451 research outputs found
Phase transitions of hadronic to quark matter at finite T and \mu_B
The phase transition of hadronic to quark matter and the boundaries of the
mixed hadron-quark coexistence phase are studied within the two Equation of
State (EoS) model. The relativistic effective mean field approach with constant
and density dependent meson-nucleon couplings is used to describe hadronic
matter, and the MIT Bag model is adopted to describe quark matter. The
boundaries of the mixed phase for different Bag constants are obtained solving
the Gibbs equations.
We notice that the dependence on the Bag parameter of the critical
temperatures (at zero chemical potential) can be well reproduced by a fermion
ultrarelativistic quark gas model, without contribution from the hadron part.
At variance the critical chemical potentials (at zero temperature) are very
sensitive to the EoS of the hadron sector. Hence the study of the hadronic EoS
is much more relevant for the determination of the transition to the
quark-gluon-plasma at finite baryon density and low-T. Moreover in the low
temperature and finite chemical potential region no solutions of the Gibbs
conditions are existing for small Bag constant values, B < (135 MeV)^4. Isospin
effects in asymmetric matter appear relevant in the high chemical potential
regions at lower temperatures, of interest for the inner core properties of
neutron stars and for heavy ion collisions at intermediate energies.Comment: 24 pages and 16 figures (revtex4
Anomalous thermodynamics and phase transitions of neutron-star matter
In this letter we show that the presence of the long-range Coulomb force in
dense stellar matter implies that the total charge cannot be associated with a
chemical potential, even if it is a conserved quantity. As a further
consequence, the analytical properties of the partition sum are modified,
changing the order of the phase transitions and affecting the possible
occurrence of critical behaviours. The peculiar thermodynamic properties of the
system can be understood introducing a model hamiltonian in which each charge
is independently neutralized by a uniform background of opposite charge.Comment: 4 pages - GANIL, LP
Higher order bulk characteristic parameters of asymmetric nuclear matter
The bulk parameters characterizing the energy of symmetric nuclear matter and
the symmetry energy defined at normal nuclear density provide
important information on the equation of state (EOS) of isospin asymmetric
nuclear matter. While significant progress has been made in determining some
lower order bulk characteristic parameters, such as the energy
and incompressibility of symmetric nuclear matter as well as the symmetry
energy and its slope parameter , yet the higher order bulk
characteristic parameters are still poorly known. Here, we analyze the
correlations between the lower and higher order bulk characteristic parameters
within the framework of Skyrme Hartree-Fock energy density functional and then
estimate the values of some higher order bulk characteristic parameters. In
particular, we obtain MeV and MeV for the
third-order and fourth-order derivative parameters of symmetric nuclear matter
at and MeV, MeV,
MeV for the curvature parameter, third-order and
fourth-order derivative parameters of the symmetry energy at , using
the empirical constraints on , , , , and
the isoscalar and isovector nucleon effective masses. Furthermore, our results
indicate that the three parameters , , and can
reasonably characterize the EOS of symmetric nuclear matter up to
while the symmetry energy up to can be well described by
, , and .Comment: 6 pages, 7 figures. Typos fixed. Contribution to a special issue in
Science China: Physics, Mechanics & Astronom
Properties of the nuclear medium
We review our knowledge on the properties of the nuclear medium that have
been studied, along many years, on the basis of many-body theory, laboratory
experiments and astrophysical observations. First we consider the realm of
phenomenological laboratory data and astrophysical observations, and the hints
they can give on the characteristics that the nuclear medium should possess.
