The duration distribution of Swift Gamma-Ray Bursts

Decades ago two classes of gamma-ray bursts were identified and delineated as having durations shorter and longer than about 2 s. Subsequently indications also supported the existence of a third class. Using maximum likelihood estimation we analyze the duration distribution of 888 Swift BAT bursts observed before October 2015. Fitting three log-normal functions to the duration distribution of the bursts provides a better fit than two log-normal distributions, with 99.9999% significance. Similarly to earlier results, we found that a fourth component is not needed. The relative frequencies of the distribution of the groups are 8% for short, 35% for intermediate and 57% for long bursts which correspond to our previous results. We analyse the redshift distribution for the 269 GRBs of the 888 GRBs with known redshift. We find no evidence for the previously suggested difference between the long and intermediate GRBs' redshift distribution. The observed redshift distribution of the 20 short GRBs differs with high significance from the distributions of the other groups.Comment: accepte

Delocalized Entanglement of Atoms in optical Lattices

We show how to detect and quantify entanglement of atoms in optical lattices in terms of correlations functions of the momentum distribution. These distributions can be measured directly in the experiments. We introduce two kinds of entanglement measures related to the position and the spin of the atoms

Simulations of small-scale explosive events on the Sun

Small-scale explosive events or microflares occur throughout the chromospheric network of the Sun. They are seen as sudden bursts of highly Doppler shifted spectral lines of ions formed at temperatures in the range 2x10^4 - 5x10^5 K. They tend to occur near regions of cancelling photospheric magnetic fields and are thought to be directly associated with magnetic field reconnection. Recent observations have revealed that they have a bi-directional jet structure reminiscent of Petschek reconnection. In this paper compressible MHD simulations of the evolution of a current sheet to a steady Petschek, jet-like configuration are computed using the Versatile Advection Code. We obtain velocity profiles that can be compared with recent ultraviolet line profile observations. By choosing initial conditions representative of magnetic loops in the solar corona and chromosphere, it is possible to explain the fact that jets flowing outward into the corona are more extended and appear before jets flowing towards the chromosphere. This model can reproduce the high Doppler shifted components of the line profiles but the brightening at low velocities, near the centre of the bi-directional jet, cannot be explained by this simple MHD model.Comment: 16 pages, 8 figures. To be published in Solar Physic

‘No Longer Young and Not Yet Old’ London: Spatio-Temporal Ambivalence in Hanif Kureishi’s Something to Tell You

This article examines the peculiar spatio-temporal ambivalence of Hanif Kureishi’s 2008 novel, Something to Tell You. Building on Doreen Massey’s (2005) understanding of space and place, I put forth a new framework of spatial production and experience, comprising the cartographical and the phenomenological. Through these terms, I argue that we can engage with both the particularity and the plurality of the novel’s representation of London. Geographic Information System (GIS) software is employed both to make explicit the novel’s relationship to cartography, and to cartographic London, but, equally, to conceptualise Something to Tell You’s reconstellation of the city. By way of conclusion, I suggest that Something to Tell You bears a political and poetic ambivalence that is symptomatic of a wider hesitancy toward representing the capital (as representation relates to stultification). And whilst this unsettledness and non-surety as to the ‘where’ and the ‘when’ of London experience is, for protagonist, Jamal, a cause of great anxiety, is it nonetheless true to the ‘reality’, in Wolfreys’ (1999) sense of the term, of living, of doing, and of being in London