38,624 research outputs found
Magnetism in the Square Kilometre Array Era
The unprecedented sensitivity, angular resolution and broad bandwidth
coverage of Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio polarimetric observations will
allow us to address many long-standing mysteries in cosmic magnetism science. I
will highlight the unique capabilities of the SKA to map the warm hot
intergalactic medium, reveal detailed 3-dimensional structures of magnetic
fields in local galaxies and trace the redshift evolution of galactic magnetic
fields.Comment: 4 pages, Invited paper, Proceedings of FM8 "New Insights in
Extragalactic Magnetic Fields", XXXth General Assembly of the IAU, Vienna,
August 20-31, 201
Microlensing of Sub-parsec Massive Binary Black Holes in Lensed QSOs: Light Curves and Size-Wavelength Relation
Sub-parsec binary massive black holes (BBHs) are long anticipated to exist in
many QSOs but remain observationally elusive. In this paper, we propose a novel
method to probe sub-parsec BBHs through microlensing of lensed QSOs. If a QSO
hosts a sub-parsec BBH in its center, it is expected that the BBH is surrounded
by a circum-binary disk, each component of the BBH is surrounded by a small
accretion disk, and a gap is opened by the secondary component in between the
circum-binary disk and the two small disks. Assuming such a BBH structure, we
generate mock microlensing light curves for some QSO systems that host BBHs
with typical physical parameters. We show that microlensing light curves of a
BBH QSO system at the infrared-optical-UV bands can be significantly different
from those of corresponding QSO system with a single massive black hole (MBH),
mainly because of the existence of the gap and the rotation of the BBH (and its
associated small disks) around the center of mass. We estimate the half-light
radii of the emission region at different wavelengths from mock light curves
and find that the obtained half-light radius vs. wavelength relations of BBH
QSO systems can be much flatter than those of single MBH QSO systems at a
wavelength range determined by the BBH parameters, such as the total mass, mass
ratio, separation, accretion rates, etc. The difference is primarily due to the
existence of the gap. Such unique features on the light curves and half-light
radius-wavelength relations of BBH QSO systems can be used to select and probe
sub-parsec BBHs in a large number of lensed QSOs to be discovered by current
and future surveys, including the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response
System (Pan-STARRS), the Large Synoptic Survey telescope (LSST) and Euclid.Comment: 18 pages, 17 figures, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical
Journa
Fractal space frames and metamaterials for high mechanical efficiency
A solid slender beam of length , made from a material of Young's modulus
and subject to a gentle compressive force , requires a volume of
material proportional to [where ] in
order to be stable against Euler buckling. By constructing a hierarchical space
frame, we are able to systematically change the scaling of required material
with so that it is proportional to , through changing
the number of hierarchical levels present in the structure. Based on simple
choices for the geometry of the space frames, we provide expressions specifying
in detail the optimal structures (in this class) for different values of the
loading parameter . These structures may then be used to create effective
materials which are elastically isotropic and have the combination of low
density and high crush strength. Such a material could be used to make
light-weight components of arbitrary shape.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure
Gravitational lensing effects on sub-millimetre galaxy counts
We study the effects on the number counts of sub-millimetre galaxies due to
gravitational lensing. We explore the effects on the magnification cross
section due to halo density profiles, ellipticity and cosmological parameter
(the power-spectrum normalisation ). We show that the ellipticity
does not strongly affect the magnification cross section in gravitational
lensing while the halo radial profiles do. Since the baryonic cooling effect is
stronger in galaxies than clusters, galactic haloes are more concentrated. In
light of this, a new scenario of two halo population model is explored where
galaxies are modeled as a singular isothermal sphere profile and clusters as a
Navarro, Frenk and White (NFW) profile. We find the transition mass between the
two has modest effects on the lensing probability. The cosmological parameter
alters the abundance of haloes and therefore affects our results.
Compared with other methods, our model is simpler and more realistic. The
conclusions of previous works is confirm that gravitational lensing is a
natural explanation for the number count excess at the bright end.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures, accepted by MNRA
A Natural Formalism for Microlensing
If the standard microlensing geometry is inverted so that the Einstein ring
is projected onto the observer plane rather than the source plane, then the
relations between the observables (\theta_E,\tilde r_E) and the underlying
physical quantities (M,\pi_rel) become immediately obvious. Here \theta_E and
\tilde r_E are the angular and projected Einstein radii, M is the mass of the
lens, and \pi_rel is the lens-source relative parallax. I recast the basic
formalism of microlensing in light of this more natural geometry and in terms
of observables. I then find that the relations between observable and physical
quantities assume an exceptionally simple form. In an appendix, I propose a set
of notational conventions for microlensing.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure tells all. Interested parties are requested to vote
on a proposed standard for microlensing notation given in the appendix.
