6,193 research outputs found
Possible Solutions to the Radius Anomalies of Transiting Giant Planets
We calculate the theoretical evolution of the radii of all fourteen of the
known transiting extrasolar giant planets (EGPs) for a variety of assumptions
concerning atmospheric opacity, dense inner core masses, and possible internal
power sources. We incorporate the effects of stellar irradiation and customize
such effects for each EGP and star. Looking collectively at the family as a
whole, we find that there are in fact two radius anomalies to be explained. Not
only are the radii of a subset of the known transiting EGPs larger than
expected from previous theory, but many of the other objects are smaller than
the default theory would allow. We suggest that the larger EGPs can be
explained by invoking enhanced atmospheric opacities that naturally retain
internal heat. This explanation might obviate the necessity for an extra
internal power source. We explain the smaller radii by the presence in perhaps
all the known transiting EGPs of dense cores, such as have been inferred for
Saturn and Jupiter. Importantly, we derive a rough correlation between the
masses of our "best-fit" cores and the stellar metallicity that seems to
buttress the core-accretion model of their formation. Though many caveats and
uncertainties remain, the resulting comprehensive theory that incorporates
enhanced-opacity atmospheres and dense cores is in reasonable accord with all
the current structural data for the known transiting giant planets.Comment: 22 pages in emulateapj format, including 10 figures (mostly in
color), accepted to the Astrophysical Journal (February 9, 2007); to appear
in volume 661, June 200
Sympathetic cooling of He ions in a radiofrequency trap
We have generated Coulomb crystals of ultracold He ions in a linear
radiofrequency trap, by sympathetic cooling via laser--cooled Be.
Stable crystals containing up to 150 localized He ions at 20 mK were
obtained. Ensembles or single ultracold He ions open up interesting
perspectives for performing precision tests of QED and measurements of nuclear
radii. The present work also indicates the feasibility of cooling and
crystallizing highly charged atomic ions using Be as coolant.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure
Crucial Physical Dependencies of the Core-Collapse Supernova Mechanism
We explore with self-consistent 2D F{\sc{ornax}} simulations the dependence
of the outcome of collapse on many-body corrections to neutrino-nucleon cross
sections, the nucleon-nucleon bremsstrahlung rate, electron capture on heavy
nuclei, pre-collapse seed perturbations, and inelastic neutrino-electron and
neutrino-nucleon scattering. Importantly, proximity to criticality amplifies
the role of even small changes in the neutrino-matter couplings, and such
changes can together add to produce outsized effects. When close to the
critical condition the cumulative result of a few small effects (including
seeds) that individually have only modest consequence can convert an anemic
into a robust explosion, or even a dud into a blast. Such sensitivity is not
seen in one dimension and may explain the apparent heterogeneity in the
outcomes of detailed simulations performed internationally. A natural
conclusion is that the different groups collectively are closer to a realistic
understanding of the mechanism of core-collapse supernovae than might have
seemed apparent.Comment: 25 pages; 10 figure
Many-Body Corrections to Charged-Current Neutrino Absorption Rates in Nuclear Matter
Including nucleon--nucleon correlations due to both Fermi statistics and
nuclear forces, we have developed a general formalism for calculating the
charged--current neutrino--nucleon absorption rates in nuclear matter. We find
that at one half nuclear density many--body effects alone suppress the rates by
a factor of two and that the suppression factors increase to 5 at
g cm. The associated increase in the neutrino--matter
mean--free--paths parallels that found for neutral--current interactions and
opens up interesting possibilities in the context of the delayed supernova
mechanism and protoneutron star cooling.Comment: 11 pages, APS REVTeX format, 1 PostScript figure, uuencoded
compressed, and tarred, submitted to Physical Review Letter
On homogeneous statistical distributions exoplanets for their dynamic parameters
Correct distributions of extrasolar systems for their orbital parameters
(semi-major axes, period, eccentricity) and physical characteristics (mass,
spectral type of parent star) are received. Orbital resonances in extrasolar
systems are considered. It is shown, that the account of more thin effects,
including with use of wavelet methods, in obviously incorrectly reduced
distributions it is not justified, to what the homogeneous statistical
distributions for dynamic parameters of exoplanets, received in the present
work, testify.Comment: 9 pages, 15 figures; International Conference "100 years since
Tunguska phenomenon: Past, present and future", (June 26-28, 2008. Russia,
Moscow), Lomonosov readings 2009 (Moscow State University
Mu and Tau Neutrino Thermalization and Production in Supernovae: Processes and Timescales
We investigate the rates of production and thermalization of and
neutrinos at temperatures and densities relevant to core-collapse
supernovae and protoneutron stars. Included are contributions from electron
scattering, electron-positron annihilation, nucleon-nucleon bremsstrahlung, and
nucleon scattering. For the scattering processes, in order to incorporate the
full scattering kinematics at arbitrary degeneracy, the structure function
formalism developed by Reddy et al. (1998) and Burrows and Sawyer (1998) is
employed. Furthermore, we derive formulae for the total and differential rates
of nucleon-nucleon bremsstrahlung for arbitrary nucleon degeneracy in
asymmetric matter. We find that electron scattering dominates nucleon
scattering as a thermalization process at low neutrino energies
( MeV), but that nucleon scattering is always faster
than or comparable to electron scattering above MeV. In
addition, for g cm, MeV, and
neutrino energies MeV, nucleon-nucleon bremsstrahlung always
dominates electron-positron annihilation as a production mechanism for
and neutrinos.Comment: 29 pages, LaTeX (RevTeX), 13 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. C. Also
to be found at anonymous ftp site http://www.astrophysics.arizona.edu; cd to
pub/thompso
The very nearby M/T dwarf binary SCR 1845-6357
The recently discovered star SCR 1845-6357 is the first late M/T dwarf binary
discovered. SCR 1845 is a particular object due to its tight orbit (currently
around 4 AU) and its proximity to the Sun (3.85 pc). We present spatially
resolved VLT/NACO images and low resolution spectra of SCR 1845 in the J, H and
K near-infrared bands. Since the T dwarf companion, SCR 1845B, is so close to
the primary SCR 1845A, orbital motion is evident even within a year. Following
the orbital motion, the binary's mass can be measured accurately within a
decade, making SCR 1845B a key T-dwarf mass-luminosity calibrator. The NIR
spectra allow for accurate determination of spectral type and also for rough
estimates of the object's physical parameters. The spectral type of SCR 1845B
is determined by direct comparison of the flux calibrated JHK spectra with T
dwarf standard template spectra and also by NIR spectral indices obtained from
synthetic photometry. Constrained values for surface gravity, effective
temperature and metallicity are derived by comparison with model spectra. Our
data prove that SCR 1845B is a brown dwarf of spectral type T6 that is
co-moving with and therefore gravitationally bound to the M8.5 primary. Fitting
the NIR spectrum of SCR 1845B to model spectra yields an effective temperature
of about 950K and a surface gravity log(g)=5.1 (cgs) assuming solar
metallicity. Mass and age of SCR 1845B are in the range 40 to 50 Jupiter masses
and 1.8 to 3.1 Gyr.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy &
Astrophysic
- …