5,871 research outputs found
Quark matter equation of state and stellar properties
In this paper we study strange matter by investigating the stability window
within the QMDD model at zero temperature and check that it can explain the
very massive pulsar recently detected. We compare our results with the ones
obtained from the MIT bag model and see that the QMDD model can explain larger
masses, due to the stiffening of the equation of state
Stability windows for proto-quark stars
We investigate the existence of possible stable strange matter and related
stability windows at finite temperature for different models that are generally
applied to describe quark stars, namely, the quark-mass density dependent
model, the MIT bag model and the Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model. We emphasize that,
although the limits for stable strange matter depend on a comparison with the
ground state of 56Fe, which is a zero temperature state, the quantity that has
to be used in the search for strange matter in proto-quark stars is the free
energy and we analyze stability windows up to temperatures of the order of 40
MeV. The effects of strong magnetic fields on stability windows are computed
and the resulting mass-radius relations for different stages of the proto-quark
star are analyzed.Comment: Published versio
Varying Alpha Monopoles
We study static magnetic monopoles in the context of varying alpha theories
and show that there is a group of models for which the t'Hooft-Polyakov
solution is still valid. Nevertheless, in general static magnetic monopole
solutions in varying alpha theories depart from the classical t'Hooft-Polyakov
solution with the electromagnetic energy concentrated inside the core seeding
spatial variations of the fine structure constant. We show that Equivalence
Principle constraints impose tight limits on the allowed variations of alpha
induced by magnetic monopoles which confirms the difficulty to generate
significant large-scale spatial variation of the fine structure constant found
in previous works. This is true even in the most favorable case where magnetic
monopoles are the source for these variations.Comment: 8 pages, 10 figures; Version to be published in Phys. Rev.
Impurity segregation in graphene nanoribbons
The electronic properties of low-dimensional materials can be engineered by
doping, but in the case of graphene nanoribbons (GNR) the proximity of two
symmetry-breaking edges introduces an additional dependence on the location of
an impurity across the width of the ribbon. This introduces energetically
favorable locations for impurities, leading to a degree of spatial segregation
in the impurity concentration. We develop a simple model to calculate the
change in energy of a GNR system with an arbitrary impurity as that impurity is
moved across the ribbon and validate its findings by comparison with ab initio
calculations. Although our results agree with previous works predicting the
dominance of edge disorder in GNR, we argue that the distribution of adsorbed
impurities across a ribbon may be controllable by external factors, namely an
applied electric field. We propose that this control over impurity segregation
may allow manipulation and fine-tuning of the magnetic and transport properties
of GNRs.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, submitte
Evolution of the fine-structure constant in the non-linear regime
We study the evolution of the fine-structure constant, , induced by
non-linear density perturbations in the context of the simplest class of
quintessence models with a non-minimal coupling to the electromagnetic field,
in which the two available free functions (potential and gauge kinetic
function) are Taylor-expanded up to linear order. We show that the results
obtained using the spherical infall model for an infinite wavelength
inhomogeneity are inconsistent with the results of a local linearized gravity
study and we argue in favour of the second approach. We also discuss recent
claims that the value of inside virialised regions could be
significantly different from the background one on the basis of these findings.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure
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