415 research outputs found
Damping rates and frequency corrections of Kepler LEGACY stars
Linear damping rates and modal frequency corrections of radial oscillation
modes in selected LEGACY main-sequence stars are estimated by means of a
nonadiabatic stability analysis. The selected stellar sample covers stars
observed by Kepler with a large range of surface temperatures and surface
gravities. A nonlocal, time-dependent convection model is perturbed to assess
stability against pulsation modes. The mixing-length parameter is calibrated to
the surface-convection-zone depth of a stellar model obtained from fitting
adiabatic frequencies to the LEGACY observations, and two of the nonlocal
convection parameters are calibrated to the corresponding LEGACY linewidth
measurements. The remaining nonlocal convection parameters in the 1D
calculations are calibrated so as to reproduce profiles of turbulent pressure
and of the anisotropy of the turbulent velocity field of corresponding 3D
hydrodynamical simulations. The atmospheric structure in the 1D stability
analysis adopts a temperature-optical-depth relation derived from 3D
hydrodynamical simulations. Despite the small number of parameters to adjust,
we find good agreement with detailed shapes of both turbulent pressure profiles
and anisotropy profiles with depth, and with damping rates as a function of
frequency. Furthermore, we find the absolute modal frequency corrections,
relative to a standard adiabatic pulsation calculation, to increase with
surface temperature and surface gravity.Comment: accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical
Society (MNRAS); 15 pages, 8 figure
Internet and Social Media Access Among Youth Experiencing Homelessness: Mixed-Methods Study.
BACKGROUND: Youth experiencing homelessness are at a risk for a variety of adverse outcomes. Given the widespread use of the internet and social media, these new technologies may be used to address their needs and for outreach purposes. However, little is known about how this group uses these resources.
OBJECTIVE: This study investigated how homeless adolescents use these technologies for general and health-related purposes, whether the scope of their use changes with housing status, and their interest in a website dedicated to youth experiencing homelessness.
METHODS: A convenience sample of youth aged 18 to 21 years was recruited from a youth-specific homeless shelter. All participants completed a 47-item survey, with 10 individuals completing a semistructured interview. Descriptive statistics, exact testing, logistic regression, and generalized estimating equation modeling was performed for quantitative data analysis. Interviews were transcribed verbatim, and NVivo 10 (QSR International) was employed to facilitate double coding and thematic analysis.
RESULTS: A total of 87 participants completed the survey with a mean age of 19.4 (SD 1.1) years. While experiencing homelessness, 56% (49/87) accessed the internet at least once a day, with 86% (75/87) accessing once a week. Access to a smartphone was associated with a 3.03 greater odds of accessing the internet and was the most frequently used device (66% of participants, 57/87). While experiencing homelessness, subjects reported a 68% decreased odds in internet access frequency (odds ratio [OR] 0.32, P\u3c.001), 75% decreased odds in spending greater amounts of time on the internet (OR 0.25, P\u3c.001), and an 87% decreased odds of social media use (OR 0.13, P=.01). Ten participants completed the semistructured interview. Several themes were identified, including (1) changes in internet behaviors while experiencing homelessness, (2) health status as a major concern and reason for Internet use, and (3) interest in a website dedicated to youth experiencing homelessness. While experiencing homelessness, participants indicated their behaviors were more goal-oriented and less focused on leisure or entertainment activities.
CONCLUSIONS: While homeless youth experience changes in the frequency, amount of time, and specific uses of the internet and social media, study participants were able to access the internet regularly. The internet was used to search health-related topics. Given the importance of smartphones in accessing the internet, mobile-optimized websites may be an effective method for reaching this group
Long GRBs from binary stars: runaway, Wolf-Rayet progenitors
The collapsar model for long gamma-ray bursts requires a rapidly rotating
Wolf-Rayet star as progenitor. We test the idea of producing rapidly rotating
Wolf-Rayet stars in massive close binaries through mass accretion and
consecutive quasi-chemically homogeneous evolution; the latter had previously
been shown to provide collapsars below a certain metallicity threshold for
single stars. The binary channel presented here may provide a means for massive
stars to obtain the high rotation rates required to evolve quasi-chemically
homogeneous and fulfill the collapsar scenario. Moreover, it suggests that a
possibly large fraction of long gamma-ray bursts occurs in runaway stars.Comment: To appear in the proceedings of the conference "Unsolved problems in
stellar physics" - Cambridge, July 200
Confinement of the Sun's interior magnetic field: some exact boundary-layer solutions
High-latitude laminar confinement of the Sun's interior magnetic field is
shown to be possible, as originally proposed by Gough and McIntyre (1998) but
contrary to a recent claim by Brun and Zahn (A&A 2006). Mean downwelling as
weak as 2x10^-6cm/s -- gyroscopically pumped by turbulent stresses in the
overlying convection zone and/or tachocline -- can hold the field in
advective-diffusive balance within a confinement layer of thickness scale ~
1.5Mm ~ 0.002 x (solar radius) while transmitting a retrograde torque to the
Ferraro-constrained interior. The confinement layer sits at the base of the
high-latitude tachocline, near the top of the radiative envelope and just above
the `tachopause' marking the top of the helium settling layer. A family of
exact, laminar, frictionless, axisymmetric confinement-layer solutions is
obtained for uniform downwelling in the limit of strong rotation and
stratification. A scale analysis shows that the flow is dynamically stable and
the assumption of laminar flow realistic. The solution remains valid for
downwelling values of the order of 10^-5cm/s but not much larger. This suggests
that the confinement layer may be unable to accept a much larger mass
throughput. Such a restriction would imply an upper limit on possible internal
field strengths, perhaps of the order of hundreds of gauss, and would have
implications also for ventilation and lithium burning.
