On the asymptotic acoustic-mode phase in red-giant stars and its dependence on evolutionary state

Asteroseismic investigations based on the wealth of data now available,in particular from the CoRoT and Kepler missions, require a good understanding of the relation between the observed quantities and the properties of the underlying stellar structure. Kallinger et al. 2012 found a relation between their determination of the asymptotic phase of radial oscillations in evolved stars and the evolutionary state, separating ascending-branch red giants from helium-burning stars in the `red clump'. Here we provide a detailed analysis of this relation, which is found to derive from differences between these two classes of stars in the thermodynamic state of the convective envelope. There is potential for distinguishing red giants and clump stars based on the phase determined from observations that are too short to allow distinction based on determination of the period spacing for mixed modes. The analysis of the phase may also point to a better understanding of the potential for using the helium-ionization-induced acoustic glitch to determine the helium abundance in the envelopes of these stars.Comment: MNRAS, in the pres

Tests of the asymptotic large frequency separation of acoustic oscillations in solar-type and red giant stars

Asteroseismology, i.e. the study of the internal structures of stars via their global oscillations, is a valuable tool to obtain stellar parameters such as mass, radius, surface gravity and mean density. These parameters can be obtained using certain scaling relations which are based on an asymptotic approximation. Usually the observed oscillation parameters are assumed to follow these scaling relations. Recently, it has been questioned whether this is a valid approach, i.e., whether the order of the observed oscillation modes are high enough to be approximated with an asymptotic theory. In this work we use stellar models to investigate whether the differences between observable oscillation parameters and their asymptotic estimates are indeed significant. We compute the asymptotic values directly from the stellar models and derive the observable values from adiabatic pulsation calculations of the same models. We find that the extent to which the atmosphere is included in the models is a key parameter. Considering a larger extension of the atmosphere beyond the photosphere reduces the difference between the asymptotic and observable values of the large frequency separation. Therefore, we conclude that the currently suggested discrepancies in the scaling relations might have been overestimated. Hence, based on the results presented here we believe that the suggestions of Mosser et al. (2013) should not be followed without careful consideration.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, 1 table, accepted for publication by MNRAS as a Letter to the Edito

Oxygen adsorption effect on magnetic properties of graphite

Both experimental and theoretical studies of the magnetic properties of micrographite and nanographite indicate a crucial role of the partial oxidation of graphitic zigzag edges in ferromagnetism. In contrast to total and partial hydrogenation, the oxidation of half of the carbon atoms on the graphite edges transforms the antiferromagnetic exchange interaction between graphite planes and over graphite ribbons to the ferromagnetic interaction. The stability of the ferromagnetism is discussed.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figure

Universal Magnetic-Field-Driven Metal-Insulator-Metal Transformations in Graphite and Bismuth

Applied magnetic field induces metal - insulator and re-entrant insulator-metal transitions in both graphite and rhombohedral bismuth. The corresponding transition boundaries plotted on the magnetic field - temperature (B - T) plane nearly coincide for these semimetals and can be best described by power laws T ~ (B - B_c)^k, where B_c is a critical field at T = 0 and k = 0.45 +/- 0.05. We show that insulator-metal-insulator (I-M-I) transformations take place in the Landau level quantization regime and illustrate how the IMT in quasi-3D graphite transforms into a cascade of I-M-I transitions, related to the quantum Hall effect in quasi-2D graphite samples. We discuss the possible coupling of superconducting and excitonic correlations with the observed phenomena, as well as the signatures of quantum phase transitions associated with the M-I and I-M transformations.Comment: 23 pages including 14 figure

Measuring the extent of convective cores in low-mass stars using Kepler data: towards a calibration of core overshooting

Our poor understanding of the boundaries of convective cores generates large uncertainties on the extent of these cores and thus on stellar ages. Our aim is to use asteroseismology to consistently measure the extent of convective cores in a sample of main-sequence stars whose masses lie around the mass-limit for having a convective core. We first test and validate a seismic diagnostic that was proposed to probe in a model-dependent way the extent of convective cores using the so-called $r_{010}$ ratios, which are built with $l=0$ and $l=1$ modes. We apply this procedure to 24 low-mass stars chosen among Kepler targets to optimize the efficiency of this diagnostic. For this purpose, we compute grids of stellar models with both the CESAM2k and MESA evolution codes, where the extensions of convective cores are modeled either by an instantaneous mixing or as a diffusion process. Among the selected targets, we are able to unambiguously detect convective cores in eight stars and we obtain seismic measurements of the extent of the mixed core in these targets with a good agreement between the CESAM2k and MESA codes. By performing optimizations using the Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm, we then obtain estimates of the amount of extra-mixing beyond the core that is required in CESAM2k to reproduce seismic observations for these eight stars and we show that this can be used to propose a calibration of this quantity. This calibration depends on the prescription chosen for the extra-mixing, but we find that it should be valid also for the code MESA, provided the same prescription is used. This study constitutes a first step towards the calibration of the extension of convective cores in low-mass stars, which will help reduce the uncertainties on the ages of these stars.Comment: 27 pages, 15 figures, accepted in A&

Reentrant Metallic Behavior of Graphite in the Quantum Limit

Magnetotransport measurements performed on several well-characterized highly oriented pyrolitic graphite and single crystalline Kish graphite samples reveal a reentrant metallic behavior in the basal-plane resistance at high magnetic fields, when only the lowest Landau levels are occupied. The results suggest that the quantum Hall effect and Landau-level-quantization-induced superconducting correlations are relevant to understand the metallic-like state(s) in graphite in the quantum limit.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure

Calculation of pure dephasing for excitons in quantum dots

Pure dephasing of an exciton in a small quantum dot by optical and acoustic phonons is calculated using the ``independent boson model''. Considering the case of zero temperature the dephasing is shown to be only partial which manifests itself in the polarization decaying to a finite value. Typical dephasing times can be assigned even though the spectra exhibits strongly non-Lorentzian line shapes. We show that the dephasing from LO phonon scattering, occurs on a much larger time scale than that of dephasing due to acoustic phonons which for low temperatures are also a more efficient dephasing mechanism. The typical dephasing time is shown to strongly depend on the quantum dot size whereas the electron phonon ``coupling strength'' and external electric fields tend mostly to effect the residual coherence. The relevance of the dephasing times for current quantum information processing implementation schemes in quantum dots is discussed

Vortex Lattice in Bi_{2}Sr_{2}CaCu_{2}O_{8+\delta} Well Above the First-Order Phase-Transition Boundary

Measurements of non-local in-plane resistance originating from transverse vortex-vortex correlations have been performed on a Bi_{2}Sr_{2}CaCu_{2}O_{8+\delta} high-T_c superconductor in a magnetic field up to 9 T applied along the crystal c-axis. Our results demonstrate that a rigid vortex lattice does exist over a broad portion of the magnetic field -- temperature (H-T) phase diagram, well above the first-order transition boundary H_{FOT}(T). The results also provide evidence for the vortex lattice melting and vortex liquid decoupling phase transitions, occurring above the H_{FOT}(T).Comment: 14 pages, 10 figure