998 research outputs found
The synchrotron peak shift during high-energy flares of blazars
A prediction for the energy shift of the synchrotron spectrum of
flat-spectrum radio quasars (FSRQs) during high-energy flares is presented. If
the -ray emission of FSRQs is produced by Comptonization of external
radiation, then the peak of the synchrotron spectrum is predicted to move to
lower energies in the flare state. This is opposite to the well-known broadband
spectral behavior of high-frequency peaked BL-Lac objects where the external
radiation field is believed to be weak and synchrotron-self Compton scattering
might be the dominant -ray radiation mechanism. The synchrotron peak
shift, if observed in FSRQs, can thus be used as a diagnostic to determine the
dominant radiation mechanism in these objects. I suggest a few FSRQs as
promising candidates to test the prediction of the external-Comptonization
model.Comment: 9 pages, including 2 figures; uses epsf.sty, rotate.sty; accepted for
ApJ Letters; minor revision
Neutrino emission in the hadronic Synchrotron Mirror Model: the "orphan" TeV flare from 1ES 1959+650
A challenge to standard leptonic SSC models are so-called orphan TeV flares,
i.e. enhanced very high energy (VHE) gamma-ray emission without any
contemporaneous X-ray flaring activity, that have recently been observed in
TeV-blazars (e.g., 1ES 1959+650). In order to explain the orphan TeV flare of
1ES 1959+650 observed in June 2002, the co-called hadronic synchrotron mirror
model has been developed. Here, relativistic protons are proposed to exist in
the jet, and interact with reflected electron-synchrotron radiation of the
precursor SSC flare. If the reflector is located in the cloud region, time
shifts of several days are possible between the precursor and the orphan flare.
The external photons, blueshifted in the comoving jet frame, are able to excite
the \Delta(1232)-resonance when interacting with protons of Lorentz factors
\gamma'_p~10^3-10^4. The decay products of this resonance include charged pions
which, upon decay, give rise to neutrino production during the orphan flare. In
this paper we calculate the expected neutrino emission for the June 4, 2002,
orphan TeV flare of 1ES 1959+650. We compare our results with the recent
observations of AMANDA-II of a neutrino event in spatial and temporal
coincidence with the orphan flare of this blazar. We find that the expected
neutrino signal from the hadronic synchrotron mirror model is insufficient to
explain the observed neutrino event from the direction of 1ES 1959+650.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures, accepted by Ap
Field-induced structure transformation in electrorheological solids
We have computed the local electric field in a body-centered tetragonal (BCT)
lattice of point dipoles via the Ewald-Kornfeld formulation, in an attempt to
examine the effects of a structure transformation on the local field strength.
For the ground state of an electrorheological solid of hard spheres, we
identified a novel structure transformation from the BCT to the face-centered
cubic (FCC) lattices by changing the uniaxial lattice constant c under the hard
sphere constraint. In contrast to the previous results, the local field
exhibits a non-monotonic transition from BCT to FCC. As c increases from the
BCT ground state, the local field initially decreases rapidly towards the
isotropic value at the body-centered cubic lattice, decreases further, reaching
a minimum value and increases, passing through the isotropic value again at an
intermediate lattice, reaches a maximum value and finally decreases to the FCC
value. An experimental realization of the structure transformation is
suggested. Moreover, the change in the local field can lead to a generalized
Clausius-Mossotti equation for the BCT lattices.Comment: Submitted to Phys. Rev.
Polarizable molecular interactions in condensed phase and their equivalent nonpolarizable models
Earlier, using phenomenological approach, we showed that in some cases
polarizable models of condensed phase systems can be reduced to nonpolarizable
equivalent models with scaled charges. Examples of such systems include ionic
liquids, TIPnP-type models of water, protein force fields, and others, where
interactions and dynamics of inherently polarizable species can be accurately
described by nonpolarizable models. To describe electrostatic interactions, the
effective charges of simple ionic liquids are obtained by scaling the actual
charges of ions by a factor of 1/sqrt(eps_el), which is due to electronic
polarization screening effect; the scaling factor of neutral species is more
complicated. Here, using several theoretical models, we examine how exactly the
scaling factors appear in theory, and how, and under what conditions,
polarizable Hamiltonians are reduced to nonpolarizable ones. These models allow
one to trace the origin of the scaling factors, determine their values, and
obtain important insights on the nature of polarizable interactions in
condensed matter systems.Comment: 43 pages, 3 figure
Spectral Energy Distributions of Gamma Ray Bursts Energized by External Shocks
Sari, Piran, and Narayan have derived analytic formulas to model the spectra
from gamma-ray burst blast waves that are energized by sweeping up material
from the surrounding medium. We extend these expressions to apply to general
radiative regimes and to include the effects of synchrotron self-absorption.
