Orbital evolution of a test particle around a black hole: higher-order corrections

We study the orbital evolution of a radiation-damped binary in the extreme mass ratio limit, and the resulting waveforms, to one order beyond what can be obtained using the conservation laws approach. The equations of motion are solved perturbatively in the mass ratio (or the corresponding parameter in the scalar field toy model), using the self force, for quasi-circular orbits around a Schwarzschild black hole. This approach is applied for the scalar model. Higher-order corrections yield a phase shift which, if included, may make gravitational-wave astronomy potentially highly accurate.Comment: 4 pages, 3 Encapsulated PostScript figure

Implementing fully relativistic hydrodynamics in three dimensions

We report on our numerical implementation of fully relativistic hydrodynamics coupled to Einstein's field equations in three spatial dimensions. We briefly review several steps in our code development, including our recasting of Einstein's equations and several tests which demonstrate its advantages for numerical integrations. We outline our implementation of relativistic hydrodynamics, and present numerical results for the evolution of both stable and unstable Oppenheimer-Volkov equilibrium stars, which represent a very promising first test of our code.Comment: 5 Pages, 4 Figures, submitted to Proceedings of the 8th Canadian Conference on General Relativity and Relativistic Astrophysic

Recent integral cross section validation measurements at the ASP facility

This work presents new integral data measured at the ASP 14 MeV neutron irradiation facility at Aldermaston in the UK, which has recently become available for fusion-related work through the CCFE materials programme. Measurements of reaction products from activation experiments using elemental foils were carried out using gamma spectrometry in a high efficiency, high-purity germanium (HPGe) detector and associated digital signal processing hardware. Following irradiation and rapid extraction to the measurement cell, gamma emissions were acquired with both energy and time bins. Integral cross section and half-life data have been derived from these measurements. Selected integral cross section values are presented from the measurement campaigns.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure

Competing Adiabatic Thouless Pumps in Enlarged Parameter Spaces

The transfer of conserved charges through insulating matter via smooth deformations of the Hamiltonian is known as quantum adiabatic, or Thouless, pumping. Central to this phenomenon are Hamiltonians whose insulating gap is controlled by a multi-dimensional (usually two-dimensional) parameter space in which paths can be defined for adiabatic changes in the Hamiltonian, i.e., without closing the gap. Here, we extend the concept of Thouless pumps of band insulators by considering a larger, three-dimensional parameter space. We show that the connectivity of this parameter space is crucial for defining quantum pumps, demonstrating that, as opposed to the conventional two-dimensional case, pumped quantities depend not only on the initial and final points of Hamiltonian evolution but also on the class of the chosen path and preserved symmetries. As such, we distinguish the scenarios of closed/open paths of Hamiltonian evolution, finding that different closed cycles can lead to the pumping of different quantum numbers, and that different open paths may point to distinct scenarios for surface physics. As explicit examples, we consider models similar to simple models used to describe topological insulators, but with doubled degrees of freedom compared to a minimal topological insulator model. The extra fermionic flavors from doubling allow for extra gapping terms/adiabatic parameters - besides the usual topological mass which preserves the topology-protecting discrete symmetries - generating an enlarged adiabatic parameter-space. We consider cases in one and three \emph{spatial} dimensions, and our results in three dimensions may be realized in the context of crystalline topological insulators, as we briefly discuss.Comment: 21 pages, 7 Figure

AGAPEROS: Searching for variable stars in the LMC Bar with the Pixel Method. I. Detection, astrometry and cross-identification

We extend the work developed in previous papers on microlensing with a selection of variable stars. We use the Pixel Method to select variable stars on a set of 2.5 x 10**6 pixel light curves in the LMC Bar presented elsewhere. The previous treatment was done in order to optimise the detection of long timescale variations (larger than a few days) and we further optimise our analysis for the selection of Long Timescale and Long Period Variables (LT&LPV). We choose to perform a selection of variable objects as comprehensive as possible, independent of periodicity and of their position on the colour magnitude diagram. We detail the different thresholds successively applied to the light curves, which allow to produce a catalogue of 632 variable objects. We present a table with the coordinate of each variable, its EROS magnitudes at one epoch and an indicator of blending in both colours, together with a finding chart. A cross-correlation with various catalogues shows that 90% of those variable objects were undetected before, thus enlarging the sample of LT&LPV previously known in this area by a factor of 10. Due to the limitations of both the Pixel Method and the data set, additional data -- namely a longer baseline and near infrared photometry -- are required to further characterise these variable stars, as will be addressed in subsequent papers.Comment: 11 pages with 10 figure

Meteoroid detector

A meteoroid detector is described which uses, a cold cathode discharge tube with a gas-pressurized cell in space for recording a meteoroid puncture of the cell and for determining the size of the puncture

An octonionic formulation of the M-theory algebra

We give an octonionic formulation of the N = 1 supersymmetry algebra in D = 11, including all brane charges. We write this in terms of a novel outer product, which takes a pair of elements of the division algebra A and returns a real linear operator on A. More generally, with this product comes the power to rewrite any linear operation on R^n (n = 1,2,4,8) in terms of multiplication in the n-dimensional division algebra A. Finally, we consider the reinterpretation of the D = 11 supersymmetry algebra as an octonionic algebra in D = 4 and the truncation to division subalgebras