2,817 research outputs found
Production of Millisecond Dips in Sco X-1 Count Rates by Dead Time Effects
Chang et al. (2006) reported millisecond duration dips in the X-ray intensity
of Sco X-1 and attributed them to occultations of the source by small
trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs). We have found multiple lines of evidence that
these dips are not astronomical in origin, but rather the result of high-energy
charged particle events in the RXTE PCA detectors. Our analysis of the RXTE
data indicates that at most 10% of the observed dips in Sco X-1 could be due to
occultations by TNOs, and, furthermore, we find no positive or supporting
evidence for any of them being due to TNOs. We therefore believe that it is a
mistake to conclude that any TNOs have been detected via occultation of Sco
X-1.Comment: Submitted to ApJ; uses emulateapj.cls, 8 pages with 8 figure
The Anticorrelated Nature of the Primary and Secondary Eclipse Timing Variations for the Kepler Contact Binaries
We report on a study of eclipse timing variations in contact binary systems,
using long-cadence lightcurves in the Kepler archive. As a first step,
'observed minus calculated' (O-C) curves were produced for both the primary and
secondary eclipses of some 2000 Kepler binaries. We find ~390 short-period
binaries with O-C curves that exhibit (i) random-walk like variations or
quasi-periodicities, with typical amplitudes of +/- 200-300 seconds, and (ii)
anticorrelations between the primary and secondary eclipse timing variations.
We present a detailed analysis and results for 32 of these binaries with
orbital periods in the range of 0.35 +/- 0.05 days. The anticorrelations
observed in their O-C curves cannot be explained by a model involving mass
transfer, which among other things requires implausibly high rates of ~0.01
M_sun per year. We show that the anticorrelated behavior, the amplitude of the
O-C delays, and the overall random-walk like behavior can be explained by the
presence of a starspot that is continuously visible around the orbit and slowly
changes its longitude on timescales of weeks to months. The quasi-periods of
~50-200 days observed in the O-C curves suggest values for k, the coefficient
of the latitude dependence of the stellar differential rotation, of
~0.003-0.013.Comment: Published in The Astrophysical Journal, 2013, Vol. 774, p.81; 14
pages, 12 figures, and 2 table
Temperature variations of the disorder-induced vortex-lattice melting landscape
Differential magneto-optical imaging of the vortex-lattice melting process in
Bi_2Sr_2CaCu_2O_8 crystals reveals unexpected effects of quenched disorder on
the broadening of the first-order phase transition. The melting patterns show
that the disorder-induced melting landscape T_m(H,r) is not fixed, but rather
changes dramatically with varying field and temperature along the melting line.
The changes in both the scale and shape of the landscape are found to result
from the competing contributions of different types of quenched disorder which
have opposite effects on the local melting transition.Comment: 4 pages of text and 3 figures. Accepted for Publication in Physical
Review Letter
TIC 278825952: a triply eclipsing hierarchical triple system with the most intrinsically circular outer orbit
We report the discovery of a compact triply eclipsing triple star system in the southern continuous viewing zone of the TESS space telescope. TIC 278825952 is a previously unstudied, circular eclipsing binary with a period of 4.781 days with a tertiary component in a wider, circular orbit of 235.55 days period that was found from three sets of third-body eclipses and from light travel-time effect dominated eclipse timing variations. We performed a joint photodynamical analysis of the eclipse timing variation curves, photometric data, and the spectral energy distribution, coupled with the use of PARSEC stellar isochrones. We find that the inner binary consists of slightly evolved, near twin stars of masses of 1.12 and 1.09 M⊙ and radii of 1.40 and 1.31 R⊙. The third, less massive star has a mass of 0.75 M⊙ and radius of 0.70 R⊙. The low mutual inclination and eccentricities of the orbits show that the system is highly coplanar and surprisingly circular
Triple-Star Candidates Among the Kepler Binaries
We present the results of a search through the photometric database of
eclipsing Kepler binaries (Prsa et al. 2011; Slawson et al. 2011) looking for
evidence of hierarchical triple star systems. The presence of a third star
orbiting the binary can be inferred from eclipse timing variations. We apply a
simple algorithm in an automated determination of the eclipse times for all
2157 binaries. The "calculated" eclipse times, based on a constant period
model, are subtracted from those observed. The resulting O-C (observed minus
calculated times) curves are then visually inspected for periodicities in order
to find triple-star candidates. After eliminating false positives due to the
beat frequency between the ~1/2-hour Kepler cadence and the binary period, 39
candidate triple systems were identified. The periodic O-C curves for these
candidates were then fit for contributions from both the classical Roemer delay
and so-called "physical" delay, in an attempt to extract a number of the system
parameters of the triple. We discuss the limitations of the information that
can be inferred from these O-C curves without further supplemental input, e.g.,
ground-based spectroscopy. Based on the limited range of orbital periods for
the triple star systems to which this search is sensitive, we can extrapolate
to estimate that at least 20% of all close binaries have tertiary companions.Comment: 19 pages, 13 figures, 3 tables; ApJ, 2013, 768, 33; corrected Fig. 7,
updated references, minor fixes to tex
New ephemeris of the ADC source 2A 1822-371: a stable orbital-period derivative over 30 years
We report on a timing of the eclipse arrival times of the low mass X-ray
binary and X-ray pulsar 2A 1822-371 performed using all available observations
of the Proportional Counter Array on board the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer,
XMM-Newton pn, and Chandra. These observations span the years from 1996 to
2008. Combining these eclipse arrival time measurements with those already
available covering the period from 1977 to 1996, we obtain an orbital solution
valid for more than thirty years. The time delays calculated with respect to a
constant orbital period model show a clear parabolic trend, implying that the
orbital period in this source constantly increases with time at a rate s/s. This is 3 orders of magnitude larger than
what is expected from conservative mass transfer driven by magnetic braking and
gravitational radiation. From the conservation of the angular momentum of the
system we find that to explain the high and positive value of the orbital
period derivative the mass transfer rate must not be less than 3 times the
Eddington limit for a neutron star, suggesting that the mass transfer has to be
partially non-conservative. With the hypothesis that the neutron star accretes
at the Eddington limit we find a consistent solution in which at least 70% of
the transferred mass has to be expelled from the system.Comment: Published by A&
mmWave V2V Localization in MU-MIMO Hybrid Beamforming
Recent trends for vehicular localization in millimetre-wave (mmWave) channels include employing a combination of parameters such as angle of arrival (AOA), angle of departure (AOD), and time of arrival (TOA) of the transmitted/received signals. These parameters are challenging to estimate, which along with the scattering and random nature of mmWave channels, and vehicle mobility lead to errors in localization. To circumvent these challenges, this paper proposes mmWave vehicular localization employing difference of arrival for time and frequency, with multiuser (MU) multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) hybrid beamforming; rather than relying on AOD/AOA/TOA estimates. The vehicular localization can exploit the number of vehicles present, as an increase in a number of vehicles reduces the Cramr-Rao bound (CRB) of error estimation. At 10 dB signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) both spatial multiplexing and beamforming result in comparable localization errors. At lower SNR values, spatial multiplexing leads to larger errors compared to beamforming due to formation of spurious peaks in the cross ambiguity function. Accuracy of the estimated parameters is improved by employing an extended Kalman filter leading to a root mean square (RMS) localization error of approximately 6.3 meters
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