1,270 research outputs found
The Extent and Cause of the Pre-White Dwarf Instability Strip
One of the least understood aspects of white dwarf evolution is the process
by which they are formed. We are aided, however, by the fact that many H- and
He-deficient pre-white dwarfs (PWDs) are multiperiodic g-mode pulsators.
Pulsations in PWDs provide a unique opportunity to probe their interiors, which
are otherwise inaccesible to direct observation. Until now, however, the nature
of the pulsation mechanism, the precise boundaries of the instability strip,
and the mass distribution of the PWDs were complete mysteries. These problems
must be addressed before we can apply knowledge of pulsating PWDs to improve
understanding of white dwarf formation. This paper lays the groundwork for
future theoretical investigations of these stars. In recent years, Whole Earth
Telescope observations led to determination of mass and luminosity for the
majority of the (non-central star) PWD pulsators. With these observations, we
identify the common properties and trends PWDs exhibit as a class. We find that
pulsators of low mass have higher luminosity, suggesting the range of
instability is highly mass-dependent. The observed trend of decreasing periods
with decreasing luminosity matches a decrease in the maximum (standing-wave)
g-mode period across the instability strip. We show that the red edge can be
caused by the lengthening of the driving timescale beyond the maximum
sustainable period. This result is general for ionization-based driving
mechanisms, and it explains the mass-dependence of the red edge. The observed
form of the mass-dependence provides a vital starting point for future
theoretical investigations of the driving mechanism. We also show that the blue
edge probably remains undetected because of selection effects arising from
rapid evolution.Comment: 40 pages, 6 figures, accepted by ApJ Oct 27, 199
Investigation of transit-selected exoplanet candidates from the MACHO survey
Context: Planets outside our solar system transiting their host star, i. e.
those with an orbital inclination near 90 degree, are of special interest to
derive physical properties of extrasolar planets. With the knowledge of the
host star's physical parameters, the planetary radius can be determined.
Combined with spectroscopic observations the mass and therefore the density can
be derived from Doppler-measurements. Depending on the brightness of the host
star, additional information, e. g. about the spin-orbit alignment between the
host star and planetary orbit, can be obtained.
Aims: The last few years have witnessed a growing success of transit surveys.
Among other surveys, the MACHO project provided nine potential transiting
planets, several of them with relatively bright parent stars. The photometric
signature of a transit event is, however, insufficient to confirm the planetary
nature of the faint companion. The aim of this paper therefore is a
determination of the spectroscopic parameters of the host stars as well as a
dynamical mass determination through Doppler-measurements.
Methods: We have obtained follow-up high-resolution spectra for five stars
selected from the MACHO sample, which are consistent with transits of
low-luminosity objects. Radial velocities have been determined by means of
cross-correlation with model spectra. The MACHO light curves have been compared
to simulations based on the physical parameters of the system derived from the
radial velocities and spectral analyses.
Aims: We show that all transit light curves of the exoplanet candidates
analysed in this work can be explained by eclipses of stellar objects, hence
none of the five transiting objects is a planet.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, 1 table, accepted for publication in A&
Helium-rich EHB Stars in Globular Clusters
Recent UV observations of the most massive Galactic globular clusters show a
significant population of hot stars below the zero-age HB (``blue hook''
stars), which cannot be explained by canonical stellar evolution. Stars which
suffer unusually large mass loss on the red giant branch and thus experience
the helium-core flash while descending the white dwarf cooling curve could
populate this region. They should show higher temperatures than the hottest
canonical HB stars and their atmospheres should be helium-rich and probably
C/N-rich. We have obtained spectra of blue hook stars in omega Cen and NGC 2808
to test this possibility. Our analysis shows that the blue hook stars in these
clusters reach effective temperatures well beyond the hot end of the canonical
EHB and have higher helium abundances than canonical EHB stars. These results
support the hypothesis that the blue hook stars arise from stars which ignite
helium on the white dwarf cooling curve.Comment: LaTeX, 8 pages, 3 figures, uses Kluwer style files (included), to
appear in "Extreme Horizontal Branch Stars and Related Objects", Astrophysics
and Space Science, Kluwer Academic Publishers, proceedings of the meeting
held in Keele, UK, June 16-20, 200
Extracting convergent surface energies from slab calculations
The formation energy of a solid surface can be extracted from slab
calculations if the bulk energy per atom is known. It has been pointed out
previously that the resulting surface energy will diverge with slab thickness
