Simulations of Electron Acceleration at Collisionless Shocks: The Effects of Surface Fluctuations

Energetic electrons are a common feature of interplanetary shocks and planetary bow shocks, and they are invoked as a key component of models of nonthermal radio emission, such as solar radio bursts. A simulation study is carried out of electron acceleration for high Mach number, quasi-perpendicular shocks, typical of the shocks in the solar wind. Two dimensional self-consistent hybrid shock simulations provide the electric and magnetic fields in which test particle electrons are followed. A range of different shock types, shock normal angles, and injection energies are studied. When the Mach number is low, or the simulation configuration suppresses fluctuations along the magnetic field direction, the results agree with theory assuming magnetic moment conserving reflection (or Fast Fermi acceleration), with electron energy gains of a factor only 2 - 3. For high Mach number, with a realistic simulation configuration, the shock front has a dynamic rippled character. The corresponding electron energization is radically different: Energy spectra display: (1) considerably higher maximum energies than Fast Fermi acceleration; (2) a plateau, or shallow sloped region, at intermediate energies 2 - 5 times the injection energy; (3) power law fall off with increasing energy, for both upstream and downstream particles, with a slope decreasing as the shock normal angle approaches perpendicular; (4) sustained flux levels over a broader region of shock normal angle than for adiabatic reflection. All these features are in good qualitative agreement with observations, and show that dynamic structure in the shock surface at ion scales produces effective scattering and can be responsible for making high Mach number shocks effective sites for electron acceleration.Comment: 26 pages, 12 figure

MadEvent: Automatic Event Generation with MadGraph

We present a new multi-channel integration method and its implementation in the multi-purpose event generator MadEvent, which is based on MadGraph. Given a process, MadGraph automatically identifies all the relevant subprocesses, generates both the amplitudes and the mappings needed for an efficient integration over the phase space, and passes them to MadEvent. As a result, a process-specific, stand-alone code is produced that allows the user to calculate cross sections and produce unweighted events in a standard output format. Several examples are given for processes that are relevant for physics studies at present and forthcoming colliders.Comment: 11 pages, MadGraph home page at http://madgraph.physics.uiuc.ed

Photophoretic Structuring of Circumstellar Dust Disks

We study dust accumulation by photophoresis in optically thin gas disks. Using formulae of the photophoretic force that are applicable for the free molecular regime and for the slip-flow regime, we calculate dust accumulation distances as a function of the particle size. It is found that photophoresis pushes particles (smaller than 10 cm) outward. For a Sun-like star, these particles are transported to 0.1-100 AU, depending on the particle size, and forms an inner disk. Radiation pressure pushes out small particles (< 1 mm) further and forms an extended outer disk. Consequently, an inner hole opens inside ~0.1 AU. The radius of the inner hole is determined by the condition that the mean free path of the gas molecules equals the maximum size of the particles that photophoresis effectively works on (100 micron - 10 cm, depending on the dust property). The dust disk structure formed by photophoresis can be distinguished from the structure of gas-free dust disk models, because the particle sizes of the outer disks are larger, and the inner hole radius depends on the gas density.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figures, Accepted by ApJ; corrected a typo in the author nam

Alpha Clustering and the stellar nucleosynthesis of carbon

The astrophysical S--factor and reaction rates for the triple--alpha process are calculated in the direct--capture model. It is shown that the stellar carbon production is extremely sensitive to small variations in the N--N interaction.Comment: 2 pages LaTe

Lifetime statistics of quantum chaos studied by a multiscale analysis

In a series of pump and probe experiments, we study the lifetime statistics of a quantum chaotic resonator when the number of open channels is greater than one. Our design embeds a stadium billiard into a two dimensional photonic crystal realized on a Silicon-on-insulator substrate. We calculate resonances through a multiscale procedure that combines graph theory, energy landscape analysis and wavelet transforms. Experimental data is found to follow the universal predictions arising from random matrix theory with an excellent level of agreement.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figure