81 research outputs found
Imaging a boson star at the Galactic center
Millimeter very long baseline interferometry will soon produce accurate
images of the closest surroundings of the supermassive compact object at the
center of the Galaxy, Sgr A*. These images may reveal the existence of a
central faint region, the so-called shadow, which is often interpreted as the
observable consequence of the event horizon of a black hole. In this paper, we
compute images of an accretion torus around Sgr A* assuming this compact object
is a boson star, i.e. an alternative to black holes within general relativity,
with no event horizon and no hard surface. We show that very relativistic
rotating boson stars produce images extremely similar to Kerr black holes,
showing in particular shadow-like and photon-ring-like structures. This result
highlights the extreme difficulty of unambiguously telling the existence of an
event horizon from strong-field images.Comment: 21 pages, 9 figures, accepted in CQG; main difference wrt previous
version is the last paragraph of the conclusio
Circular geodesics and thick tori around rotating boson stars
Accretion disks play an important role in the evolution of their relativistic
inner compact objects. The emergence of a new generation of interferometers
will allow to resolve these accretion disks and provide more information about
the properties of the central gravitating object. Due to this instrumental leap
forward it is crucial to investigate the accretion disk physics near various
types of inner compact objects now to deduce later constraints on the central
objects from observations. A possible candidate for the inner object is the
boson star. Here, we will try to analyze the differences between accretion
structures surrounding boson stars and black holes. We aim at analysing the
physics of circular geodesics around boson stars and study simple thick
accretion tori (so-called Polish doughnuts) in the vicinity of these stars. We
realize a detailed study of the properties of circular geodesics around boson
stars. We then perform a parameter study of thick tori with constant angular
momentum surrounding boson stars. This is done using the boson star models
computed by a code constructed with the spectral solver library KADATH. We
demonstrate that all the circular stable orbits are bound. In the case of a
constant angular momentum torus, a cusp in the torus surface exists only for
boson stars with a strong gravitational scalar field. Moreover, for each inner
radius of the disk, the allowed specific angular momentum values lie within a
constrained range which depends on the boson star considered. We show that the
accretion tori around boson stars have different characteristics than in the
vicinity of a black hole. With future instruments it could be possible to use
these differences to constrain the nature of compact objects.Comment: Accepted for publication in CQ
Relativistic spine jets from Schwarzschild black holes: "Application to AGN radioloud sources"
The two types of Fanaroff-Riley radio loud galaxies, FRI and FRII, exhibit
strong jets but with different properties. These differences may be associated
to the central engine and/or the external medium. Aims: The AGN classification
FRI and FRII can be linked to the rate of electromagnetic Poynting flux
extraction from the inner corona of the central engine by the jet. The
collimation results from the distribution of the total electromagnetic energy
across the jet, as compared to the corresponding distribution of the thermal
and gravitational energies. We use exact solutions of the fully relativistic
magnetohydrodynamical (GRMHD) equations obtained by a nonlinear separation of
the variables to study outflows from a Schwarzschild black hole corona. A
strong correlation is found between the jet features and the energetic
distribution of the plasma of the inner corona which may be related to the
efficiency of the magnetic rotator. It is shown that observations of FRI and
FRII jets may be partially constrained by our model for spine jets. The
deceleration observed in FRI jets may be associated with a low magnetic
efficiency of the central magnetic rotator and an important thermal confinement
by the hot surrounding medium. Conversely, the strongly collimated and
accelerated FRII outflows may be self collimated by their own magnetic field
because of the high efficiency of the central magnetic rotator.Comment: Accepted for publication in the A&
Nonradial and nonpolytropic astrophysical outflows VIII. A GRMHD generalization for relativistic jets
Steady axisymmetric outflows originating at the hot coronal magnetosphere of
a Schwarzschild black hole and surrounding accretion disk are studied in the
framework of general relativistic magnetohydrodynamics (GRMHD). The assumption
of meridional self-similarity is adopted for the construction of
semi-analytical solutions of the GRMHD equations describing outflows close to
the polar axis. In addition, it is assumed that relativistic effects related to
the rotation of the black hole and the plasma are negligible compared to the
gravitational and other energetic terms. The constructed model allows us to
extend previous MHD studies for coronal winds from young stars to spine jets
from Active Galactic Nuclei surrounded by disk-driven outflows. The outflows
are thermally driven and magnetically or thermally collimated. The collimation
depends critically on an energetic integral measuring the efficiency of the
magnetic rotator, similarly to the non relativistic case. It is also shown that
relativistic effects affect quantitatively the depth of the gravitational well
and the coronal temperature distribution in the launching region of the
outflow. Similarly to previous analytical and numerical studies, relativistic
effects tend to increase the efficiency of the thermal driving but reduce the
effect of magnetic self-collimation.Comment: 20 page, Accepted in A&A 10/10/200
Human papillomavirus infection is not related with prostatitis-related symptoms: results from a casecontrol study.
