The Uncertainty in Newton's Constant and Precision Predictions of the Primordial Helium Abundance

The current uncertainty in Newton's constant, G_N, is of the order of 0.15%. For values of the baryon to photon ratio consistent with both cosmic microwave background observations and the primordial deuterium abundance, this uncertainty in G_N corresponds to an uncertainty in the primordial 4He mass fraction, Y_P, of +-1.3 x 10^{-4}. This uncertainty in Y_P is comparable to the effect from the current uncertainty in the neutron lifetime, which is often treated as the dominant uncertainty in calculations of Y_P. Recent measurements of G_N seem to be converging within a smaller range; a reduction in the estimated error on G_N by a factor of 10 would essentially eliminate it as a source of uncertainty in the calculation of the primordial 4He abundance.Comment: 3 pages, no figures, fixed typos, to appear in Phys. Rev.

A-dependence of nuclear transparency in quasielastic A(e,e'p) at high Q^2

The A-dependence of the quasielastic A(e,e'p) reaction has been studied at SLAC with H-2, C, Fe, and Au nuclei at momentum transfers Q^2 = 1, 3, 5, and 6.8 (GeV/c)^2. We extract the nuclear transparency T(A,Q^2), a measure of the average probability that the struck proton escapes from the nucleus A without interaction. Several calculations predict a significant increase in T with momentum transfer, a phenomenon known as Color Transparency. No significant rise within errors is seen for any of the nuclei studied.Comment: 5 pages incl. 2 figures, Caltech preprint OAP-73

Linear polarization structures in LOFAR observations of the interstellar medium in the 3C 196 field

This study aims to characterize linear polarization structures in LOFAR observations of the interstellar medium (ISM) in the 3C196 field, one of the primary fields of the LOFAR-Epoch of Reionization key science project. We have used the high band antennas (HBA) of LOFAR to image this region and Rotation Measure (RM) synthesis to unravel the distribution of polarized structures in Faraday depth. The brightness temperature of the detected Galactic emission is 5−15 K in polarized intensity and covers the range from -3 to +8 rad m−2 in Faraday depth. The most interesting morphological feature is a strikingly straight filament at a Faraday depth of +0.5 rad m−2 running from north to south, right through the centre of the field and parallel to the Galactic plane. There is also an interesting system of linear depolarization canals conspicuous in an image showing the peaks of Faraday spectra. We used the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope (WSRT) at 350 MHz to image the same region. For the first time, we see some common morphology in the RM cubes made at 150 and 350~{; ; \rm MHz}; ; . There is no indication of diffuse emission in total intensity in the interferometric data, in line with results at higher frequencies and previous LOFAR observations. Based on our results, we determined physical parameters of the ISM and proposed a simple model that may explain the observed distribution of the intervening magneto- ionic medium. The mean line-of-sight magnetic field component, B∥, is determined to be 0.3±0.1 μG and its spatial variation across the 3C196 field is 0.1 μG. The filamentary structure is probably an ionized filament in the ISM, located somewhere within the Local Bubble. This filamentary structure shows an excess in thermal electron density (neB∥>6.2 cm−3μG) compared to its surroundings

A Helicity-Based Method to Infer the CME Magnetic Field Magnitude in Sun and Geospace: Generalization and Extension to Sun-Like and M-Dwarf Stars and Implications for Exoplanet Habitability

Patsourakos et al. (Astrophys. J. 817, 14, 2016) and Patsourakos and Georgoulis (Astron. Astrophys. 595, A121, 2016) introduced a method to infer the axial magnetic field in flux-rope coronal mass ejections (CMEs) in the solar corona and farther away in the interplanetary medium. The method, based on the conservation principle of magnetic helicity, uses the relative magnetic helicity of the solar source region as input estimates, along with the radius and length of the corresponding CME flux rope. The method was initially applied to cylindrical force-free flux ropes, with encouraging results. We hereby extend our framework along two distinct lines. First, we generalize our formalism to several possible flux-rope configurations (linear and nonlinear force-free, non-force-free, spheromak, and torus) to investigate the dependence of the resulting CME axial magnetic field on input parameters and the employed flux-rope configuration. Second, we generalize our framework to both Sun-like and active M-dwarf stars hosting superflares. In a qualitative sense, we find that Earth may not experience severe atmosphere-eroding magnetospheric compression even for eruptive solar superflares with energies ~ 10^4 times higher than those of the largest Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) X-class flares currently observed. In addition, the two recently discovered exoplanets with the highest Earth-similarity index, Kepler 438b and Proxima b, seem to lie in the prohibitive zone of atmospheric erosion due to interplanetary CMEs (ICMEs), except when they possess planetary magnetic fields that are much higher than that of Earth.Comment: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017SoPh..292...89

Inclusive electron scattering from nuclei at x≃1

The inclusive A(e,e′) cross section for x≃1 was measured on 2H, C, Fe, and Au for momentum transfers Q2 from 1 to 6.8 (GeV/c)2. The scaling behavior of the data was examined in the region of transition from y scaling to x scaling. Throughout this transitional region, the data exhibit ξ scaling, reminiscent of the Bloom-Gilman duality seen in free nucleon scattering