High Energy Continuum Spectra from X-Ray Binaries

A variety of high energy (>1 keV) spectra have been observed in recent years from Black Hole (BH) and Neutron Star (NS) X-ray Binaries (XB). Some common physical components exist between BHXBs and NSXBs, resulting in some high energy spectral features. A common component between a BHXB and a weakly magnetized NSXB is the inner accretion disk region extending very close to the surface (for a NS) or the horizon (for a BH). The inner disk radiation can be described by a multi-color blackbody (MCB) spectral model. The surface radiation of the NS can be approximated by a Single Color Blackbody (SCB) spectrum. For a strongly magnetized NSXB, the high energy emission is from its magnetosphere, characterised by a thermal bremsstrahlung (TB) spectrum. In both BHXBs and weakly magnetized NSXBs, a hot electron cloud may exist, producing the hard X-ray power law (photon index -1.5 to -2.0) with thermal cutoff (50-200 keV). It has been recently proposed that a converging flow may be formed near the horizon of a BH, producing a softer power law (photon index about -2.5) without cutoff up to several hundred keV. Based on these concepts we also discuss possible ways to distinguish between BH and NS XBs. Finally we discuss briefly spectral state transitions in both BH and NS XBs.Comment: 10 pages, PostScript file ps.gz file. Invited review talk at the IAU Colloquium 163 `Accretion Phenomena and Related Outflows', PASP Conference Series, in pres

QSO-Galaxy Association and Gravitational Lensing

The amplification caused by gravitational light bending by compact objects in a foreground galaxy can affect the apparent number density of background QSOs, as well as their distribution in the fields of galactic halos. In this work we investigate the number enhancement of QSOs in the fields of galactic halos caused by point mass lensing effect and singular isothermal lensing effect, and apply the microlensing effect due to dark compact objects in the halo to NGC 3628. NGC 3628 is a well-studied nearby edge-on Sbc peculiar galaxy, where QSOs are shown to be concentrated around the galaxy with a density much higher than background. We show that if present understanding of the luminosity function of QSOs is right, such concentration could not be caused by gravitational lensing.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in Chinese Journal of Astronomy and Astrophysics, 2004 Supplement

Radiation Properties of GeV Narrow Line Seyfert 1 Galaxies

The broadband SEDs of four gamma-ray NLS1s are compiled and explained with the leptonic model. It is found that their characteristics and fitting parameters of the observed SEDs are more like FSRQs than BL Lacs.Comment: 2 pages; 1 figure; to appear in the proceedings of the IAU Symposium 290, "Feeding compact objects: accretion on all scales", Beijing, 20-24 Aug 201

Maser mechanism of optical pulsations from anomalous X-ray pulsar 4U0142+61

A maser curvature emission mechanism in the presence of curvature drift is used to explain the optical pulsations from anomalous X-ray pulsars. For the source of AXP0142+61,the optical pulsation occurs at the radial distance $R(\nu_M)\sim 4.75\times 10^9$ cm to the neutron star. The corresponding curvature maser frequency is about $\nu_M\approx1.39\times 10^{14}$ Hz. The result is consistent with the observation of the optical pulsations from the anomalous X-ray pulsar 4U0142+61.Comment: 18pages,LaTeX2e, accetpetd for publication in MNRA

The Black Hole Mass and Magnetic Field Correlation in Active Galactic Nuclei

The observed optical luminosity in 5100 angstorm and black hole mass correlation is used to probe the magnetic field of black holes harbored in active galactic nuclei(AGNs). The model is based on the assumption that the disk is heated by energy injection due to the magnetic coupling(MC) process and the gravitational dissipation due to accretion. The MC process can transfer energy and angular momentum from a rotating Kerr black hole to its surrounding disk. The relation of optical luminosity in 5100 angstorm and black hole mass as functions of the spin and magnetic field of the black hole is modelled. The model predicts that optical luminosity in 5100 angstorm emitted from the disk is sensitive to the strength of the poloidal component of the magnetic field on the BH horizon. Based on the observations of optical luminosity in 5100 angstorm for 143 AGN sources, we obtain the correlation between mass and magnetic field of black hole. And we compared out result with the approximate result between mass and magnetic field of black hole derived from the condition in the standard accretion disc theory.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, accepted by Chinese Journal of Astronomy and Astrophysics, 2004 Supplement

