3,163 research outputs found
On the equipartition of thermal and non-thermal energy in clusters of galaxies
Clusters of galaxies are revealing themselves as powerful sources of non
thermal radiation in a wide range of wavelengths. In order to account for these
multifrequency observations equipartition of cosmic rays (CRs) with the thermal
gas in clusters of galaxies is often invoked. This condition might suggest a
dynamical role played by cosmic rays in the virialization of these large scale
structures and is now testable through gamma ray observations. We show here, in
the specific case of the Coma and Virgo clusters, for which upper limits on the
gamma ray emission exist, that equipartition implies gamma ray fluxes that are
close or even in excess of the EGRET limit, depending on the adopted model of
CR injection. We use this bound to limit the validity of the equipartition
condition. We also show that, contrary to what claimed in previous
calculations, the equipartition assumption implies gamma ray fluxes in the TeV
range which can be detectable even by currently operating gamma ray
observatories if the injection cosmic ray spectrum is flatter than .Comment: 20 pages + 2 figures. To appear in the Astrophysical Journa
The Effect of a Non-Thermal Tail on the Sunyaev-Zeldovich Effect in clusters of galaxies
We study the spectral distortions of the cosmic microwave background
radiation induced by the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) effect in clusters of galaxies
when the target electrons have a modified Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution with a
high-energy non-thermal tail. Bremsstrahlung radiation from this type of \\
electron distribution may explain the supra-thermal X-ray emission observed in
some clusters such as the Coma cluster and A2199 and serve as an alternative to
the classical but problematic inverse Compton scattering interpretation. We
show that the SZ effect can be used as a powerful tool to probe the electron
distribution in clusters of galaxies and discriminate among these different
interpretations of the X-ray excess. The existence of a non-thermal tail can
have important consequences for cluster based estimators of cosmological
parameters.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figures, version to be published in ApJ. Let
Finiteness of quantum gravity coupled with matter in three spacetime dimensions
As it stands, quantum gravity coupled with matter in three spacetime
dimensions is not finite. In this paper I show that an algorithmic procedure
that makes it finite exists, under certain conditions. To achieve this result,
gravity is coupled with an interacting conformal field theory C. The Newton
constant and the marginal parameters of C are taken as independent couplings.
The values of the other irrelevant couplings are determined iteratively in the
loop- and energy-expansions, imposing that their beta functions vanish. The
finiteness equations are solvable thanks to the following properties: the beta
functions of the irrelevant couplings have a simple structure; the irrelevant
terms made with the Riemann tensor can be reabsorbed by means of field
redefinitions; the other irrelevant terms have, generically, non-vanishing
anomalous dimensions. The perturbative expansion is governed by an effective
Planck mass that takes care of the interactions in the matter sector. As an
example, I study gravity coupled with Chern-Simons U(1) gauge theory with
massless fermions, solve the finiteness equations and determine the
four-fermion couplings to two-loop order. The construction of this paper does
not immediately apply to four-dimensional quantum gravity.Comment: 21 pages, 3 figures; typos corrected, NPB versio
Pierre Auger Data, Photons, and Top-Down Cosmic Ray Models
We consider the ultra-high energy cosmic ray (UHECR) spectrum as measured by
the Pierre Auger Observatory. Top-down models for the origin of UHECRs predict
an increasing photon component at energies above about eV. Here we
present a simple prescription to compare the Auger data with a prediction
assuming a pure proton component or a prediction assuming a changing primary
component appropriate for a top-down model. We find that the UHECR spectrum
predicted in top-down models is a good fit to the Auger data. Eventually, Auger
will measure a composition-independent spectrum and will be capable of either
confirming or excluding the quantity of photons predicted in top-down models.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figure
Reduced neural sensitivity to social stimuli in infants at risk for autism
In the hope of discovering early markers of autism, attention has recently turned to the study of infants at risk owing to being the younger siblings of children with autism. Because the condition is highly heritable, later-born siblings of diagnosed children are at substantially higher risk for developing autism or the broader autism phenotype than the general population. Currently, there are no strong predictors of autism in early infancy and diagnosis is not reliable until around 3 years of age. Because indicators of brain functioning may be sensitive predictors, and atypical social interactions are characteristic of the syndrome, we examined whether temporal lobe specialization for processing visual and auditory social stimuli during infancy differs in infants at risk. In a functional near-infrared spectroscopy study, infants aged 4–6 months at risk for autism showed less selective neural responses to social stimuli (auditory and visual) than low-risk controls. These group differences could not be attributed to overall levels of attention, developmental stage or chronological age. Our results provide the first demonstration of specific differences in localizable brain function within the first 6 months of life in a group of infants at risk for autism. Further, these differences closely resemble known patterns of neural atypicality in children and adults with autism. Future work will determine whether these differences in infant neural responses to social stimuli predict either later autism or the broader autism phenotype frequently seen in unaffected family members
