3,074 research outputs found
Polar Perturbations of Self-gravitating Supermassive Global Monopoles
Spontaneous global symmetry breaking of O(3) scalar field gives rise to
point-like topological defects, global monopoles. By taking into account
self-gravity,the qualitative feature of the global monopole solutions depends
on the vacuum expectation value v of the scalar field. When v < sqrt{1 / 8 pi},
there are global monopole solutions which have a deficit solid angle defined at
infinity. When sqrt{1 / 8 pi} <= v < sqrt{3 / 8 pi}, there are global monopole
solutions with the cosmological horizon, which we call the supermassive global
monopole. When v >= sqrt{3 / 8 pi}, there is no nontrivial solution. It was
shown that all of these solutions are stable against the spherical
perturbations. In addition to the global monopole solutions, the de Sitter
solutions exist for any value of v. They are stable against the spherical
perturbations when v sqrt{3 / 8 pi}.
We study polar perturbations of these solutions and find that all
self-gravitating global monopoles are stable even against polar perturbations,
independently of the existence of the cosmological horizon, while the de Sitter
solutions are always unstable.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, corrected some type mistakes (already corrected
in PRD version
Observation of an energetic radiation burst from mountain-top thunderclouds
During thunderstorms on 2008 September 20, a simultaneous detection of gamma
rays and electrons was made at a mountain observatory in Japan located 2770 m
above sea level. Both emissions, lasting 90 seconds, were associated with
thunderclouds rather than lightning. The photon spectrum, extending to 10 MeV,
can be interpreted as consisting of bremsstrahlung gamma rays arriving from a
source which is 60 - 130 m in distance at 90% confidence level. The observed
electrons are likely to be dominated by a primary population escaping from an
acceleration region in the clouds.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in Physical Review
Letter
Discovery of the compact X-ray source inside the Cygnus Loop
We detected an X-ray compact source inside the Cygnus Loop during the
observation project of the whole Cygnus Loop with the ASCA GIS. The source
intensity is 0.11 c s for GIS and 0.15 c s for SIS, which is the
strongest in the ASCA band. The X-ray spectra are well fitted by a power law
spectrum of a photon index of \error{-2.1}{0.1} with neutral H column of
(\error{3.1}{0.6}). Taking into account the
interstellar absorption feature, this source is X-ray bright mainly above 1 keV
suggesting either an AGN or a rotating neutron star. So far, we did not detect
intensity variation nor coherent pulsation mainly due to the limited
observation time. There are several optical bright stellar objects within the
error region of the X-ray image. We carried out the optical spectroscopy for
the brightest source (V=+12.6) and found it to be a G star. The follow up deep
observation both in optical and in X-ray wavelengths are strongly required.Comment: Accepted for Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan 17
pages, 3 figur
A Shell of Thermal X-ray Emission Associated with the Young Crab-like Remnant 3C58
Deep X-ray imaging spectroscopy of the bright pulsar wind nebula 3C58
confirms the existence of an embedded thermal X-ray shell surrounding the
pulsar PSR J0205+6449. Radially resolved spectra obtained with the XMM-Newton
telescope are well-characterized by a power-law model with the addition of a
soft thermal emission component in varying proportions. These fits reproduce
the well-studied increase in the spectral index with radius attributed to
synchrotron burn-off of high energy electrons. Most interestingly, a radially
resolved thermal component is shown to map out a shell-like structure ~6' in
diameter. The presence of a strong emission line corresponding to the Ne IX
He-like transition requires an overabundance of ~3 x [Ne/Ne(sun)] in the
Raymond-Smith plasma model. The best-fit temperature kT ~ 0.23 keV is
essentially independent of radius for the derived column density of N_H = (4.2
+/- 0.1)E21 per cm squared. Our result suggests that thermal shells can be
obscured in the early evolution of a supernova remnant by non-thermal pulsar
wind nebulae emission; the luminosity of the 3C58 shell is more than an order
of magnitude below the upper limit on a similar shell in the Crab Nebula. We
find the shell centroid to be offset from the pulsar location. If this neutron
star has a velocity similar to that of the Crab pulsar, we derive an age of
3700 yr and a velocity vector aligned with the long axis of the PWN. The shell
parameters and pulsar offset add to the accumulating evidence that 3C58 is not
the remnant of the supernova of CE 1181.Comment: 7 pages, 8 figures, 2 tables, Latex emulateapj style. To appear in
the Astrophysical Journa
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