11,238 research outputs found
Stability of the r-modes in white dwarf stars
Stability of the r-modes in rapidly rotating white dwarf stars is
investigated. Improved estimates of the growth times of the
gravitational-radiation driven instability in the r-modes of the observed DQ
Her objects are found to be longer (probably considerably longer) than 6x10^9y.
This rules out the possibility that the r-modes in these objects are emitting
gravitational radiation at levels that could be detectable by LISA. More
generally it is shown that the r-mode instability can only be excited in a very
small subset of very hot (T>10^6K), rather massive (M>0.9M_sun) and very
rapidly rotating (P_min<P<1.2P_min) white dwarf stars. Further, the growth
times of this instability are so long that these conditions must persist for a
very long time (t>10^9y) to allow the amplitude to grow to a dynamically
significant level. This makes it extremely unlikely that the r-mode instability
plays a significant role in any real white dwarf stars.Comment: 5 Pages, 5 Figures, revte
Adiabatic radio frequency potentials for the coherent manipulation of matter waves
Adiabatic dressed state potentials are created when magnetic sub-states of
trapped atoms are coupled by a radio frequency field. We discuss their
theoretical foundations and point out fundamental advantages over potentials
purely based on static fields. The enhanced flexibility enables one to
implement numerous novel configurations, including double wells, Mach-Zehnder
and Sagnac interferometers which even allows for internal state-dependent atom
manipulation. These can be realized using simple and highly integrated wire
geometries on atom chips.Comment: 13 pages, 2 figure
Settling tracer spheroids in vertical turbulent channel flows
The motion of particles settling in turbulence is an intriguing problem, which is relevant to an in-depth understanding of planktons in marine flows or the design of photobioreactors. This work studies the motion, orientation and distribution of inertia-less spheroidal particles settling in vertical channel flows by direct numerical simulations. We show that, compared to spherical tracers, the settling velocity of spheroidal tracers is enhanced due to preferential orientation and local clustering (not due to particle inertia, in the present case). Prolate spheroids tend to align their symmetry axes in the direction of gravity while oblate ones align perpendicular to it. Both kinds of particles attain a larger slip velocity in the direction of gravity and, therefore, settle faster. We also show that particles sample preferentially regions of high fluid velocity in downward flow and regions of low fluid velocity in upward flow. Such preferential sampling, which also contributes to the enhancement of settling, is the result of clustering. Besides, tracer particles are observed to accumulate in the channel center in downward flow and near the wall in upward flow: We show that tracer transport in the wall-normal direction is controlled by the particle- to-fluid slip velocity and by clustering. The slip velocity dominates the transport initially, but tracers increasingly cluster in regions with opposite flow direction as they accumulate either in the channel center or near the wall. Clustering appears to be associate with the coherent structures that characterize wall turbulence, and tracer distribution in the wall-normal direction is found to reach a steady state when the two qualitatively different mechanisms balance each other
Crustal failure during binary inspiral
We present the first fully relativistic calculations of the crustal strain
induced in a neutron star by a binary companion at the late stages of inspiral,
employing realistic equations of state for the fluid core and the solid crust.
