173 research outputs found
Comments on "The long-period Galactic Cepheid RS Puppis. I. A geometric distance from its light echoes"
The luminous Galactic Cepheid RS Puppis is unique in being surrounded by a
dust nebula illuminated by the variable light of the Cepheid. In a recent paper
in this journal, Kervella et al. (2008) report a very precise geometric
distance to RS Pup, based on measured phase lags of the light variations of
individual knots in the reflection nebula. In this commentary, we examine the
validity of the distance measurement, as well as the reality of the spatial
structure of the nebula determined by Feast (2008) based upon the phase lags of
the knots. {Kervella et al. assumed that the illuminated dust knots lie, on
average, in the plane of the sky (otherwise it is not possible to derive a
geometric distance from direct imaging of light echoes). We consider the
biasing introduced by the high efficiency of forward scattering. We conclude
that most of the knots are in fact likely to lie in front of the plane of the
sky, thus invalidating the Kervella et al. result. We also show that the flat
equatorial disk structure determined by Feast is unlikely; instead, the
morphology of the nebula is more probably bipolar, with a significant tilt of
its axis with respect to the plane of the sky. Although the Kervella et al.
distance result is invalidated, we show that high-resolution polarimetric
imaging has the potential to yield a valid geometric distance to this important
Cepheid.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, 1 table; accepted by Astronomy & Astrophysic
Grids of Stellar Models and Frequencies with CLES + LOSC
We present a grid of stellar models, obtained with the CLES evolution code,
following the specification of ESTA-Task1, and the corresponfing seismic
properties, computed with the LOSC code. We provide a complete description of
the corresponding files that will be available on the ESTA web-pages.Comment: 8 pages, accepted for publication in Astrophys. Space Sci.
(CoRoT/ESTA Volume
ASTEC -- the Aarhus STellar Evolution Code
The Aarhus code is the result of a long development, starting in 1974, and
still ongoing. A novel feature is the integration of the computation of
adiabatic oscillations for specified models as part of the code. It offers
substantial flexibility in terms of microphysics and has been carefully tested
for the computation of solar models. However, considerable development is still
required in the treatment of nuclear reactions, diffusion and convective
mixing.Comment: Astrophys. Space Sci, in the pres
Disentangling discrepancies between stellar evolution theory and sub-solar mass stars. The influence of the mixing length parameter for the UV Psc binary
Serious discrepancies have recently been observed between predictions of
stellar evolution models in the 0.7-1.1 M_sun mass range and accurately
measured properties of binary stars with components in this mass range. We
study one of these objects, the eclipsing binary UV Piscium, which is
particularly interesting because Popper (1997) derived age estimates for each
component which differed by more than a factor of two. In an attempt to solve
this significant discrepancy (a difference in age of 11 Gyr), we compute a
large grid of stellar evolution models with the CESAM code for each component.
By fixing the masses to their accurately determined values (relative error
smaller than 1% for both stars), we consider a wide range of possible
metallicities Z (0.01 to 0.05), and Helium content Y (0.25 to 0.34)
uncorrelated to Z. In addition, the mixing length parameter alpha_MLT is left
as another free parameter. We obtain a best fit in the T_eff-radius diagram for
a common chemical composition (Z, Y)=(0.012, 0.31), but a different MLT
parameter alpha_MLT_A = 0.95+-0.12(statistical)+0.30(systematic) and
alpha_MLT_B = 0.65+-0.07(stat)+0.10(syst). The apparent age discrepancy found
by Popper (1997) disappears with this solution, the components being coeval to
within 1%. This suggests that fixing alpha_MLT to its solar value (~1.6), a
common hypothesis assumed in most stellar evolutionary models, may not be
correct. Secondly, since alpha_MLT is smaller for the less massive component,
this suggests that the MLT parameter may decrease with stellar mass, showing
yet another shortcoming of the mixing length theory to explain stellar
convection. This trend needs further confirmation with other binary stars with
accurate data.Comment: 8 pages, accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysic
The long-period Galactic Cepheid RS Puppis - II. 3D structure and mass of the nebula from VLT/FORS polarimetry
The long-period Cepheid RS Pup is surrounded by a large dusty nebula
reflecting the light from the central star. Due to the changing luminosity of
the central source, light echoes propagate into the nebula. This remarkable
phenomenon was the subject of Paper I.The origin and physical properties of the
nebula are however uncertain: it may have been created through mass loss from
the star itself, or it could be the remnant of a pre-existing interstellar
cloud. Our goal is to determine the 3D structure of the nebula, and estimate
its mass. Knowing the geometrical shape of the nebula will also allow us to
retrieve the distance of RS Pup in an unambiguous manner using a model of its
light echoes (in a forthcoming work). The scattering angle of the Cepheid light
