2,083 research outputs found
Inertia of Heat in Advective Accretion Disks around Kerr Black Holes
In the innermost region of the advective accretion disk orbiting a black hole
of high spin, the inertia of heat stored in the accreting gas is comparable to
that of the gas rest mass itself. Accounting for this effect, we derive
additional terms in the disk structure equations, and show that the heat
inertia plays a significant role in the global energy conservation and dynamics
of accretion in the relativistic advective disks.Comment: 6 pages, Latex, submitted to ApJ
Linear acceleration emission: 2 Power spectrum
The theory of linear acceleration emission is developed for a large amplitude
electrostatic wave in which all particles become highly relativistic in much
less than a wave period. An Airy integral approximation is shown to apply near
the phases where the electric field passes through zero and the Lorentz factors
of all particles have their maxima. The emissivity is derived for an individual
particle and is integrated over frequency and solid angle to find the power
radiated per particle. The result is different from that implied by the
generalized Larmor formula which, we argue, is not valid in this case. We also
discuss a mathematical inconsistency that arises when one evaluates the power
spectrum by integrating the emissivity over solid angle. The correct power
spectrum increases as the 4/3rd power of the frequency at low frequencies, and
falls off exponentially above a characteristic frequency.
We discuss application of linear acceleration emission to the emission of
high frequency photons in an oscillating model for pulsars. We conclude that it
cannot account for gamma-ray emission, but can play a role in secondary pair
creation.Comment: 25 pages; Accepted for publication in Ap
Thermoelectric and Seebeck coefficients of granular metals
In this work we present a detailed study and derivation of the thermopower
and thermoelectric coefficient of nano-granular metals at large tunneling
conductance between the grains, g_T>> 1. An important criterion for the
performance of a thermoelectric device is the thermodynamic figure of merit
which is derived using the kinetic coefficients of granular metals. All results
are valid at intermediate temperatures, E_c>>T/g_T>\delta, where \delta is the
mean energy level spacing for a single grain and E_c its charging energy. We
show that the electron-electron interaction leads to an increase of the
thermopower with decreasing grain size and discuss our results in the light of
future generation thermoelectric materials for low temperature applications.
The behavior of the figure of merit depending on system parameters like grain
size, tunneling conductance, and temperature is presented.Comment: 27 pages, 10 figures, revtex
Single grain heating due to inelastic cotunneling
We study heating effects of a single metallic quantum dot weakly coupled to
two leads. The dominant mechanism for heating at low temperatures is due to
inelastic electron cotunneling processes. We calculate the grain temperature
profile as a function of grain parameters, bias voltage, and time and show that
for nanoscale size grains the heating effects are pronounced and easily
measurable in experiments.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, revtex4, extended and corrected versio
Frequency dependent polarizability of small metallic grains
We study the dynamic electronic polarizability of a single nano-scale
spherical metallic grain using quantum mechanical approach. We introduce the
model for interacting electrons bound in the grain allowing us numerically to
calculate the frequency dependence of the polarizability of grains of different
sizes. We show that within this model the main resonance peak corresponding to
the surface plasmon mode is blue-shifted and some minor secondary resonances
above and below the main peak exist. We study the behavior of blue shift as a
function of grain size and compare our findings with the classical
polarizability and with other results in the literature.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figure
Radiation Front Sweeping the Ambient Medium of Gamma-Ray Bursts
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are emitted by relativistic ejecta from powerful
cosmic explosions. Their light curves suggest that the gamma-ray emission
occurs at early stages of the ejecta expansion, well before it decelerates in
the ambient medium. If so, the launched gamma-ray front must overtake the
ejecta and sweep the ambient medium outward. As a result a gap is opened
between the ejecta and the medium that surfs the radiation front ahead.
Effectively, the ejecta moves in a cavity until it reaches a radius
R_{gap}=10^{16}E_{54}^{1/2} cm where E is the isotropic energy of the GRB. At
R=R_{gap} the gap is closed, a blast wave forms and collects the medium swept
by radiation. Further development of the blast wave is strongly affected by the
leading radiation front: the front plays the role of a precursor where the
medium is loaded with e+- pairs and preaccelerated just ahead of the blast. It
impacts the emission from the blast at R < R_{load}=5R_{gap} (the early
afterglow). A spectacular observational effect results: GRB afterglows should
start in optical/UV and evolve fast (< min) to a normal X-ray afterglow. The
early optical emission observed in GRB 990123 may be explained in this way. The
impact of the front is especially strong if the ambient medium is a wind from a
massive progenitor of the GRB. In this case three phenomena are predicted: (1)
The ejecta decelerates at R<R_{load} producing a lot of soft radiation. (2) The
light curve of soft emission peaks at
t_{peak}=40(1+z)E_{54}^{1/2}(Gamma_{ej}/100)^{-2} s where Gamma_{ej} is the
Lorentz factor of the ejecta. Given measured redshift z and t_{peak}, one finds
Gamma_{ej}. (3) The GRB acquires a spectral break at 5 - 50 MeV because harder
photons are absorbed by radiation scattered in the wind.Comment: 20 pages, accepted to Ap
The influence of magnetic field geometry on magnetars X-ray spectra
Nowadays, the analysis of the X-ray spectra of magnetically powered neutron
stars or magnetars is one of the most valuable tools to gain insight into the
physical processes occurring in their interiors and magnetospheres. In
particular, the magnetospheric plasma leaves a strong imprint on the observed
X-ray spectrum by means of Compton up-scattering of the thermal radiation
coming from the star surface. Motivated by the increased quality of the
observational data, much theoretical work has been devoted to develop Monte
Carlo (MC) codes that incorporate the effects of resonant Compton scattering in
the modeling of radiative transfer of photons through the magnetosphere. The
two key ingredients in this simulations are the kinetic plasma properties and
the magnetic field (MF) configuration. The MF geometry is expected to be
complex, but up to now only mathematically simple solutions (self-similar
solutions) have been employed. In this work, we discuss the effects of new,
more realistic, MF geometries on synthetic spectra. We use new force-free
solutions in a previously developed MC code to assess the influence of MF
geometry on the emerging spectra. Our main result is that the shape of the
final spectrum is mostly sensitive to uncertain parameters of the
magnetospheric plasma, but the MF geometry plays an important role on the
angle-dependence of the spectra.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures To appear in Proceedings of II Iberian Nuclear
Astrophysics Meeting held in Salamanca, September 22-23, 201
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