We show that while the deep crust is likely to fail only shortly before
coalescence, there is a large variation in elastic strain, with the outermost
layers failing relatively early on in the inspiral. We discuss the significance
of the results for both electromagnetic and gravitational-wave astronomy.Comment: 5 pages, 3 eps figure
Tidal deformations of neutron stars: The role of stratification and elasticity
We discuss the response of neutron stars to the tidal interaction in a
compact binary system, as encoded in the Love number associated with the
induced deformation. This problem is of interest for gravitational-wave
astronomy as there may be a detectable imprint on the signal from the late
stages of binary coalescence. Previous work has focussed on simple barotropic
neutron star models, providing an understanding of the role of the stellar
compactness and overall density profile. We add realism to the discussion by
developing the framework required to model stars with varying composition and
an elastic crust. These effects are not expected to be significant for the next
generation of detectors but it is nevertheless useful to be able to quantify
them. Our results show that (perhaps surprisingly) internal stratification has
no impact whatsoever on the Love number. We also show that crust elasticity
provides a (predictably) small correction to existing models.Comment: 16 pages, RevTeX, 3 eps figure
Fundamental properties and applications of quasi-local black hole horizons
The traditional description of black holes in terms of event horizons is
inadequate for many physical applications, especially when studying black holes
in non-stationary spacetimes. In these cases, it is often more useful to use
the quasi-local notions of trapped and marginally trapped surfaces, which lead
naturally to the framework of trapping, isolated, and dynamical horizons. This
framework allows us to analyze diverse facets of black holes in a unified
manner and to significantly generalize several results in black hole physics.
It also leads to a number of applications in mathematical general relativity,
numerical relativity, astrophysics, and quantum gravity. In this review, I will
discuss the basic ideas and recent developments in this framework, and
summarize some of its applications with an emphasis on numerical relativity.Comment: 14 pages, 2 figures. Based on a talk presented at the 18th
International Conference on General Relativity and Gravitation, 8-13 July
2007, Sydney, Australi
Bulk viscosity of superfluid neutron stars
The hydrodynamics, describing dynamical effects in superfluid neutron stars,
essentially differs from the standard one-fluid hydrodynamics. In particular,
we have four bulk viscosity coefficients in the theory instead of one. In this
paper we calculate these coefficients, for the first time, assuming they are
due to non-equilibrium beta-processes (such as modified or direct Urca
process). The results of our analysis are used to estimate characteristic
damping times of sound waves in superfluid neutron stars. It is demonstrated
that all four bulk viscosity coefficients lead to comparable dissipation of
sound waves and should be considered on the same footing.Comment: 11 pages, 1 figure, this version with some minor stylistic changes is
published in Phys. Rev.
On the structure of the new electromagnetic conservation laws
New electromagnetic conservation laws have recently been proposed: in the
absence of electromagnetic currents, the trace of the Chevreton superenergy
tensor, is divergence-free in four-dimensional (a) Einstein spacetimes
for test fields, (b) Einstein-Maxwell spacetimes. Subsequently it has been
pointed out, in analogy with flat spaces, that for Einstein spacetimes the
trace of the Chevreton superenergy tensor can be rearranged in the
form of a generalised wave operator acting on the energy momentum
tensor of the test fields, i.e., . In this
letter we show, for Einstein-Maxwell spacetimes in the full non-linear theory,
that, although, the trace of the Chevreton superenergy tensor can
again be rearranged in the form of a generalised wave operator
acting on the electromagnetic energy momentum tensor, in this case the result
is also crucially dependent on Einstein's equations; hence we argue that the
divergence-free property of the tensor has
significant independent content beyond that of the divergence-free property of
R-Modes in Superfluid Neutron Stars
The analogs of r-modes in superfluid neutron stars are studied here. These
modes, which are governed primarily by the Coriolis force, are identical to
their ordinary-fluid counterparts at the lowest order in the small
angular-velocity expansion used here. The equations that determine the next
order terms are derived and solved numerically for fairly realistic superfluid
neutron-star models. The damping of these modes by superfluid ``mutual
friction'' (which vanishes at the lowest order in this expansion) is found to
have a characteristic time-scale of about 10^4 s for the m=2 r-mode in a
``typical'' superfluid neutron-star model. This time-scale is far too long to
allow mutual friction to suppress the recently discovered gravitational
radiation driven instability in the r-modes. However, the strength of the
mutual friction damping depends very sensitively on the details of the
neutron-star core superfluid. A small fraction of the presently acceptable
range of superfluid models have characteristic mutual friction damping times
that are short enough (i.e. shorter than about 5 s) to suppress the
gravitational radiation driven instability completely.Comment: 15 pages, 8 figure
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