flux as well as the equivalent width) due to its ionization parameter dependence and to the enhanced underlying two-photon continuum. Our results have implications for the interpretation of star-forming metal-poor and/or high redshift galaxies, for galaxies among the Ly alpha emitters (LAE) and Lyman Break galaxy (LBG) populations, and for searches of Population III stars in the distant Universe.
The flux of gamma rays with energies >100MeV is dominated by diffuse emission from CRs illuminating the ISM of our Galaxy through the processes of Bremsstrahlung, pion production and decay, and inverse-Compton scattering. The study of this diffuse emission provides insight into the origin and transport of CRs. We searched for gamma-ray emission from the SMC in order to derive constraints on the CR population and transport in an external system with properties different from the Milky Way. We analysed the first 17 months of continuous all-sky observations by the Large Area Telescope of the Fermi mission to determine the spatial distribution, flux and spectrum of the gamma-ray emission from the SMC. We also used past radio synchrotron observations of the SMC to study the population of CR electrons specifically. We obtained the first detection of the SMC in high-energy gamma rays, with an integrated >100MeV flux of (3.7 +/-0.7) x10e-8 ph/cm2/s, with additional systematic uncertainty of <16%. The emission is steady and from an extended source ~3{\deg} in size. It is not clearly correlated with the distribution of massive stars or neutral gas, nor with known pulsars or SNRs, but a certain correlation with supergiant shells is observed. The observed flux implies an upper limit on the average CR nuclei density in the SMC of ~15% of the value measured locally in the Milky Way. The population of high-energy pulsars of the SMC may account for a substantial fraction of the gamma-ray flux, which would make the inferred CR nuclei density even lower. The average density of CR electrons derived from radio synchrotron observations is consistent with the same reduction factor but the uncertainties are large. From our current knowledge of the SMC, such a low CR density does not seem to be due to a lower rate of CR injection and rather indicates a smaller CR confinement volume characteristic size.
Binary radio pulsars are generally believed to have been spun up to millisecond periods (i.e. recycling) via mass accretion from their donor stars, and they are the descendants of neutron star low-mass X-ray binaries. However, some studies indicate that the formation of pulsars from the accretion-induced collapse (AIC) of accreting white dwarfs (WDs) cannot be excluded. In this work, we use a population synthesis code to examine if the AIC channel can produce eccentric binary millisecond pulsars (BMSPs) in the Galaxy. Our simulated results indicate that, only when the natal MSPs receive a relatively strong kick ($\ga100\rm km\,s^{-1}$), can the AIC channel produce $\sim 10-180$ eccentric ($e>0.1$) BMSPs in the Galaxy, most of which are accompanied by a Helium star. Such a kick seems to be highly unlikely in the conventional AIC process, hence the probability of forming eccentric BMSPs via the AIC channel can be ruled out. Even if a high kick is allowed, the AIC channel cannot produce eccentric BMSPs with an orbital period of $\ga 20$ days. Therefore, we propose that the peculiar BMSP PSR J1903+0327 cannot be formed by the AIC channel. However, the AIC evolutionary channel may produce some fraction of isolated millisecond pulsars, and even sub-millisecond pulsars if they really exist.
We determine the entire electrical current density vector in a geometrical 3D volume of the inner penumbra of a sunspot from an inversion of spectropolarimetric data obtained with Hinode/SP. Significant currents are seen to wrap around the hotter, more elevated regions with lower and more horizontal magnetic field that harbor strong upflows and radial outflows (the intraspines). The horizontal component of the current density vector is 3-4 times larger than the vertical; nearly all previous studies only obtain the vertical component and thus strongly underestimate the current density. The current density and the magnetic field vectors form an angle of about 20 degrees. The plasma beta at the 0 km level is larger than 1 in the intraspines and is one order of magnitude lower in the background component of the penumbra (spines). At the 200 km level, the plasma beta is below 0.3 nearly everywhere. The plasma beta surface as well as the surface optical depth unity are very corrugated. At the borders of intraspines and inside, the magnetic field is not force-free at deeper layers and nearly force free at the top layers. The magnetic field of the spines is close to being potential everywhere. The dissipated ohmic energy is five orders of magnitudes smaller than the solar energy flux and thus negligible for the energy balance of the penumbra.
