8,194 research outputs found
Is H3+ cooling ever important in primordial gas?
Studies of the formation of metal-free Population III stars usually focus
primarily on the role played by H2 cooling, on account of its large chemical
abundance relative to other possible molecular or ionic coolants. However,
while H2 is generally the most important coolant at low gas densities, it is
not an effective coolant at high gas densities, owing to the low critical
density at which it reaches local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE) and to the
large opacities that develop in its emission lines. It is therefore possible
that emission from other chemical species may play an important role in cooling
high density primordial gas. A particularly interesting candidate is the H3+
molecular ion. This ion has an LTE cooling rate that is roughly a billion times
larger than that of H2, and unlike other primordial molecular ions such as H2+
or HeH+, it is not easily removed from the gas by collisions with H or H2. It
is already known to be an important coolant in at least one astrophysical
context -- the upper atmospheres of gas giants -- but its role in the cooling
of primordial gas has received little previous study. In this paper, we
investigate the potential importance of H3+ cooling in primordial gas using a
newly-developed H3+ cooling function and the most detailed model of primordial
chemistry published to date. We show that although H3+ is, in most
circumstances, the third most important coolant in dense primordial gas (after
H2 and HD), it is nevertheless unimportant, as it contributes no more than a
few percent of the total cooling. We also show that in gas irradiated by a
sufficiently strong flux of cosmic rays or X-rays, H3+ can become the dominant
coolant in the gas, although the size of the flux required renders this
scenario unlikely to occur.Comment: 60 pages, 22 figures. Submitted to MNRA
Statistics of conductance and shot-noise power for chaotic cavities
We report on an analytical study of the statistics of conductance, , and
shot-noise power, , for a chaotic cavity with arbitrary numbers of
channels in two leads and symmetry parameter . With the theory
of Selberg's integral the first four cumulants of and first two cumulants
of are calculated explicitly. We give analytical expressions for the
conductance and shot-noise distributions and determine their exact asymptotics
near the edges up to linear order in distances from the edges. For a
power law for the conductance distribution is exact. All results are also
consistent with numerical simulations.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures. Proc. of the 3rd Workshop on Quantum Chaos and
Localisation Phenomena, Warsaw, Poland, May 25-27, 200
Chemical Abundances and the Metagalactic Radiation Field at High Redshift
We have carried out model calculations of the photoionized intergalactic medium (IGM) to determine the effects on the predicted ionic column densities due to uncertainties in the published dielectronic recombination (DR) rate coefficients. Based on our previous experimental work and a comparison of published theoretical DR rates, we estimate there is in general a factor of 2 uncertainty in existing DR rates used for modeling the IGM. We demonstrate that this uncertainty results in factors of ~1.9 uncertainty in the predicted N V and Si IV column densities, ~1.6 for O VI, and ~1.7 for C IV. We show that these systematic uncertainties translate into a systematic uncertainty of up to a factor of ~3.1 in the Si/C abundance ratio inferred from observations. The inferred IGM abundance ratio could thus be less than the solar Si/C ratio or greater than 3 times the solar ratio. If the latter is true, then it suggests the metagalactic radiation field is not due purely to active galactic nuclei, but includes a significant stellar component. Lastly, column density ratios of Si IV to C IV versus C II to C IV are often used to constrain the decrement in the metagalactic radiation field at the He II absorption edge. We show that the variation in the predicted Si IV to C IV ratio due to a factor of 2 uncertainty in the DR rates is almost as large as that due to a factor of 10 change in the decrement. Laboratory measurements of the relevant DR resonance strengths and energies are the only unambiguous method to remove the effects of these atomic physics uncertainties from models of the IGM
Properties of short-range and long-range correlation energy density functionals from electron-electron coalescence
The combination of density functional theory with other approaches to the
many-electron problem through the separation of the electron-electron
interaction into a short-range and a long-range contribution is a promising
method, which is raising more and more interest in recent years. In this work
some properties of the corresponding correlation energy functionals are derived
by studying the electron-electron coalescence condition for a modified
(long-range-only) interaction. A general relation for the on-top (zero
electron-electron distance) pair density is derived, and its usefulness is
discussed with some examples. For the special case of the uniform electron gas,
a simple parameterization of the on-top pair density for a long-range only
interaction is presented and supported by calculations within the ``extended
Overhauser model''. The results of this work can be used to build
self-interaction corrected short-range correlation energy functionals.Comment: revised version, to appear in Phys. Rev.
