5,863 research outputs found
Average profiles of the solar wind and outer radiation belt during the extreme flux enhancement of relativistic electrons at geosynchronous orbit
We report average profiles of the solar wind and outer radiation belt during the extreme flux enhancement of relativistic electrons at geosynchronous orbit (GEO). It is found that seven of top ten extreme events at GEO during solar cycle 23 are associated with the magnetosphere inflation during the storm recovery phase as caused by the large-scale solar wind structure of very low dynamic pressure (<1.0 nPa) during rapid speed decrease from very high (>650 km/s) to typical (400–500 km/s) in a few days. For the seven events, the solar wind parameters, geomagnetic activity indices, and relativistic electron flux and geomagnetic field at GEO are superposed at the local noon period of GOES satellites to investigate the physical cause. The average profiles support the "double inflation" mechanism that the rarefaction of the solar wind and subsequent magnetosphere inflation are one of the best conditions to produce the extreme flux enhancement at GEO because of the excellent magnetic confinement of relativistic electrons by reducing the drift loss of trapped electrons at dayside magnetopause
Earliest detection of the optical afterglow of GRB 030329 and its variability
We report the earliest detection of an extremely bright optical afterglow of
the gamma-ray burst (GRB) 030329 using a 30cm-telescope at Tokyo Institute of
Technology (Tokyo, JAPAN). Our observation started 67 minutes after the burst,
and continued for succeeding two nights until the afterglow faded below the
sensitivity limit of the telescope (approximately 18 mag). Combining our data
with those reported in GCN Circulars, we find that the early afterglow light
curve of the first half day is described by a broken power-law (t^{- alpha})
function with indices alpha_{1} = 0.88 +/- 0.01 (0.047 < t < t_{b1} days),
alpha_{2} = 1.18 +/- 0.01 (t_{b1} < t < t_{b2} days), and alpha_{3} = 1.81 +/-
0.04 (t_{b2} < t < 1.2 days), where t_{b1} ~ 0.26 days and t_{b2} ~ 0.54 days,
respectively. The change of the power-law index at the first break at t ~ 0.26
days is consistent with that expected from a ``cooling-break'' when the cooling
frequency crossed the optical band. If the interpretation is correct, the decay
index before the cooling-break implies a uniform ISM environment.Comment: 13 pages, 1 table and 2 figures. Accepted to the Astrophysical
Journal Letter
ALMA polarimetric studies of rotating jet/disk systems
We have recently obtained polarimetric data at mm wavelengths with ALMA for
the young systems DG Tau and CW Tau, for which the rotation properties of jet
and disk have been investigated in previous high angular resolution studies.
The motivation was to test the models of magneto-centrifugal launch of jets via
the determination of the magnetic configuration at the disk surface. The
analysis of these data, however, reveals that self-scattering of dust thermal
radiation dominates the polarization pattern. It is shown that even if no
information on the magnetic field can be derived in this case, the polarization
data are a powerful tool for the diagnostics of the properties and the
evolution of dust in protoplanetary disks.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures, to appear in "Jet Simulations, Experiments and
Theory. Ten years after JETSET, what is next ?", C. Sauty ed., Springer
Natur
Chandra Discovery of an X-ray Jet and Lobes in 3C 15
We report the Chandra detection of an X-ray jet in 3C 15. The peak of the
X-ray emission in the jet is 4.1'' (a projected distance of 5.1 kpc) from the
nucleus, and coincident with a component previously identified in the radio and
optical jets. We examine four models for the X-ray jet emission: (I) weak
synchrotron cooling in equip., (II) moderate synchrotron cooling in equip.,
(III) weak synchrotron plus SSC cooling, and (IV) moderate synchrotron plus SSC
cooling. We argue that case (II) can most reasonably explain the overall
emission from knot C. Case (III) is also possible, but requires a large
departure from equipartition and for the jet power to be comparable to that of
the brightest quasars. Diffuse X-ray emission has also been detected,
distributed widely over the full extent (63kpc x 25kpc) of the radio lobes. We
compare the total energy contained in the lobes with the jet power estimated
from knot C, and discuss the energetic link between the jet and the lobes. We
argue that the fueling time (t_fuel) and the source age (t_src) are comparable
for case (II), whereas t_fuel << t_src is likely for case (III). The latter may
imply that the jet has a very small filling factor, ~10^{-3}. We consider the
pressure balance between the thermal galaxy halo and non-thermal relativistic
electrons in the radio lobes. Finally, we show that the X-ray emission from the
nucleus is not adequately fitted by a simple absorbed power-law model, but
needs an additional power-law with heavy absorption intrinsic to the source.
