28,837 research outputs found
Global Alfven Wave Heating of the Magnetosphere of Young Stars
Excitation of a Global Alfven wave (GAW) is proposed as a viable mechanism to
explain plasma heating in the magnetosphere of young stars. The wave and basic
plasma parameters are compatible with the requirement that the dissipation
length of GAWs be comparable to the distance between the shocked region at the
star's surface and the truncation region in the accretion disk. A two-fluid
magnetohydrodynamic plasma model is used in the analysis. A current carrying
filament along magnetic field lines acts as a waveguide for the GAW. The
current in the filament is driven by plasma waves along the magnetic field
lines and/or by plasma crossing magnetic field lines in the truncated region of
the disk of the accreting plasma. The conversion of a small fraction of the
kinetic energy into GAW energy is sufficient to heat the plasma filament to
observed temperatures.Comment: Submitted to ApJ, aheatf.tex, 2 figure
Tkachenko polarons in vortex lattices
We analyze the properties of impurities immersed in a vortex lattice formed
by ultracold bosons in the mean field quantum Hall regime. In addition to the
effects of a periodic lattice potential, the impurity is dressed by collective
modes with parabolic dispersion (Tkachenko modes). We derive the effective
polaron model, which contains a marginal impurity-phonon interaction. The
polaron spectral function exhibits a Lorentzian broadening for arbitrarily
small wave vectors even at zero temperature, in contrast with the result for
optical or acoustic phonons. The anomalous damping of Tkachenko polarons could
be detected experimentally using momentum-resolved spectroscopy.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figure
The role of damped Alfven waves on magnetospheric accretion models of young stars
We examine the role of Alfven wave damping in heating the plasma in the
magnetic funnels of magnetospheric accretion models of young stars. We study
four different damping mechanisms of the Alfven waves: nonlinear, turbulent,
viscous-resistive and collisional. Two different possible origins for the
Alfven waves are discussed: 1) Alfven waves generated at the surface of the
star by the shock produced by the infalling matter; and 2) Alfven waves
generated locally in the funnel by the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability. We find
that, in general, the damping lengths are smaller than the tube length. Since
thermal conduction in the tube is not efficient, Alfven waves generated only at
the star's surface cannot heat the tube to the temperatures necessary to fit
the observations. Only for very low frequency Alfven waves ~10^{-5} the ion
cyclotron frequency, is the viscous-resistive damping length greater than the
tube length. In this case, the Alfven waves produced at the surface of the star
are able to heat the whole tube. Otherwise, local production of Alfven waves is
required to explain the observations. The turbulence level is calculated for
different frequencies for optically thin and thick media. We find that
turbulent velocities varies greatly for different damping mechanisms, reaching
\~100 km s^{-1} for the collisional damping of small frequency waves.Comment: 29 pages, 12 figures, to appear in The Astrophysical Journa
Population expansion in the North African Late Pleistocene signalled by mitochondrial DNA haplogroup U6
Background
<br/>
The archaeology of North Africa remains enigmatic, with questions of population continuity versus discontinuity taking centre-stage. Debates have focused on population transitions between the bearers of the Middle Palaeolithic Aterian industry and the later Upper Palaeolithic populations of the Maghreb, as well as between the late Pleistocene and Holocene.
<br/>
Results
Improved resolution of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) haplogroup U6 phylogeny, by the screening of 39 new complete sequences, has enabled us to infer a signal of moderate population expansion using Bayesian coalescent methods. To ascertain the time for this expansion, we applied both a mutation rate accounting for purifying selection and one with an internal calibration based on four approximate archaeological dates: the settlement of the Canary Islands, the settlement of Sardinia and its internal population re-expansion, and the split between haplogroups U5 and U6 around the time of the first modern human settlement of the Near East.
<br/>
Conclusions
<br/>
A Bayesian skyline plot placed the main expansion in the time frame of the Late Pleistocene, around 20 ka, and spatial smoothing techniques suggested that the most probable geographic region for this demographic event was to the west of North Africa. A comparison with U6's European sister clade, U5, revealed a stronger population expansion at around this time in Europe. Also in contrast with U5, a weak signal of a recent population expansion in the last 5,000 years was observed in North Africa, pointing to a moderate impact of the late Neolithic on the local population size of the southern Mediterranean coast
All-sky Relative Opacity Mapping Using Night Time Panoramic Images
An all-sky cloud monitoring system that generates relative opacity maps over
many of the world's premier astronomical observatories is described.
