18,823 research outputs found
Evidence for a 304-day Orbital Period for GX 1+4
In this paper we report strong evidence for a ~304-day periodicity in the
spin history of the accretion-powered pulsar GX 1+4 that is very likely to be a
signature of the orbital period of the system. Using BATSE public-domain data,
we show a highly-significant periodic modulation of the pulsar frequency from
1991 to date which is in excellent agreement with the ephemeris proposed by
Cutler, Dennis & Dolan in 1986, which were based on a few events of enhanced
spin-up that occurred during the pulsar's spin-up era in the 1970s. Our results
indicate that the orbital period of GX 1+4 is 303.8+-1.1 days, making it by far
the widest low-mass X-ray binary system known. A likely scenario for this
system is an elliptical orbit in which the neutron star decreases its spin-down
rate (or even exhibits a momentary spin-up behavior) at periastron passages due
to the higher torque exerted by the accretion disk onto the magnetosphere of
the neutron star.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, 1 single PS file, to appear in "Proceedings of
the 5th Compton Symposium on Gamma-Ray Astrophysics", AI
Starobinsky-Type Inflation from -Corrections
Working in the Large Volume Scenario (LVS) of IIB Calabi-Yau flux
compactifications, we construct inflationary models from recently computed
higher derivative -corrections. Inflation is driven by a Kaehler
modulus whose potential arises from the aforementioned corrections, while we
use the inclusion of string loop effects just to ensure the existence of a
graceful exit when necessary. The effective inflaton potential takes a
Starobinsky-type form , where we obtain one set-up
with and one with corresponding to inflation
occurring for increasing or decreasing respectively. The inflationary
observables are thus in perfect agreement with PLANCK, while the two scenarios
remain observationally distinguishable via slightly varying predictions for the
tensor-to-scalar ratio . Both set-ups yield . They hence realise inflation with moderately large fields
without saturating the Lyth
bound. Control over higher corrections relies in part on tuning underlying
microscopic parameters, and in part on intrinsic suppressions. The intrinsic
part of control arises as a leftover from an approximate effective shift
symmetry at parametrically large volume.Comment: 29 pages, 6 figures; v2: clarifications and refs adde
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