Planetary magnetospheres

A concise overview is presented of our understanding of planetary magnetospheres (and in particular, of that of the Earth), as of the end of 1981. Emphasis is placed on processes of astrophysical interest, e.g., on particle acceleration, collision-free shocks, particle motion, parallel electric fields, magnetic merging, substorms, and large scale plasma flows. The general morphology and topology of the Earth's magnetosphere are discussed, and important results are given about the magnetospheres of Jupiter, Saturn and Mercury, including those derived from the Voyager 1 and 2 missions and those related to Jupiter's satellite Io. About 160 references are cited, including many reviews from which additional details can be obtained

Searching for the Donor Stars of ULX Pulsars

We report on our search for the optical counterparts of two ultraluminous X-ray pulsars with known orbital periods, M82 X-2 and NGC 5907 X-1, in new and archival HST observations, in an effort to characterize the donor stars in these systems. We detect five near-infrared sources consistent with the position of M82 X-2 that are too bright to be single stars. We also detect seven sources in the WFC3/UVIS F336W image whose photometry matches that of 10-15 M$_\odot$ stars turning off the main sequence. Such stars have densities consistent with the properties of the donor star of M82 X-2 as inferred from X-ray timing analysis, although it is also possible that the donor is a lower mass star below our detection limit or that there is a significant contribution from the accretion disc to the optical emission. We detect three candidate counterparts to NGC 5907 X-1 in the near-infrared. All of these are too bright to be the donor star of the ULX, which based on its orbital period is a red giant. The high background at the location of NGC 5907 X-1 precludes us from detecting this expected donor star. The recently discovered NGC 5907 ULX-2 also falls within the field of view of the near-infrared imaging; we detect four sources in the error circle, with photometry that matches AGB stars. The star suggested to be the counterpart of NGC 5907 ULX-2 by Pintore et al. (2018) falls outside our 2-$\sigma$ error circle.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in Ap

Spectral Changes in the Hyperluminous Pulsar in NGC 5907 as a Function of Super-Orbital Phase

We present broad-band, multi-epoch X-ray spectroscopy of the pulsating ultra-luminous X-ray source (ULX) in NGC 5907. Simultaneous XMM-Newton and NuSTAR data from 2014 are best described by a multi-color black-body model with a temperature gradient as a function of accretion disk radius significantly flatter than expected for a standard thin accretion disk (T(r) ~ r^{-p}, with p=0.608^{+0.014}_{-0.012}). Additionally, we detect a hard power-law tail at energies above 10 keV, which we interpret as being due to Comptonization. We compare this observation to archival XMM-Newton, Chandra, and NuSTAR data from 2003, 2012, and 2013, and investigate possible spectral changes as a function of phase over the 78d super-orbital period of this source. We find that observations taken around phases 0.3-0.4 show very similar temperature profiles, even though the observed flux varies significantly, while one observation taken around phase 0 has a significantly steeper profile. We discuss these findings in light of the recent discovery that the compact object is a neutron star and show that precession of the accretion disk or the neutron star can self-consistently explain most observed phenomena.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, submitted to ApJ; comments welcom

Rainfall Modelling with a Transect View in Ghana

Rainfall variability is an inherent part of African climate. This variability has important implications for food production and general livelihoods in countries such as Ghana. 53 years of rainfall data for 15 stations were obtained from the Ghana Meteorological Agency and used to describe the variability in the pattern of rainfall in Ghana. The direct method was used to analyse the annual rainfall totals and the total number of rainy days. A Markov chain modelling approach, which involves the fitting of harmonic regression curves to model the probability of rain within the year was also used. The effects of the previous rainy day was obtained throughout the year. The first order Markov model for each station was significant with the probability of rain given dry being higher than the probability of rain given rain in the north, while the probability of rain given rain was higher than the probability of rain given dry in the south

Near-Infrared Photometry of the High-Redshift Quasar RDJ030117+002025: Evidence for a Massive Starburst at z=5.5

With a redshift of z=5.5 and an optical blue magnitude M_B ~ -24.2 mag (~4.5 10^12 L_sun), RDJ030117+002025 is the most distant optically faint (M_B > -26 mag) quasar known. MAMBO continuum observations at lambda=1.2 mm (185 micrometer rest-frame) showed that this quasar has a far-IR luminosity comparable to its optical luminosity. We present near-infrared J- and K-band photometry obtained with NIRC on the Keck I telescope, tracing the slope of the rest frame UV spectrum of this quasar. The observed spectral index is close to the value of alpha_nu ~ -0.44 measured in composite spectra of optically-bright SDSS quasars. It thus appears that the quasar does not suffer from strong dust extinction, which further implies that its low rest-frame UV luminosity is due to an intrinsically-faint AGN. The FIR to optical luminosity ratio is then much larger than that observed for the more luminous quasars, supporting the suggestion that the FIR emission is not powered by the AGN but by a massive starburst.Comment: 6 pages, APJ in pres

