10,319 research outputs found
The innocence of Jacques-Pierre Brissot
Even during his lifetime, the French revolutionary Girondin leader Jacques-Pierre Brissot de Warville's reputation was tarnished by allegations that, before 1789, he was a swindler, police spy, and political pornographer.
These charges resurfaced in 1968 in a celebrated article by Robert Darnton, which found miscellaneous, fragmentary evidence to support them, above all in the papers of the pre-revolutionary police chief, Lenoir. Although Darnton's view has been challenged by several historians, no critic has supplied any substantive new evidence, and hence the Brissot debate remains mired in assertions and counter-assertions.
This article finally offers such evidence, drawing both on Darnton's main source, the Lenoir papers, and on sources unavailable to him in 1968, notably records of Brissot's Licée de Londres and his embastillement, now on deposit in the Archives Nationales. While acquiting Brissot on all counts, it finds that Darnton's suspicions were not entirely unfounded. Brissot did have compromising links to both police and political pornographers. Nevertherless, allegations that he spied and wrote scandalous pamphlets appear malicious, despite Brissot's arrest on the latter charge in 1784. The article also attempts to explain Brissot's motivations and the lasting implications of his arrest and persecution in shaping Brissot and the French Revolution
Thermal Processes Governing Hot-Jupiter Radii
There have been many proposed explanations for the larger-than-expected radii
of some transiting hot Jupiters, including either stellar or orbital energy
deposition deep in the atmosphere or deep in the interior. In this paper, we
explore the important influences on hot-Jupiter radius evolution of (i)
additional heat sources in the high atmosphere, the deep atmosphere, and deep
in the convective interior; (ii) consistent cooling of the deep interior
through the planetary dayside, nightside, and poles; (iii) the degree of heat
redistribution to the nightside; and (iv) the presence of an upper atmosphere
absorber inferred to produce anomalously hot upper atmospheres and inversions
in some close-in giant planets. In particular, we compare the radius expansion
effects of atmospheric and deep-interior heating at the same power levels and
derive the power required to achieve a given radius increase when night-side
cooling is incorporated. We find that models that include consistent day/night
cooling are more similar to isotropically irradiated models when there is more
heat redistributed from the dayside to the nightside. In addition, we consider
the efficacy of ohmic heating in the atmosphere and/or convective interior in
inflating hot Jupiters. Among our conclusions are that (i) the most highly
irradiated planets cannot stably have uB > (10 km/s Gauss) over a large
fraction of their daysides, where u is the zonal wind speed and B is the
dipolar magnetic field strength in the atmosphere, and (ii) that ohmic heating
cannot in and of itself lead to a runaway in planet radius.Comment: Accepted by ApJ., 20 pages, 11 figure
The Deuterium-Burning Mass Limit for Brown Dwarfs and Giant Planets
There is no universally acknowledged criterion to distinguish brown dwarfs
from planets. Numerous studies have used or suggested a definition based on an
object's mass, taking the ~13-Jupiter mass (M_J) limit for the ignition of
deuterium. Here, we investigate various deuterium-burning masses for a range of
models. We find that, while 13 M_J is generally a reasonable rule of thumb, the
deuterium fusion mass depends on the helium abundance, the initial deuterium
abundance, the metallicity of the model, and on what fraction of an object's
initial deuterium abundance must combust in order for the object to qualify as
having burned deuterium. Even though, for most proto-brown dwarf conditions,
50% of the initial deuterium will burn if the object's mass is ~(13.0 +/-
0.8)M_J, the full range of possibilities is significantly broader. For models
ranging from zero-metallicity to more than three times solar metallicity, the
deuterium burning mass ranges from ~11.0 M_J (for 3-times solar metallicity,
10% of initial deuterium burned) to ~16.3 M_J (for zero metallicity, 90% of
initial deuterium burned).Comment: "Models" section expanded, references added, accepted by Ap
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
Resolving ambiguities in the neutrino mass-flavour spectrum from supernova neutrinos
We analyze the neutrino conversions inside a supernova in the 3 mixing
scheme, and their effects on the neutrino spectra observed at the earth. We
find that the observations of the energy spectra of neutrinos from a future
galactic supernova may enable us to identify the solar neutrino solution, to
determine the sign of , and to probe the mixing matrix element
|U_{e3}|^2 to values as low as 10^{-4}-10^{-3}.Comment: 3 pages, 1 eps figure. Talk given at TAUP-99. To be published in
Nucl. Phys. B, Proc. Supp
Sympathetic cooling of He ions in a radiofrequency trap
We have generated Coulomb crystals of ultracold He ions in a linear
radiofrequency trap, by sympathetic cooling via laser--cooled Be.
Stable crystals containing up to 150 localized He ions at 20 mK were
obtained. Ensembles or single ultracold He ions open up interesting
perspectives for performing precision tests of QED and measurements of nuclear
radii. The present work also indicates the feasibility of cooling and
crystallizing highly charged atomic ions using Be as coolant.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure
QCD: Challenges for the Future
Despite many experimental verifications of the correctness of our basic
understanding of QCD, there remain numerous open questions in strong
interaction physics and we focus on the role of future colliders in addressing
these questions. We discuss possible advances in the measurement of ,
in the study of parton distribution functions, and in the understanding of low
physics at present colliders and potential new facilities. We also touch
briefly on the role of spin physics in advancing our understanding of QCD.Comment: 12 pages, LATEX2e with snow2e, epsfig and 2 figures. Also available
at http://penguin.phy.bnl.gov/~dawson/qcdsnow.ps . QCD working group summary
at DPF/DPB Summer Study on New Directions for High Energy Physics, Snowmass,
CO, June 25- July 12, 199
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