Electron energy losses due to the synchrotron self-Compton process are also
treated in a very approximate way. The calculated spectra are compared with
detailed numerical simulation results. We find that the spectral and temporal
breaks from the detailed numerical simulation are much smoother than the
analytic formulas imply, and that the discrepancies between the analytic and
numerical results are greatest near the breaks and endpoints of the synchrotron
spectra. The expressions are most accurate (within a factor of ~ 3) in the
optical/X-ray regime during the afterglow phase, and are more accurate when
epsilon_e, the fraction of swept-up particle energy that is transferred to the
electrons, is <~ 0.1. The analytic results provide at best order-of-magnitude
accuracy in the self-absorbed radio/infrared regime, and give poor fits to the
self-Compton spectra due to complications from Klein-Nishina effects and
photon-photon opacity.Comment: 16 pages, 7 figures, ApJ, in press, 537, July 1, 2000. Minor changes
in response to referee report, corrected figure
Effects of geometric anisotropy on local field distribution: Ewald-Kornfeld formulation
We have applied the Ewald-Kornfeld formulation to a tetragonal lattice of
point dipoles, in an attempt to examine the effects of geometric anisotropy on
the local field distribution. The various problems encountered in the
computation of the conditionally convergent summation of the near field are
addressed and the methods of overcoming them are discussed. The results show
that the geometric anisotropy has a significant impact on the local field
distribution. The change in the local field can lead to a generalized
Clausius-Mossotti equation for the anisotropic case.Comment: Accepted for publications, Journal of Physics: Condensed Matte
Gamma Ray Burst Neutrinos Probing Quantum Gravity
Very high energy, short wavelength, neutrinos may interact with the
space-time foam predicted by theories of quantum gravity. They would propagate
like light through a crystal lattice and be delayed, with the delay depending
on the energy. This will appear to the observer as a violation of Lorenz
invariance. Back of the envelope calculations imply that observations of
neutrinos produced by gamma ray bursts may reach Planck-scale sensitivity. We
revisit the problem considering two essential complications: the imprecise
timing of the neutrinos associated with their poorly understood production
mechanism in the source and the indirect nature of their energy measurement
made by high energy neutrino telescopes.Comment: 14 pages, 2 figure
Multiwavelength observations of Mkn 501 during the 1997 high state
During the observation period 1997, the nearby Blazar Mkn 501 showed
extremely strong emission and high variability. We examine multiwavelength
aspects of this event using radio, optical, soft and hard X-ray and TeV data.
We concentrate on the medium-timescale variability of the broadband spectra,
averaged over weekly intervals.
We confirm the previously found correlation between soft and hard X-ray
emission and the emission at TeV energies, while the source shows only minor
variability at radio and optical wavelengths. The non-linear correlation
between hard X-ray and TeV fluxes is consistent with a simple analytic estimate
based on an SSC model in which Klein-Nishina effects are important for the
highest-energy electrons in the jet, and flux variations are caused by
variations of the electron density and/or the spectral index of the electron
injection spectrum.
The time-averaged spectra are fitted with a Synchrotron Self-Compton (SSC)
dominated leptonic jet model, using the full Klein-Nishina cross section and
following the self-consistent evolution of relativistic particles along the
jet, accounting for gamma-gamma absorption and pair production within the
source as well as due to the intergalactic infrared background radiation. The
contribution from external inverse-Compton scattering is tightly constrained by
the low maximum EGRET flux and found to be negligible at TeV energies. We find
that high levels of the X-ray and TeV fluxes can be explained by a hardening of
the energy spectra of electrons injected at the base of the jet, in remarkable
contrast to the trend found for gamma-ray flares of the flat-spectrum radio
quasar PKS 0528+134.Comment: accepted for publication in ApJ, 31 pages, 11 figure
A hadronic synchrotron mirror model for the "orphan" TeV flare in 1ES 1959+650
Very-high-energy gamma-ray flares of TeV blazars are generally accompanied by
simultaneous flaring activity in X-rays. The recent observations by the Whipple
collaboration of an ``orphan'' TeV flare of 1ES 1959+650 (without simultaneous
X-ray flare) is very hard to reconcile with the standard leptonic SSC model
which is routinely very successfully employed to explain the SED and spectral
variability of TeV blazars. In this paper, an alternative scenario is suggested
in which the ``orphan'' TeV flare may originate from relativistic protons,
interacting with an external photon field supplied by electron-synchrotron
radiation reflected off a dilute reflector. While the external photons will be
virtually ``invisible'' to the co-moving ultrarelativistic electrons in the jet
due to Klein-Nishina effects, their Doppler boosted energy is high enough to
excite the resonance from relativistic protons with Lorentz factors of
~ 10^3 - 10^4. This model is capable of explaining the ``orphan'' TeV flare of
1ES 1959+650 with plausible parameters, thus constraining the number and
characteristic energy of relativistic protons in the jet of this blazar.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ. 14 preprint pages, including 2 .eps
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