Fermi surface of a trapped dipolar Fermi gas

Under the framework of the semiclassical theory, we investigate the equilibrium-state properties of a spin polarized dipolar Fermi gas through full numerical calculation. We show that the Fermi surfaces in both real and momentum spaces are stretched along the attractive direction of dipolar interaction. We further verify that the deformed Fermi surfaces can be well approximated by ellipsoids. In addition, the deformation parameters slightly depend on the local real- and momentum-space densities. We also study the interaction strength dependence of the energy and real- and momentum-space densities. By comparing them with variational results, we find that the ellipsoidal ansatz usually generates accurate results for weak dipolar interaction, while under strong dipolar interaction limit, notable discrepancy can be observed. Finally, we map out the stability boundary of the system

Black Holes in Brans-Dicke Theory with a Cosmological Constant

Since the Brans-Dicke theory is conformal related to the dilaton gravity theory, by applying a conformal transformation to the dilaton gravity theory, we derived the cosmological constant term in the Brans-Dicke theory and the physical solution of black holes with the cosmological constant. It is found that, in four dimensions, the solution is just the Kerr-Newman-de Sitter solution with a constant scalar field. However, in $n>4$ dimensions, the solution is not yet the $n$ dimensional Kerr-Newman-de Sitter solution and the scalar field is not a constant in general. In Brans-Dicke-Ni theory, the resulting solution is also not yet the Kerr-Newman-de Sitter one even in four dimensions. The higher dimensional origin of the Brans-Dicke scalar field is briefly discussed.Comment: 5 page

Phantom Black Holes

The exact solutions of electrically charged phantom black holes with the cosmological constant are constructed. They are labelled by the mass, the electrical charge, the cosmological constant and the coupling constant between the phantom and the Maxwell field. It is found that the phantom has important consequences on the properties of black holes. In particular, the extremal charged phantom black holes can never be achieved and so the third law of thermodynamics for black holes still holds. The cosmological aspects of the phantom black hole and phantom field are also briefly discussed.Comment: 8 pages,some references adde

RX J1856.5-3754: A strange star with solid quark surface?

Within the realms of the possibility of solid quark matter, we fitted the 500ks Chandra LETG/HRC data for RX J1856.5-3754 with a phenomenological spectral model, and found that electric conductivity of quark matter on the stellar surface is about > 1.2 x 10^{18} s^{-1}.Comment: 2 page and no figure, IAU Symposium No.218, or at http://vega.bac.pku.edu.cn/~rxxu/publications/index_C.ht

The High Energy cosmic-Radiation Detection (HERD) Facility onboard China's Future Space Station

The High Energy cosmic-Radiation Detection (HERD) facility is one of several space astronomy payloads of the cosmic lighthouse program onboard China's Space Station, which is planned for operation starting around 2020 for about 10 years. The main scientific objectives of HERD are indirect dark matter search, precise cosmic ray spectrum and composition measurements up to the knee energy, and high energy gamma-ray monitoring and survey. HERD is composed of a 3-D cubic calorimeter (CALO) surrounded by microstrip silicon trackers (STKs) from five sides except the bottom. CALO is made of about 10$^4$ cubes of LYSO crystals, corresponding to about 55 radiation lengths and 3 nuclear interaction lengths, respectively. The top STK microstrips of seven X-Y layers are sandwiched with tungsten converters to make precise directional measurements of incoming electrons and gamma-rays. In the baseline design, each of the four side SKTs is made of only three layers microstrips. All STKs will also be used for measuring the charge and incoming directions of cosmic rays, as well as identifying back scattered tracks. With this design, HERD can achieve the following performance: energy resolution of 1\% for electrons and gamma-rays beyond 100 GeV, 20\% for protons from 100 GeV to 1 PeV; electron/proton separation power better than $10^{-5}$; effective geometrical factors of $>$3 ${\rm m}^{2}{\rm sr}$ for electron and diffuse gamma-rays, $>$2 ${\rm m}^{2}{\rm sr}$ for cosmic ray nuclei. R\&D is under way for reading out the LYSO signals with optical fiber coupled to image intensified CCD and the prototype of one layer of CALO.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables. Oral talk presented at SPIE Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation, June, 2014, Montrea