Identifying Nearby UHECR Accelerators using UHE (and VHE) Photons
Ultra-high energy photons (UHE, E > 10^19 eV) are inevitably produced during
the propagation of 10^20 eV protons in extragalactic space. Their short
interaction lengths (<20 Mpc) at these energies, combined with the impressive
sensitivity of the Pierre Auger Observatory detector to these particles, makes
them an ideal probe of nearby ultra-high-energy cosmic ray (UHECR) sources. We
here discuss the particular case of photons from a single nearby (within 30
Mpc) source in light of the possibility that such an object might be
responsible for several of the UHECR events published by the Auger
collaboration. We demonstrate that the photon signal accompanying a cluster of
a few > 6x10^19 eV UHECRs from such a source should be detectable by Auger in
the near future. The detection of these photons would also be a signature of a
light composition of the UHECRs from the nearby source.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in PR
EVN observations of 6.7 GHz methanol maser polarization in massive star-forming regions III. The flux-limited sample
Theoretical simulations and observations at different angular resolutions
have shown that magnetic fields have a central role in massive star formation.
Like in low-mass star formation, the magnetic field in massive young stellar
objects can either be oriented along the outflow axis or randomly. Measuring
the magnetic field at milliarcsecond resolution (10-100 au) around a
substantial number of massive young stellar objects permits determining with a
high statistical significance whether the direction of the magnetic field is
correlated with the orientation of the outflow axis or not. In late 2012, we
started a large VLBI campaign with the European VLBI Network to measure the
linearly and circularly polarized emission of 6.7 GHz methanol masers around a
sample of massive star-forming regions. This paper focuses on the first seven
observed sources, G24.78+0.08, G25.65+1.05, G29.86-0.04, G35.03+0.35,
G37.43+1.51, G174.20-0.08, and G213.70-12.6. For all these sources, molecular
outflows have been detected in the past. We detected a total of 176 methanol
masing cloudlets toward the seven massive star-forming regions, 19% of which
show linearly polarized emission. The methanol masers around the massive young
stellar object MM1 in G174.20-0.08 show neither linearly nor circularly
polarized emission. The linear polarization vectors are well ordered in all the
other massive young stellar objects. We measured significant Zeeman splitting
toward both A1 and A2 in G24.78+0.08, and toward G29.86-0.04 and G213.70-12.6.
By considering all the 19 massive young stellar objects reported in the
literature for which both the orientation of the magnetic field at
milliarcsecond resolution and the orientation of outflow axes are known, we
find evidence that the magnetic field (on scales 10-100 au) is preferentially
oriented along the outflow axes.Comment: 17 pages, 10 figures, 9 tables, accepted by Astronomy & Astrophysics.
arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1306.633
Comparison of Different Methods for Nonlinear Diffusive Shock Acceleration
We provide a both qualitative and quantitative comparison among different
approaches aimed to solve the problem of non-linear diffusive acceleration of
particles at shocks. In particular, we show that state-of-the-art models
(numerical, Monte Carlo and semi-analytical), even if based on different
physical assumptions and implementations, for typical environmental parameters
lead to very consistent results in terms of shock hydrodynamics, cosmic ray
spectrum and also escaping flux spectrum and anisotropy. Strong points and
limits of each approach are also discussed, as a function of the problem one
wants to study.Comment: 26 pages, 4 figures, published version (references updated
Axiflavon-Higgs Unification
In this talk, a unified model of scalar particles that addresses the flavour hierarchies, solves the strong CP problem, delivers a dark matter candidate, and radiatively triggers electroweak symmetry breaking is discussed. The recently proposed axiflavon is embedded together with an (elementary) Goldstone Higgs-sector in a single multiplet (and thereby also a model of flavour and strong CP conservation for the latter is provided). Bounds on the axion decay constant follow from requiring a SM-like Higgs potential at low energies and are confronted with constraints from flavour physics and astrophysics. In the minimal implementation, the axion decay constant is restricted to GeV, while adding right-handed neutrinos allows for a heavy-axion model at lower energies, down to TeV
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