Gravitational Waves from Rotating Proto-Neutron Stars

We study the effects of rotation on the quasi normal modes (QNMs) of a newly born proto neutron star (PNS) at different evolutionary stages, until it becomes a cold neutron star (NS). We use the Cowling approximation, neglecting spacetime perturbations, and consider different models of evolving PNS. The frequencies of the modes of a PNS are considerably lower than those of a cold NS, and are further lowered by rotation; consequently, if QNMs were excited in a sufficiently energetic process, they would radiate waves that could be more easily detectable by resonant-mass and interferometric detectors than those emitted by a cold NS. We find that for high rotation rates, some of the g-modes become unstable via the CFS instability; however, this instability is likely to be suppressed by competing mechanisms before emitting a significant amount of gravitational waves.Comment: 5 pages, proceedings of the 5th Edoardo Amaldi Conference On Gravitational Wave

Ex-nihilo: Obstacles Surrounding Teaching the Standard Model

The model of the Big Bang is an integral part of the national curriculum for England. Previous work (e.g. Baxter 1989) has shown that pupils often come into education with many and varied prior misconceptions emanating from both internal and external sources. Whilst virtually all of these misconceptions can be remedied, there will remain (by its very nature) the obstacle of ex-nihilo, as characterised by the question `how do you get something from nothing?' There are two origins of this obstacle: conceptual (i.e. knowledge-based) and cultural (e.g. deeply held religious viewpoints). The article shows how the citizenship section of the national curriculum, coming `online' in England from September 2002, presents a new opportunity for exploiting these.Comment: 6 pages. Accepted for publication in Physics E

Predators reduce extinction risk in noisy metapopulations

Background Spatial structure across fragmented landscapes can enhance regional population persistence by promoting local “rescue effects.” In small, vulnerable populations, where chance or random events between individuals may have disproportionately large effects on species interactions, such local processes are particularly important. However, existing theory often only describes the dynamics of metapopulations at regional scales, neglecting the role of multispecies population dynamics within habitat patches. Findings By coupling analysis across spatial scales we quantified the interaction between local scale population regulation, regional dispersal and noise processes in the dynamics of experimental host-parasitoid metapopulations. We find that increasing community complexity increases negative correlation between local population dynamics. A potential mechanism underpinning this finding was explored using a simple population dynamic model. Conclusions Our results suggest a paradox: parasitism, whilst clearly damaging to hosts at the individual level, reduces extinction risk at the population level

Superradiant instability of large radius doubly spinning black rings

We point out that 5D large radius doubly spinning black rings with rotation along S^1 and S^2 are afflicted by a robust instability. It is triggered by superradiant bound state modes. The Kaluza-Klein momentum of the mode along the ring is responsible for the bound state. This kind of instability in black strings and branes was first suggested by Marolf and Palmer and studied in detail by Cardoso, Lemos and Yoshida. We find the frequency spectrum and timescale of this instability in the black ring background, and show that it is active for large radius rings with large rotation along S^2. We identify the endpoint of the instability and argue that it provides a dynamical mechanism that introduces an upper bound in the rotation of the black ring. To estimate the upper bound, we use the recent black ring model of Hovdebo and Myers, with a minor extension to accommodate an extra small angular momentum. This dynamical bound can be smaller than the Kerr-like bound imposed by regularity at the horizon. Recently, the existence of higher dimensional black rings is being conjectured. They will be stable against this mechanism.Comment: 21 pages, 3 figures. Overall minor improvements in discussions added. Matches published version in PR

Numerical evolution of secular bar-mode instability induced by the gravitational radiation reaction in rapidly rotating neutron stars