The analysis is based on phenomenological models, that however have a strong
basis on physical intuition and an impressive success. More microscopic models
are also considered, and it is shown that they are able to give invaluable
information on the nuclear medium, in particular on its Equation of State. The
interplay between laboratory experiments and astrophysical observations are
particularly stressed, and it is shown how their complementarity enriches
enormously our insights into the structure of the nuclear medium. We then
introduce the nucleon-nucleon interaction and the microscopic many-body theory
of nuclear matter, with a critical discussion about the different approaches
and their results. The Landau Fermi Liquid theory is introduced and briefly
discussed. As illustrative example, we discuss neutron matter at very low
density, and it is shown how it can be treated within the many-body theory. A
section is dedicated to the pairing problem. The connection with nuclear
structure is then discussed, on the basis of the Energy Density Functional
method. The possibility to link the physics of exotic nuclei and the
astrophysics of neutron stars is particularly stressed. Finally we discuss the
thermal properties of the nuclear medium, in particular the liquid-gas phase
transition and its connection with the phenomenology on heavy ion reactions and
the cooling evolution of neutron stars. The presentation has been taken for
non-specialists and possibly for non-nuclear physicists.Comment: 90 pages, 29 figures, revised versio
GRANDMA and HXMT Observations of GRB 221009A -- the Standard-Luminosity Afterglow of a Hyper-Luminous Gamma-Ray Burst
GRB 221009A is the brightest Gamma-Ray Burst (GRB) detected in more than 50
years of study. In this paper, we present observations in the X-ray and optical
domains after the GRB obtained by the GRANDMA Collaboration (which includes
observations from more than 30 professional and amateur telescopes) and the
Insight-HXMT Collaboration. We study the optical afterglow with empirical
fitting from GRANDMA+HXMT data, augmented with data from the literature up to
60 days. We then model numerically, using a Bayesian approach, the GRANDMA and
HXMT-LE afterglow observations, that we augment with Swift-XRT and additional
optical/NIR observations reported in the literature. We find that the GRB
afterglow, extinguished by a large dust column, is most likely behind a
combination of a large Milky-Way dust column combined with moderate
low-metallicity dust in the host galaxy. Using the GRANDMA+HXMT-LE+XRT dataset,
we find that the simplest model, where the observed afterglow is produced by
synchrotron radiation at the forward external shock during the deceleration of
a top-hat relativistic jet by a uniform medium, fits the multi-wavelength
observations only moderately well, with a tension between the observed temporal
and spectral evolution. This tension is confirmed when using the extended
dataset. We find that the consideration of a jet structure (Gaussian or
power-law), the inclusion of synchrotron self-Compton emission, or the presence
of an underlying supernova do not improve the predictions, showing that the
modelling of GRB22109A will require going beyond the most standard GRB
afterglow model. Placed in the global context of GRB optical afterglows, we
find the afterglow of GRB 221009A is luminous but not extraordinarily so,
highlighting that some aspects of this GRB do not deviate from the global known
sample despite its extreme energetics and the peculiar afterglow evolution.Comment: Accepted to ApJL for the special issue, 37 pages, 23 pages main text,
6 tables, 13 figure
Multi-band analyses of the bright GRB~230812B and the associated SN2023pel
GRB~230812B is a bright and relatively nearby () long gamma-ray
burst that has generated significant interest in the community and therefore
has been subsequently observed over the entire electromagnetic spectrum. We
report over 80 observations in X-ray, ultraviolet, optical, infrared, and
sub-millimeter bands from the GRANDMA (Global Rapid Advanced Network for
Multi-messenger Addicts) network of observatories and from observational
partners. Adding complementary data from the literature, we then derive
essential physical parameters associated with the ejecta and external
properties (i.e. the geometry and environment) and compare with other analyses
of this event (e.g. Srinivasaragavan et al. 2023). We spectroscopically confirm
the presence of an associated supernova, SN2023pel, and we derive a
photospheric expansion velocity of v 17 km . We
analyze the photometric data first using empirical fits of the flux and then
with full Bayesian Inference. We again strongly establish the presence of a
supernova in the data, with an absolute peak r-band magnitude . We find a flux-stretching factor or relative brightness and a time-stretching factor ,
both compared to SN1998bw. Therefore, GRB 230812B appears to have a clear long
GRB-supernova association, as expected in the standard collapsar model.
However, as sometimes found in the afterglow modelling of such long GRBs, our
best fit model favours a very low density environment (). We also find small values for
the jet's core angle and
viewing angle. GRB 230812B/SN2023pel is one of the best characterized
afterglows with a distinctive supernova bump
Ready for O4 II: GRANDMA Observations of Swift GRBs during eight-weeks of Spring 2022
We present a campaign designed to train the GRANDMA network and its
infrastructure to follow up on transient alerts and detect their early
afterglows. In preparation for O4 II campaign, we focused on GRB alerts as they
are expected to be an electromagnetic counterpart of gravitational-wave events.
