Atom-molecule theory of broad Feshbach resonances

We derive the atom-molecule theory for an atomic gas near a broad Feshbach resonance, where the energy dependence of the atom-molecule coupling becomes crucial for understanding experimental results. We show how our many-body theory incorporates the two-atom physics exactly. In particular, we calculate the magnetic moment of a two-component gas of ^{6}Li atoms for a wide range of magnetic fields near the broad Feshbach resonance at about 834 Gauss. We find excellent agreement with the experiment of Jochim et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 91, 240402 (2003)].Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

Crossover temperature of Bose-Einstein condensation in an atomic Fermi gas

We show that in an atomic Fermi gas near a Feshbach resonance the crossover between a Bose-Einstein condensate of diatomic molecules and a Bose-Einstein condensate of Cooper pairs occurs at positive detuning, i.e., when the molecular energy level lies in the two-atom continuum. We determine the crossover temperature as a function of the applied magnetic field and find excellent agreement with the experiment of Regal et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 040403 (2004)] that has recently observed this crossover temperature.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

Climate change and migration: Is agriculture the main channel?

Migration and climate change are two of the most important challenges the world currently faces. They are connected as climate change may stimulate or hinder migration. One of the sectors strongly affected by climate change is agriculture, which is the source of income for most of the world's poor. Climate change may affect agricultural productivity and hence migration because of its impact on average temperatures and rainfall and because it increases the frequency and intensity of weather shocks. In this paper we use data on 108 countries from 1960 to 2010 to analyze the relationship between weather variations, changes in agricultural productivity and international migration. We find that negative shocks to agricultural productivity caused by climate fluctuations significantly increase emigration from developing countries, an especially strong impact in poor countries but less so in middle income countries. These results are robust to the definitions of the poor country sample, and to several checks and alternative explanations suggested by the literature. Importantly, our results point to a causal interpretation of the agricultural channel to explain the climate change-migration nexus

The transitional millisecond pulsar IGR J18245-2452 during its 2013 outburst at X-rays and soft gamma-rays

IGR~J18245--2452/PSR J1824--2452I is one of the rare transitional accreting millisecond X-ray pulsars, showing direct evidence of switches between states of rotation powered radio pulsations and accretion powered X-ray pulsations, dubbed transitional pulsars. IGR~J18245--2452 is the only transitional pulsar so far to have shown a full accretion episode, reaching an X-ray luminosity of $\sim10^{37}$~erg~s$^{-1}$ permitting its discovery with INTEGRAL in 2013. In this paper, we report on a detailed analysis of the data collected with the IBIS/ISGRI and the two JEM-X monitors on-board INTEGRAL at the time of the 2013 outburst. We make use of some complementary data obtained with the instruments on-board XMM-Newton and Swift in order to perform the averaged broad-band spectral analysis of the source in the energy range 0.4 -- 250~keV. We have found that this spectrum is the hardest among the accreting millisecond X-ray pulsars. We improved the ephemeris, now valid across its full outburst, and report the detection of pulsed emission up to $\sim60$ keV in both the ISGRI ($10.9 \sigma$) and Fermi/GBM ($5.9 \sigma$) bandpass. The alignment of the ISGRI and Fermi GBM 20 -- 60 keV pulse profiles are consistent at a $\sim25\ \mu$s level. We compared the pulse profiles obtained at soft X-rays with \xmm\ with the soft \gr-ray ones, and derived the pulsed fractions of the fundamental and first harmonic, as well as the time lag of the fundamental harmonic, up to $150\ \mu$s, as a function of energy. We report on a thermonuclear X-ray burst detected with \Integ, and using the properties of the previously type-I X-ray burst, we show that all these events are powered primarily by helium ignited at a depth of $y_{\rm ign} \approx 2.7\times10^8$ g cm${}^{-2}$. For such a helium burst the estimated recurrence time of $\Delta t_{\rm rec}\approx5.6$ d is in agreement with the observations.Comment: 10 pages, 6 Figures, 3 Tables Astronomy and Astrophysics Journal, accepted for publication on the 13th of April 201

The bosonic Kondo effect

The Kondo effect is associated with the formation of a many-body ground state that contains a quantum-mechanical entanglement between a (localized) fermion and the free fermions. We show that a bosonic version of the Kondo effect can occur in degenerate atomic Fermi gases near the Feshbach resonance. We also discuss how this bosonic Kondo effect can be observed experimentally.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, some references added, some removed. More comments adde

The quasar Q0957+561: Lensed CO emission from a disk at z~1.4?