Massive stars and their supernovae are prominent sources of radioactive isotopes, the observations of which thus can help to improve our astrophysical models of those. Our understanding of stellar evolution and the final explosive endpoints such as supernovae or hypernovae or gamma-ray bursts relies on the combination of magneto-hydrodynamics, energy generation due to nuclear reactions accompanying composition changes, radiation transport, and thermodynamic properties (such as the equation of state of stellar matter). Nuclear energy production includes all nuclear reactions triggered during stellar evolution and explosive end stages, also among unstable isotopes produced on the way. Radiation transport covers atomic physics (e.g. opacities) for photon transport, but also nuclear physics and neutrino nucleon/nucleus interactions in late phases and core collapse. Here we want to focus on the astrophysical aspects, i.e. a description of the evolution of massive stars and their endpoints, with a special emphasis on the composition of their ejecta (in form of stellar winds during the evolution or of explosive ejecta). Low and intermediate mass stars end their evolution as a white dwarf with an unburned C and O composition. Massive stars evolve beyond this point and experience all stellar burning stages from H over He, C, Ne, O and Si-burning up to core collapse and explosive endstages. In this chapter we discuss the nucleosynthesis processes involved and the production of radioactive nuclei in more detail.
Observations of H$_2$O masers from circumnuclear disks in active galaxies for the Megamaser Cosmology Project allow accurate measurement of the mass of supermassive black holes (BH) in these galaxies. We present the Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) images and kinematics of water maser emission in six active galaxies: NGC~1194, NGC~2273, NGC~2960 (Mrk~1419), NGC~4388, NGC~6264 and NGC~6323. We use the Keplerian rotation curves of these six megamaser galaxies, plus a seventh previously published, to determine accurate enclosed masses within the central $\sim0.3$ pc of these galaxies, smaller than the radius of the sphere of influence of the central mass in all cases. We also set lower limits to the central mass densities of between 0.12 and 60 $\times 10^{10} M_{\odot}$~pc$^{-3}$. For six of the seven disks, the high central densities rule out clusters of stars or stellar remnants as the central objects, and this result further supports our assumption that the enclosed mass can be attributed predominantly to a supermassive black hole. The seven BHs have masses ranging between 0.76 and 6.5$\times$10$^7 M_{\odot}$. The BH mass errors are $\approx11$\%, dominated by the uncertainty of the Hubble constant. We compare the megamaser BH mass determination with other BH mass measurement techniques. The BH mass based on virial estimation in four galaxies is consistent with the megamaser BH mass given the latest empirical value of $\langle f \rangle$, but the virial mass uncertainty is much greater. MCP observations continue and we expect to obtain more maser BH masses in the future.
Over the last few years several models have been proposed to interpret the widespread soft excess observed in the X-ray spectra of type 1 active galactic nuclei (AGN). In particular, reflection from the photoionized accretion disc blurred by relativistic effects has proven to be successful in reproducing both the spectral shape and the variability pattern of many sources. As a further test to this scenario we present the analysis of a recent ~100 ks long Suzaku observation of Arakelian 120, a prototypical 'bare' Seyfert 1 galaxy in which no complex absorption system is expected to mimic a soft excess or mask the intrinsic properties of this key component. We show that a reflection model allowing for both warm/blurred and cold/distant reprocessing provides a self-consistent and convincing interpretation of the broadband X-ray emission of Ark 120, also characterized by a structured iron feature and a high-energy hump. Although warm absorbers, winds/outflows and multiple Comptonizing regions may play significant roles in sources with more spectral complexity, this case study adds evidence to the presence of blurred disc reflection as a basic component of the X-ray spectra of type 1 AGN.
We report on observations of a SSS in M31, r1-25, that has exhibited spectral changes to harder X-ray states. We document these spectral changes. In addition, we show that they have important implications for modeling the source. Quasisoft states in a source that has been observed as an SSS represent a newly-discovered phenomenon. We show how such state changers could prove to be examples of unusual black hole or neutron star accretors. Future observations of this and other state changers can provide the information needed to determine the nature(s) of these intriguing new sources.
Assuming that the torsional oscillation is driven by the Lorentz force of the magnetic field associated with the sunspot cycle, we use a flux transport dynamo to model it and explain its initiation at a high latitude before the beginning of the sunspot cycle.
