598 research outputs found
Comment on "The Jones-Hore theory of radical-ion-pair reactions is not self-consistent" (arXiv:1010.3888v3)
A short comment on "The Jones-Hore theory of radical-ion-pair reactions is
not self-consistent" (arXiv:1010.3888v3) is presented. In the comment, it is
pointed out that the paper includes a misconception about the Jones-Hore
approach in Chem. Phys. Lett. 488 (2010) 90-93. The re-formulation is presented
and it is demonstrated that the Jones-Hore theory is consistent at least on the
point claimed by I. K. Kominis in the paper
Stability of the lattice formed in first-order phase transitions to matter containing strangeness in protoneutron stars
Well into the deleptonization phase of a core collapse supernova, a
first-order phase transition to matter with macroscopic strangeness content is
assumed to occur and lead to a structured lattice defined by negatively charged
strange droplets. The lattice is shown to crystallize for expected droplet
charges and separations at temperatures typically obtained during the
protoneutronstar evolution. The melting curve of the lattice for small
spherical droplets is presented. The one-component plasma model proves to be an
adequate description for the lattice in its solid phase with deformation modes
freezing out around the melting temperature. The mechanical stability against
shear stresses is such that velocities predicted for convective phenomena and
differential rotation during the Kelvin-Helmholtz cooling phase might prevent
the crystallization of the phase transition lattice. A solid lattice might be
fractured by transient convection, which could result in anisotropic neutrino
transport. The melting curve of the lattice is relevant for the mechanical
evolution of the protoneutronstar and therefore should be included in future
hydrodynamics simulations.Comment: accepted for publication in Physical Review
Color-Neutral Superconducting Quark Matter
We investigate the consequences of enforcing local color neutrality on the
color superconducting phases of quark matter by utilizing the
Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model supplemented by diquark and the t'Hooft six-fermion
interactions. In neutrino free matter at zero temperature, color neutrality
guarantees that the number densities of u, d, and s quarks in the
Color-Flavor-Locked (CFL) phase will be equal even with physical current quark
masses. Electric charge neutrality follows as a consequence and without the
presence of electrons. In contrast, electric charge neutrality in the less
symmetric 2-flavor superconducting (2SC) phase with ud pairing requires more
electrons than the normal quark phase. The free energy density cost of
enforcing color and electric charge neutrality in the CFL phase is lower than
that in the 2SC phase, which favors the formation of the CFL phase. With
increasing temperature and neutrino content, an unlocking transition occurs
from the CFL phase to the 2SC phase with the order of the transition depending
on the temperature, the quark and lepton number chemical potentials. The
astrophysical implications of this rich structure in the phase diagram,
including estimates of the effects from Goldstone bosons in the CFL phase, are
discussed.Comment: 20 pages, 4 figures; version to appear in Phys. Rev.
Black Hole Spin via Continuum Fitting and the Role of Spin in Powering Transient Jets
The spins of ten stellar black holes have been measured using the
continuum-fitting method. These black holes are located in two distinct classes
of X-ray binary systems, one that is persistently X-ray bright and another that
is transient. Both the persistent and transient black holes remain for long
periods in a state where their spectra are dominated by a thermal accretion
disk component. The spin of a black hole of known mass and distance can be
measured by fitting this thermal continuum spectrum to the thin-disk model of
Novikov and Thorne; the key fit parameter is the radius of the inner edge of
the black hole's accretion disk. Strong observational and theoretical evidence
links the inner-disk radius to the radius of the innermost stable circular
orbit, which is trivially related to the dimensionless spin parameter a_* of
the black hole (|a_*| < 1). The ten spins that have so far been measured by
this continuum-fitting method range widely from a_* \approx 0 to a_* > 0.95.
The robustness of the method is demonstrated by the dozens or hundreds of
independent and consistent measurements of spin that have been obtained for
several black holes, and through careful consideration of many sources of
systematic error. Among the results discussed is a dichotomy between the
transient and persistent black holes; the latter have higher spins and larger
masses. Also discussed is recently discovered evidence in the transient sources
for a correlation between the power of ballistic jets and black hole spin.Comment: 30 pages. Accepted for publication in Space Science Reviews. Also to
appear in hard cover in the Space Sciences Series of ISSI "The Physics of
Accretion onto Black Holes" (Springer Publisher). Changes to Sections 5.2,
6.1 and 7.4. Section 7.4 responds to Russell et al. 2013 (MNRAS, 431, 405)
who find no evidence for a correlation between the power of ballistic jets
and black hole spi
Breaking rotational symmetry in two-flavor color superconductors
The color superconductivity under flavor asymmetric conditions relevant to
the compact star phenomenology is studied within the Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model.