Such a high column density is consistent with the presence of a dense, dusty
torus which obscures the quasar nucleus.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in A&
Suzaku observation of TeV blazar the 1ES 1218+304: clues on particle acceleration in an extreme TeV blazar
We observed the TeV blazar 1ES 1218+304 with the X-ray astronomy satellite
Suzaku in May 2006. At the beginning of the two-day continuous observation, we
detected a large flare in which the 5-10 keV flux changed by a factor of ~2 on
a timescale of 5x10^4 s. During the flare, the increase in the hard X-ray flux
clearly lagged behind that observed in the soft X-rays, with the maximum lag of
2.3x10^4 s observed between the 0.3-1 keV and 5-10 keV bands. Furthermore we
discovered that the temporal profile of the flare clearly changes with energy,
being more symmetric at higher energies. From the spectral fitting of
multi-wavelength data assuming a one-zone, homogeneous synchrotron self-Compton
model, we obtain B~0.047 G, emission region size R = 3.0x10^16 cm for an
appropriate beaming with a Doppler factor of delta = 20. This value of B is in
good agreement with an independent estimate through the model fit to the
observed time lag ascribing the energy-dependent variability to differential
acceleration timescale of relativistic electrons provided that the gyro-factor
\xi is 10^5.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures, Accepted for publication in ApJ
Coulomb blockade of tunnelling through compressible rings formed around an antidot: an explanation for Aharonov-Bohm oscillations
We consider single-electron tunnelling through antidot states using a
Coulomb-blockade model, and give an explanation for h/2e Aharonov-Bohm
oscillations, which are observed experimentally when the two spins of the
lowest Landau level form bound states. We show that the edge channels may
contain compressible regions, and using simple electrostatics, that the
resonance through the outer spin states should occur twice per h/e period. An
antidot may be a powerful tool for investigating quantum Hall edge states in
general, and the interplay of spin and charging effects that occurs in quantum
dots.Comment: 5 pages, 4 Postscript figure
Implications of Variability Patterns observed in TeV Blazars on the Structure of the Inner Jet
The recent long look X-ray observations of TeV blazars have revealed many
important new features concerning their time variability. In this paper, we
suggest a physical interpretation for those features based on the framework of
the internal and external shock scenarios. We present a simplified model
applicable to TeV blazars, and investigate through simulations how each of the
model parameters would affect to the observed light curve or spectrum. In
particular, we show that the internal shock scenario naturally leads to all the
observed variability properties including the structure function, but for it to
be applicable, the fractional fluctuation of the initial bulk Lorentz factors
must be small, with sigma_gamma / gamma_average < 0.01. This implies very low
dynamical efficiency of the internal shock scenario. We also suggest that
several observational quantities -- such as the characteristic time scale, the
relative amplitude of flares as compared to the steady (``offset'') component,
and the slope of the structure function -- can be used to probe the inner jet.
The results are applied to the TeV blazar Mrk421, and this, within the context
of the model, leads to the determination of several physical parameters: the
ejection of a shell with average thickness of ~1E13 cm occurs on average every
10 minutes, and the shells collide ~1E17 cm away from the central source.Comment: 12 pages, 13 figures, to appear in Ap
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