35,854 research outputs found
Precise Ages of Field Stars from White Dwarf Companions
Observational tests of stellar and Galactic chemical evolution call for the
joint knowledge of a star's physical parameters, detailed element abundances,
and precise age. For cool main-sequence (MS) stars the abundances of many
elements can be measured from spectroscopy, but ages are very hard to
determine. The situation is different if the MS star has a white dwarf (WD)
companion and a known distance, as the age of such a binary system can then be
determined precisely from the photometric properties of the cooling WD. As a
pilot study for obtaining precise age determinations of field MS stars, we
identify nearly one hundred candidates for such wide binary systems: a faint WD
whose GPS1 proper motion matches that of a brighter MS star in Gaia/TGAS with a
good parallax (). We model the WD's multi-band
photometry with the BASE-9 code using this precise distance (assumed to be
common for the pair) and infer ages for each binary system. The resulting age
estimates are precise to () for () MS-WD systems.
Our analysis more than doubles the number of MS-WD systems with precise
distances known to date, and it boosts the number of such systems with precise
age determination by an order of magnitude. With the advent of the Gaia DR2
data, this approach will be applicable to a far larger sample, providing ages
for many MS stars (that can yield detailed abundances for over 20 elements),
especially in the age range 2 to 8\,\Gyr, where there are only few known star
clusters.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures, 1 catalog; Submitted to Ap
Electronic heat current rectification in hybrid superconducting devices
In this work, we review and expand recent theoretical proposals for the
realization of electronic thermal diodes based on tunnel-junctions of normal
metal and superconducting thin films. Starting from the basic rectifying
properties of a single hybrid tunnel junction, we will show how the
rectification efficiency can be largely increased by combining multiple
junctions in an asymmetric chain of tunnel-coupled islands. We propose three
different designs, analyzing their performance and their potential advantages.
Besides being relevant from a fundamental physics point of view, this kind of
devices might find important technological application as fundamental building
blocks in solid-state thermal nanocircuits and in general-purpose cryogenic
electronic applications requiring energy management.Comment: 9 pages, 5 color figure
Topology of Entanglement in Multipartite States with Translational Invariance
The topology of entanglement in multipartite states with translational
invariance is discussed in this article. Two global features are foundby which
one can distinguish distinct states. These are the cyclic unit and the
quantised geometric phase. Furthermore the topology is indicated by the
fractional spin. Finally a scheme is presented for preparation of these types
of states in spin chain systems, in which the degeneracy of the energy levels
characterises the robustness of the states with translational invariance.Comment: major revision. accepted by EPJ
Observations of Subarcsecond Bright Dots in the Transition Region above Sunspots with the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph
Observations with the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) have
revealed numerous sub-arcsecond bright dots in the transition region above
sunspots. These bright dots are seen in the 1400\AA{} and 1330\AA{} slit-jaw
images. They are clearly present in all sunspots we investigated, mostly in the
penumbrae, but also occasionally in some umbrae and light bridges. The bright
dots in the penumbrae typically appear slightly elongated, with the two
dimensions being 300--600 km and 250--450 km, respectively. The long sides of
these dots are often nearly parallel to the bright filamentary structures in
the penumbrae but sometimes clearly deviate from the radial direction. Their
lifetimes are mostly less than one minute, although some dots last for a few
minutes or even longer. Their intensities are often a few times stronger than
the intensities of the surrounding environment in the slit-jaw images. About
half of the bright dots show apparent movement with speeds of
10--40~km~s in the radial direction. Spectra of a few bright dots
were obtained and the Si~{\sc{iv}}~1402.77\AA{} line profiles in these dots are
significantly broadened. The line intensity can be enhanced by one to two
orders of magnitude. Some relatively bright and long-lasting dots are also
observed in several passbands of the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly onboard the
Solar Dynamics Observatory, and they appear to be located at the bases of
loop-like structures. Many of these bright dots are likely associated with
small-scale energy release events at the transition region footpoints of
magnetic loops.Comment: 5 figures, will appear in ApJ
The K\"ahler-Ricci flow on surfaces of positive Kodaira dimension
The existence of K\"ahler-Einstein metrics on a compact K\"ahler manifold has
been the subject of intensive study over the last few decades, following Yau's
solution to Calabi's conjecture. The Ricci flow, introduced by Richard Hamilton
has become one of the most powerful tools in geometric analysis.
We study the K\"ahler-Ricci flow on minimal surfaces of Kodaira dimension one
and show that the flow collapses and converges to a unique canonical metric on
its canonical model. Such a canonical is a generalized K\"ahler-Einstein
metric. Combining the results of Cao, Tsuji, Tian and Zhang, we give a metric
classification for K\"aher surfaces with a numerical effective canonical line
bundle by the K\"ahler-Ricci flow. In general, we propose a program of finding
canonical metrics on canonical models of projective varieties of positive
Kodaira dimension
Charged and spin-excitation gaps in half-filled strongly correlated electron systems: A rigorous result
By exploiting the particle-hole symmetries of the Hubbard model, the periodic
Anderson model and the Kondo lattice model at half-filling and applying a
generalized version of Lieb's spin-reflection positivity method, we show that
the charged gaps of these models are always larger than their spin excitation
gaps. This theorem confirms the previous results derived by either the
variational approach or the density renormalization group approach.Comment: 20 pages, no figur
A compactness theorem for complete Ricci shrinkers
We prove precompactness in an orbifold Cheeger-Gromov sense of complete
gradient Ricci shrinkers with a lower bound on their entropy and a local
integral Riemann bound. We do not need any pointwise curvature assumptions,
volume or diameter bounds. In dimension four, under a technical assumption, we
can replace the local integral Riemann bound by an upper bound for the Euler
characteristic. The proof relies on a Gauss-Bonnet with cutoff argument.Comment: 28 pages, final version, to appear in GAF
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