[Abridged] To investigate the evolution in the relation between galaxy stellar and central black hole mass we construct a volume limited complete sample of 85 AGN with host galaxy stellar masses M_{*} > 10^{10.5} M_{sol}, and specific X-ray luminosities L_{X} > 2.35 x 10^{43} erg s^{-1} at 0.4 < z < 3. We calculate the Eddington limiting masses of the supermassive black holes residing at the centre of these galaxies, and observe an increase in the average Eddington limiting black hole mass with redshift. By assuming that there is no evolution in the Eddington ratio (\mu) and then that there is maximum possible evolution to the Eddington limit, we quantify the maximum possible evolution in the M_{*} / M_{BH} ratio as lying in the range 700 < M_{*}/M_{BH} < 10000, compared with the local value of M_{*}/M_{BH} ~ 1000. We furthermore find that the fraction of galaxies which are AGN (with L_{X} > 2.35 x 10^{43} erg s^{-1}) rises with redshift from 1.2 +/- 0.2 % at z = 0.7 to 7.4 +/- 2.0 % at z = 2.5. We use our results to calculate the maximum timescales for which our sample of AGN can continue to accrete at their observed rates before surpassing the local galaxy-black hole mass relation. We use these timescales to calculate the total fraction of massive galaxies which will be active (with L_{X} > 2.35 x 10^{43} erg s^{-1}) since z = 3, finding that at least ~ 40% of all massive galaxies will be Seyfert luminosity AGN or brighter during this epoch. Further, we calculate the energy density due to AGN activity in the Universe as 1.0 (+/- 0.3) x 10^{57} erg Mpc^{-3} Gyr^{-1}, potentially providing a significant source of energy for AGN feedback on star formation. We also use this method to compute the evolution in the X-ray luminosity density of AGN with redshift, finding that massive galaxy Seyfert luminosity AGN are the dominant source of X-ray emission in the Universe at z < 3.
We present the first dynamical solution of the triple asteroid system (45) Eugenia and its two moons Petit-Prince (Diameter~7 km) and S/2004 (45) 1 (Diameter~5 km). The two moons orbit at 1165 and 610 km from the primary, describing an almost-circular orbit (e~6x10-3 and e~7x10-2 respectively). The system is quite different from the other known triple systems in the main belt since the inclinations of the moon orbits are sizeable (9 deg and 18 deg with respect to the equator of the primary respectively). No resonances, neither secular nor due to Lidov-Kozai mechanism, were detected in our dynamical solution, suggesting that these inclinations are not due to excitation modes between the primary and the moons. A 10-year evolution study shows that the orbits are slightly affected by perturbations from the Sun, and to a lesser extent by mutual interactions between the moons. The estimated J2 of the primary is three times lower than the theoretical one, calculated assuming the shape of the primary and an homogeneous interior, possibly suggesting the importance of other gravitational harmonics.
Einstein@Home aggregates the computer power of hundreds of thousands of volunteers from 192 countries to "mine" large data sets. It has now found a 40.8 Hz isolated pulsar in radio survey data from the Arecibo Observatory taken in February 2007. Additional timing observations indicate that this pulsar is likely a disrupted recycled pulsar. PSR J2007+2722's pulse profile is remarkably wide with emission over almost the entire spin period; the pulsar likely has closely aligned magnetic and spin axes. The massive computing power provided by volunteers should enable many more such discoveries.
We investigate phantom cosmology in which the scale factor is a power law, and we use cosmological observations from Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAO) and observational Hubble data, in order to impose complete constraints on the model parameters. We find that the power-law exponent is $\beta\approx-6.51^{+0.24}_{-0.25}$, while the Big Rip is realized at $t_s\approx104.5^{+1.9}_{-2.0}$ Gyr, in 1$\sigma$ confidence level. Providing late-time asymptotic expressions, we find that the dark-energy equation-of-state parameter at the Big Rip remains finite and equal to $w_{DE}\approx -1.153$, with the dark-energy density and pressure diverging. Finally, we reconstruct the phantom potential.
We study the simulated CO emission from elliptical galaxies formed in the mergers of gas-rich disk galaxies. The cold gas not consumed in the merger-driven starburst quickly resettles into a disk-like configuration. By analyzing a variety of arbitrary merger orbits that produce a range of fast to slow-rotating remnants, we find that molecular disk formation is a fairly common consequence of gas-rich galaxy mergers. Hence, if a molecular disk is observed in an early-type merger remnant, it is likely the result of a "wet merger" rather than a "dry merger". We compare the physical properties from our simulated disks (e.g. size and mass) and find reasonably good agreement with recent observations. Finally, we discuss the detectability of these disks as an aid to future observations.
In this study we predict the total distributions of powerful (FR II) active double-lobed radio galaxies and ghost sources, and their observable distribution in the X-ray sky. We develop an analytic model for the evolution of the lobe emission at radio and X-ray energies. During jet activity, a double radio source emits synchrotron radiation in the radio and X-ray emission due to inverse-Compton (IC) upscattering by gamma~10^3 electrons of the cosmic microwave background. After the jets switch off, the radio luminosity (due to higher gamma electrons) falls faster than the X-ray luminosity and for some time the source appears as an IC ghost of a radio galaxy before becoming completely undetectable in the X-ray. With our model, for one set of typical parameters, we predict radio lobes occupy a volume fraction of the universe of 0.01, 0.03, 0.3 at z=2 (during the quasar era) of the filamentary structures in which they are situated, for typical jet lifetimes 5*10^7 yr, 10^8 yr, 5*10^8 yr; however since the inferred abundance of sources depends on how quickly they fall below the radio flux limit the volume filling factor is found to be a strong function of radio galaxy properties such as energy index and minimum gamma factor of injected particles, the latter not well constrained by observations. We test the predicted number density of sources against the Chandra X-ray Deep Field North survey and also find the contribution to the unresolved cosmic X-ray background by the lobes of radio galaxies. 10-30 per cent of observable double-lobed structures in the X-ray are predicted to be IC ghosts. The derived X-ray luminosity function of our synthetic population shows that double-lobed sources have higher space densities than X-ray clusters at redshifts z>2 and X-ray luminosities above 10^44 erg s^-1.
