7,521 research outputs found
On the Survivability and Metamorphism of Tidally Disrupted Giant Planets: the Role of Dense Cores
A large population of planetary candidates in short-period orbits have been
found through transit searches. Radial velocity surveys have also revealed
several Jupiter-mass planets with highly eccentric orbits. Measurements of the
Rossiter-McLaughlin effect indicate some misaligned planetary systems. This
diversity could be induced by post-formation dynamical processes such as
planet-planet scattering, the Kozai effect, or secular chaos which brings
planets to the vicinity of their host stars. In this work, we propose a novel
mechanism to form close-in super-Earths and Neptune-like planets through the
tidal disruption of giant planets as a consequence of these dynamical
processes. We model the core-envelope structure of giant planets with composite
polytropes. Using three-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations of close
encounters between planets and their host stars, we find that the presence of a
core with a mass more than ten Earth masses can significantly increase the
fraction of envelope which remains bound to it. After the encounter, planets
with cores are more likely to be retained by their host stars in contrast with
previous studies which suggested that coreless planets are often ejected. As a
substantial fraction of their gaseous envelopes is preferentially lost while
the dense incompressible cores retain most of their original mass, the
resulting metallicity of the surviving planets is increased. Our results
suggest that some gas giant planets can be effectively transformed into either
super-Earths or Neptune-like planets after multiple close stellar passages.
Finally, we analyze the orbits and structure of known planets and Kepler
candidates and find that our model is capable producing some of the
shortest-period objects.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ. 15 pages, 9 figures, 3 tables. Two
movies at http://youtu.be/jHxPKAEgFic and http://youtu.be/QXqkS0vDi5
Embryo impacts and gas giant mergers II: Diversity of Hot Jupiters' internal structure
We consider the origin of compact, short-period, Jupiter-mass planets. We
propose that their diverse structure is caused by giant impacts of embryos and
super-Earths or mergers with other gas giants during the formation and
evolution of these hot Jupiters. Through a series of numerical simulations, we
show that typical head-on collisions generally lead to total coalescence of
impinging gas giants. Although extremely energetic collisions can disintegrate
the envelope of gas giants, these events seldom occur. During oblique and
moderately energetic collisions, the merger products retain higher fraction of
the colliders' cores than their envelopes. They can also deposit considerable
amount of spin angular momentum to the gas giants and desynchronize their spins
from their orbital mean motion. We find that the oblateness of gas giants can
be used to infer the impact history. Subsequent dissipation of stellar tide
inside the planets' envelope can lead to runaway inflation and potentially a
substantial loss of gas through Roche-lobe overflow. The impact of super-Earths
on parabolic orbits can also enlarge gas giant planets' envelope and elevates
their tidal dissipation rate over 100 Myr time scale. Since giant
impacts occur stochastically with a range of impactor sizes and energies, their
diverse outcomes may account for the dispersion in the mass-radius relationship
of hot Jupiters.Comment: 19 pages, 7 figures, 7 tables. Accepted for publication in MNRA
Collapse of Vacuum Bubbles in a Vacuum
Motivated by the discovery of a plenitude of metastable vacua in a string
landscape and the possibility of rapid tunneling between these vacua, we
revisit the dynamics of a false vacuum bubble in a background de Sitter
spacetime. We find that there exists a large parameter space that allows the
bubble to collapse into a black hole or to form a wormhole. This may have
interesting implications to inflationary physics.Comment: 8 pages including 6 figures, LaTex; references adde
Room-temperature structural phase transition in the quasi-2D spin-1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnet Cu(pz)(ClO)
Cu(pz)(ClO) (with pz denoting pyrazine CHN) is a
two-dimensional spin-1/2 square-lattice antiferromagnet with =
4.24 K. Due to a persisting focus on the low-temperature magnetic properties,
its room-temperature structural and physical properties caught no attention up
to now. Here we report a study of the structural features of
Cu(pz)(ClO) in the paramagnetic phase, up to 330 K. By employing
magnetization, specific heat, Cl nuclear magnetic resonance, and neutron
diffraction measurements, we provide evidence of a second-order phase
transition at = 294 K, not reported before. The absence of a
magnetic ordering across in the magnetization data, yet the
presence of a sizable anomaly in the specific heat, suggest a structural
order-to-disorder type transition. NMR and neutron-diffraction data corroborate
our conjecture, by revealing subtle angular distortions of the pyrazine rings
and of ClO counteranion tetrahedra, shown to adopt a configuration of
higher symmetry above the transition temperature.Comment: 10 pages, 12 figure
IrF4: From Tetrahedral Compass Model to Topological Semimetal
The intersection of topology, symmetry, and magnetism yields a rich structure
of possible phases. In this work, we study theoretically the consequences of
magnetism on IrF4, which was recently identified as a possible candidate
topological nodal chain semimetal in the absence of magnetic order. We show
that the spin-orbital nature of the Ir moments gives rise to strongly
anisotropic magnetic couplings resembling a tetrahedral compass model on a
diamond lattice. The predicted magnetic ground state preserves key symmetries
protecting the nodal lines, such that they persist into the ordered phase at
the mean-field level. The consequences for other symmetry reductions are also
discussed
Nodeless superconductivity in the cage-type superconductor Sc5Ru6Sn18 with preserved time-reversal symmetry
We report the single-crystal synthesis and detailed investigations of the
cage-type superconductor Sc5Ru6Sn18, using powder x-ray diffraction (XRD),
magnetization, specific-heat and muon-spin relaxation (muSR) measurements.
