983 research outputs found
Numerical stability of a new conformal-traceless 3+1 formulation of the Einstein equation
There is strong evidence indicating that the particular form used to recast
the Einstein equation as a 3+1 set of evolution equations has a fundamental
impact on the stability properties of numerical evolutions involving black
holes and/or neutron stars. Presently, the longest lived evolutions have been
obtained using a parametrized hyperbolic system developed by Kidder, Scheel and
Teukolsky or a conformal-traceless system introduced by Baumgarte, Shapiro,
Shibata and Nakamura. We present a new conformal-traceless system. While this
new system has some elements in common with the
Baumgarte-Shapiro-Shibata-Nakamura system, it differs in both the type of
conformal transformations and how the non-linear terms involving the extrinsic
curvature are handled. We show results from 3D numerical evolutions of a
single, non-rotating black hole in which we demonstrate that this new system
yields a significant improvement in the life-time of the simulations.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figure
Relativistic MHD with Adaptive Mesh Refinement
This paper presents a new computer code to solve the general relativistic
magnetohydrodynamics (GRMHD) equations using distributed parallel adaptive mesh
refinement (AMR). The fluid equations are solved using a finite difference
Convex ENO method (CENO) in 3+1 dimensions, and the AMR is Berger-Oliger.
Hyperbolic divergence cleaning is used to control the
constraint. We present results from three flat space tests, and examine the
accretion of a fluid onto a Schwarzschild black hole, reproducing the Michel
solution. The AMR simulations substantially improve performance while
reproducing the resolution equivalent unigrid simulation results. Finally, we
discuss strong scaling results for parallel unigrid and AMR runs.Comment: 24 pages, 14 figures, 3 table
Evolutions of Magnetized and Rotating Neutron Stars
We study the evolution of magnetized and rigidly rotating neutron stars
within a fully general relativistic implementation of ideal
magnetohydrodynamics with no assumed symmetries in three spatial dimensions.
The stars are modeled as rotating, magnetized polytropic stars and we examine
diverse scenarios to study their dynamics and stability properties. In
particular we concentrate on the stability of the stars and possible critical
behavior. In addition to their intrinsic physical significance, we use these
evolutions as further tests of our implementation which incorporates new
developments to handle magnetized systems.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figure
Entanglement, avoided crossings and quantum chaos in an Ising model with a tilted magnetic field
We study a one-dimensional Ising model with a magnetic field and show that
tilting the field induces a transition to quantum chaos. We explore the
stationary states of this Hamiltonian to show the intimate connection between
entanglement and avoided crossings. In general entanglement gets exchanged
between the states undergoing an avoided crossing with an overall enhancement
of multipartite entanglement at the closest point of approach, simultaneously
accompanied by diminishing two-body entanglement as measured by concurrence. We
find that both for stationary as well as nonstationary states, nonintegrability
leads to a destruction of two-body correlations and distributes entanglement
more globally.Comment: Corrections in two figure captions and one new reference. To appear
in Phys. Rev.