The development of parallel-processing image-analysis codes is generally a challenging task that requires complicated choreography of interprocessor communications. If, however, the image-analysis algorithm is embarrassingly parallel, then the development of a parallel-processing implementation of that algorithm can be a much easier task to accomplish because, by definition, there is little need for communication between the compute processes. I describe the design, implementation, and performance of a parallel-processing image-analysis application, called CRBLASTER, which does cosmic-ray rejection of CCD (charge-coupled device) images using the embarrassingly-parallel L.A.COSMIC algorithm. CRBLASTER is written in C using the high-performance computing industry standard Message Passing Interface (MPI) library. The code has been designed to be used by research scientists who are familiar with C as a parallel-processing computational framework that enables the easy development of parallel-processing image-analysis programs based on embarrassingly-parallel algorithms. The CRBLASTER source code is freely available at the official application website at the National Optical Astronomy Observatory. Removing cosmic rays from a single 800x800 pixel Hubble Space Telescope WFPC2 image takes 44 seconds with the IRAF script lacos_im.cl running on a single core of an Apple Mac Pro computer with two 2.8-GHz quad-core Intel Xeon processors. CRBLASTER is 7.4 times faster processing the same image on a single core on the same machine. Processing the same image with CRBLASTER simultaneously on all 8 cores of the same machine takes 0.875 seconds -- which is a speedup factor of 50.3 times faster than the IRAF script. A detailed analysis is presented of the performance of CRBLASTER using between 1 and 57 processors on a low-power Tilera 700-MHz 64-core TILE64 processor.
We propose a dark matter model in which the signal in direct detection experiments arises from electromagnetic, not nuclear, energy deposition. This can provide a novel explanation for DAMA while avoiding many direct detection constraints. The dark matter state is taken nearly degenerate with another state. These states are naturally connected by a dipole moment operator, which can give both the dominant scattering and decay modes between the two states. The signal at DAMA then arises from dark matter scattering in the Earth into the excited state and decaying back to the ground state through emission of a single photon in the detector. This model has unique signatures in direct detection experiments. The density and chemical composition of the detector is irrelevant, only the total volume affects the event rate. In addition, the spectrum is a monoenergetic line, which can fit the DAMA signal well. This model is readily testable at experiments such as CDMS and XENON100 if they analyze their low-energy, electronic recoil events.
We study critical black hole separations for the formation of a common apparent horizon in systems of $N$ - black holes in a time symmetric configuration. We study in detail the aligned equal mass cases for $N=2,3,4,5$, and relate them to the unequal mass binary black hole case. We then study the apparent horizon of the time symmetric initial geometry of a ring singularity of different radii. The apparent horizon is used as indicative of the location of the event horizon in an effort to predict a critical ring radius that would generate an event horizon of toroidal topology. We found that a good estimate for this ring critical radius is $20/(3\pi) M$. We briefly discuss the connection of this two cases through a discrete black hole 'necklace' configuration.
In this paper we propose a collocation method for solving some well-known classes of Lane-Emden type equations which are nonlinear ordinary differential equations on the semi-infinite domain. They are categorized as singular initial value problems. The proposed approach is based on a Hermite function collocation (HFC) method. To illustrate the reliability of the method, some special cases of the equations are solved as test examples. The new method reduces the solution of a problem to the solution of a system of algebraic equations. Hermite functions have prefect properties that make them useful to achieve this goal. We compare the present work with some well-known results and show that the new method is efficient and applicable.
We show that modified gravity presents distinctive nonlinear features on the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropies comparing with General Relativity (GR). We calculate the contribution to the CMB non-Gaussianity from nonlinear Sachs-Wolfe effect in $f(R)$ gravity and show that, contrary to GR's contribution which is typically $\lesssim \mathcal{O}(1)$, the contribution in $f(R)$ gravity is sensitive to the nonlinear structure of $f(R)$ and can be large in principle. Optimistically, this gives an alternative origin for the possibly observed large CMB non-Gaussianities besides the primordial ones. On the other hand, such nonlinear features can be employed to provide a new cosmological test of $f(R)$ or other modified theories of gravitation, which is unique and is independent of previously known tests.
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