In recent years large efforts have been made to detect molecular gas towards high redshifted objects. Up to now the literature reports on only two cases of CO-detection in quasars at a redshift between 1 and 2 - Q0957+561, a gravitationally lensed system at z=1.41 (Planesas et al. 1999), and HR10 at z=1.44 (Andreani et al. 2000). According to Planesas et al. (1999), 12CO(2-1) emission was detected towards both the lensed images of Q0957+561 with the IRAM Plateau de Bure Interferometer (PdBI). In contrast to the optical spectra of the two images which support the idea that they are images of one and the same object, the CO-spectra were surprisingly different: the southern image (named CO-B) shows a single blueshifted line whereas a double-peaked line profile with a blue- and a redshifted part appears towards the northern image (CO-A). Based on the observations and on simulations with a gravitational lens program, we are tempted to argue that the line profile traces the presence of molecular gas of a disk in the host galaxy around the quasar. We have now new observations with the PdBI providing the necessary sensitivity to corroborate our disk model.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, to appear in "Proceedings of the 4th Cologne-Bonn-Zermatt-Symposium", ed. S. Pfalzner, C. Kramer, C. Straubmeier, and A. Heithausen (Springer Verlag

Controlling ultracold atoms in multi-band optical lattices for simulation of Kondo physics

We show that ultracold atoms can be controlled in multi-band optical lattices through spatially periodic Raman pulses for investigation of a class of strongly correlated physics related to the Kondo problem. The underlying dynamics of this system is described by a spin-dependent fermionic or bosonic Kondo-Hubbard lattice model even if we have only spin-independent atomic collision interaction. We solve the bosonic Kondo-Hubbard lattice model through a mean-field approximation, and the result shows a clear phase transition from the ferromagnetic superfluid to the Kondo-signet insulator at the integer filling.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

Microlensing of the Lensed Quasar SDSS0924+0219

We analyze V, I and H band HST images and two seasons of R-band monitoring data for the gravitationally lensed quasar SDSS0924+0219. We clearly see that image D is a point-source image of the quasar at the center of its host galaxy. We can easily track the host galaxy of the quasar close to image D because microlensing has provided a natural coronograph that suppresses the flux of the quasar image by roughly an order of magnitude. We observe low amplitude, uncorrelated variability between the four quasar images due to microlensing, but no correlated variations that could be used to measure a time delay. Monte Carlo models of the microlensing variability provide estimates of the mean stellar mass in the lens galaxy (0.02 Msun < M < 1.0 Msun), the accretion disk size (the disk temperature is 5 x 10^4 K at 3.0 x 10^14 cm < rs < 1.4 x 10^15 cm), and the black hole mass (2.0 x 10^7 Msun < MBH \eta_{0.1}^{-1/2} (L/LE)^{1/2} < 3.3 x 10^8 Msun), all at 68% confidence. The black hole mass estimate based on microlensing is consistent with an estimate of MBH = 7.3 +- 2.4 x 10^7 Msun from the MgII emission line width. If we extrapolate the best-fitting light curve models into the future, we expect the the flux of images A and B to remain relatively stable and images C and D to brighten. In particular, we estimate that image D has a roughly 12% probability of brightening by a factor of two during the next year and a 45% probability of brightening by an order of magnitude over the next decade.Comment: v.2 incorporates referee's comments and corrects two errors in the original manuscript. 28 pages, 10 figures, published in Ap