DN Tauri - coronal activity and accretion in a young low-mass CTTS

We present a deep XMM-Newton observation of DN Tau, a young M0-type accreting CTTS and investigate its X-ray properties and X-ray generating mechanisms. Specifically we examine the presence of X-ray emission from magnetic activity and accretion shocks and compare our new X-ray data with UV data taken simultaneously and with X-ray/UV observations performed before. We find that the X-ray emission from DN Tau is dominated by coronal plasma generated via magnetic activity, but also clearly detect a contribution of the accretion shocks to the cool plasma component at about 2 MK as consistently inferred from density and temperature analysis. Typical phenomena of active coronae like flaring, the presence of very hot plasma at 30 MK and an abundance pattern showing the inverse FIP effect are seen on DN Tau. Strong variations in the emission measure of the cooler plasma components between the 2005 and 2010 XMM data point to accretion related changes. The UV light curve taken simultaneously is in general not related to the X-ray brightness, but exhibits clear counterparts during the observed X-ray flares. The X-ray properties of DN Tau are similar to those of more massive CTTS, but its low mass and large radius shift the accretion shocks to lower temperatures, reducing their imprint in the X-ray regime.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in A&

Stochastic Biasing and Galaxy-Mass Density Relation in the Weakly Non-linear Regime

It is believed that the biasing of the galaxies plays an important role for understanding the large-scale structure of the universe. In general, the biasing of galaxy formation could be stochastic. Furthermore, the future galaxy survey might allow us to explore the time evolution of the galaxy distribution. In this paper, the analytic study of the galaxy-mass density relation and its time evolution is presented within the framework of the stochastic biasing. In the weakly non-linear regime, we derive a general formula for the galaxy-mass density relation as a conditional mean using the Edgeworth expansion. The resulting expression contains the joint moments of the total mass and galaxy distributions. Using the perturbation theory, we investigate the time evolution of the joint moments and examine the influence of the initial stochasticity on the galaxy-mass density relation. The analysis shows that the galaxy-mass density relation could be well-approximated by the linear relation. Compared with the skewness of the galaxy distribution, we find that the estimation of the higher order moments using the conditional mean could be affected by the stochasticity. Therefore, the galaxy-mass density relation as a conditional mean should be used with a caution as a tool for estimating the skewness and the kurtosis.Comment: 22 pages, 7 Encapusulated Postscript Figures, aastex, The title and the structure of the paper has been changed, Results and conclusions unchanged, Accepted for publication in Ap

Density Functional Theory Characterization of the Multiferroicity in Spin Spiral Chain Cuprates

The ferroelectricity of the spiral magnets LiCu2O2 and LiCuVO4 was examined by calculating the electric polarizations of their spin spiral states on the basis of density functional theory with spin-orbit coupling. Our work unambiguously reveals that spin-orbit coupling is responsible for the ferroelectricity with the primary contribution from the spin-orbit coupling on the Cu sites, but the asymmetric density distribution responsible for the electric polarization occurs mainly around the O atoms. The electric polarization is calculated to be much greater for the ab- than for the bc-plane spin spiral. The observed spin-spiral plane is found to be consistent with the observed direction of the electric polarization for LiCuVO4, but inconsistent for LiCu2O2.Comment: Phys. Rev. Lett., in prin

A magnetic cycle of tau Bootis? The coronal and chromospheric view

Tau Bootis is a late F-type main sequence star orbited by a Hot Jupiter. During the last years spectropolarimetric observations led to the hypothesis that this star may host a global magnetic field that switches its polarity once per year, indicating a very short activity cycle of only one year duration. In our ongoing observational campaign, we have collected several X-ray observations with XMM-Newton and optical spectra with TRES/FLWO in Arizona to characterize tau Boo's corona and chromosphere over the course of the supposed one-year cycle. Contrary to the spectropolarimetric reconstructions, our observations do not show indications for a short activity cycle.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, appeared in Astronomical Notes 333, 1, 26-29 (2012