8,439 research outputs found
Magic wavelengths for the transition in rubidium
Magic wavelengths, for which there is no differential ac Stark shift for the
ground and excited state of the atom, allow trapping of excited Rydberg atoms
without broadening the optical transition. This is an important tool for
implementing quantum gates and other quantum information protocols with Rydberg
atoms, and reliable theoretical methods to find such magic wavelengths are thus
extremely useful. We use a high-precision all-order method to calculate magic
wavelengths for the transition of rubidium, and compare the
calculation to experiment by measuring the light shift for atoms held in an
optical dipole trap at a range of wavelengths near a calculated magic value
A Dense Gas Trigger for OH Megamasers
HCN and CO line diagnostics provide new insight into the OH megamaser (OHM)
phenomenon, suggesting a dense gas trigger for OHMs. We identify three physical
properties that differentiate OHM hosts from other starburst galaxies: (1) OHMs
have the highest mean molecular gas densities among starburst galaxies; nearly
all OHM hosts have = 10^3-10^4 cm^-3 (OH line-emitting clouds likely
have n(H2) > 10^4 cm^-3). (2) OHM hosts are a distinct population in the
nonlinear part of the IR-CO relation. (3) OHM hosts have exceptionally high
dense molecular gas fractions, L(HCN)/L(CO)>0.07, and comprise roughly half of
this unusual population. OH absorbers and kilomasers generally follow the
linear IR-CO relation and are uniformly distributed in dense gas fraction and
L(HCN), demonstrating that OHMs are independent of OH abundance. The fraction
of non-OHMs with high mean densities and high dense gas fractions constrains
beaming to be a minor effect: OHM emission solid angle must exceed 2 pi
steradians. Contrary to conventional wisdom, IR luminosity does not dictate OHM
formation; both star formation and OHM activity are consequences of tidal
density enhancements accompanying galaxy interactions. The OHM fraction in
starbursts is likely due to the fraction of mergers experiencing a temporal
spike in tidally driven density enhancement. OHMs are thus signposts marking
the most intense, compact, and unusual modes of star formation in the local
universe. Future high redshift OHM surveys can now be interpreted in a star
formation and galaxy evolution context, indicating both the merging rate of
galaxies and the burst contribution to star formation.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, 1 table, accepted by ApJ Letter
Gouy phase shift of single-cycle picosecond acoustic pulses
Ultrafast laser pulses are used to generate single-cycle picosecond acoustic pulses in thin metal films on silicon. For small initial excitation spot sizes, propagation of the acoustic pulses across a 485-Όm Si crystal leads to significant diffraction effects. The temporal reshaping of the acoustic wave form due to diffraction is investigated, and we demonstrate that the acoustic far field can be reached. © 2003 American Institute of Physics.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/71324/2/APPLAB-83-2-392-1.pd
Limits on the cosmological abundance of supermassive compact objects from a millilensing search in gamma-ray burst data
A new search for the gravitational lens effects of a significant cosmological
density of supermassive compact objects (SCOs) on gamma-ray bursts has yielded
a null result. We inspected the timing data of 774 BATSE-triggered GRBs for
evidence of millilensing: repeated peaks similar in light-curve shape and
spectra. Our null detection leads us to conclude that, in all candidate
universes simulated, is favored for , while in some universes and mass ranges the density
limits are as much as 10 times lower. Therefore, a cosmologically significant
population of SCOs near globular cluster mass neither came out of the
primordial universe, nor condensed at recombination.Comment: 14 pages including 3 figures, appeared 2001 January 2
NG7538 IRS1 N: modeling a circumstellar maser disk
We present an edge-on Keplerian disk model to explain the main component of
the 12.2 and 6.7 GHz methanol maser emission detected toward NGC7538-IRS1 N.
The brightness distribution and spectrum of the line of bright masers are
successfully modeled with high amplification of background radio continuum
emission along velocity coherent paths through a maser disk. The bend seen in
the position-velocity diagram is a characteristic signature of differentially
rotating disks. For a central mass of 30 solar masses, suggested by other
observations, our model fixes the masing disk to have inner and outer radii of
about 270 AU and 750 AU.Comment: To appear in The Proceedings of the 2004 European Workshop: "Dense
Molecular Gas around Protostars and in Galatic Nuclei", Eds. Y. Hagiwara,
W.A. Baan, H.J. van Langevelde, 2004, a special issue of ApSS, Kluwe
Diffusion limited aggregation as a Markovian process: site-sticking conditions
Cylindrical lattice diffusion limited aggregation (DLA), with a narrow width
N, is solved for site-sticking conditions using a Markovian matrix method
(which was previously developed for the bond-sticking case). This matrix
contains the probabilities that the front moves from one configuration to
another at each growth step, calculated exactly by solving the Laplace equation
and using the proper normalization. The method is applied for a series of
approximations, which include only a finite number of rows near the front. The
fractal dimensionality of the aggregate is extrapolated to a value near 1.68.Comment: 27 Revtex pages, 16 figure
A Search for Extragalactic Methanol Masers
A sensitive search for 6.7--GHz methanol maser emission has been made towards
10 galaxies that have yielded detectable microwave molecular--line transitions.
These include several which show OH megamaser or superluminous \water\/ maser
emission. Within the Galaxy, \methanol\/ and OH masers often occur in the same
star formation regions and, in most cases, the \methanol\/ masers have a
greater peak flux density than their OH counterparts. Thus we might expect
\methanol\/ masers to be associated with extragalactic OH maser sources. We
failed to detect any emission or absorption above our 60--mJy detection limit.
We conclude that if the physical conditions exist to produce \methanol\/
megamaser emission, they are incompatible with the conditions which produce OH
megamaser emission.Comment: 9 Pages, LaTe
A single low-energy, iron-poor supernova as the source of metals in the star SMSS J 031300.36-670839.3
The element abundance ratios of four low-mass stars with extremely low
metallicities indicate that the gas out of which the stars formed was enriched
in each case by at most a few, and potentially only one low-energy, supernova.
Such supernovae yield large quantities of light elements such as carbon but
very little iron. The dominance of low-energy supernovae is surprising, because
it has been expected that the first stars were extremely massive, and that they
disintegrated in pair-instability explosions that would rapidly enrich galaxies
in iron. What has remained unclear is the yield of iron from the first
supernovae, because hitherto no star is unambiguously interpreted as
encapsulating the yield of a single supernova. Here we report the optical
spectrum of SMSS J031300.36- 670839.3, which shows no evidence of iron (with an
upper limit of 10^-7.1 times solar abundance). Based on a comparison of its
abundance pattern with those of models, we conclude that the star was seeded
with material from a single supernova with an original mass of ~60 Mo (and that
the supernova left behind a black hole). Taken together with the previously
mentioned low-metallicity stars, we conclude that low-energy supernovae were
common in the early Universe, and that such supernovae yield light element
enrichment with insignificant iron. Reduced stellar feedback both chemically
and mechanically from low-energy supernovae would have enabled first-generation
stars to form over an extended period. We speculate that such stars may perhaps
have had an important role in the epoch of cosmic reionization and the chemical
evolution of early galaxies.Comment: 28 pages, 6 figures, Natur
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