Our goal was to improve our response to the alerts and start prompt
observations as soon as possible to better prepare the GRANDMA network for the
fourth observational run of LIGO-Virgo-Kagra (which started at the end of May
2023), and future missions such as SM. To receive, manage and send out
observational plans to our partner telescopes we set up dedicated
infrastructure and a rota of follow-up adcates were organized to guarantee
round-the-clock assistance to our telescope teams. To ensure a great number of
observations, we focused on Swift GRBs whose localization errors were generally
smaller than the GRANDMA telescopes' field of view. This allowed us to bypass
the transient identification process and focus on the reaction time and
efficiency of the network. During 'Ready for O4 II', 11 Swift/INTEGRAL GRB
triggers were selected, nine fields had been observed, and three afterglows
were detected (GRB 220403B, GRB 220427A, GRB 220514A), with 17 GRANDMA
telescopes and 17 amateur astronomers from the citizen science project
Kilonova-Catcher. Here we highlight the GRB 220427A analysis where our
long-term follow-up of the host galaxy allowed us to obtain a photometric
redshift of , its lightcurve elution, fit the decay slope of the
afterglows, and study the properties of the host galaxy
Population of Merging Compact Binaries Inferred Using Gravitational Waves through GWTC-3
We report on the population properties of compact binary mergers inferred from gravitational-wave observations of these systems during the first three LIGO-Virgo observing runs. The Gravitational-Wave Transient Catalog 3 (GWTC-3) contains signals consistent with three classes of binary mergers: binary black hole, binary neutron star, and neutron star-black hole mergers. We infer the binary neutron star merger rate to be between 10 and 1700 Gpc-3 yr-1 and the neutron star-black hole merger rate to be between 7.8 and 140 Gpc-3 yr-1, assuming a constant rate density in the comoving frame and taking the union of 90% credible intervals for methods used in this work. We infer the binary black hole merger rate, allowing for evolution with redshift, to be between 17.9 and 44 Gpc-3 yr-1 at a fiducial redshift (z=0.2). The rate of binary black hole mergers is observed to increase with redshift at a rate proportional to (1+z)κ with κ=2.9-1.8+1.7 for z≲1. Using both binary neutron star and neutron star-black hole binaries, we obtain a broad, relatively flat neutron star mass distribution extending from 1.2-0.2+0.1 to 2.0-0.3+0.3M⊙. We confidently determine that the merger rate as a function of mass sharply declines after the expected maximum neutron star mass, but cannot yet confirm or rule out the existence of a lower mass gap between neutron stars and black holes. We also find the binary black hole mass distribution has localized over- and underdensities relative to a power-law distribution, with peaks emerging at chirp masses of 8.3-0.5+0.3 and 27.9-1.8+1.9M⊙. While we continue to find that the mass distribution of a binary's more massive component strongly decreases as a function of primary mass, we observe no evidence of a strongly suppressed merger rate above approximately 60M⊙, which would indicate the presence of a upper mass gap. Observed black hole spins are small, with half of spin magnitudes below χi≈0.25. While the majority of spins are preferentially aligned with the orbital angular momentum, we infer evidence of antialigned spins among the binary population. We observe an increase in spin magnitude for systems with more unequal-mass ratio. We also observe evidence of misalignment of spins relative to the orbital angular momentum
Search for anisotropic gravitational-wave backgrounds using data from Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo's first three observing runs
We report results from searches for anisotropic stochastic gravitational-wave
backgrounds using data from the first three observing runs of the Advanced LIGO
and Advanced Virgo detectors. For the first time, we include Virgo data in our
analysis and run our search with a new efficient pipeline called {\tt PyStoch}
on data folded over one sidereal day. We use gravitational-wave radiometry
(broadband and narrow band) to produce sky maps of stochastic
gravitational-wave backgrounds and to search for gravitational waves from point
sources. A spherical harmonic decomposition method is employed to look for
gravitational-wave emission from spatially-extended sources. Neither technique
found evidence of gravitational-wave signals. Hence we derive 95\%
confidence-level upper limit sky maps on the gravitational-wave energy flux
from broadband point sources, ranging from and on the
(normalized) gravitational-wave energy density spectrum from extended sources,
ranging from , depending on direction () and spectral index
(). These limits improve upon previous limits by factors of . We also set 95\% confidence level upper limits on the frequency-dependent
strain amplitudes of quasimonochromatic gravitational waves coming from three
interesting targets, Scorpius X-1, SN 1987A and the Galactic Center, with best
upper limits range from a factor of
improvement compared to previous stochastic radiometer searches.Comment: 23 Pages, 9 Figure
Constraints on dark photon dark matter using data from LIGO's and Virgo's third observing run
We present a search for dark photon dark matter that could couple to
gravitational-wave interferometers using data from Advanced LIGO and Virgo's
third observing run. To perform this analysis, we use two methods, one based on
cross-correlation of the strain channels in the two nearly aligned LIGO
detectors, and one that looks for excess power in the strain channels of the
LIGO and Virgo detectors. The excess power method optimizes the Fourier
Transform coherence time as a function of frequency, to account for the
expected signal width due to Doppler modulations. We do not find any evidence
of dark photon dark matter with a mass between eV/, which corresponds to frequencies between 10-2000
Hz, and therefore provide upper limits on the square of the minimum coupling of
dark photons to baryons, i.e. dark matter. For the
cross-correlation method, the best median constraint on the squared coupling is
at eV/; for the
other analysis, the best constraint is at eV/. These limits improve upon those obtained
in direct dark matter detection experiments by a factor of for
eV/, and are, in absolute terms, the
most stringent constraint so far in a large mass range eV/.Comment: 20 pages, 7 figure
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