411 research outputs found
A Universal Temperature Profile for Galaxy Clusters
We investigate the predicted present-day temperature profiles of the hot,
X-ray emitting gas in galaxy clusters for two cosmological models - a current
best-guess LCDM model and standard cold dark matter (SCDM). Our
numerically-simulated "catalogs" of clusters are derived from high-resolution
(15/h kpc) simulations which make use of a sophisticated, Eulerian-based,
Adaptive Mesh-Refinement (AMR) code that faithfully captures the shocks which
are essential for correctly modelling cluster temperatures. We show that the
temperature structure on Mpc-scales is highly complex and non-isothermal.
However, the temperature profiles of the simulated LCDM and SCDM clusters are
remarkably similar and drop-off as
where and . This decrease
is in good agreement with the observational results of Markevitch et al.(1998)
but diverges, primarily in the innermost regions, from their fit which assumes
a polytropic equation of state. Our result is also in good agreement with a
recent sample of clusters observed by BeppoSAX though there is some indication
of missing physics at small radii (). We discuss the
interpretation of our results and make predictions for new x-ray observations
that will extend to larger radii than previously possible. Finally, we show
that, for , our universal temperature profile is consistent with
our most recent simulations which include both radiative cooling and supernovae
feedback.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ, full-page
version of Fig. 2 at
http://www.cita.utoronto.ca/+AH4-cloken/PAPERS/UTP/f2.ep
How much entropy is produced in strongly coupled Quark-Gluon Plasma (sQGP) by dissipative effects?
We argue that estimates of dissipative effects based on the first-order
hydrodynamics with shear viscosity are potentially misleading because higher
order terms in the gradient expansion of the dissipative part of the stress
tensor tend to reduce them. Using recently obtained sound dispersion relation
in thermal =4 supersymmetric plasma, we calculate the effect
of these high order terms for Bjorken expansion appropriate to RHIC/LHC
collisions. A reduction of entropy production is found to be substantial, up to
an order of magnitude.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figur
Asymptotic Spectroscopy of Rotating Black Holes
We calculate analytically the transmission and reflection amplitudes for
waves incident on a rotating black hole in d=4, analytically continued to
asymptotically large, nearly imaginary frequency. These amplitudes determine
the asymptotic resonant frequencies of the black hole, including quasinormal
modes, total-transmission modes and total-reflection modes. We identify these
modes with semiclassical bound states of a one-dimensional Schrodinger
equation, localized along contours in the complexified r-plane which connect
turning points of corresponding null geodesics. Each family of modes has a
characteristic temperature and chemical potential. The relations between them
provide hints about the microscopic description of the black hole in this
asymptotic regime.Comment: References adde
Boosting jet power in black hole spacetimes
The extraction of rotational energy from a spinning black hole via the
Blandford-Znajek mechanism has long been understood as an important component
in models to explain energetic jets from compact astrophysical sources. Here we
show more generally that the kinetic energy of the black hole, both rotational
and translational, can be tapped, thereby producing even more luminous jets
powered by the interaction of the black hole with its surrounding plasma. We
study the resulting Poynting jet that arises from single boosted black holes
and binary black hole systems. In the latter case, we find that increasing the
orbital angular momenta of the system and/or the spins of the individual black
holes results in an enhanced Poynting flux.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure
On the Formation of Cool, Non-Flowing Cores in Galaxy Clusters via Hierarchical Mergers
We present a new model for the creation of cool cores in rich galaxy clusters
within a LambdaCDM cosmological framework using the results from high spatial
dynamic range, adaptive mesh hydro/N-body simulations. It is proposed that
cores of cool gas first form in subclusters and these subclusters merge to
create rich clusters with cool, central X-Ray excesses. The rich cool clusters
do not possess ``cooling flows'' due to the presence of bulk velocities in the
intracluster medium in excess of 1000 km/sec produced by on-going accretion of
gas from supercluster filaments. This new model has several attractive features
including the presence of substantial core substructure within the cool cores,
and it predicts the appearance of cool bullets, cool fronts, and cool filaments
all of which have been recently observed with X-Ray satellites. This
hierarchical formation model is also consistent with the observation that cool
cores in Abell clusters occur preferentially in dense supercluster
environments. On the other hand, our simulations overproduce cool cores in
virtually all of our numerical clusters, the central densities are high, and
physical core temperatures are often below 1 keV (in contrast to recent
observations). We will discuss additional preliminary simulations to ``soften''
the cool cores involving star formation and supernova feedback.Comment: Invited oral presentation for ``The Riddle of Cooling Flows in
Galaxies and Clusters of Galaxies'' held at Charlottesville, VA USA May 31 -
June 4 2003. Proceedings at http://www.astro.virginia.edu/coolflow, eds T. H.
