15,865 research outputs found
Limits to the presence of transiting circumbinary planets in CoRoT data
The CoRoT mission during its flight-phase 2007-2012 delivered the
light-curves for over 2000 eclipsing binaries. Data from the Kepler mission
have proven the existence of several transiting circumbinary planets. Albeit
light-curves from CoRoT have typically lower precision and shorter coverage,
CoRoT's number of targets is similar to Kepler, and some of the known
circumbinary planets could potentially be detected in CoRoT data as well. The
aim of this work has been a revision of the entire CoRoT data-set for the
presence of circumbinary planets, and the derivation of limits to the
abundances of such planets. We developed a code which removes the light curve
of the eclipsing binaries and searches for quasi-periodic transit-like features
in a light curve after removal of binary eclipses and instrumental features.
The code needs little information on the sample systems and can be used for
other space missions as well, like Kepler, K2, TESS and PLATO. The code is
broad in the requirements leading to detections, but was tuned to deliver an
amount of detections that is manageable in a subsequent, mainly visual,
revision about their nature. In the CoRoT sample we identified three planet
candidates whose transits would have arisen from a single pass across the
central binary. No candidates remained however with transit events from
multiple planetary orbits. We calculated the upper limits for the number of
Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune sized planets in co-planar orbits for different
orbital period ranges. We found that there are much less giant planets in
short-periodic orbits around close binary systems than around single stars.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A, 11 pages, 4 figures and 4 tables.
Updated to fix error in acknowledgemen
Talbot effect for dispersion in linear optical fibers and a wavelet approach
We shortly recall the mathematical and physical aspects of Talbot's
self-imaging effect occurring in near-field diffraction. In the rational
paraxial approximation, the Talbot images are formed at distances z=p/q, where
p and q are coprimes, and are superpositions of q equally spaced images of the
original binary transmission (Ronchi) grating. This interpretation offers the
possibility to express the Talbot effect through Gauss sums. Here, we pay
attention to the Talbot effect in the case of dispersion in optical fibers
presenting our considerations based on the close relationships of the
mathematical representations of diffraction and dispersion. Although dispersion
deals with continuous functions, such as gaussian and supergaussian pulses,
whereas in diffraction one frequently deals with discontinuous functions, the
mathematical correspondence enables one to characterize the Talbot effect in
the two cases with minor differences. In addition, we apply, for the first time
to our knowledge, the wavelet transform to the fractal Talbot effect in both
diffraction and fiber dispersion. In the first case, the self similar character
of the transverse paraxial field at irrational multiples of the Talbot distance
is confirmed, whereas in the second case it is shown that the field is not self
similar for supergaussian pulses. Finally, a high-precision measurement of
irrational distances employing the fractal index determined with the wavelet
transform is pointed outComment: 15 text pages + 7 gif figs, accepted at Int. J. Mod. Phys. B, final
version of a contribution at ICSSUR-Besancon (May/05). Color figs available
from the first autho
Boltzmann entropy of a Newtonian Universe
A dynamical estimate is given for the Boltzmann entropy of the Universe,
under the simplifying assumptions provided by Newtonian cosmology. We first
model the cosmological fluid as the probability fluid of a quantum-mechanical
system. Next, following current ideas about the emergence of spacetime, we
regard gravitational equipotentials as isoentropic surfaces. Therefore
gravitational entropy is proportional to the vacuum expectation value of the
gravitational potential in a certain quantum state describing the matter
contents of the Universe. The entropy of the matter sector can also be
computed. While providing values of the entropy that turn out to be somewhat
higher than existing estimates, our results are in perfect compliance with the
upper bound set by the holographic principle.Comment: 15 page
OB Stars in the Solar Neighborhood I: Analysis of their Spatial Distribution
We present a newly-developed, three-dimensional spatial classification
method, designed to analyze the spatial distribution of early type stars within
the 1 kpc sphere around the Sun. We propose a distribution model formed by two
intersecting disks -the Gould Belt (GB) and the Local Galactic Disk (LGD)-
defined by their fundamental geometric parameters. Then, using a sample of
about 550 stars of spectral types earlier than B6 and luminosity classes
between III and V, with precise photometric distances of less than 1 kpc, we
estimate for some spectral groups the parameters of our model, as well as
single membership probabilities of GB and LGD stars, thus drawing a picture of
the spatial distribution of young stars in the vicinity of the Sun.Comment: 28 pages including 9 Postscript figures, one of them in color.
Accepted for publication in The Astronomical Journal, 30 January 200
The Nature of the Gould Belt from a Fractal Analysis of its Stellar Population
The Gould Belt (GB) is a system of gas and young, bright stars distributed
along a plane that is inclined with respect to the main plane of the Milky Way.
Observational evidence suggests that the GB is our closest star formation
complex, but its true nature and origin remain rather controversial. In this
work we analyze the fractal structure of the stellar component of the GB. In
order to do this, we tailor and apply an algorithm that estimates the fractal
dimension in a precise and accurate way, avoiding both boundary and small data
set problems. We find that early OB stars (of spectral types earlier than B4)
in the GB have a fractal dimension very similar to that of the gas clouds in
our Galaxy. On the contrary, stars in the GB of later spectral types show a
larger fractal dimension, similar to that found for OB stars of both age groups
in the local Galactic disk (LGD). This result seems to indicate that while the
younger OB stars in the GB preserve the memory of the spatial structure of the
cloud where they were born, older stars are distributed following a similar
morphology as that found for the LGD stars. The possible causes for these
differences are discussed.Comment: 20 pages including 7 figures and 1 table. ApJ (in press
Quasiparticle Breakdown and Spin Hamiltonian of the Frustrated Quantum Pyrochlore YbTiO in Magnetic Field
The frustrated pyrochlore magnet YbTiO has the remarkable
property that it orders magnetically, but has no propagating magnons over wide
regions of the Brillouin zone. Here we use inelastic neutron scattering to
follow how the spectrum evolves in cubic-axis magnetic fields. At high fields
we observe in addition to dispersive magnons also a two-magnon continuum, which
grows in intensity upon reducing the field and overlaps with the one-magnon
states at intermediate fields leading to strong renormalization of the
dispersion relations, and magnon decays. Using heat capacity measurements we
find that the low and high field regions are smoothly connected with no sharp
phase transition, with the spin gap increasing monotonically in field. Through
fits to an extensive data set we re-evaluate the spin Hamiltonian finding
dominant quantum exchange terms, which we propose are responsible for the
anomalously strong fluctuations and quasiparticle breakdown effects observed at
low fields.Comment: 5 pages main text + 19 pages supplemental materia
meson transparency in nuclei from resonant interactions
We investigate the meson nuclear transparency using some recent
theoretical developments on the in medium self-energy. The inclusion of
direct resonant -scattering and the kaon decay mechanisms leads to a
width much larger than in most previous theoretical approaches. The
model has been confronted with photoproduction data from CLAS and LEPS and the
recent proton induced production from COSY finding an overall good
agreement. The results support the need of a quite large direct -scattering contribution to the self-energy
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