The solutions have interesting chirality properties not mentioned in the
paper owing to space restrictions, but described at
http://www.atmos-dynamics.damtp.cam.ac.uk/people/mem/papers/SQBO/solarfigure.htmlComment: 6 pages, 3 figures, to appear in conference proceedings: Unsolved
Problems in Stellar Physic
The effect of different opacity data and chemical element mixture on the Petersen diagram
The Petersen diagram is a frequently used tool to constrain model parameters
such as metallicity of radial double-mode pulsators. In this diagram the period
ratio of the radial first overtone to the fundamental mode, P_1/P_0, is plotted
against the period of the fundamental mode. The period ratio is sensitive to
the chemical composition as well as to the rotational velocity of a star. In
the present study we compute stellar pulsation models to demonstrate the
sensitivity of the radial period ratio to the opacity data (OPAL and OP tables)
and we also examine the effect of different relative abundances of heavy
elements. We conclude that the comparison with observed period ratios could be
used successfully to test the opacity data.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, 1 table; to be published in the Proceedings of
the Conference 'Unsolved Problems in Stellar Physics', Cambridge, 2-6 July
200
The role of turbulent pressure as a coherent pulsational driving mechanism: the case of the delta Scuti star HD 187547
HD 187547 was the first candidate that led to the suggestion that solar-like
oscillations are present in delta Scuti stars. Longer observations, however,
show that the modes interpreted as solar-like oscillations have either very
long mode lifetimes, longer than 960 days, or are coherent. These results are
incompatible with the nature of `pure' stochastic excitation as observed in
solar-like stars. Nonetheless, one point is certain: the opacity mechanism
alone cannot explain the oscillation spectrum of HD 187547. Here we present new
theoretical investigations showing that convection dynamics can intrinsically
excite coherent pulsations in the chemically peculiar delta Scuti star HD
187547. More precisely, it is the perturbations of the mean Reynold stresses
(turbulent pressure) that drives the pulsations and the excitation takes place
predominantly in the hydrogen ionization zone.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, accepted to Ap
Probing tiny convective cores with the acoustic modes of lowest degree
Solar-like oscillations are expected to be excited in stars of up to about
1.6 solar masses. Most of these stars will have convective cores during their
Main-sequence evolution. At the edges of these convective cores there is a
rapid variation in the sound speed which influences the frequencies of acoustic
oscillations. In this paper we build on earlier work by Cunha and Metcalfe, to
investigate further the impact that these rapid structural variations have on
different p-mode frequency combinations, involving modes of low degree. In
particular, we adopt a different expression to describe the sound speed
variation at the edge of the core, which we show to reproduce more closely the
profiles derived from the equilibrium models. We analyse the impact of this
change on the frequency perturbation derived for radial modes. Moreover, we
consider three different small frequency separations involving, respectively,
modes of degree l = 0, 1, 2, 3; l = 0, 1; and l = 0, 2, and show that they are
all significantly affected by the sharp sound speed variation at the edge of
the core. In particular, we confirm that the frequency derivative of the
diagnostic tool that combines modes of degree up to 3 can potentially be used
to infer directly the amplitude of the relative sound speed variation at the
edge of the core. Concerning the other two diagnostic tools, we show that at
high frequencies they can be up to a few microhertzs smaller than what would be
expected in the absence of the rapid structural variation at the edge of the
core. Also, we show that the absolute values of their frequency derivatives are
significantly increased, in a manner that is strongly dependent on stellar age.Comment: 7 pages. submitted to A&
Thermohaline mixing in low-mass giants: RGB and beyond
Thermohaline mixing has recently been proposed to occur in low mass red
giants, with large consequence for the chemical yields of low mass stars. We
investigate the role of thermohaline mixing during the evolution of stars
between 1 Msun and 3 Msun. We use a stellar evolution code which includes
rotational mixing and internal magnetic fields. We confirm that thermohaline
mixing has the potential to destroy most of the helium 3 which is produced
earlier on the main sequence during the red giant stage, in stars below
1.5Msun. We find this process to continue during core helium burning and
beyond. We find rotational and magnetic mixing to be negligible compared to the
thermohaline mixing in the relevant layers, even if the interaction of
thermohaline motions with the differential rotation may be essential to
establish the time scale of thermohaline mixing in red giants.Comment: Proceedings of the Conference "Unsolved problems in stellar physics"
- Cambridge, July 200
NEAR-SURFACE EFFECTS IN MODELLING OSCILLATIONS OF ETA BOO
Following the report of solar-like oscillations in the G0 V star eta Boo
(Kjeldsen et al. 1995, AJ 109, 1313), a first attempt to model the observed
frequencies was made by Christensen-Dalsgaard et al. (1995, ApJ Letters, in
press). This attempt succeeded in reproducing the observed frequency
separations, although there remained a difference of about 10 microHz between
observed and computed frequencies. In those models, the near-surface region of
the star was treated rather crudely. Here we consider more sophisticated models
that include non-local mixing-length theory, turbulent pressure and
nonadiabatic oscillations.Comment: uuencoded and compressed Postscript (2 pages, including figure); To
appear in Proceedings of IAU Colloquium 155, "Astrophysical Applications of
Stellar Pulsation", Cape Town, South Afric
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