A New Model for the Hard Time Lags in Black Hole X-Ray Binaries

The time-dependent Comptonized output of a cool soft X-ray source drifting inward through an inhomogeneous hot inner disk or corona is numerically simulated. We propose that this scenario can explain from first principles the observed trends in the hard time lags and power spectra of the rapid aperiodic variability of the X-ray emission of Galactic black-hole candidates.Comment: 10 pages, including 2 figures; uses epsf.sty, rotate.sty; accepted for ApJ Letter

Feller Processes: The Next Generation in Modeling. Brownian Motion, L\'evy Processes and Beyond

We present a simple construction method for Feller processes and a framework for the generation of sample paths of Feller processes. The construction is based on state space dependent mixing of L\'evy processes. Brownian Motion is one of the most frequently used continuous time Markov processes in applications. In recent years also L\'evy processes, of which Brownian Motion is a special case, have become increasingly popular. L\'evy processes are spatially homogeneous, but empirical data often suggest the use of spatially inhomogeneous processes. Thus it seems necessary to go to the next level of generalization: Feller processes. These include L\'evy processes and in particular Brownian motion as special cases but allow spatial inhomogeneities. Many properties of Feller processes are known, but proving the very existence is, in general, very technical. Moreover, an applicable framework for the generation of sample paths of a Feller process was missing. We explain, with practitioners in mind, how to overcome both of these obstacles. In particular our simulation technique allows to apply Monte Carlo methods to Feller processes.Comment: 22 pages, including 4 figures and 8 pages of source code for the generation of sample paths of Feller processe

H.E.S.S. discovery of very-high-energy gamma-ray emission of PKS 1440-389

Blazars are the most abundant class of known extragalactic very-high-energy (VHE, E>100 GeV) gamma-ray sources. However, one of the biggest difficulties in investigating their VHE emission resides in their limited number, since less than 60 of them are known by now. In this contribution we report on H.E.S.S. observations of the BL Lac object PKS 1440-389. This source has been selected as target for H.E.S.S. based on its high-energy gamma-ray properties measured by Fermi-LAT. The extrapolation of this bright, hard-spectrum gamma-ray blazar into the VHE regime made a detection on a relatively short time scale very likely, despite its uncertain redshift. H.E.S.S. observations were carried out with the 4-telescope array from February to May 2012 and resulted in a clear detection of the source. Contemporaneous multi-wavelength data are used to construct the spectral energy distribution of PKS 1440-389 which can be described by a simple one-zone synchrotron-self Compton model.Comment: In Proceedings of the 34th International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC2015), The Hague, The Netherland

Metastable precursors during the oxidation of the Ru(0001) surface

Using density-functional theory, we predict that the oxidation of the Ru(0001) surface proceeds via the accumulation of sub-surface oxygen in two-dimensional islands between the first and second substrate layer. This leads locally to a decoupling of an O-Ru-O trilayer from the underlying metal. Continued oxidation results in the formation and stacking of more of these trilayers, which unfold into the RuO_2(110) rutile structure once a critical film thickness is exceeded. Along this oxidation pathway, we identify various metastable configurations. These are found to be rather close in energy, indicating a likely lively dynamics between them at elevated temperatures, which will affect the surface chemical and mechanical properties of the material.Comment: 11 pages including 9 figures. Submitted to Phys. Rev. B. Related publications can be found at http://www.fhi-berlin.mpg.de/th/paper.htm

Absolute velocity measurements in sunspot umbrae

In sunspot umbrae, convection is largely suppressed by the strong magnetic field. Previous measurements reported on negligible convective flows in umbral cores. Based on this, numerous studies have taken the umbra as zero reference to calculate Doppler velocities of the ambient active region. To clarify the amount of convective motion in the darkest part of umbrae, we directly measured Doppler velocities with an unprecedented accuracy and precision. We performed spectroscopic observations of sunspot umbrae with the Laser Absolute Reference Spectrograph (LARS) at the German Vacuum Tower Telescope. A laser frequency comb enabled the calibration of the high-resolution spectrograph and absolute wavelength positions. A thorough spectral calibration, including the measurement of the reference wavelength, yielded Doppler shifts of the spectral line Ti i 5713.9 {\AA} with an uncertainty of around 5 m s-1. The measured Doppler shifts are a composition of umbral convection and magneto-acoustic waves. For the analysis of convective shifts, we temporally average each sequence to reduce the superimposed wave signal. Compared to convective blueshifts of up to -350 m s-1 in the quiet Sun, sunspot umbrae yield a strongly reduced convective blueshifts around -30 m s-1. {W}e find that the velocity in a sunspot umbra correlates significantly with the magnetic field strength, but also with the umbral temperature defining the depth of the titanium line. The vertical upward motion decreases with increasing field strength. Extrapolating the linear approximation to zero magnetic field reproduces the measured quiet Sun blueshift. Simply taking the sunspot umbra as a zero velocity reference for the calculation of photospheric Dopplergrams can imply a systematic velocity error.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures, 2 tables, Appendix with 5 figure

