5,816 research outputs found
Suprathermal electrons at Saturn's bow shock
The leading explanation for the origin of galactic cosmic rays is particle
acceleration at the shocks surrounding young supernova remnants (SNRs),
although crucial aspects of the acceleration process are unclear. The similar
collisionless plasma shocks frequently encountered by spacecraft in the solar
wind are generally far weaker (lower Mach number) than these SNR shocks.
However, the Cassini spacecraft has shown that the shock standing in the solar
wind sunward of Saturn (Saturn's bow shock) can occasionally reach this
high-Mach number astrophysical regime. In this regime Cassini has provided the
first in situ evidence for electron acceleration under quasi-parallel upstream
magnetic conditions. Here we present the full picture of suprathermal electrons
at Saturn's bow shock revealed by Cassini. The downstream thermal electron
distribution is resolved in all data taken by the low-energy electron detector
(CAPS-ELS, <28 keV) during shock crossings, but the higher energy channels were
at (or close to) background. The high-energy electron detector (MIMI-LEMMS, >18
keV) measured a suprathermal electron signature at 31 of 508 crossings, where
typically only the lowest energy channels (<100 keV) were above background. We
show that these results are consistent with theory in which the "injection" of
thermal electrons into an acceleration process involves interaction with
whistler waves at the shock front, and becomes possible for all upstream
magnetic field orientations at high Mach numbers like those of the strong
shocks around young SNRs. A future dedicated study will analyze the rare
crossings with evidence for relativistic electrons (up to ~1 MeV).Comment: 22 pages, 5 figures. Accepted for publication in Ap
Lithium production on a low-mass secondary in a black hole soft X-ray transient
We examine production of Li on the surface of a low-mass secondary in a black
hole soft X-ray transient (BHSXT) through the spallation of CNO nuclei by
neutrons which are ejected from a hot (> 10 MeV) advection-dominated accretion
flow (ADAF) around the black hole. Using updated binary parameters, cross
sections of neutron-induced spallation reactions, and mass accretion rates in
ADAF derived from the spectrum fitting of multi-wavelength observations of
quiescent BHSXTs, we obtain the equilibrium abundances of Li by equating the
production rate of Li and the mass transfer rate through accretion to the black
hole. The resulting abundances are found to be in good agreement with the
observed values in seven BHSXTs. We note that the abundances vary in a
timescale longer than a few months in our model. Moreover, the isotopic ratio
Li6/Li7 is calculated to be about 0.7--0.8 on the secondaries, which is much
higher than the ratio measured in meteorites. Detection of such a high value is
favorable to the production of Li via spallation and the existence of a hot
accretion flow, rather than an accretion disk corona system in quiescent BHSXT.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, and 2 tables, submitted to Astrophyscal Jounal
Letter
Mechanisms for High-frequency QPOs in Neutron Star and Black Hole Binaries
We explain the millisecond variability detected by Rossi X-ray Timing
Explorer (RXTE) in the X-ray emission from a number of low mass X-ray binary
systems (Sco X-1, 4U1728-34, 4U1608-522, 4U1636-536, 4U0614+091, 4U1735-44,
4U1820-30, GX5-1 and etc) in terms of dynamics of the centrifugal barrier, a
hot boundary region surrounding a neutron star. We demonstrate that this region
may experience the relaxation oscillations, and that the displacements of a gas
element both in radial and vertical directions occur at the same main
frequency, of order of the local Keplerian frequency. We show the importance of
the effect of a splitting of the main frequency produced by the Coriolis force
in a rotating disk for the interpretation of a spacing between the QPO peaks.
We estimate a magnitude of the splitting effect and present a simple formula
for the whole spectrum of the split frequencies. It is interesting that the
first three lowest-order overtones fall in the range of 200-1200 Hz and match
the kHz-QPO frequencies observed by RXTE. Similar phenomena should also occur
in Black Hole (BH) systems, but, since the QPO frequency is inversely
proportional to the mass of a compact object, the frequency of the
centrifugal-barrier oscillations in the BH systems should be a factor of 5-10
lower than that for the NS systems. The X-ray spectrum formed in this region is
a result of upscattering of a soft radiation (from a disk and a NS surface) off
relatively hot electrons in the boundary layer. We also briefly discuss some
alternative QPO models, including a possibility of acoustic oscillations in the
boundary layer, the proper stellar rotation, and g-mode disk oscillations.Comment: The paper is coming out in the Astrophysical Journal in the 1st of
May issue of 199
Magnetoelectric effects in heavy-fermion superconductors without inversion symmetry
We investigate effects of strong electron correlation on magnetoelectric
transport phenomena in noncentrosymmetric superconductors with particular
emphasis on its application to the recently discovered heavy-fermion
superconductor CePtSi. Taking into account electron correlation effects in
a formally exact way, we obtain the expression of the magnetoelectric
coefficient for the Zeeman-field-induced paramagnetic supercurrent, of which
the existence was predicted more than a decade ago. It is found that in
contrast to the usual Meissner current, which is much reduced by the mass
renormalization factor in the heavy-fermion state, the paramagnetic
supercurrent is not affected by the Fermi liquid effect. This result implies
that the experimental observation of the magnetoelectric effect is more
feasible in heavy-fermion systems than that in conventional metals with
moderate effective mass.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, minor correction
Charge and Spin Transport in the One-dimensional Hubbard Model
In this paper we study the charge and spin currents transported by the
elementary excitations of the one-dimensional Hubbard model. The corresponding
current spectra are obtained by both analytic methods and numerical solution of
the Bethe-ansatz equations. For the case of half-filling, we find that the
spin-triplet excitations carry spin but no charge, while charge -spin
triplet excitations carry charge but no spin, and both spin-singlet and charge
-spin-singlet excitations carry neither spin nor charge currents.Comment: 24 pages, 14 figure
Kondo Problem and Related One-Dimensional Quantum Systems: Bethe Ansatz Solution and Boundary Conformal Field Theory
We review some exact results on Kondo impurity systems derived from
Bethe-ansatz solutions and boundary conformal field theory with particular
emphasis on universal aspects of the phenomenon. The finite-size spectra
characterizing the low-energy fixed point are computed from the Bethe-ansatz
solutions of various models related to the Kondo problem. Using the finite-size
scaling argument, we investigate their exact critical properties. We also
discuss that a universal relation between the Kondo effect and the impurity
effect in one-dimensional quantum systems usefully expedites our understanding
of these different phenomena.Comment: 6 pages, no figure
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