Photometric measurements of numerous background stars are combined with
simultaneous sky brightness measurements to differentiate thin clouds from sky
glow sources such as air glow and zodiacal light. The system takes a continuous
pipeline of all-sky images, and compares them to canonical images taken on
other nights at the same sidereal time. Data interpolation then yields
transmission maps covering almost the entire sky. An implementation of this
system is currently operating through the Night Sky Live network of CONCAM3s
located at Cerro Pachon (Chile), Mauna Kea (Hawaii), Haleakala (Hawaii), SALT
(South Africa) and the Canary Islands (Northwestern Africa).Comment: Accepted for publication in PAS
Gravitomagnetic Moments of the Fundamental Fields
The quadratic form of the Dirac equation in a Riemann spacetime yields a
gravitational gyromagnetic ratio \kappa_S = 2 for the interaction of a Dirac
spinor with curvature. A gravitational gyromagnetic ratio \kappa_S = 1 is also
found for the interaction of a vector field with curvature. It is shown that
the Dirac equation in a curved background can be obtained as the square--root
of the corresponding vector field equation only if the gravitational
gyromagnetic ratios are properly taken into account.Comment: 8 pages, RevTeX Style, no figures, changed presentation -- now
restricted to fields of spin 0, 1/2 and 1 -- some references adde
Modeling non-thermal emission from stellar bow shocks
Runaway O- and early B-type stars passing throughout the interstellar medium
at supersonic velocities and characterized by strong stellar winds may produce
bow shocks that can serve as particle acceleration sites. Previous theoretical
models predict the production of high energy photons by non-thermal radiative
processes, but their efficiency is still debated. We aim to test and explain
the possibility of emission from the bow shocks formed by runaway stars
traveling through the interstellar medium by using previous theoretical models.
We apply our model to AE Aurigae, the first reported star with an X-ray
detected bow shock, to BD+43 3654, in which the observations failed in
detecting high energy emission, and to the transition phase of a supergiant
star in the late stages of its life.From our analysis, we confirm that the
X-ray emission from the bow shock produced by AE Aurigae can be explained by
inverse Compton processes involving the infrared photons of the heated dust. We
also predict low high energy flux emission from the bow shock produced by BD+43
3654, and the possibility of high energy emission from the bow shock formed by
a supergiant star during the transition phase from blue to red supergiant.Bow
shock formed by different type of runaway stars are revealed as a new possible
source of high energy photons in our neighbourhood
Mass Generation from Lie Algebra Extensions
Applied to the electroweak interactions, the theory of Lie algebra extensions
suggests a mechanism by which the boson masses are generated without resource
to spontaneous symmetry breaking. It starts from a gauge theory without any
additional scalar field. All the couplings predicted by the Weinberg-Salam
theory are present, and a few others which are nevertheless consistent within
the model.Comment: 11 pages; revtex; title and PACS have been changed; comments included
in the manuscrip
Alfvenic Heating of Protostellar Accretion Disks
We investigate the effects of heating generated by damping of Alfven waves on
protostellar accretion disks. Two mechanisms of damping are investigated,
nonlinear and turbulent, which were previously studied in stellar winds
(Jatenco-Pereira & Opher 1989a, b). For the nominal values studied, f=delta
v/v_{A}=0.002 and F=varpi/Omega_{i}=0.1, where delta v, v_{A} and varpi are the
amplitude, velocity and average frequency of the Alfven wave, respectively, and
Omega_{i} is the ion cyclotron frequency, we find that viscous heating is more
important than Alfven heating for small radii. When the radius is greater than
0.5 AU, Alfvenic heating is more important than viscous heating. Thus, even for
the relatively small value of f=0.002, Alfvenic heating can be an important
source of energy for ionizing protostellar disks, enabling angular momentum
transport to occur by the Balbus-Hawley instability.Comment: 21 pages, 9 figures. Accepted for publication in Ap
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