if the bulk energy is in error, in the context of calculations which used
different methods to study the bulk and slab systems. We show here that this
result is equally relevant for state-of-the-art computational methods which
carefully treat bulk and slab systems in the same way. Here we compare
different approaches, and present a solution to the problem that eliminates the
divergence and leads to rapidly convergent and accurate surface energies.Comment: 3 revtex pages, 1 figure, in print on J. Phys. Cond. Mat
Evidence for an oscillation of the magnetic axis of the white dwarf in the polar DP Leonis
From 1979 to 2001, the magnetic axis of the white dwarf in the polar DP Leo
slowly rotated by 50 deg in azimuth, possibly indicating a small asynchronism
between the rotational and orbital periods of the magnetic white dwarf. We have
obtained phase-resolved orbital light curves between 2009 and 2013, which show
that this trend has not continued in recent years. Our data are consistent with
the theoretically predicted oscillation of the magnetic axis of the white dwarf
about an equilibrium orientation, which is defined by the competition between
the accretion torque and the magnetostatic interaction of the primary and
secondary star. Our data indicate an oscillation period of ~60 yr, an amplitude
of about 25 deg, and an equilibrium orientation leading the connecting line of
the two stars by about 7 deg.Comment: Accepted by A&
Van der Waals Coefficients of Atoms and Molecules from a Simple Approximation for the Polarizability
A simple and computationally efficient scheme to calculate approximate
imaginary-frequency dependent polarizability, hence asymptotic van der Waals
coefficient, within density functional theory is proposed. The dynamical
dipolar polarizabilities of atoms and molecules are calculated starting from
the Thomas-Fermi-von Weizs\"acker (TFvW) approximation for the
independent-electron kinetic energy functional. The van der Waals coefficients
for a number of closed-shell ions and a few molecules are hence calculated and
compared with available values obtained by fully first-principles calculations.
The success in these test cases shows the potential of the proposed TFvW
approximate response function in capturing the essence of long range
correlations and may give useful information for constructing a functional
which naturally includes van der Waals interactions.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures. To appear in Phys. Rev.
Can stellar activity make a planet seem misaligned?
Several studies have shown that the occultation of stellar active regions by
the transiting planet can generate anomalies in the high-precision transit
light curves, and these anomalies may lead to an inaccurate estimate of the
planetary parameters (e.g., the planet radius). Since the physics and geometry
behind the transit light curve and the Rossiter- McLaughlin effect
(spectroscopic transit) are the same, the Rossiter-McLaughlin observations are
expected to be affected by the occultation of stellar active regions in a
similar way. In this paper we perform a fundamental test on the spin-orbit
angles as derived by Rossiter-McLaughlin measurements, and we examine the
impact of the occultation of stellar active regions by the transiting planet on
the spin-orbit angle estimations. Our results show that the inaccurate
estimation on the spin-orbit angle due to stellar activity can be quite
significant (up to 30 degrees), particularly for the edge-on, aligned, and
small transiting planets. Therefore, our results suggest that the aligned
transiting planets are the ones that can be easily misinterpreted as misaligned
owing to the stellar activity. In other words, the biases introduced by
ignoring stellar activity are unlikely to be the culprit for the highly
misaligned systems.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy &
Astrophysic
Time-dependent deformation functional theory
We present a constructive derivation of a time-dependent deformation
functional theory -- a collective variable approach to the nonequalibrium
quantum many-body problem. It is shown that the motion of infinitesimal fluid
elements (i.e. a set of Lagrangian trajectories) in an interacting quantum
system is governed by a closed hydrodynamics equation with the stress force
being a universal functional of the Green's deformation tensor . Since
the Lagrangian trajectories uniquely determine the current density, this
approach can be also viewed as a representation of the time-dependent current
density functional theory. To derive the above theory we separate a
"convective" and a "relative" motions of particles by reformulating the
many-body problem in a comoving Lagrangian frame. Then we prove that a properly
defined many-body wave function (and thus any observable) in the comoving frame
is a universal functional of the deformation tensor. Both the hydrodynamic and
the Kohn-Sham formulations of the theory are presented. In the Kohn-Sham
formulation we derive a few exact representations of the exchange-correlation
potentials, and discuss their implication for the construction of new
nonadiabatic approximations. We also discuss a relation of the present approach
to a recent continuum mechanics of the incompressible quantum Hall liquids.Comment: RevTeX4, 15 page
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