107,646 research outputs found
Planetesimal formation by the streaming instability in a photoevaporating disk
Recent years have seen growing interest in the streaming instability as a
candidate mechanism to produce planetesimals. However, these investigations
have been limited to small-scale simulations. We now present the results of a
global protoplanetary disk evolution model that incorporates planetesimal
formation by the streaming instability, along with viscous accretion,
photoevaporation by EUV, FUV, and X-ray photons, dust evolution, the water ice
line, and stratified turbulence. Our simulations produce massive (60-130
) planetesimal belts beyond 100 au and up to of
planetesimals in the middle regions (3-100 au). Our most comprehensive model
forms 8 of planetesimals inside 3 au, where they can give rise to
terrestrial planets. The planetesimal mass formed in the inner disk depends
critically on the timing of the formation of an inner cavity in the disk by
high-energy photons. Our results show that the combination of photoevaporation
and the streaming instability are efficient at converting the solid component
of protoplanetary disks into planetesimals. Our model, however, does not form
enough early planetesimals in the inner and middle regions of the disk to give
rise to giant planets and super-Earths with gaseous envelopes. Additional
processes such as particle pileups and mass loss driven by MHD winds may be
needed to drive the formation of early planetesimal generations in the planet
forming regions of protoplanetary disks.Comment: 20 pages, 12 figures; accepted to Ap
Massive stars as thermonuclear reactors and their explosions following core collapse
Nuclear reactions transform atomic nuclei inside stars. This is the process
of stellar nucleosynthesis. The basic concepts of determining nuclear reaction
rates inside stars are reviewed. How stars manage to burn their fuel so slowly
most of the time are also considered. Stellar thermonuclear reactions involving
protons in hydrostatic burning are discussed first. Then I discuss triple alpha
reactions in the helium burning stage. Carbon and oxygen survive in red giant
stars because of the nuclear structure of oxygen and neon. Further nuclear
burning of carbon, neon, oxygen and silicon in quiescent conditions are
discussed next. In the subsequent core-collapse phase, neutronization due to
electron capture from the top of the Fermi sea in a degenerate core takes
place. The expected signal of neutrinos from a nearby supernova is calculated.
The supernova often explodes inside a dense circumstellar medium, which is
established due to the progenitor star losing its outermost envelope in a
stellar wind or mass transfer in a binary system. The nature of the
circumstellar medium and the ejecta of the supernova and their dynamics are
revealed by observations in the optical, IR, radio, and X-ray bands, and I
discuss some of these observations and their interpretations.Comment: To be published in " Principles and Perspectives in Cosmochemistry"
Lecture Notes on Kodai School on Synthesis of Elements in Stars; ed. by Aruna
Goswami & Eswar Reddy, Springer Verlag, 2009. Contains 21 figure
Stellar Dynamics of Extreme-Mass-Ratio Inspirals
Inspiral of compact stellar remnants into massive black holes (MBHs) is
accompanied by the emission of gravitational waves at frequencies that are
potentially detectable by space-based interferometers. Event rates computed
from statistical (Fokker-Planck, Monte-Carlo) approaches span a wide range due
to uncertaintities about the rate coefficients. Here we present results from
direct integration of the post-Newtonian N-body equations of motion descrbing
dense clusters of compact stars around Schwarzschild MBHs. These simulations
embody an essentially exact (at the post-Newtonian level) treatment of the
interplay between stellar dynamical relaxation, relativistic precession, and
gravitational-wave energy loss. The rate of capture of stars by the MBH is
found to be greatly reduced by relativistic precession, which limits the
ability of torques from the stellar potential to change orbital angular
momenta. Penetration of this "Schwarzschild barrier" does occasionally occur,
resulting in capture of stars onto orbits that gradually inspiral due to
gravitational wave emission; we discuss two mechanisms for barrier penetration
and find evidence for both in the simulations. We derive an approximate formula
for the capture rate, which predicts that captures would be strongly disfavored
from orbits with semi-major axes below a certain value; this prediction, as
well as the predicted rate, are verified in the N-body integrations. We discuss
the implications of our results for the detection of extreme-mass-ratio
inspirals from galactic nuclei with a range of physical properties.Comment: 28 pages, 16 figures. Version 2 is significantly revised to reflect
new insights into J and Q effects, to be published late
K-Theory of non-linear projective toric varieties
By analogy with algebraic geometry, we define a category of non-linear
sheaves (quasi-coherent homotopy-sheaves of topological spaces) on projective
toric varieties and prove a splitting result for its algebraic K-theory,
generalising earlier results for projective spaces. The splitting is expressed
in terms of the number of interior lattice points of dilations of a polytope
associated to the variety. The proof uses combinatorial and geometrical results
on polytopal complexes. The same methods also give an elementary explicit
calculation of the cohomology groups of a projective toric variety over any
commutative ring.Comment: v2: Final version, to appear in "Forum Mathematicum". Minor changes
only, added more cross-referencing and references for toric geometr
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