Neutron star masses from hydrodynamical effects in obscured sgHMXBs

A population of obscured supergiant High Mass X-ray Binaries (sgHMXBs) has been discovered by INTEGRAL. X-ray wind tomography of IGR J17252-3616 inferred a slow wind velocity to account for the enhanced obscuration. The main goal of this study is to understand under which conditions high obscuration could occur. We have used an hydrodynamical code to simulate the flow of the stellar wind around the neutron star. A grid of simulations was used to study the dependency of the absorbing column density and of the X-ray light-curves on the model parameters. A comparison between the simulation results and the observations of IGR J17252-3616 provides an estimate on these parameters. We have constrained the wind terminal velocity to 500-600 km/s and the neutron star mass to 1.75-2.15 solar masses. We have confirmed that the initial hypothesis of a slow wind velocity with a moderate mass loss rate is valid. The mass of the neutron star can be constrained by studying its impact on the accretion flow.Comment: A&A in pres

Invariant spin coherent states and the theory of quantum antiferromagnet in a paramagnetic phase

The consistent theory of the Heisenberg quantum antiferromagnet in the disordered phase with short range antiferromagnetic order was developed on the basis of the path integral for the spin coherent states. We have presented the Lagrangian of the theory in a form which is explicitly invariant under rotations and have found natural variables in the term of which one can construct a natural perturbation theory. The short wave spin fluctuations are similar to the spin wave theory ones, and the long wave spin fluctuations are governed by the nonlinear sigma model. We have also demonstrated that the short wave spin fluctuations have to be considered accurately in the framework of the discrete version in time of the path integral. In the framework of our approach we have obtained the response function for the spin fluctuations for the whole region of the frequency $\omega$ and the wave vector ${\bf k}$ and have calculated the free energy of the system.Comment: 7 pages, LATEX2

Recursion and Path-Integral Approaches to the Analytic Study of the Electronic Properties of C60C_{60}

The recursion and path-integral methods are applied to analytically study the electronic structure of a neutral $C_{60}$ molecule. We employ a tight-binding Hamiltonian which considers both the $s$ and $p$ valence electrons of carbon. From the recursion method, we obtain closed-form {\it analytic} expressions for the $\pi$ and $\sigma$ eigenvalues and eigenfunctions, including the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) and the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) states, and the Green's functions. We also present the local densities of states around several ring clusters, which can be probed experimentally by using, for instance, a scanning tunneling microscope. {}From a path-integral method, identical results for the energy spectrum are also derived. In addition, the local density of states on one carbon atom is obtained; from this we can derive the degree of degeneracy of the energy levels.Comment: 19 pages, RevTex, 6 figures upon reques

Boundary effects on the scaling of the superfluid density

We study numerically the influence of the substrate (boundary conditions) on the finite--size scaling properties of the superfluid density $\rho_s$ in superfluid films of thickness $H$ within the XY model employing the Monte Carlo method. Our results suggest that the jump $\rho_s H/T_c$ at the Kosterlitz--Thouless transition temperature $T_c$ depends on the boundary conditions.Comment: 2 pages, 1 Latex file, 1 postscript figure, 2 style file

Oscillons and oscillating kinks in the Abelian-Higgs model

We study the classical dynamics of the Abelian Higgs model employing an asymptotic multiscale expansion method, which uses the ratio of the Higgs to the gauge field amplitudes as a small parameter. We derive an effective nonlinear Schr\"{o}dinger equation for the gauge field, and a linear equation for the scalar field containing the gauge field as a nonlinear source. This equation is used to predict the existence of oscillons and oscillating kinks for certain regimes of the ratio of the Higgs to the gauge field masses. Results of numerical simulations are found to be in very good agreement with the analytical findings, and show that the oscillons are robust, while kinks are unstable. It is also demonstrated that oscillons emerge spontaneously as a result of the onset of the modulational instability of plane wave solutions of the model. Connections of the obtained solutions with the phenomenology of superconductors is discussed.Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1306.386

Momentum distributions in ^3He-^4He liquid mixtures

We present variational calculations of the one-body density matrices and momentum distributions for ^3He-^4He mixtures in the zero temperature limit, in the framework of the correlated basis functions theory. The ground-state wave function contains two- and three-body correlations and the matrix elements are computed by (Fermi)Hypernetted Chain techniques. The dependence on the ^3He concentration (x_3) of the ^4He condensate fraction $(n_0^{(4)})$ and of the ^3He pole strength (Z_F) is studied along the P=0 isobar. At low ^3He concentration, the computed ^4He condensate fraction is not significantly affected by the ^3He statistics. Despite of the low x_3 values, Z_F is found to be quite smaller than that of the corresponding pure ^3He because of the strong ^3He-^4He correlations and of the overall, large total density \rho. A small increase of $n_0^{(4)}$ along x_3 is found, which is mainly due to the decrease of \rho respect to the pure ^4He phase.Comment: 23 pages, 7 postscript figures, Revte

Theoretical study of the dynamic structure factor of superfluid 4He

We study the dynamic structure factor $S(\vec{q},\omega)$ of superfluid 4He at zero temperature in the roton momentum region and beyond using field-theoretical Green's function techniques. We start from the Gavoret-Nozi\`{e}res two-particle propagator and introduce the concept of quasiparticles. We treat the residual (weak) interaction between quasiparticles as being local in coordinate space and weakly energy dependent. Our quasiparticle model explicitly incorporates the Bose-Einstein condensate. A complete formula for the dynamic susceptibility, which is related to $S (\vec{q},\omega)$, is derived. The structure factor is numerically calculated in a self-consistent way in the special case of a momentum independent interaction between quasiparticles. Results are compared with experiment and other theoretical approaches.Comment: 17 pages, 16 figure

Vela X-1 as a laboratory for accretion in High-Mass X-ray Binaries

Vela X-1 is an eclipsing high mass X-ray binary (HMXB) consisting of a 283s accreting X-ray pulsar in a close orbit of 8.964 days around the B0.5Ib supergiant HD77581 at a distance of just 2.4 kpc. The system is considered a prototype of wind-accreting HMXB and it has been used as a baseline in different theoretical or modelling studies. We discuss the observational properties of the system and the use of the observational data as laboratory to test recent developments in modelling the accretion process in High-Mass X-ray Binaries (e.g., Sander et al. 2018; El Mellah et al. 2018), which range from detailed descriptions of the wind acceleration to modelling of the structure of the flow of matter close to the neutron star and its variations.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, proceedings of the 12th INTEGRAL conference "INTEGRAL looks AHEAD to Multimessenger astronomy" in Geneva (Switzerland) on 11-15 February 201

Ground state properties of antiferromagnetic Heisenberg spin rings

Exact ground state properties of antiferromagnetic Heisenberg spin rings with isotropic next neighbour interaction are presented for various numbers of spin sites and spin quantum numbers. Earlier work by Peierls, Marshall, Lieb, Schultz and Mattis focused on bipartite lattices and is not applicable to rings with an odd number of spins. With the help of exact diagonalization methods we find a more general systematic behaviour which for instance relates the number of spin sites and the individual spin quantum numbers to the degeneracy of the ground state. These numerical findings all comply with rigorous proofs in the cases where a general analysis could be carried out. Therefore it can be plausibly conjectured that the ascertained properties hold for ground states of arbitrary antiferromagnetic Heisenberg spin rings.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures, uses epsfig.sty, submitted to Phys. Rev. B. More information at http://www.physik.uni-osnabrueck.de/makrosysteme