We focus on the effect of the deformation of the Fermi surfaces on the pairing
properties and the energy budget of the superconducting state. We find that at
finite flavor asymmetries the color superconducting BCS state is unstable
towards spontaneous quadrupole deformation of the Fermi surfaces of the and
quarks into ellipsoidal form. The ground state of the phase with deformed
Fermi surfaces corresponds to a superposition of prolate and oblate deformed
Fermi ellipsoids of and quarks.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures. Parameter changes, references added, conclusions
unchange
Warm stellar matter with deconfinement: application to compact stars
We investigate the properties of mixed stars formed by hadronic and quark
matter in -equilibrium described by appropriate equations of state (EOS)
in the framework of relativistic mean-field theory. We use the non- linear
Walecka model for the hadron matter and the MIT Bag and the Nambu-Jona-Lasinio
models for the quark matter. The phase transition to a deconfined quark phase
is investigated. In particular, we study the dependence of the onset of a mixed
phase and a pure quark phase on the hyperon couplings, quark model and
properties of the hadronic model. We calculate the strangeness fraction with
baryonic density for the different EOS. With the NJL model the strangeness
content in the mixed phase decreases. The calculations were performed for T=0
and for finite temperatures in order to describe neutron and proto-neutron
stars. The star properties are discussed. Both the Bag model and the NJL model
predict a mixed phase in the interior of the star. Maximum allowed masses for
proto-neutron stars are larger for the NJL model ( M)
than for the Bag model ( M).Comment: RevTeX,14 figures, accepted to publication in Physical Review
Strange Stars with a Density-Dependent Bag Parameter
We have studied strange quark stars in the framework of the MIT bag model,
allowing the bag parameter B to depend on the density of the medium. We have
also studied the effect of Cooper pairing among quarks, on the stellar
structure. Comparison of these two effects shows that the former is generally
more significant. We studied the resulting equation of state of the quark
matter, stellar mass-radius relation, mass-central-density relation,
radius-central-density relation, and the variation of the density as a function
of the distance from the centre of the star. We found that the
density-dependent B allows stars with larger masses and radii, due to
stiffening of the equation of state. Interestingly, certain stellar
configurations are found to be possible only if B depends on the density. We
have also studied the effect of variation of the superconducting gap parameter
on our results.Comment: 23 pages, 8 figs; v2: 25 pages, 9 figs, version to be published in
Phys. Rev. (D
Neutrino Emission from Goldstone Modes in Dense Quark Matter
We calculate neutrino emissivities from the decay and scattering of Goldstone
bosons in the color-flavor-locked (CFL) phase of quarks at high baryon density.
Interactions in the CFL phase are described by an effective low-energy theory.
For temperatures in the tens of keV range, relevant to the long-term cooling of
neutron stars, the emissivities involving Goldstone bosons dominate over those
involving quarks, because gaps in the CFL phase are MeV while the
masses of Goldstone modes are on the order of 10 MeV. For the same reason, the
specific heat of the CFL phase is also dominated by the Goldstone modes.
Notwithstanding this, both the emissivity and the specific heat from the
massive modes remain rather small, because of their extremely small number
densities. The values of the emissivity and the specific heat imply that the
timescale for the cooling of the CFL core in isolation is y,
which makes the CFL phase invisible as the exterior layers of normal matter
surrounding the core will continue to cool through significantly more rapid
processes. If the CFL phase appears during the evolution of a proto-neutron
star, neutrino interactions with Goldstone bosons are expected to be
significantly more important since temperatures are high enough (
MeV) to admit large number densities of Goldstone modes.Comment: 29 pages, no figures. slightly modified text, one new eqn. and new
refs. adde
Nonextensive statistical effects in protoneutron stars
We investigate the bulk properties of protoneutron stars in the framework of
a relativistic mean field theory based on nonextensive statistical mechanics,
characterized by power-law quantum distributions. We study the relevance of
nonextensive statistical effects on the beta-stable equation of state at fixed
entropy per baryon, in presence and in absence of trapped neutrinos, for
nucleonic and hyperonic matter. We show that nonextensive statistical effects
could play a crucial role in the structure and in the evolution of the
protoneutron stars also for small deviations from the standard Boltzmann-Gibbs
statistics.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figure
The NICER "Reverberation Machine":A Systematic Study of Time Lags in Black Hole X-Ray Binaries
AbstractWe perform the first systematic search of all NICER archival observations of black hole (and candidate) low-mass X-ray binaries for signatures of reverberation. Reverberation lags result from the light travel time difference between the direct coronal emission and the reflected disk component, and therefore their properties are a useful probe of the disk-corona geometry. We detect new signatures of reverberation lags in eight sources, increasing the total sample from three to 11, and study the evolution of reverberation lag properties as the sources evolve in outbursts. We find that in all of the nine sources with more than one reverberation lag detection, the reverberation lags become longer and dominate at lower Fourier frequencies during the hard-to-soft state transition. This result shows that the evolution in reverberation lags is a global property of the state transitions of black hole low-mass X-ray binaries, which is valuable in constraining models of such state transitions. The reverberation lag evolution suggests that the corona is the base of a jet that vertically expands and/or gets ejected during state transition. We also discover that in the hard state, the reverberation lags get shorter, just as the quasiperiodic oscillations (QPOs) move to higher frequencies, but then in the state transition, while the QPOs continue to higher frequencies, the lags get longer. We discuss the implications of the coronal geometry and physical models of QPOs in light of this new finding
- …