21,643 research outputs found
Atypical Thermonuclear Supernovae from Tidally Crushed White Dwarfs
Suggestive evidence has accumulated that intermediate mass black holes (IMBH)
exist in some globular clusters. As stars diffuse in the cluster, some will
inevitable wander sufficiently close to the hole that they suffer tidal
disruption. An attractive feature of the IMBH hypothesis is its potential to
disrupt not only solar-type stars but also compact white dwarf stars. Attention
is given to the fate of white dwarfs that approach the hole close enough to be
disrupted and compressed to such extent that explosive nuclear burning may be
triggered. Precise modeling of the dynamics of the encounter coupled with a
nuclear network allow for a realistic determination of the explosive energy
release, and it is argued that ignition is a natural outcome for white dwarfs
of all varieties passing well within the tidal radius. Although event rates are
estimated to be significantly less than the rate of normal Type Ia supernovae,
such encounters may be frequent enough in globular clusters harboring an IMBH
to warrant a search for this new class of supernova.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figures, ApJ, accepte
Ising pyrochlore magnets: Low temperature properties, ice rules and beyond
Pyrochlore magnets are candidates for spin-ice behavior. We present
theoretical simulations of relevance for the pyrochlore family R2Ti2O7 (R= rare
earth) supported by magnetothermal measurements on selected systems. By
considering long ranged dipole-dipole as well as short-ranged superexchange
interactions we get three distinct behaviours: (i) an ordered doubly degenerate
state, (ii) a highly disordered state with a broad transition to paramagnetism,
(iii) a partially ordered state with a sharp transition to paramagnetism. Thus
these competing interactions can induce behaviour very different from
conventional ``spin ice''. Closely corresponding behaviour is seen in the real
compounds---in particular Ho2Ti2O7 corresponds to case (iii) which has not been
discussed before, rather than (ii) as suggested earlier.Comment: 5 pages revtex, 4 figures; some revisions, additional data,
additional co-authors and a changed title. Basic ideas of paper remain the
same but those who downloaded the original version are requested to get this
more complete versio
Magnetocaloric Study of Spin Relaxation in `Frozen' Dipolar Spin Ice Dy2Ti2O7
The magnetocaloric effect of polycrystalline samples of pure and Y-doped
dipolar spin ice Dy2Ti2O7 was investigated at temperatures from nominally 0.3 K
to 6 K and in magnetic fields of up to 2 T. As well as being of intrinsic
interest, it is proposed that the magnetocaloric effect may be used as an
appropriate tool for the qualitative study of slow relaxation processes in the
spin ice regime. In the high temperature regime the temperature change on
adiabatic demagnetization was found to be consistent with previously published
entropy versus temperature curves. At low temperatures (T < 0.4 K) cooling by
adiabatic demagnetization was followed by an irreversible rise in temperature
that persisted after the removal of the applied field. The relaxation time
derived from this temperature rise was found to increase rapidly down to 0.3 K.
The data near to 0.3 K indicated a transition into a metastable state with much
slower relaxation, supporting recent neutron scattering results. In addition,
magnetic dilution of 50 % concentration was found to significantly prolong the
dynamical response in the milikelvin temperature range, in contrast with
results reported for higher temperatures at which the spin correlations are
suppressed. These observations are discussed in terms of defects and loop
correlations in the spin ice state.Comment: 9 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.
Magnetic susceptibility of diluted pyrochlore and SCGO antiferromagnets
We investigate the magnetic susceptibility of the classical Heisenberg
antiferromagnet with nearest-neighbour interactions on the geometrically
frustrated pyrochlore lattice, for a pure system and in the presence of
dilution with nonmagnetic ions. Using the fact that the correlation length in
this system for small dilution is always short, we obtain an approximate but
accurate expression for the magnetic susceptibility at all temperatures. We
extend this theory to the compound SrCr_{9-9x}Ga_{3+9x}O_{19} (SCGO) and
provide an explanation of the phenomenological model recently proposed by
Schiffer and Daruka [Phys. Rev. B56, 13712 (1997)].Comment: 4 pages, Latex, 4 postscript figures automatically include
The mid-infrared colors of the interstellar medium and extended sources at the Galactic center
A mid-infrared (3.6–8 μm) survey of the Galactic center has been carried out with the IRAC instrument on the Spitzer Space Telescope. This survey covers the central 2º x 1.4º (~280 x 200 pc) of the Galaxy. At 3.6 and 4.5 μm the emission is dominated by stellar sources, the fainter ones merging into an unresolved background. At 5.8 and 8 μm the stellar sources are fainter, and large-scale diffuse emission from the ISM of the Galaxy's central molecular zone becomes prominent. The survey reveals that the 8-to-5.8 μm color of the ISM emission is highly uniform across the surveyed region. This uniform color is consistent with a flat extinction law and emission from polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Models indicate that this broadband color should not be expected to change if the incident radiation field heating the dust and PAHs is ~10^4 times that of the solar neighborhood. Other regions of very red emission indicate cases where thick dust clouds obscure deeply embedded objects or very early stages of star formation
A New Comprehensive 2-D Model of the Point Spread Functions of the XMM-Newton EPIC Telescopes : Spurious Source Suppression and Improved Positional Accuracy
We describe here a new full 2-D parameterization of the PSFs of the three
XMM-Newton EPIC telescopes as a function of instrument, energy, off-axis angle
and azimuthal angle, covering the whole field-of-view of the three EPIC
detectors. It models the general PSF envelopes, the primary and secondary
spokes, their radial dependencies, and the large-scale azimuthal variations.
This PSF model has been constructed via the stacking and centering of a large
number of bright, but not significantly piled-up point sources from the full
field-of-view of each EPIC detector, and azimuthally filtering the resultant
PSF envelopes to form the spoke structures and the gross azimuthal shapes
observed. This PSF model is available for use within the XMM-Newton Science
Analysis System via the usage of Current Calibration Files XRTi_XPSF_0011.CCF
and later versions. Initial source-searching tests showed substantial
reductions in the numbers of spurious sources being detected in the wings of
bright point sources. Furthermore, we have uncovered a systematic error in the
previous PSF system, affecting the entire mission to date, whereby returned
source RA and Dec values are seen to vary sinusoidally about the true position
(amplitude ~0.8") with source azimuthal position. The new PSF system is now
available and is seen as a major improvement with regard to the detection of
spurious sources. The new PSF also largely removes the discovered astrometry
error and is seen to improve the positional accuracy of EPIC. The modular
nature of the PSF system allows for further refinements in the future.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A. 15 pages, 13 figures (some of
reduced quality). A full-resolution version is available at
http://www.star.le.ac.uk/~amr30/amr_PSFpaper.pd
Comment on "Feynman Effective Classical Potential in the Schrodinger Formulation"
We comment on the paper "Feynman Effective Classical Potential in the
Schrodinger Formulation"[Phys. Rev. Lett. 81, 3303 (1998)]. We show that the
results in this paper about the time evolution of a wave packet in a double
well potential can be properly explained by resorting to a variational
principle for the effective action. A way to improve on these results is also
discussed.Comment: 1 page, 2eps figures, Revte
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