7,091 research outputs found
Evolutionary Models of Super-Earths and Mini-Neptunes Incorporating Cooling and Mass Loss
We construct models of the structural evolution of super-Earth- and
mini-Neptune-type exoplanets with hydrogen-helium envelopes, incorporating
radiative cooling and XUV-driven mass loss. We conduct a parameter study of
these models, focusing on initial mass, radius, and envelope mass fractions, as
well as orbital distance, metallicity, and the specific prescription for mass
loss. From these calculations, we investigate how the observed masses and radii
of exoplanets today relate to the distribution of their initial conditions.
Orbital distance and initial envelope mass fraction are the most important
factors determining planetary evolution, particular radius evolution. Initial
mass also becomes important below a "turnoff mass," which varies with orbital
distance, with mass-radius curves being approximately flat for higher masses.
Initial radius is the least important parameter we study, with very little
difference between the hot start and cold start limits after an age of 100 Myr.
Model sets with no mass loss fail to produce results consistent with
observations, but a plausible range of mass loss scenarios is allowed. In
addition, we present scenarios for the formation of the Kepler-11 planets. Our
best fit to observations Kepler-11b and Kepler-11c involves formation beyond
the snow line, after which they moved inward, circularized, and underwent a
reduced degree mass loss.Comment: 17 pages, 18 figures, 1 table, Accepted to Ap
Axions and SN1987A
The effect of free-streaming axion emission on numerical models for the cooling of the newly born neutron star associated with SN1987A is considered. It is found that for an axion mass of greater than approximately 10 to the -3 eV, axion emission shortens the duration of the expected neutrino burst so significantly that it would be inconsistent with the neutrino observations made by the Kamiokande II and Irvine-Michigan-Brookhaven detectors. However, the possibility has not been investigated that axion trapping (which should occur for masses greater than or equal to 0.02 eV) sufficiently reduces axion emission so that axion masses greater than approximately 2 eV would be consistent with the neutrino observations
Mass-Radius Relations and Core-Envelope Decompositions of Super-Earths and Sub-Neptunes
Many exoplanets have been discovered with radii of 1-4 Earth radii, between
that of Earth and Neptune. A number of these are known to have densities
consistent with solid compositions, while others are "sub-Neptunes" likely to
have significant hydrogen-helium envelopes. Future surveys will no doubt
significantly expand these populations. In order to understand how the measured
masses and radii of such planets can inform their structures and compositions,
we construct models both for solid layered planets and for planets with solid
cores and gaseous envelopes, exploring a range of core masses, hydrogen-helium
envelope masses, and associated envelope entropies. For planets in the
super-Earth/sub-Neptune regime for which both radius and mass are measured, we
estimate how each is partitioned into a solid core and gaseous envelope,
associating a specific core mass and envelope mass with a given exoplanet. We
perform this decomposition for both "Earth-like" rock-iron cores and pure ice
cores, and find that the necessary gaseous envelope masses for this important
sub-class of exoplanets must range very widely from zero to many Earth masses,
even for a given core mass. This result bears importantly on exoplanet
formation and envelope evaporation processes.Comment: 26 pages, 21 figures, 16 tables, accepted to Ap
Many-Body Corrections to Charged-Current Neutrino Absorption Rates in Nuclear Matter
Including nucleon--nucleon correlations due to both Fermi statistics and
nuclear forces, we have developed a general formalism for calculating the
charged--current neutrino--nucleon absorption rates in nuclear matter. We find
that at one half nuclear density many--body effects alone suppress the rates by
a factor of two and that the suppression factors increase to 5 at
g cm. The associated increase in the neutrino--matter
mean--free--paths parallels that found for neutral--current interactions and
opens up interesting possibilities in the context of the delayed supernova
mechanism and protoneutron star cooling.Comment: 11 pages, APS REVTeX format, 1 PostScript figure, uuencoded
compressed, and tarred, submitted to Physical Review Letter
z'-band Ground-Based Detection of the Secondary Eclipse of WASP-19b
We present the ground-based detection of the secondary eclipse of the
transiting exoplanet WASP-19b. The observations were made in the Sloan z'-band
using the ULTRACAM triple-beam CCD camera mounted on the NTT. The measurement
shows a 0.088\pm0.019% eclipse depth, matching previous predictions based on H-
and K-band measurements. We discuss in detail our approach to the removal of
errors arising due to systematics in the data set, in addition to fitting a
model transit to our data. This fit returns an eclipse centre, T0, of
2455578.7676 HJD, consistent with a circular orbit. Our measurement of the