Dielectronic recombination data for astrophysical applications: Plasma rate-coefficients for Fe^q+ (q=7-10, 13-22) and Ni^25+ ions from storage-ring experiments
This review summarizes the present status of an ongoing experimental effort
to provide reliable rate coefficients for dielectronic recombination of highly
charged iron ions for the modeling of astrophysical and other plasmas. The
experimental work has been carried out over more than a decade at the heavy-ion
storage-ring TSR of the Max-Planck-Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg,
Germany. The experimental and data reduction procedures are outlined. The role
of previously disregarded processes such as fine-structure core excitations and
trielectronic recombination is highlighted. Plasma rate coefficients for
dielectronic recombination of Fe^q+ ions (q=7-10, 13-22) and Ni^25+ are
presented graphically and in a simple parameterized form allowing for easy use
in plasma modeling codes. It is concluded that storage-ring experiments are
presently the only source for reliable low-temperature dielectronic
recombination rate-coefficients of complex ions.Comment: submitted for publication in the International Review of Atomic and
Molecular Physics, 8 figures, 3 tables, 68 reference
Simple model of the static exchange-correlation kernel of a uniform electron gas with long-range electron-electron interaction
A simple approximate expression in real and reciprocal spaces is given for
the static exchange-correlation kernel of a uniform electron gas interacting
with the long-range part only of the Coulomb interaction. This expression
interpolates between the exact asymptotic behaviors of this kernel at small and
large wave vectors which in turn requires, among other thing, information from
the momentum distribution of the uniform electron gas with the same interaction
that have been calculated in the G0W0 approximation. This exchange-correlation
kernel as well as its complement analogue associated to the short-range part of
the Coulomb interaction are more local than the Coulombic exchange-correlation
kernel and constitute potential ingredients in approximations for recent
adiabatic connection fluctuation-dissipation and/or density functional theory
approaches of the electronic correlation problem based on a separate treatment
of long-range and short-range interaction effects.Comment: 14 pages, 14 figures, to be published in Phys. Rev.
Van der Waals forces in density functional theory: perturbational long-range electron interaction corrections
Long-range exchange and correlation effects, responsible for the failure of
currently used approximate density functionals in describing van der Waals
forces, are taken into account explicitly after a separation of the
electron-electron interaction in the Hamiltonian into short- and long-range
components. We propose a "range-separated hybrid" functional based on a local
density approximation for the short-range exchange-correlation energy, combined
with a long-range exact exchange energy. Long-range correlation effects are
added by a second-order perturbational treatment. The resulting scheme is
general and is particularly well-adapted to describe van der Waals complexes,
like rare gas dimers.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure, submitted to Phys. Rev.
Astrophysical Relevance of Storage-Ring Electron-Ion Recombination Experiments
The relevance of storage-ring electron-ion recombination experiments for
astrophysics is outlined. In particular, the role of low-energy
dielectronic-recombination resonances is discussed. A bibliographic compilation
of electron-ion recombination measurements with cosmically abundant ions is
provided.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, 1 table, 77 references, Proceedings of the 14th
International Conference on the Physics of Highly Charged Ions, Cofu, Tokyo,
Septmber 1-5, 2008, to be published in J. Phys. Conf. Se
Long-range/short-range separation of the electron-electron interaction in density functional theory
By splitting the Coulomb interaction into long-range and short-range
components, we decompose the energy of a quantum electronic system into
long-range and short-range contributions. We show that the long-range part of
the energy can be efficiently calculated by traditional wave function methods,
while the short-range part can be handled by a density functional. The analysis
of this functional with respect to the range of the associated interaction
reveals that, in the limit of a very short-range interaction, the short-range
exchange-correlation energy can be expressed as a simple local functional of
the on-top pair density and its first derivatives. This provides an explanation
for the accuracy of the local density approximation (LDA) for the short-range
functional. Moreover, this analysis leads also to new simple approximations for
the short-range exchange and correlation energies improving the LDA.Comment: 18 pages, 14 figures, to be published in Phys. Rev.
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