The Surface Brightness Fluctuations and Globular Cluster Populations of M87 and its Companions
Using the surface brightness fluctuations in HST WFPC-2 images, we determine
that M87, NGC 4486B, and NGC 4478 are all at a distance of ~16 Mpc, while NGC
4476 lies in the background at ~21 Mpc. We also examine the globular clusters
of M87 using archived HST fields. We detect the bimodal color distribution, and
find that the amplitude of the red peak relative to the blue peak is greatest
near the center. This feature is in good agreement with the merger model of
elliptical galaxy formation, where some of the clusters originated in
progenitor galaxies while other formed during mergers.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure
A joint Chandra and Swift view of the 2015 X-Ray dust-scattering echo of V404 Cygni
We present a combined analysis of the Chandra and Swift observations of the 2015 X-ray echo of V404 Cygni. Using a stacking analysis, we identify eight separate rings in the echo. We reconstruct the soft X-ray light curve of the 2015 June outburst using the high-resolution Chandra images and cross-correlations of the radial intensity profiles, indicating that about 70% of the outburst fluence occurred during the bright flare at the end of the outburst on MJD 57199.8. By deconvolving the intensity profiles with the reconstructed outburst light curve, we show that the rings correspond to eight separate dust concentrations with precise distance determinations. We further show that the column density of the clouds varies significantly across the field of view, with the centroid of most of the clouds shifted toward the Galactic plane, relative to the position of V404 Cyg, invalidating the assumption of uniform cloud column typically made in attempts to constrain dust properties from light echoes. We present a new XSPEC spectral dust-scattering model that calculates the differential dust-scattering cross section for a range of commonly used dust distributions and compositions and use it to jointly fit the entire set of Swift echo data. We find that a standard Mathis-Rumpl-Nordsieck model provides an adequate fit to the ensemble of echo data. The fit is improved by allowing steeper dust distributions, and models with simple silicate and graphite grains are preferred over models with more complex composition. © 2016. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved
Who the hell was that? Stories, bodies and actions in the world
This article explores a two-way relationship between stories and the experiential actions of bodies in the world. Through an autoethnographic approach, the article presents a series of interlinked story fragments in an effort to show and evoke a feel for the ways in which stories, bodies, and actions influence and shape each other over time. It offers some reflections on the experiences the stories portray from the perspective of a social constructionist conception of narrative theory and suggest that while stories exert a powerful influence on the actions of our bodies, our bodies intrude on or âtalk backâ to this process because bodies have an existence beyond stories
Perturbed disks get shocked. Binary black hole merger effects on accretion disks
The merger process of a binary black hole system can have a strong impact on
a circumbinary disk. In the present work we study the effect of both central
mass reduction (due to the energy loss through gravitational waves) and a
possible black hole recoil (due to asymmetric emission of gravitational
radiation). For the mass reduction case and recoil directed along the disk's
angular momentum, oscillations are induced in the disk which then modulate the
internal energy and bremsstrahlung luminosities. On the other hand, when the
recoil direction has a component orthogonal to the disk's angular momentum, the
disk's dynamics are strongly impacted, giving rise to relativistic shocks. The
shock heating leaves its signature in our proxies for radiation, the total
internal energy and bremsstrahlung luminosity. Interestingly, for cases where
the kick velocity is below the smallest orbital velocity in the disk (a likely
scenario in real AGN), we observe a common, characteristic pattern in the
internal energy of the disk. Variations in kick velocity simply provide a phase
offset in the characteristic pattern implying that observations of such a
signature could yield a measure of the kick velocity through electromagnetic
signals alone.Comment: 10 pages, 13 figures. v2: Minor changes, version to be published in
PR
Critical Phenomena in Neutron Stars I: Linearly Unstable Nonrotating Models
We consider the evolution in full general relativity of a family of linearly
unstable isolated spherical neutron stars under the effects of very small,
perturbations as induced by the truncation error. Using a simple ideal-fluid
equation of state we find that this system exhibits a type-I critical
behaviour, thus confirming the conclusions reached by Liebling et al. [1] for
rotating magnetized stars. Exploiting the relative simplicity of our system, we
are able carry out a more in-depth study providing solid evidences of the
criticality of this phenomenon and also to give a simple interpretation of the
putative critical solution as a spherical solution with the unstable mode being
the fundamental F-mode. Hence for any choice of the polytropic constant, the
critical solution will distinguish the set of subcritical models migrating to
the stable branch of the models of equilibrium from the set of subcritical
models collapsing to a black hole. Finally, we study how the dynamics changes
when the numerically perturbation is replaced by a finite-size, resolution
independent velocity perturbation and show that in such cases a nearly-critical
solution can be changed into either a sub or supercritical. The work reported
here also lays the basis for the analysis carried in a companion paper, where
the critical behaviour in the the head-on collision of two neutron stars is
instead considered [2].Comment: 15 pages, 9 figure
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