secondary eclipse depth is also compared to model atmospheres of WASP-19b, and
is found to be consistent with previous measurements at longer wavelengths for
the model atmospheres we investigated.Comment: 20 pages, 10 figures. Published in the ApJ Supplement serie
On homogeneous statistical distributions exoplanets for their dynamic parameters
Correct distributions of extrasolar systems for their orbital parameters
(semi-major axes, period, eccentricity) and physical characteristics (mass,
spectral type of parent star) are received. Orbital resonances in extrasolar
systems are considered. It is shown, that the account of more thin effects,
including with use of wavelet methods, in obviously incorrectly reduced
distributions it is not justified, to what the homogeneous statistical
distributions for dynamic parameters of exoplanets, received in the present
work, testify.Comment: 9 pages, 15 figures; International Conference "100 years since
Tunguska phenomenon: Past, present and future", (June 26-28, 2008. Russia,
Moscow), Lomonosov readings 2009 (Moscow State University
Numerical Toy-Model Calculation of the Nucleon Spin Autocorrelation Function in a Supernova Core
We develop a simple model for the evolution of a nucleon spin in a hot and
dense nuclear medium. A given nucleon is limited to one-dimensional motion in a
distribution of external, spin-dependent scattering potentials. We calculate
the nucleon spin autocorrelation function numerically for a variety of
potential densities and distributions which are meant to bracket realistic
conditions in a supernova core. For all plausible configurations the width of
the spin-density structure function is found to be less than the temperature.
This is in contrast with a naive perturbative calculation based on the one-pion
exchange potential which overestimates the width and thus suggests a large
suppression of the neutrino opacities by nucleon spin fluctuations. Our results
suggest that it may be justified to neglect the collisional broadening of the
spin-density structure function for the purpose of estimating the neutrino
opacities in the deep inner core of a supernova. On the other hand, we find no
indication that processes such as axion or neutrino pair emission, which depend
on nucleon spin fluctuations, are substantially suppressed beyond the
multiple-scattering effect already discussed in the literature. Aside from
these practical conclusions, our model reveals a number of interesting and
unexpected insights. For example, the spin-relaxation rate saturates with
increasing potential strength only if bound states are not allowed to form by
including a repulsive core. There is no saturation with increasing density of
scattering potentials until localized eigenstates of energy begin to form.Comment: 14 latex pages in two-column format, 15 postscript figures included,
uses revtex.sty and epsf.sty. Submitted to Physical Review
Mu and Tau Neutrino Thermalization and Production in Supernovae: Processes and Timescales
We investigate the rates of production and thermalization of and
neutrinos at temperatures and densities relevant to core-collapse
supernovae and protoneutron stars. Included are contributions from electron
scattering, electron-positron annihilation, nucleon-nucleon bremsstrahlung, and
nucleon scattering. For the scattering processes, in order to incorporate the
full scattering kinematics at arbitrary degeneracy, the structure function
formalism developed by Reddy et al. (1998) and Burrows and Sawyer (1998) is
employed. Furthermore, we derive formulae for the total and differential rates
of nucleon-nucleon bremsstrahlung for arbitrary nucleon degeneracy in
asymmetric matter. We find that electron scattering dominates nucleon
scattering as a thermalization process at low neutrino energies
( MeV), but that nucleon scattering is always faster
than or comparable to electron scattering above MeV. In
addition, for g cm, MeV, and
neutrino energies MeV, nucleon-nucleon bremsstrahlung always
dominates electron-positron annihilation as a production mechanism for
and neutrinos.Comment: 29 pages, LaTeX (RevTeX), 13 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. C. Also
to be found at anonymous ftp site http://www.astrophysics.arizona.edu; cd to
pub/thompso
Temperature contour maps at the strain-induced martensitic transition of a Cu–Zn–Al shape-memory single crystal
We study temperature changes at the reverse strain-induced martensitic transformation in a Cu–Zn–Al single crystal. Infrared thermal imaging reveals a markedly inhomogeneous temperature distribution. The evolution of the contour temperature maps enables information to be extracted on the kinetics of the interface motion
Instabilities in neutrino-plasma density waves
One examines the interaction and possible resonances between supernova
neutrinos and electron plasma waves. The neutrino phase space distribution and
its boundary regions are analyzed in detail. It is shown that the boundary
regions are too wide to produce non-linear resonant effects. The growth or
damping rates induced by neutrinos are always proportional to the neutrino flux
and .Comment: 9 pages, a few words modified to match PRD publicatio
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