Sc5Ru6Sn18 crystallizes in a tetragonal structure (space group I41/acd) with
the lattice parameters a = 1.387(3) nm and c = 2.641(5) nm. Both DC and AC
magnetization measurements prove the type-II superconductivity in Sc5Ru6Sn18
with Tc = 3.5(1) K, a lower critical field H_c1 (0) = 157(9) Oe and an upper
critical field, H_c2 (0) = 26(1) kOe. The zero-field electronic specific-heat
data are well fitted using a single-gap BCS model, with superconducting gap =
0.64(1) meV. The Sommerfeld constant varies linearly with the applied magnetic
field, indicating s-wave superconductivity in Sc5Ru6Sn18. Specific-heat and
transverse-field (TF) muSR measurements reveal that Sc5Ru6Sn18 is a
superconductor with strong electron-phonon coupling, with TF-muSR also
suggesting the single-gap s-wave character of the superconductivity.
Furthermore, zero-field muSR measurements do not detect spontaneous magnetic
fields below Tc, hence implying that time-reversal symmetry is preserved in
Sc5Ru6Sn18.Comment: 23 pages, 11 figure
Dependence of quantum correlations of twin beams on pump finesse of optical parametric oscillator
The dependence of quantum correlation of twin beams on the pump finesse of an
optical parametric oscillator is studied with a semi-classical analysis. It is
found that the phase-sum correlation of the output signal and idler beams from
an optical parametric oscillator operating above threshold depends on the
finesse of the pump field when the spurious pump phase noise generated inside
the optical cavity and the excess noise of the input pump field are involved in
the Langevin equations. The theoretical calculations can explain the previously
experimental results, quantitatively.Comment: 27 pages, 8 figure
Photodegradation and Photoprotection of Wood Surfaces
Photodegradation of southern yellow pine and its protection have been studied. Scanning electron micrographs showed that most of the cell walls on exposed transverse surfaces were separated at the middle lamella region after only 500 h of ultraviolet light irradiation. Fibers at the surface were degraded severely after 1,000 h of irradiation. Half-bordered pits and bordered pits on exposed radial surfaces were severely damaged by ultraviolet light. Enlargement of pit apertures as well as loss of pit domes was observed. However, wood irradiated on tangential surfaces was quite resistant to UV irradiation; only microchecks were observed. The photodegradative effect on wood surfaces can be mitigated by treating with aqueous solutions of chromic acid or ferric chloride. Only relatively small amounts of these chemicals are needed for effective protection. Possible chemistry and mechanisms of degradation and protection are discussed
Momentum-Resolved Electronic Structure of the High- Superconductor Parent Compound BaBiO
We investigate the band structure of BaBiO, an insulating parent
compound of doped high- superconductors, using \emph{in situ}
angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy on thin films. The data compare
favorably overall with density functional theory calculations within the local
density approximation, demonstrating that electron correlations are weak. The
bands exhibit Brillouin zone folding consistent with known BiO breathing
distortions. Though the distortions are often thought to coincide with
Bi/Bi charge ordering, core level spectra show that bismuth is
monovalent. We further demonstrate that the bands closest to the Fermi level
are primarily oxygen derived, while the bismuth states mostly contribute
to dispersive bands at deeper binding energy. The results support a model of
Bi-O charge transfer in which hole pairs are localized on combinations of the O
orbitals.Comment: minor changes to text and other figures; includes link to online
Supplemental Material; accepted to Phys. Rev. Let
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