Reiprich, J. C. Kempner and N. Soker. 10 pages, 16 figure
Quasinormal ringing of Kerr black holes: The excitation factors
Distorted black holes radiate gravitational waves. In the so-called ringdown
phase radiation is emitted in a discrete set of complex quasinormal
frequencies, whose values depend only on the black hole's mass and angular
momentum. Ringdown radiation could be detectable with large signal-to-noise
ratio by the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna LISA. If more than one mode is
detected, tests of the black hole nature of the source become possible. The
detectability of different modes depends on their relative excitation, which in
turn depends on the cause of the perturbation (i.e. on the initial data). A
``universal'', initial data-independent measure of the relative mode excitation
is encoded in the poles of the Green's function that propagates small
perturbations of the geometry (``excitation factors''). We compute for the
first time the excitation factors for general-spin perturbations of Kerr black
holes. We find that for corotating modes with the excitation factors tend
to zero in the extremal limit, and that the contribution of the overtones
should be more significant when the black hole is fast rotating. We also
present the first analytical calculation of the large-damping asymptotics of
the excitation factors for static black holes, including the Schwarzschild and
Reissner-Nordstrom metrics. This is an important step to determine the
convergence properties of the quasinormal mode expansion.Comment: 33 pages, 9 figures, 7 tables, RevTeX4. v2: Two new figures and minor
changes in the presentation. Matches version in press in Phys. Rev.
Effective temperature for black holes
The physical interpretation of black hole's quasinormal modes is fundamental
for realizing unitary quantum gravity theory as black holes are considered
theoretical laboratories for testing models of such an ultimate theory and
their quasinormal modes are natural candidates for an interpretation in terms
of quantum levels. The spectrum of black hole's quasinormal modes can be
re-analysed by introducing a black hole's effective temperature which takes
into account the fact that, as shown by Parikh and Wilczek, the radiation
spectrum cannot be strictly thermal. This issue changes in a fundamental way
the physical understanding of such a spectrum and enables a re-examination of
various results in the literature which realizes important modifies on quantum
physics of black holes. In particular, the formula of the horizon's area
quantization and the number of quanta of area result modified becoming
functions of the quantum "overtone" number n. Consequently, the famous formula
of Bekenstein-Hawking entropy, its sub-leading corrections and the number of
microstates are also modified. Black hole's entropy results a function of the
quantum overtone number too. We emphasize that this is the first time that
black hole's entropy is directly connected with a quantum number. Previous
results in the literature are re-obtained in the limit n \to \infty.Comment: 10 pages,accepted for publication in Journal of High Energy Physics.
Comments are welcom
Mass transfer dynamics in double degenerate binary systems
We present a numerical study of the mass transfer dynamics prior to the
gravitational wave-driven merger of a double white dwarf system. Recently,
there has been some discussion about the dynamics of these last stages,
different methods seemed to provide qualitatively different results. While
earlier SPH simulations indicated a very quick disruption of the binary on
roughly the orbital time scale, more recent grid-based calculations find
long-lived mass transfer for many orbital periods. Here we demonstrate how
sensitive the dynamics of this last stage is to the exact initial conditions.
We show that, after a careful preparation of the initial conditions, the
reportedly short-lived systems undergo mass transfer for many dozens of orbits.
The reported numbers of orbits are resolution-biased and therefore represent
only lower limits to what is realized in nature. Nevertheless, the study shows
convincingly the convergence of different methods to very similar results.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, for associated movie files, see
http://pandora.jacobs-university.de/~mdan/WD_coalescences.htm, to appear in
Journal of Physics Conference Proceedings for the 16th European White Dwarf
Worksho
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