X-ray emission from the PSR B1259--63 system near apastron

The PSR B1259--63 system contains a 47 ms radio pulsar in a highly eccentric binary with a Be-star companion. Strongly time variable X-ray emission was reported from this system as the pulsar was near apastron in 1992-early 1993. The variability was primarily deduced from an apparent non-detection of the \psr system during a first pre-apastron \ros observation in February~1992. We have re-analyzed the \ros observations of the \psr system. Contrary to the results of a previous analysis, we find that the \psr system was detected by \ros during the first off-axis February~1992 observation. The intensity of the soft X-ray emission of the \psr system before and after the 1992 apastron appears to vary at most by a factor $\sim 2$. Our results sensibly constrain theoretical models of X-ray emission from the \psr system.Comment: LATEX, Accepted for publ. in ApJ

On the stability of Bose-Fermi mixtures

We consider the stability of a mixture of degenerate Bose and Fermi gases. Even though the bosons effectively repel each other the mixture can still collapse provided the Bose and Fermi gases attract each other strongly enough. For a given number of atoms and the strengths of the interactions between them we find the geometry of a maximally compact trap that supports the stable mixture. We compare a simple analytical estimation for the critical axial frequency of the trap with results based on the numerical solution of hydrodynamic equations for Bose-Fermi mixture.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Ray-tracing in pseudo-complex General Relativity

Motivated by possible observations of the black hole candidate in the center of our galaxy and the galaxy M87, ray-tracing methods are applied to both standard General Relativity (GR) and a recently proposed extension, the pseudo-complex General Relativity (pc-GR). The correction terms due to the investigated pc-GR model lead to slower orbital motions close to massive objects. Also the concept of an innermost stable circular orbit (ISCO) is modified for the pc-GR model, allowing particles to get closer to the central object for most values of the spin parameter $a$ than in GR. Thus, the accretion disk, surrounding a massive object, is brighter in pc-GR than in GR. Iron K$\alpha$ emission line profiles are also calculated as those are good observables for regions of strong gravity. Differences between the two theories are pointed out.Comment: revised versio

Probing Pair-Correlated Fermionic Atoms through Correlations in Atom Shot Noise

Pair-correlated fermionic atoms are created through dissociation of weakly bound molecules near a magnetic-field Feshbach resonance. We show that correlations between atoms in different spin states can be detected using the atom shot noise in absorption images. Furthermore, using time-of-Flight imaging we have observed atom pair correlations in momentum space

Monte Carlo aided design of the inner muon veto detectors for the Double Chooz experiment

The Double Chooz neutrino experiment aims to measure the last unknown neutrino mixing angle theta_13 using two identical detectors positioned at sites both near and far from the reactor cores of the Chooz nuclear power plant. To suppress correlated background induced by cosmic muons in the detectors, they are protected by veto detector systems. One of these systems is the inner muon veto. It is an active liquid scintillator based detector and instrumented with encapsulated photomultiplier tubes. In this paper we describe the Monte Carlo aided design process of the inner muon veto, that resulted in a detector configuration with 78 PMTs yielding an efficiency of 99.978 +- 0.004% for rejecting muon events and an efficiency of >98.98% for rejecting correlated events induced by muons. A veto detector of this design is currently used at the far detector site and will be built and incorporated as the muon identification system at the near site of the Double Chooz experiment

Colour-singlet strangelets at finite temperature

Considering massless $u$ and $d$ quarks, and massive (150 MeV) $s$ quarks in a bag with the bag pressure constant $B^{1/4} = 145$ MeV, a colour-singlet grand canonical partition function is constructed for temperatures $T = 1-30$ MeV. Then the stability of finite size strangelets is studied minimizing the free energy as a function of the radius of the bag. The colour-singlet restriction has several profound effects when compared to colour unprojected case: (1) Now bulk energy per baryon is increased by about $250$ MeV making the strange quark matter unbound. (2) The shell structures are more pronounced (deeper). (3) Positions of the shell closure are shifted to lower $A$-values, the first deepest one occuring at $A=2$, famous $H$-particle ! (4) The shell structure at $A=2$ vanishes only at $T\sim 30$ MeV, though for higher $A$-values it happens so at $T\sim 20$ MeV.Comment: Revtex file(8 pages)+6 figures(ps files) available on request from first Autho

Adiabatic loading of a Bose-Einstein condensate in a 3D optical lattice

We experimentally investigate the adiabatic loading of a Bose-Einstein condensate into an optical lattice potential. The generation of excitations during the ramp is detected by a corresponding decrease in the visibility of the interference pattern observed after free expansion of the cloud. We focus on the superfluid regime, where we show that the limiting time scale is related to the redistribution of atoms across the lattice by single-particle tunneling

Superdeformation and clustering in 40^{40}Ca studied with Antisymmetrized Molecular Dynamics

Deformed states in $^{40}$Ca are investigated with a method of antisymmetrized molecular dynamics. Above the spherical ground state, rotational bands arise from a normal deformation and a superdeformation as well as an oblate deformation. The calculated energy spectra and $E2$ transition strengths in the superdeformed band reasonably agree to the experimental data of the superdeformed band starting from the $0^+_3$ state at 5.213 MeV. By the analysis of single-particle orbits, it is found that the superdeformed state has particle-hole nature of an $8p$-$8h$ configuration. One of new findings is parity asymmetric structure with $^{12}$C+$^{28}$Si-like clustering in the superdeformed band. We predict that $^{12}$C+$^{28}$Si molecular bands may be built above the superdeformed band due to the excitation of inter-cluster motion. They are considered to be higher nodal states of the superdeformed state. We also suggest negative-parity bands caused by the parity asymmetric deformation.Comment: 13 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.