in the circumstellar nebula can be recovered from its degree of linear
polarization. We thus observed the nebula surrounding RS Pup using the
polarimetric imaging mode of the VLT/FORS instrument, and obtained a map of the
degree and position angle of linear polarization. From our FORS observations,
we derive a 3D map of the distribution of the dust, whose overall geometry is
an irregular and thin layer. The nebula does not present a well-defined
symmetry. Using a simple model, we derive a total dust mass of M(dust) = 2.9
+/- 0.9 Msun for the dust within 1.8 arcmin of the Cepheid. This translates
into a total mass of M(gas+dust) = 290 +/- 120 Msun, assuming a dust-to-gas
ratio of 1.0 +/- 0.3 %. The high mass of the dusty nebula excludes that it was
created by mass-loss from the star. However, the thinness nebula is an
indication that the Cepheid participated to its shaping, e.g. through its
radiation pressure or stellar wind. RS Pup therefore appears as a regular
long-period Cepheid located in an exceptionally dense interstellar environment.Comment: 14 pages, 21 figures. Accepted for publication in A&
The Formation of Uranus and Neptune in Solid-Rich Feeding Zones: Connecting Chemistry and Dynamics
The core accretion theory of planet formation has at least two fundamental
problems explaining the origins of Uranus and Neptune: (1) dynamical times in
the trans-Saturnian solar nebula are so long that core growth can take > 15
Myr, and (2) the onset of runaway gas accretion that begins when cores reach 10
Earth masses necessitates a sudden gas accretion cutoff just as the ice giant
cores reach critical mass. Both problems may be resolved by allowing the ice
giants to migrate outward after their formation in solid-rich feeding zones
with planetesimal surface densities well above the minimum-mass solar nebula.
We present new simulations of the formation of Uranus and Neptune in the
solid-rich disk of Dodson-Robinson et al. (2009) using the initial semimajor
axis distribution of the Nice model (Gomes et al. 2005; Morbidelli et al. 2005;
Tsiganis et al. 2005), with one ice giant forming at 12 AU and the other at 15
AU. The innermost ice giant reaches its present mass after 3.8-4.0 Myr and the
outermost after 5.3-6 Myr, a considerable time decrease from previous
one-dimensional simulations (e.g. Pollack et al. 1996). The core masses stay
subcritical, eliminating the need for a sudden gas accretion cutoff. Our
calculated carbon mass fractions of 22% are in excellent agreement with the ice
giant interior models of Podolak et al. (1995) and Marley et al. (1995). Based
on the requirement that the ice giant-forming planetesimals contain >10% mass
fractions of methane ice, we can reject any solar system formation model that
initially places Uranus and Neptune inside the orbit of Saturn. We also
demonstrate that a large population of planetesimals must be present in both
ice giant feeding zones throughout the lifetime of the gaseous nebula.Comment: Accepted for publication in Icarus. 9 pages, including 3 figure
Level spacing distribution of pseudointegrable billiard
In this paper, we examine the level spacing distribution of the
rectangular billiard with a single point-like scatterer, which is known as
pseudointegrable. It is shown that the observed is a new type, which is
quite different from the previous conclusion. Even in the strong coupling
limit, the Poisson-like behavior rather than Wigner-like is seen for ,
although the level repulsion still remains in the small region. The
difference from the previous works is analyzed in detail.Comment: 11 pages, REVTeX file, 3 PostScript Figure
Quark initiated coherent diffractive production of muon pair and W boson at hadron colliders
The large transverse momentum muon pair and W boson productions in the quark
initiated coherent diffractive processes at hadron colliders are discussed
under the framework of the two-gluon exchange parametrization of the Pomeron
model. In this approach, the production cross sections are related to the
small-x off-diagonal gluon distribution and the large-x quark distribution in
the proton (antiproton). By approximating the off-diagonal gluon distribution
by the usual gluon distribution function, we estimate the production rates of
these processes at the Fermilab Tevatron.Comment: 11pages, 6 PS figures, to appear in PR
Evanescent wave approach to diffractive phenomena in convex billiards with corners
What we are going to call in this paper "diffractive phenomena" in billiards
is far from being deeply understood. These are sorts of singularities that, for
example, some kind of corners introduce in the energy eigenfunctions. In this
paper we use the well-known scaling quantization procedure to study them. We
show how the scaling method can be applied to convex billiards with corners,
taking into account the strong diffraction at them and the techniques needed to
solve their Helmholtz equation. As an example we study a classically
pseudointegrable billiard, the truncated triangle. Then we focus our attention
on the spectral behavior. A numerical study of the statistical properties of
high-lying energy levels is carried out. It is found that all computed
statistical quantities are roughly described by the so-called semi-Poisson
statistics, but it is not clear whether the semi-Poisson statistics is the
correct one in the semiclassical limit.Comment: 7 pages, 8 figure
- …