3,399 research outputs found
High-Mass X-ray Binaries and the Spiral Structure of the Host Galaxy
We investigate the manifestation of the spiral structure in the distribution
of high-mass X-ray binaries (HMXBs) over the host galaxy. We construct the
simple kinematic model. It shows that the HMXBs should be displaced relative to
the spiral structure observed in such traditional star formation rate
indicators as the Halpha and FIR emissions because of their finite lifetimes.
Using Chandra observations of M51, we have studied the distribution of X-ray
sources relative to the spiral arms of this galaxy observed in Halpha. Based on
K-band data and background source number counts, we have separated the
contributions from high-mass and low-mass X-ray binaries and active galactic
nuclei. In agreement with model predictions, the distribution of HMXBs is wider
than that of bright HII regions concentrated in the region of ongoing star
formation. However, the statistical significance of this result is low, as is
the significance of the concentration of the total population of X-ray sources
to the spiral arms. We also predict the distribution of HMXBs in our Galaxy in
Galactic longitude. The distribution depends on the mean HMXB age and can
differ significantly from the distributions of such young objects as
ultracompact HII regions.Comment: 18 pages, 6 figures; Astronomy Letters, Vol. 33, No. 5, 2007, pp.
299-30
Quantum Pair Creation of Soliton Domain Walls
A large body of experimental evidence suggests that the decay of the false
vacuum, accompanied by quantum pair creation of soliton domain walls, can occur
in a variety of condensed matter systems. Examples include nucleation of charge
soliton pairs in density waves [eg. J. H. Miller, Jr. et al., Phys. Rev. Lett.
84, 1555 (2000)] and flux soliton pairs in long Josephon junctions. Recently,
Dias and Lemos [J. Math. Phys. 42, 3292 (2001)] have argued that the mass
of the soliton should be interpreted as a line density and a surface density,
respectively, for (2+1)-D and (3+1)-D systems in the expression for the pair
production rate. As the transverse dimensions are increased and the total mass
(energy) becomes large, thermal activation becomes suppressed, so quantum
processes can dominate even at relatively high temperatures. This paper will
discuss both experimental evidence and theoretical arguments for the existence
of high-temperature collective quantum phenomena
Lifshitz black holes in Brans-Dicke theory
We present an exact asymptotically Lifshitz black hole solution in
Brans-Dicke theory of gravity in arbitrary dimensions in presence of
a power-law potential. In this solution, the dynamical exponent is
determined in terms of the Brans-Dicke parameter and . Asymptotic
Lifshitz condition at infinity requires , which corresponds to
. On the other hand, the no-ghost condition
for the scalar field in the Einstein frame requires . We
compute the Hawking temperature of the black hole solution and discuss the
problems encountered and the proposals in defining its thermodynamic
properties. A generalized solution charged under the Maxwell field is also
presented.Comment: 32 pages, no figure. v2: revised version. Section 3.1 and Appendix B
improved. The argument in Appendix A clarified. v3: References added. v4:
analysis on the black hole thermodynamical properties corrected. Final
version to appear in JHE
New instability of non-extremal black holes: spitting out supertubes
We search for stable bound states of non-extremal rotating three-charge black
holes in five dimensions (Cvetic-Youm black holes) and supertubes. We do this
by studying the potential of supertube probes in the non-extremal black hole
background and find that generically the marginally bound state of the
supersymmetric limit becomes metastable and disappears with non-extremality
(higher temperature). However near extremality there is a range of parameters
allowing for stable bound states, which have lower energy than the
supertube-black hole merger. Angular momentum is crucial for this effect. We
use this setup in the D1-D5 decoupling limit to map a thermodynamic instability
of the CFT (a new phase which is entropically dominant over the black hole
phase) to a tunneling instability of the black hole towards the supertube-black
hole bound state. This generalizes the results of ArXiv:1108.0411 [hep-th],
which mapped an entropy enigma in the bulk to the dual CFT in a supersymmetric
setup.Comment: 28 pages + appendix, 15 figures, v2: References added, typos
corrected. Version published in JHE
Stationary Black Holes: Uniqueness and Beyond
The spectrum of known black-hole solutions to the stationary Einstein
equations has been steadily increasing, sometimes in unexpected ways. In
particular, it has turned out that not all black-hole-equilibrium
configurations are characterized by their mass, angular momentum and global
charges. Moreover, the high degree of symmetry displayed by vacuum and
electro-vacuum black-hole spacetimes ceases to exist in self-gravitating
non-linear field theories. This text aims to review some developments in the
subject and to discuss them in light of the uniqueness theorem for the
Einstein-Maxwell system.Comment: Major update of the original version by Markus Heusler from 1998.
Piotr T. Chru\'sciel and Jo\~ao Lopes Costa succeeded to this review's
authorship. Significantly restructured and updated all sections; changes are
too numerous to be usefully described here. The number of references
increased from 186 to 32
Overlapping abundance gradients and azimuthal gradients related to the spiral structure of the Galaxy
The connection between some features of the metallicity gradient in the
Galactic disk, best revealed by Open Clusters and Cepheids, and the spiral
structure, is explored. The step-like abrupt decrease in metallicity at 8.5 kpc
(with R_0= 7.5 kpc, or at 9.5 kpc if R_0 = 8.5 kpc is adopted) is well
explained by the corotation ring-shaped gap in the density of gas, which
isolates the internal and external regions of the disk one from the other. This
solves a long standing problem of understanding the different chemical
characteristics of the inner and outer parts of the disk. The time required to
build up the metallicity difference between the two sides of the step is a
measure of the minimal life-time of the present grand-design spiral pattern
structure, of the order of 3 Gyr. The plateaux observed on each side of the
step are interpreted in terms of the large scale radial motion of the stars and
of the gas flow induced by the spiral structure. The star-formation rate
revealed by the density of open clusters is maximum in the Galactic radial
range from 6 to 12 kpc (with an exception of a narrow gap at corotation),
coinciding with the region where the 4-arms mode is allowed to exist. We argue
that most of the old open clusters situated at large galactocentric radii were
born in this inner region where conditions more favorable to star-formation are
found. The ratio of -elements to Fe of the sample of Cepheids does not
vary appreciably with the Galactic radius, which reveals an homogeneous history
of star formation. Different arguments are given showing that usual
approximations of chemical evolution models, which assume fast mixing of
metallicity in the azimuthal direction and ignore the existence of the spiral
arms, are a poor ones.Comment: 13 pages, 12 figures, paper accepted by MNRAS main journa
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