Diffusive Shock Acceleration of Cosmic Rays -- Quasi-thermal and Non-thermal Particle Distributions

A well-known paradigm about the origin of Galactic cosmic rays (CRs) is that these high-energy particles are accelerated in the process of diffusive shock acceleration (DSA) at collisionless shocks (at least up to the so-called "knee"energy of $10^{15}$ eV). Knowing the details of injection of electrons, protons and heavier nuclei into the DSA, their initial and the resulting spectrum, is extremely important in many "practical" applications of the CR astrophysics, e.g. in modelling of the gamma or synchrotron radio emission of astrophysical sources. In this contribution I we will give an overview of the DSA theory and the results of observations and kinetic Particle-In-Cell (PIC) simulations that support the basic theoretical concepts. PIC simulations of quasi-parallel collisionless shocks show that thermal and supra-thermal proton distribution functions at the shock can be represented by a single quasi-thermal distribution - the $\kappa$-distribution that is commonly observed in out-of-equilibrium space plasmas. Farther downstream, index $\kappa$ increases and the low-energy spectrum tends to Maxwell distribution. On the other hand, higher-energy particles continue through the acceleration process and the non-thermal particle spectrum takes a characteristic power-law form predicted by the linear DSA theory. In the end, I will show what modification of the spectra is expected in the non-linear DSA, when CR back-reaction to the shock is taken into account.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures, 11th International Conference of the Balkan Physical Union (BPU11), 28 August - 1 September 2022, Belgrade, Serbi

The Critical Mass Ratio for W UMa-type Contact Binary Systems

Contact binaries are close binary systems in which both components fill their inner Roche lobes so that the stars are in direct contact and in potential mass and energy exchange. The most common such systems of low-mass are the so-called W UMa-type. In the last few years, there is a growing interest of the astronomical community in stellar mergers, primarily due to the detection of gravitational waves (mergers of black holes and neutron stars), but also because of an alternative model for type Ia supernovae (merger of two white dwarfs), which are again particularly important in cosmology where they played an important role in the discovery of dark energy and the accelerated expansion of the Universe. In that sense, contact systems of W UMa-type with extremely low mass ratio are especially interesting because there are indications that in their case, too, stars can merge and possible form fast-rotating stars such as FC Com stars and the blue-stragglers, and (luminous) red novae such as V1309 Sco. Namely, previous theoretical research has shown that in the cases when the orbital angular momentum of the system is only about three times larger than the rotational angular momentum of the primary, a tidal Darwin's instability occurs, the components can no longer remain in synchronous rotation, orbit continue to shrink fast and they finally merge into a single star. The above stability condition for contact systems can be linked to some critical mass ratio below which we expect a system to be unstable. We give an overview of this condition and show how it can be used to identify potential mergers. Finally, we discuss a number of known extreme mass ratio binaries from the literature and prospect for future research on this topic.Comment: 15 pages, 6 figures, 2 table

Radial Dependence of Extinction in Parent Galaxies of Supernovae

The problem of extinction is the most important issue to be dealt with in the process of obtaining true absolute magnitudes of core-collapse supernovae (SNe). The plane-parallel model which gives absorption dependent on galaxy inclination, widely used in the past, was shown not to describe extinction adequately. We try to apply an alternative model which introduces radial ependence of extinction. A certain trend of dimmer SNe with decreasing radius from the center of a galaxy was found, for a chosen sample of stripped-envelope SNe.Comment: 4 pages, 1 table, 2 figures, 6th SCSLSA Pro