Modeling the coma of 2060 Chiron

Observations of comet-like activity and a resolved coma have established that 2060 Chiron is a comet. Determinations of its radius range from 65 to 200 km. This unusually large size for a comet suggests that the atmosphere of Chiron is intermediate to the tightly bound, thin atmospheres typical of planets and satellite and the greatly extended atmospheres in free expansion typical of cometary comae. Under certain conditions it may gravitationally bind an atmosphere that is thick compared to its size, while a significant amount of gas escapes to an extensive exosphere. These attributes coupled with reports of sporadic outbursts at large heliocentric distances and the identification of CN in the coma make Chiron a challenging object to model. Simple models of gas production and the dusty coma were recently presented but a general concensus on many basic features has not emerged. Development was begun on a more complete coma model of Chiron. The objectives are to report progress on this model and give the preliminary results for understanding Chiron

Broad Iron Emission from Gravitationally Lensed Quasars Observed by Chandra

Recent work has demonstrated the potential of gravitationally lensed quasars to extend measurements of black hole spin out to high-redshift with the current generation of X-ray observatories. Here we present an analysis of a large sample of 27 lensed quasars in the redshift range 1.0<z<4.5 observed with Chandra, utilizing over 1.6 Ms of total observing time, focusing on the rest-frame iron K emission from these sources. Although the X-ray signal-to-noise (S/N) currently available does not permit the detection of iron emission from the inner accretion disk in individual cases in our sample, we find significant structure in the stacked residuals. In addition to the narrow core, seen almost ubiquitously in local AGN, we find evidence for an additional underlying broad component from the inner accretion disk, with a clear red wing to the emission profile. Based on simulations, we find the detection of this broader component to be significant at greater than the 3-sigma level. This implies that iron emission from the inner disk is relatively common in the population of lensed quasars, and in turn further demonstrates that, with additional observations, this population represents an opportunity to significantly extend the sample of AGN spin measurements out to high-redshift.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in Ap

Dual Instantons

We show how to map the Belavin-Polyakov instantons of the O(3)-nonlinear $\sigma-$model to a dual theory where they then appear as nontopological solitons. They are stationary points of the Euclidean action in the dual theory, and moreover, the dual action and the O(3)-nonlinear $\sigma-$model action agree on shell.Comment: 13 page

Wide-field mid-infrared and millimetre imaging of the high-redshift radio galaxy, 4C41.17

We present deep 350- and 1200-micron imaging of the region around 4C41.17 -- one of the most distant (z = 3.792) and luminous known radio galaxies -- obtained with the Submillimeter High Angular Resolution Camera (SHARC-II) and the Max Planck Millimeter Bolometer Array (MAMBO). The radio galaxy is robustly detected at 350- and 1200-micron, as are two nearby 850-micron-selected galaxies; a third 850-micron source is detected at 350-micron and coincides with a ~ 2-sigma feature in the 1200-micron map. Further away from the radio galaxy an additional nine sources are detected at 1200-micron, bringing the total number of detected (sub)millimeter selected galaxies (SMGs) in this field to 14. Using radio images from the Very Large Array (VLA) and Spitzer mid-infrared (mid-IR) data, we find statistically robust radio and/or 24-micron counterparts to eight of the 14 SMGs in the field around 4C41.17. Follow-up spectroscopy with Keck/LRIS has yielded redshifts for three of the eight robustly identified SMGs, placing them in the redshift range 0.5 < z < 2.7, i.e. well below that of 4C41.17. We infer photometric redshifts for a further four sources using their 1.6-micron (rest-frame) stellar feature as probed by the IRAC bands; only one of them is likely to be at the same redshift as 4C41.17. Thus at least four, and as many as seven, of the SMGs within the 4C41.17 field are physically unrelated to the radio galaxy. With the redshift information at hand we are able to constrain the observed over-densities of SMGs within radial bins stretching to R=50 and 100" (~ 0.4 and ~ 0.8Mpc at z ~ 3.8) from the radio galaxy to ~ 5x and ~ 2x that of the field, dropping off to the background value at R=150". [Abridged]Comment: 20 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA