5,203 research outputs found
Neutrino-Accelerated Hot Hydrogen Burning
We examine the effects of significant electron anti-neutrino fluxes on
hydrogen burning. Specifically, we find that the bottleneck weak nuclear
reactions in the traditional pp-chain and the hot CNO cycle can be accelerated
by anti-neutrino capture, increasing the energy generation rate. We also
discuss how anti-neutrino capture reactions can alter the conditions for break
out into the rp-process. We speculate on the impact of these considerations for
the evolution and dynamics of collapsing very- and super- massive compact
objects.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figures, submitted to ApJ; minor content chang
The Location of the Nucleus of NGC 1068 and the Three-dimensional Structure of Its Nuclear Region
The HST archival UV imaging polarimetry data of NGC 1068 is re-examined.
Through an extensive estimation of the observational errors, we discuss whether
the distribution of the position angles (PAs) of polarization is simply
centrosymmetric or not. Taking into account the effect of a bad focus at the
time of the observation, we conclude that, within the accuracy of HST/FOC
polarimetry, the PA distribution is completely centrosymmetric. This means that
the UV polarization originates only from scattering of the radiation from a
central point-like source.
However, our analysis shows that the most probable location of the nucleus is
only ~0.''08 (~6pc) south from the brightest cloud called ``cloud B''. The
error circle of 99% confidence level extends to cloud B and to ``cloud A''
which is about 0.''2 south of cloud B. By this FOC observation, Cloud B is only
marginally rejected as the nucleus.
Assuming that the UV flux is dominated by electron-scattered light, we have
also derived a three-dimensional structure of the nuclear region. The inferred
distribution suggests a linear structure which could be related to the radio
jet.Comment: 19 pages, 14 figures, to be published in the Astrophysical Journa
Probing neutrino physics with a self-consistent treatment of the weak decoupling, nucleosynthesis, and photon decoupling epochs
We show that a self-consistent and coupled treatment of the weak decoupling,
big bang nucleosynthesis, and photon decoupling epochs can be used to provide
new insights and constraints on neutrino sector physics from high-precision
measurements of light element abundances and cosmic microwave background
observables. Implications of beyond-standard-model physics in cosmology,
especially within the neutrino sector, are assessed by comparing predictions
against five observables: the baryon energy density, helium abundance,
deuterium abundance, effective number of neutrinos, and sum of the light
neutrino mass eigenstates. We give examples for constraints on dark radiation,
neutrino rest mass, lepton numbers, and scenarios for light and heavy sterile
neutrinos.Comment: 29 pages, 10 figure
Spin observables in the reaction
The T matrix of the LambdaN-> NN reaction, which is a strangeness changing
weak process, is derived. The explicit formulas of the spin observables are
given for s-wave p-Lambda final states which kinematically corresponds to
inverse reaction of the weak nonmesonic decay of Lambda hypernuclei. One can
study interferences between amplitudes of parity- conserving and violating,
spin- singlet and triplet and isospin- singlet and triplet. Most of them are
not available in the study of the nonmesonic decay. They clarify structure of
the reaction and constrain strongly theoretical models for weak hyperon nucleon
interaction.Comment: 7pages,ReVTeX,no figure
Neutrino energy transport in weak decoupling and big bang nucleosynthesis
We calculate the evolution of the early universe through the epochs of weak
decoupling, weak freeze-out and big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) by
simultaneously coupling a full strong, electromagnetic, and weak nuclear
reaction network with a multi-energy group Boltzmann neutrino energy transport
scheme. The modular structure of our code provides the ability to dissect the
relative contributions of each process responsible for evolving the dynamics of
the early universe in the absence of neutrino flavor oscillations. Such an
approach allows a detailed accounting of the evolution of the ,
, , , , energy
distribution functions alongside and self-consistently with the nuclear
reactions and entropy/heat generation and flow between the neutrino and
photon/electron/positron/baryon plasma components. This calculation reveals
nonlinear feedback in the time evolution of neutrino distribution functions and
plasma thermodynamic conditions (e.g., electron-positron pair densities), with
implications for: the phasing between scale factor and plasma temperature; the
neutron-to-proton ratio; light-element abundance histories; and the
cosmological parameter \neff. We find that our approach of following the time
development of neutrino spectral distortions and concomitant entropy production
and extraction from the plasma results in changes in the computed value of the
BBN deuterium yield. For example, for particular implementations of quantum
corrections in plasma thermodynamics, our calculations show a increase
in deuterium. These changes are potentially significant in the context of
anticipated improvements in observational and nuclear physics uncertainties.Comment: 37 pages, 12 Figures, 6 Table
Using Big Bang Nucleosynthesis to Extend CMB Probes of Neutrino Physics
We present calculations showing that upcoming Cosmic Microwave Background
(CMB) experiments will have the power to improve on current constraints on
neutrino masses and provide new limits on neutrino degeneracy parameters. The
latter could surpass those derived from Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN) and the
observationally-inferred primordial helium abundance. These conclusions derive
from our Monte Carlo Markov Chain (MCMC) simulations which incorporate a full
BBN nuclear reaction network. This provides a self-consistent treatment of the
helium abundance, the baryon number, the three individual neutrino degeneracy
parameters and other cosmological parameters. Our analysis focuses on the
effects of gravitational lensing on CMB constraints on neutrino rest mass and
degeneracy parameter. We find for the PLANCK experiment that total (summed)
neutrino mass eV could be ruled out at or better.
Likewise neutrino degeneracy parameters and could be detected or ruled out at
confidence, or better. For POLARBEAR we find that the corresponding detectable
values are , , and , while for EPIC we obtain ,
, and . Our forcast for
EPIC demonstrates that CMB observations have the potential to set constraints
on neutrino degeneracy parameters which are better than BBN-derived limits and
an order of magnitude better than current WMAP-derived limits.Comment: 27 pages, 11 figures, matches published version in JCA
Self-Consistent Velocity Dependent Effective Interactions
The theory of self-consistent effective interactions in nuclei is extended
for a system with a velocity dependent mean potential. By means of the field
coupling method, we present a general prescription to derive effective
interactions which are consistent with the mean potential. For a deformed
system with the conventional pairing field, the velocity dependent effective
interactions are derived as the multipole pairing interactions in
doubly-stretched coordinates. They are applied to the microscopic analysis of
the giant dipole resonances (GDR's) of , the first excited
states of Sn isotopes and the first excited states of Mo isotopes.
It is clarified that the interactions play crucial roles in describing the
splitting and structure of GDR peaks, in restoring the energy weighted sum
rule, and in reducing the values of .Comment: 35 pages, RevTeX, 7 figures (available upon request), to appear in
Phys.Rev.
Light Element Signatures of Sterile Neutrinos and Cosmological Lepton Numbers
We study primordial nucleosynthesis abundance yields for assumed ranges of cosmological lepton numbers, sterile neutrino mass-squared differences and active-sterile vacuum mixing angles. We fix the baryon-to-photon ratio at the value derived from the cosmic microwave background (CMB) data and then calculate the deviation of the 2H, 4He, and 7Li abundance yields from those expected in the zero lepton number(s), no-new-neutrino-physics case. We conclude that high precision (< 5% error) measurements of the primordial 2H abundance from, e.g., QSO absorption line observations coupled with high precision (< 1% error) baryon density measurements from the CMB could have the power to either: (1) reveal or rule out the existence of a light sterile neutrino if the sign of the cosmological lepton number is known; or (2) place strong constraints on lepton numbers, sterile neutrino mixing properties and resonance sweep physics. Similar conclusions would hold if the primordial 4He abundance could be determined to better than 10%
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