Submitted to Ap
Object DUO 2: A New Binary Lens Candidate
We present the light curve of an unusual variable object, DUO 2, detected
during the search for microlensing events by the DUO project. The star remained
stable for more than 150 days before it brightened by more than two magnitudes
in 6 days in the B and R bands. The light curves are achromatic during the
variability. We consider possible explanations of the photometric behavior,
with particular emphasis on the binary lens interpretation of the event. The
masses of the lenses are quite small, with the companion possibly in the range
of a brown dwarf or even a few times of Jupiter. We report evidence of blending
of the source by a companion through the first detection of shift in the light
centroid among all the microlensing experiments. This shift sets a lower limit
of on the separation between the stars. The best lens
model obtained requires moderate blending, which was what motivated us to check
the centroid shift that was subsequently found. The best lens model predicts a
separation of between the two blended stars. This prediction
was recently tested using two CCD images taken under good seeing conditions.
Both images show two components. Their separation and position angle are in
good agreement with our model.Comment: uuencoded, compressed PostScript, 4 pages, 4 figures (in text).
Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics Letter
Delay-dependent robust stability of stochastic delay systems with Markovian switching
In recent years, stability of hybrid stochastic delay systems, one of the important issues in the study of stochastic systems, has received considerable attention. However, the existing results do not deal with the structure of the diffusion but estimate its upper bound, which induces conservatism. This paper studies delay-dependent robust stability of hybrid stochastic delay systems. A delay-dependent criterion for robust exponential stability of hybrid stochastic delay systems is presented in terms of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs), which exploits the structure of the diffusion. Numerical examples are given to verify the effectiveness and less conservativeness of the proposed method
The Structure and Clustering of Lyman Break Galaxies
The number density and clustering properties of Lyman-break galaxies (LBGs)
are consistent with them being the central galaxies of the most massive dark
halos present at z~3. This conclusion holds in all currently popular
hierarchical models for structure formation, and is almost independent of the
global cosmological parameters. We examine whether the sizes, luminosities,
kinematics and star-formation rates of LBGs are also consistent with this
identification. Simple formation models tuned to give good fits to low redshift
galaxies can predict the distribution of these quantities in the LBG
population. The LBGs should be small (with typical half-light radii of 0.6-2
kpc/h), should inhabit haloes of moderately high circular velocity (180-290
km/s) but have low stellar velocity dispersions (70-120 km/s) and should have
substantial star formation rates (15-100 Msun/yr). The numbers here refer to
the predicted median values in the LBG sample of Adelberger et al. (1998); the
first assumes an Omega=1 universe and the second a flat universe with
Omega=0.3. For either cosmology these predictions are consistent with the
current (rather limited) observational data. Following the work of Kennicutt
(1998) we assume stars to form more rapidly in gas of higher surface density.
This predicts that LBG samples should preferentially contain objects with low
angular momentum, and so small size, for their mass. In contrast, samples of
damped Lyman alpha systems (DLSs), should be biased towards objects with large
angular momentum. Bright LBGs and DLSs may therefore form distinct populations,
with very different sizes and star formation rates, LBGs being smaller and more
metal-rich than DLSs of similar mass and redshift.Comment: 27 pages, 9 figures, MNRAS submitte
Empirical Study of Simulated Two-planet Microlensing Event
We undertake the first study of two-planet microlensing models recovered from
simulations of microlensing events generated by realistic multi-planet systems
in which 292 planetary events including 16 two-planet events were detected from
6690 simulated light curves. We find that when two planets are recovered, their
parameters are usually close to those of the two planets in the system most
responsible for the perturbations. However, in one of the 16 examples, the
apparent mass of both detected planets was more than doubled by the unmodeled
influence of a third, massive planet. This fraction is larger than, but
statistically consistent with, the roughly 1.5% rate of serious mass errors due
to unmodeled planetary companions for the 274 cases from the same simulation in
which a single planet is recovered. We conjecture that an analogous effect due
to unmodeled stellar companions may occur more frequently. For seven out of 23
cases in which two planets in the system would have been detected separately,
only one planet was recovered because the perturbations due to the two planets
had similar forms. This is a small fraction (7/274) of all recovered
single-planet models, but almost a third of all events that might plausibly
have led to two-planet models. Still, in these cases, the recovered planet
tends to have parameters similar to one of the two real planets most
responsible for the anomaly.Comment: 21 pages, 9 figures, 2 tables; submitted to ApJ; for a short video
introducing the key results, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhK4a6sbfO
- âŠ