The evolution of a nonaxisymmetric bar-mode perturbation of rapidly rotating stars due to a secular instability induced by gravitational wave emission is studied in post-Newtonian simulations taking into account gravitational radiation reaction. A polytropic equation of state with the polytropic index $n=1$ is adopted. The ratio of the rotational kinetic energy to the gravitational potential energy $T/|W|$ is chosen in the range between 0.2 and 0.26. Numerical simulations were performed until the perturbation grows to the nonlinear regime, and illustrate that the outcome after the secular instability sets in is an ellipsoidal star of a moderately large ellipticity \agt 0.7. A rapidly rotating protoneutron star may form such an ellipsoid, which is a candidate for strong emitter of gravitational waves for ground-based laser interferometric detectors. A possibility that effects of magnetic fields neglected in this work may modify the growth of the secular instability is also mentioned.Comment: PRD, accepted for publicatio

Instability of non-supersymmetric smooth geometries

Recently certain non-supersymmetric solutions of type IIb supergravity were constructed [hep-th/0504181], which are everywhere smooth, have no horizons and are thought to describe certain non-BPS microstates of the D1-D5 system. We demonstrate that these solutions are all classically unstable. The instability is a generic feature of horizonless geometries with an ergoregion. We consider the endpoint of this instability and argue that the solutions decay to supersymmetric configurations. We also comment on the implications of the ergoregion instability for Mathur's `fuzzball' proposal.Comment: v2: typos corrected, reference adde

Evolution of predator dispersal in relation to spatio-temporal prey dynamics : how not to get stuck in the wrong place!

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Reverberation Mapping Measurements of Black Hole Masses in Six Local Seyfert Galaxies

We present the final results from a high sampling rate, multi-month, spectrophotometric reverberation mapping campaign undertaken to obtain either new or improved Hbeta reverberation lag measurements for several relatively low-luminosity AGNs. We have reliably measured thetime delay between variations in the continuum and Hbeta emission line in six local Seyfert 1 galaxies. These measurements are used to calculate the mass of the supermassive black hole at the center of each of these AGNs. We place our results in context to the most current calibration of the broad-line region (BLR) R-L relationship, where our results remove outliers and reduce the scatter at the low-luminosity end of this relationship. We also present velocity-resolved Hbeta time delay measurements for our complete sample, though the clearest velocity-resolved kinematic signatures have already been published.Comment: 52 pages (AASTeX: 29 pages of text, 8 tables, 7 figures), accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journa

A Revised Broad-Line Region Radius and Black Hole Mass for the Narrow-Line Seyfert 1 NGC 4051

We present the first results from a high sampling rate, multi-month reverberation mapping campaign undertaken primarily at MDM Observatory with supporting observations from telescopes around the world. The primary goal of this campaign was to obtain either new or improved Hbeta reverberation lag measurements for several relatively low luminosity AGNs. We feature results for NGC 4051 here because, until now, this object has been a significant outlier from AGN scaling relationships, e.g., it was previously a ~2-3sigma outlier on the relationship between the broad-line region (BLR) radius and the optical continuum luminosity - the R_BLR-L relationship. Our new measurements of the lag time between variations in the continuum and Hbeta emission line made from spectroscopic monitoring of NGC 4051 lead to a measured BLR radius of R_BLR = 1.87 (+0.54 -0.50) light days and black hole mass of M_BH = 1.73 (+0.55 -0.52) x 10^6 M_sun. This radius is consistent with that expected from the R_BLR-L relationship, based on the present luminosity of NGC 4051 and the most current calibration of the relation by Bentz et al. (2009a). We also present a preliminary look at velocity-resolved Hbeta light curves and time delay measurements, although we are unable to reconstruct an unambiguous velocity-resolved reverberation signal.Comment: 38 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ, changes from v1 reflect suggestions from anonymous refere

On the Khalfin's improvement of the LOY effective Hamiltonian for neutral meson complex

The general properties of the effective Hamiltonian for neutral meson system improved by L.A. Khalfin in 1980 are studied. It is shown that contrary to the standard result of the Lee--Oehme--Yang (LOY) theory, the diagonal matrix elements of this effective Hamiltonian can not be equal in a CPT invariant system. It is also shown that the scalar product of short, $|K_{S}>$, and long, $|K_{L}>$, living superpositions of neutral kaons can not be real when CPT symmetry is conserved in the system under considerations whereas within the LOY theory such a scalar product is real.Comment: LaTeX2e, 25 pages, new comment and references adde