36,433 research outputs found
A new approach to the GeV flare of PSR B1259-63/LS2883
PSR B1259-63/LS2883 is a binary system composed of a pulsar and a Be star.
The Be star has an equatorial circumstellar disk (CD). The {\it Fermi}
satellite discovered unexpected gamma-ray flares around 30 days after the last
two periastron passages. The origin of the flares remain puzzling. In this
work, we explore the possibility that, the GeV flares are consequences of
inverse Compton-scattering of soft photons by the pulsar wind. The soft photons
are from an accretion disk around the pulsar, which is composed by the matter
from CD captured by the pulsar's gravity at disk-crossing before the
periastron. At the other disk-crossing after the periastron, the density of the
CD is not high enough so that accretion is prevented by the pulsar wind shock.
This model can reproduce the observed SEDs and light curves satisfactorily.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figures, 1 table. Accepted for publication in Ap
Probing the properties of the pulsar wind via studying the dispersive effects in the pulses from the pulsar companion in a double neutron-star binary system
The velocity and density distribution of in the pulsar wind are
crucial distinction among magnetosphere models, and contains key parameters
determining the high energy emission of pulsar binaries. In this work, a direct
method is proposed, which might probe the properties of the wind from one
pulsar in a double-pulsar binary. When the radio signals from the first-formed
pulsar travel through the relativistic flow in the pulsar wind from the
younger companion, the components of different radio frequencies will be
dispersed. It will introduce an additional frequency-dependent time-of-arrival
delay of pulses, which is function of the orbital phase. In this paper, we
formulate the above-mentioned dispersive delay with the properties of the
pulsar wind. As examples, we apply the formula to the double pulsar system PSR
J0737-3039A/B and the pulsar-neutron star binary PSR B1913+16. For PSR
J0737-3039A/B, the time delay in 300\,MHz is s near the
superior-conjunction, under the optimal pulsar wind parameters, which is
half of the current timing accuracy. For PSR B1913+16, with the assumption that
the neutron star companion has a typical spin down luminosity of
\,ergs/s, the time delay is as large as s in 300\,MHz.
The best timing precision of this pulsar is s in 1400\,MHz.
Therefore, it is possible that we can find this signal in archival data.
Otherwise, we can set an upper-limit on the spin down luminosity. Similar
analysis can be apply to other eleven known pulsar-neutron star binariesComment: 6 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA
Calibrating dipolar interaction in an atomic condensate
We revisit the topic of a dipolar condensate with the recently derived more
rigorous pseudo-potential for dipole-dipole interaction [A. Derevianko, Phys.
Rev. A {\bf 67}, 033607 (2003)]. Based on the highly successful variational
technique, we find that all dipolar effects estimated before (using the bare
dipole-dipole interaction) become significantly larger, i.e. are amplified by
the new velocity-dependent pseudo-potential, especially in the limit of large
or small trap aspect ratios. This result points to a promising prospect for
detecting dipolar effects inside an atomic condensate.Comment: 5 figures, to be publishe
Hardcore bosons on checkerboard lattices near half filling: geometric frustration, vanishing charge order and fractional phase
We study a spinless hardcore boson model on checkerboard lattices by Green
function Monte Carlo method. At half filling, the ground state energy is
obtained up to lattice and extrapolated to infinite size, the
staggered pseudospin magnetization is found to vanish in the thermodynamic
limit. Thus the charge order is absent in this system. Away from
half filling, two defects induced by each hole (particle) may carry fractional
charge (). For one hole case, we study how the defect-defect
correlation changes with , which is the ratio between the hopping integral
and cyclic exchange, equals to when . Moreover, we argue that
these fractional defects may propagate independently when the concentration of
holes (or defects) is large enough
Recent star formation in high-redshift early-type galaxies: insights from the rest-frame UV
We combine deep UBVRIzJK photometry from the MUSYC survey with redshifts from
the COMBO-17 survey to study the rest-frame ultraviolet (UV) properties of 674
high-redshift (0.5<z<1) early-type galaxies, drawn from the Extended Chandra
Deep Field South (E-CDFS). Galaxy morphologies are determined through visual
inspection of Hubble Space Telescope (HST) images taken from the GEMS survey.
We harness the sensitivity of the UV to young (<1 Gyrs old) stars to quantify
the recent star formation history of the early-type population. We find
compelling evidence that early-types of all luminosities form stars over the
lifetime of the Universe, although the bulk of their star formation is already
complete at high redshift. Luminous (-23<M(V)<-20.5) early-types form 10-15
percent of their mass after z=1, while their less luminous (M(V)>-20.5)
counterparts form 30-60 percent of their mass in the same redshift range.Comment: To appear in the proceedings of the IAU 245, eds. M. Bureau, E.
Athanassoula, and B. Barbu
High-Dimensional Topological Insulators with Quaternionic Analytic Landau Levels
We study the 3D topological insulators in the continuum by coupling spin-1/2
fermions to the Aharonov-Casher SU(2) gauge field. They exhibit flat Landau
levels in which orbital angular momentum and spin are coupled with a fixed
helicity. The 3D lowest Landau level wavefunctions exhibit the quaternionic
analyticity as a generalization of the complex analyticity of the 2D case. Each
Landau level contributes one branch of gapless helical Dirac modes to the
surface spectra, whose topological properties belong to the Z2-class. The flat
Landau levels can be generalized to an arbitrary dimension. Interaction effects
and experimental realizations are also studied
Better age estimations using UV-optical colours: breaking the age-metallicity degeneracy
We demonstrate that the combination of GALEX UV photometry in the FUV (~1530
angstroms) and NUV (~2310 angstroms) passbands with optical photometry in the
standard U,B,V,R,I filters can efficiently break the age-metallicity
degeneracy. We estimate well-constrained ages, metallicities and their
associated errors for 42 GCs in M31, and show that the full set of
FUV,NUV,U,B,V,R,I photometry produces age estimates that are ~90 percent more
constrained and metallicity estimates that are ~60 percent more constrained
than those produced by using optical filters alone. The quality of the age
constraints is comparable or marginally better than those achieved using a
large number of spectrscopic indices.Comment: Published in MNRAS (2007), 381, L74 (doi:
10.1111/j.1745-3933.2007.00370.x
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