Composition, structure and stability of RuO_2(110) as a function of oxygen pressure

Using density-functional theory (DFT) we calculate the Gibbs free energy to determine the lowest-energy structure of a RuO_2(110) surface in thermodynamic equilibrium with an oxygen-rich environment. The traditionally assumed stoichiometric termination is only found to be favorable at low oxygen chemical potentials, i.e. low pressures and/or high temperatures. At realistic O pressure, the surface is predicted to contain additional terminal O atoms. Although this O excess defines a so-called polar surface, we show that the prevalent ionic model, that dismisses such terminations on electrostatic grounds, is of little validity for RuO_2(110). Together with analogous results obtained previously at the (0001) surface of corundum-structured oxides, these findings on (110) rutile indicate that the stability of non-stoichiometric terminations is a more general phenomenon on transition metal oxide surfaces.Comment: 12 pages including 5 figures. Submitted to Phys. Rev. B. Related publications can be found at http://www.fhi-berlin.mpg.de/th/paper.htm

Bandwidth, expansion, treewidth, separators, and universality for bounded degree graphs

We establish relations between the bandwidth and the treewidth of bounded degree graphs G, and relate these parameters to the size of a separator of G as well as the size of an expanding subgraph of G. Our results imply that if one of these parameters is sublinear in the number of vertices of G then so are all the others. This implies for example that graphs of fixed genus have sublinear bandwidth or, more generally, a corresponding result for graphs with any fixed forbidden minor. As a consequence we establish a simple criterion for universality for such classes of graphs and show for example that for each gamma>0 every n-vertex graph with minimum degree ((3/4)+gamma)n contains a copy of every bounded-degree planar graph on n vertices if n is sufficiently large

VHE Gamma-Ray Induced Pair Cascades in Blazars and Radio Galaxies: Application to NGC 1275

Recent blazar detections by HESS, MAGIC, and VERITAS suggest that very-high-energy (VHE, E > 100 GeV) gamma-rays may be produced in most, if not all, types of blazars, including those that possess intense circumnuclear radiation fields. In this paper, we investigate the interaction of nuclear VHE gamma-rays with the circumnuclear radiation fields through gamma-gamma absorption and pair production, and the subsequent Compton-supported pair cascades. We have developed a Monte-Carlo code to follow the spatial development of the cascade in full 3-dimensional geometry, and calculate the radiative output due to the cascade as a function of viewing angle with respect to the primary VHE gamma-ray beam (presumably the jet axis of the blazar). We show that even for relatively weak magnetic fields, the cascades can be efficiently isotropized, leading to substantial off-axis cascade emission peaking in the Fermi energy range at detectable levels for nearby radio galaxies. We demonstrate that this scenario can explain the Fermi flux and spectrum of the radio galaxy NGC 1275.Comment: Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journa

Opacity in compact extragalactic radio sources and its effect on radio-optical reference frame alignment

Accurate alignment of the radio and optical celestial reference frames requires detailed understanding of physical factors that may cause offsets between the positions of the same object measured in different spectral bands. Opacity in compact extragalactic jets (due to synchrotron self-absorption and external free-free absorption) is one of the key physical phenomena producing such an offset, and this effect is well-known in radio astronomy ("core shift"). We have measured the core shifts in a sample of 29 bright compact extragalactic radio sources observed using very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) at 2.3 and 8.6 GHz. We report the results of these measurements and estimate that the average shift between radio and optical positions of distant quasars would be of the order of 0.1-0.2 mas. This shift exceeds positional accuracy of GAIA and SIM. We suggest two possible approaches to carefully investigate and correct for this effect in order to align accurately the radio and optical positions. Both approaches involve determining a Primary Reference Sample of objects to be used for tying the radio and optical reference frames together.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure; to appear in IAU Symposium 248 Proceedings, "A Giant Step: from Milli- to Micro-arcsecond Astrometry", eds. W.-J. Jin, I. Platais, M. Perryma