This study highlights that prostatitis-like symptoms are unrelated to HPV infection. Secondary, we highlight the high prevalence of asymptomatic HPV infection among young heterosexual men
Human papillomavirus infection is not related with prostatitis-related symptoms: results from a casecontrol study.
PurposeTo investigate the relationship between human papillomavirus (HPV) infection and prostatitis-related symptoms.Materials and MethodsAll young heterosexual patients with prostatitis-related symptoms attending the same Center from January 2005 to December 2010 were eligible for this case-control study. Sexually active asymptomatic men were considered as the control group. All subjects underwent clinical examination, Meares-Stamey test and DNA-HPV test. Patients with prostatitis-related symptoms and asymptomatic men were compared in terms of HPV prevalence. Moreover, multivariable Cox proportional hazards regression analysis was performed to determine the association between HPV infection and prostatitis-related symptoms.ResultsOverall, 814 out of 2,938 patients (27.7%) and 292 out of 1,081 controls (27.0%) proved positive to HPV. The HPV genotype distribution was as follows: HR-HPV 478 (43.3%), PHR-HPV 77 (6.9%), LR-HPV 187 (16.9%) and PNG-HPV 364 (32.9%). The most common HPV genotypes were: 6, 11, 16, 26, 51, 53 and 81. No difference was found between the two groups in terms of HPV infection (OR 1.03; 95% CI 0.88-1.22; p = 0.66). We noted a statistically significant increase in HPV infection over the period 2005 to 2010 (p < 0.001) in both groups. Moreover, we found a statistically significant increase in HPV 16 frequency from 2005 to 2010 (p = 0.002).ConclusionsThis study highlights that prostatitis-like symptoms are unrelated to HPV infection. Secondary, we highlight the high prevalence of asymptomatic HPV infection among young heterosexual men
Ca II Triplet Spectroscopy of Giants in SMC Star Clusters: Abundances, Velocities and the Age-Metallicity Relation
We have obtained spectra at the Ca II triplet of individual red giants in
seven SMC star clusters whose ages range from ~4 to 12 Gyr. The spectra have
been used to determine mean abundances for six of the star clusters to a
typical precision of 0.12 dex. When combined with existing data for other
objects, the resulting SMC age-metallicity relation is generally consistent
with that for a simple model of chemical evolution, scaled to the present-day
SMC mean abundance and gas mass fraction. Two of the clusters (Lindsay 113 and
NGC 339), however, have abundances that ~0.5 dex lower than that expected from
the mean age-metallicity relation. It is suggested that the formation of these
clusters, which have ages of ~5 Gyr, may have involved the infall of uneriched
gas, perhaps from the Magellanic Stream. The spectra also yield radial
velocities for the seven clusters. The resulting velocity dispersion is 16 +/-
4 km/sec, consistent with those of the SMC planetary nebula and carbon star
populations.Comment: 28 pages including 4 figure
Infrared Photometry of Red Supergiants in Young Clusters in the Magellanic Clouds
We present broad-band infrared photometry for 52 late-type supergiants in the
young Magellanic Clouds clusters NGC 330, NGC 1818, NGC 2004 and NGC 2100.
Standard models are seen to differ in the temperature they predict for the red
supergiant population on the order of 300K. It appears that these differences
most probably due to the calibration of the mixing-length parameter,
, in the outermost layers of the stellar envelope. Due to the
apparent model dependent nature of we do not quantitatively
compare between models. Qualitatively, we find that
decreases with increased stellar mass within standard models. We do not find
evidence for a metallicity dependence of .Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures. AJ accepte
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