8,542 research outputs found
What brakes the Crab pulsar?
Optical observations provide convincing evidence that the optical phase of
the Crab pulsar follows the radio one closely. Since optical data do not depend
on dispersion measure variations, they provide a robust and independent
confirmation of the radio timing solution. The aim of this paper is to find a
global mathematical description of Crab pulsar's phase as a function of time
for the complete set of published Jodrell Bank radio ephemerides (JBE) in the
period 1988-2014. We apply the mathematical techniques developed for analyzing
optical observations to the analysis of JBE. We break the whole period into a
series of episodes and express the phase of the pulsar in each episode as the
sum of two analytical functions. The first function is the best-fitting local
braking index law, and the second function represents small residuals from this
law with an amplitude of only a few turns, which rapidly relaxes to the local
braking index law. From our analysis, we demonstrate that the power law index
undergoes "instantaneous" changes at the time of observed jumps in rotational
frequency (glitches). We find that the phase evolution of the Crab pulsar is
dominated by a series of constant braking law episodes, with the braking index
changing abruptly after each episode in the range of values between 2.1 and
2.6. Deviations from such a regular phase description behave as oscillations
triggered by glitches and amount to fewer than 40 turns during the above
period, in which the pulsar has made more than 2.0e10 turns. Our analysis does
not favor the explanation that glitches are connected to phenomena occurring in
the interior of the pulsar. On the contrary, timing irregularities and changes
in slow down rate seem to point to electromagnetic interaction of the pulsar
with the surrounding environment.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures, 3 tables; accepted for publication in Astronomy
& Astrophysic
Method to measure off-axis displacements based on the analysis of the intensity distribution of a vortex beam
We study the properties of the Fraunhofer diffraction patterns produced by
Gaussian beams crossing spiral phase plates. We show, both analytically and
numerically, that off-axis displacements of the input beam produce asymmetric
diffraction patterns. The intensity profile along the direction of maximum
asymmetry shows two different peaks. We find that the intensity ratio between
these two peaks decreases exponentially with the off-axis displacement of the
incident beam, the decay being steeper for higher strengths of the optical
singularity of the spiral phase plate. We analyze how this intensity ratio can
be used to measure small misalignments of the input beam with a very high
precision.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures. Accepted for publication in PR
Aqueye+: a new ultrafast single photon counter for optical high time resolution astrophysics
Aqueye+ is a new ultrafast optical single photon counter, based on single
photon avalanche photodiodes (SPAD) and a 4-fold split-pupil concept. It is a
completely revisited version of its predecessor, Aqueye, successfully mounted
at the 182 cm Copernicus telescope in Asiago. Here we will present the new
technological features implemented on Aqueye+, namely a state of the art timing
system, a dedicated and optimized optical train, a high sensitivity and high
frame rate field camera and remote control, which will give Aqueye plus much
superior performances with respect to its predecessor, unparalleled by any
other existing fast photometer. The instrument will host also an optical
vorticity module to achieve high performance astronomical coronography and a
real time acquisition of atmospheric seeing unit. The present paper describes
the instrument and its first performances.Comment: Proceedings of the SPIE, Volume 9504, id. 95040C 14 pp. (2015
Less Minimal Flavour Violation
We consider the approximate U(2)^3 flavour symmetry exhibited by the quark
sector of the Standard Model and all its possible breaking terms appearing in
the quark Yukawa couplings. Taking an Effective Field Theory point of view, we
determine the current bounds on these parameters, assumed to control the
breaking of flavour in a generic extension of the Standard Model at a reference
scale Lambda. In particular, a significant bound from epsilon'/epsilon is
derived, which is relevant to Minimal Flavour Violation as well. In the
up-quark sector, the recently observed CP violation in D -> pi+ pi-, K+ K-
decays might be accounted for in this generic framework, consistently with any
other constraint.Comment: 15 pages, 1 figur
Optical phase coherent timing of the Crab nebula pulsar with Iqueye at the ESO New Technology Telescope
The Crab nebula pulsar was observed in 2009 January and December with a novel
very fast optical photon counter, Iqueye, mounted at the ESO 3.5 m New
Technology Telescope. Thanks to the exquisite quality of the Iqueye data, we
computed accurate phase coherent timing solutions for the two observing runs
and over the entire year 2009. Our statistical uncertainty on the determination
of the phase of the main pulse and the rotational period of the pulsar for
short (a few days) time intervals are s and ~0.5 ps,
respectively. Comparison with the Jodrell Bank radio ephemerides shows that the
optical pulse leads the radio one by ~240 s in January and ~160 s in
December, in agreement with a number of other measurements performed after
1996. A third-order polynomial fit adequately describes the spin-down for the
2009 January plus December optical observations. The phase noise is consistent
with being Gaussian distributed with a dispersion of s in most observations, in agreement with theoretical expectations for
photon noise-induced phase variability.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures. Accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of
the Royal Astronomical Societ
Neutrino masses and flavor symmetries
The problem of neutrino masses and mixing angles is analysed in a class of
supersymmetric grand unified models, with SO(10) gauge symmetry and global U(2)
flavour symmetry. Adopting the seesaw mechanism for the generation of the
neutrino masses, one obtains a mass matrix for the left-handed neutrinos which
is directly related to the parameters of the charged sector, while the unknown
parameters of the right-handed Majorana mass matrix are inglobed in a single
factor.Comment: 17 pages, 1 eps figure, uses graphicx.sty, LaTeX 2e, to be published
on "Il Nuovo Cimento
Effects of frequency correlation in linear optical entangling gate operated with independent photons
Bose-Einstein coalescence of independent photons at the surface of a beam
splitter is the physical process that allows linear optical quantum gates to be
built. When distinct parametric down-conversion events are used as an
independent photon source, distinguishability arises form the energy
correlation of each photon with its twin. We find that increasing the pump
bandwidth may help in improving the visibility of non-classical interference
and reaching a level of near perfect indistinguishability. PACS: 03.67.Mn,
42.65.Lm, 42.50.St.Comment: Replaced with published versio
QCD Corrections in two-Higgs-doublet extensions of the Standard Model with Minimal Flavor Violation
We present the QCD corrections to R_b and to the Delta B=1 effective
Hamiltonian in models with a second Higgs field that couples to the quarks
respecting the criterion of Minimal Flavor Violation, thus belonging either to
the (1,2)_1/2 or to the (8,2)_1/2 representation of SU(3)xSU(2)xU(1). After the
inclusion of the QCD corrections, the prediction for R_b becomes practically
insensitive to the choice of renormalization scheme for the top mass, which for
the type-I and type-II models translates in a more robust lower bound on
tan(beta). The QCD-corrected determinations of Rb and BR(B->Xs gamma) are used
to discuss the constraints on the couplings of a (colored) charged Higgs boson
to top and bottom quarks.Comment: 19 pages, 7 figures. v2: version published in Phys. Rev. D, with
additional reference and not
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