15,195 research outputs found
The place of the Sun among the Sun-like stars
Context. Monitoring of the photometric and chromospheric HK emission data
series of stars similar to the Sun in age and average activity level showed
that there is an empirical correlation between the average stellar
chromospheric activity level and the photometric variability. In general, more
active stars show larger photometric variability. Interestingly, the
measurements and reconstructions of the solar irradiance show that the Sun is
significantly less variable than indicated by the empirical relationship. Aims.
We aim to identify possible reasons for the Sun to be currently outside of this
relationship. Methods. We employed different scenarios of solar HK emission and
irradiance variability and compared them with available time series of Sun-like
stars. Results. We show that the position of the Sun on the diagram of
photometric variability versus chromospheric activity changes with time. The
present solar position is different from its temporal mean position as the
satellite era of continuous solar irradiance measurements has accidentally
coincided with a period of unusually high and stable solar activity. Our
analysis suggests that although present solar variability is significantly
smaller than indicated by the stellar data, the temporal mean solar variability
might be in agreement with the stellar data. We propose that the continuation
of the photometric program and its expansion to a larger stellar sample will
ultimately allow us to constrain the historical solar variability.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in
Astronomy&Astrophysic
Expansion of a Bose-Einstein Condensate in the Presence of Disorder
Expansion of a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) is studied, in the presence of
a random potential. The expansion is controlled by a single parameter,
, where is the chemical potential, prior to the
release of the BEC from the trap, and is a transport relaxation
time which characterizes the strength of the disorder. Repulsive interactions
(nonlinearity) facilitate transport and can lead to diffusive spreading of the
condensate which, in the absence of interactions, would have remained localized
in the vicinity of its initial location
A Four-Dimensional Theory for Quantum Gravity with Conformal and Nonconformal Explicit Solutions
The most general version of a renormalizable theory corresponding to a
dimensionless higher-derivative scalar field model in curved spacetime is
explored. The classical action of the theory contains independent
functions, which are the generalized coupling constants of the theory. We
calculate the one-loop beta functions and then consider the conditions for
finiteness. The set of exact solutions of power type is proven to consist of
precisely three conformal and three nonconformal solutions, given by remarkably
simple (albeit nontrivial) functions that we obtain explicitly. The finiteness
of the conformal theory indicates the absence of a conformal anomaly in the
finite sector. The stability of the finite solutions is investigated and the
possibility of renormalization group flows is discussed as well as several
physical applications.Comment: LaTeX, 18 pages, no figure
Quantum corrections to gravity and their implications for cosmology and astrophysics
The quantum contributions to the gravitational action are relatively easy to
calculate in the higher derivative sector of the theory. However, the
applications to the post-inflationary cosmology and astrophysics require the
corrections to the Einstein-Hilbert action and to the cosmological constant,
and those we can not derive yet in a consistent and safe way. At the same time,
if we assume that these quantum terms are covariant and that they have relevant
magnitude, their functional form can be defined up to a single free parameter,
which can be defined on the phenomenological basis. It turns out that the
quantum correction may lead, in principle, to surprisingly strong and
interesting effects in astrophysics and cosmology.Comment: 15 pages, LaTeX, WS style, contribution to the Proceedings of the
QFEXT-2011 conference in the Centro de Ciencias de Benasque Pedro Pasqual,
Spai
Cosmology with variable parameters and effective equation of state for Dark Energy
A cosmological constant, Lambda, is the most natural candidate to explain the
origin of the dark energy (DE) component in the Universe. However, due to
experimental evidence that the equation of state (EOS) of the DE could be
evolving with time/redshift (including the possibility that it might behave
phantom-like near our time) has led theorists to emphasize that there might be
a dynamical field (or some suitable combination of them) that could explain the
behavior of the DE. While this is of course one possibility, here we show that
there is no imperative need to invoke such dynamical fields and that a variable
cosmological constant (including perhaps a variable Newton's constant too) may
account in a natural way for all these features.Comment: LaTeX, 9 pages, 1 figure. Talk given at the 7th Intern. Workshop on
Quantum Field Theory Under the Influence of External Conditions (QFEXT 05
- …