27,402 research outputs found
Transport coefficients of heavy quarks around at finite quark chemical potential
The interactions of heavy quarks with the partonic environment at finite
temperature and finite quark chemical potential are investigated in
terms of transport coefficients within the Dynamical Quasi-Particle model
(DQPM) designed to reproduce the lattice-QCD results (including the partonic
equation of state) in thermodynamic equilibrium. These results are confronted
with those of nuclear many-body calculations close to the critical temperature
. The hadronic and partonic spatial diffusion coefficients join smoothly
and show a pronounced minimum around , at as well as at finite
. Close and above its absolute value matches the lQCD calculations
for . The smooth transition of the heavy quark transport coefficients
from the hadronic to the partonic medium corresponds to a cross over in line
with lattice calculations, and differs substantially from perturbative QCD
(pQCD) calculations which show a large discontinuity at . This indicates
that in the vicinity of dynamically dressed massive partons and not
massless pQCD partons are the effective degrees-of-freedom in the quark-gluon
plasma.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Particle Dark Energy
We explore the physics of a gas of particles interacting with a condensate
that spontaneously breaks Lorentz invariance. The equation of state of this gas
varies from 1/3 to less than -1 and can lead to the observed cosmic
acceleration. The particles are always stable. In our particular class of
models these particles are fermions with a chiral coupling to the condensate.
They may behave as relativistic matter at early times, produce a brief period
where they dominate the expansion with w<0 today, and behave as matter at late
time. There are no small parameters in our models, which generically lead to
dark energy clustering and, depending on the choice of parameters, smoothing of
small scale power.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures; minor update with added refs; version appearing
in Phys. Rev.
What causes the large extensions of red-supergiant atmospheres? Comparisons of interferometric observations with 1-D hydrostatic, 3-D convection, and 1-D pulsating model atmospheres
We present the atmospheric structure and the fundamental parameters of three
red supergiants, increasing the sample of RSGs observed by near-infrared
spectro-interferometry. Additionally, we test possible mechanisms that may
explain the large observed atmospheric extensions of RSGs.
We carried out spectro-interferometric observations of 3 RSGs in the
near-infrared K-band with the VLTI/AMBER instrument at medium spectral
resolution. To comprehend the extended atmospheres, we compared our
observational results to predictions by available hydrostatic PHOENIX,
available 3-D convection, and new 1-D self-excited pulsation models of RSGs.
Our near-infrared flux spectra are well reproduced by the PHOENIX model
atmospheres. The continuum visibility values are consistent with a
limb-darkened disk as predicted by the PHOENIX models, allowing us to determine
the angular diameter and the fundamental parameters of our sources.
Nonetheless, in the case of V602 Car and HD 95686, the PHOENIX model
visibilities do not predict the large observed extensions of molecular layers,
most remarkably in the CO bands. Likewise, the 3-D convection models and the
1-D pulsation models with typical parameters of RSGs lead to compact
atmospheric structures as well, which are similar to the structure of the
hydrostatic PHOENIX models. They can also not explain the observed decreases in
the visibilities and thus the large atmospheric molecular extensions. The full
sample of our RSGs indicates increasing observed atmospheric extensions with
increasing luminosity and decreasing surface gravity, and no correlation with
effective temperature or variability amplitude, which supports a scenario of
radiative acceleration on Doppler-shifted molecular lines.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&
On the binary nature of 1RXS J162848.1-415241
We present spectroscopy of the optical counterpart to 1RXS J162848.1-41524,
also known as the microquasar candidate MCQC J162847-4152. All the data
indicate that this X-ray source is not a microquasar, and that it is a
single-lined chromospherically active binary system with a likely orbital
period of 4.9 days. Our analysis supports a K3IV spectral classification for
the star, which is dominant at optical wavelengths. The unseen binary component
is most likely a late-type (K7-M) dwarf or a white dwarf. Using the high
resolution spectra we have measured the K3 star's rotational broadening to be
vsini = 43 +/- 3 km/s and determined a lower limit to the binary mass ratio of
q(=M2/M1)>2.0. The high rotational broadening together with the strong CaII H &
K / Halpha emission and high-amplitude photometric variations indicate that the
evolved star is very chromospherically active and responsible for the
X-ray/radio emission.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in Ap
Chandra observations of the millisecond X-ray pulsar IGR J00291+5934 in quiescence
In this Paper we report on our analysis of three Chandra observations of the
accretion-powered millisecond X-ray pulsar IGR J00291+5934 obtained during the
late stages of the 2004 outburst. We also report the serendipitous detection of
the source in quiescence by ROSAT during MJD 48830-48839. The detected 0.3-10
keV source count rates varied significantly between the Chandra observations
from (7.2+-1.2)x10^-3, (6.8+-0.9)x10^-3, and (1.4+-0.1)x10^-2 counts per second
for the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Chandra observation, on MJD 53371.88, 53383.99, and
53407.57, respectively. The count rate for the 3rd observation is 2.0+-0.4
times as high as that of the average of the first two observations. The
unabsorbed 0.5-10 keV source flux for the best-fit power-law model to the
source spectrum was (7.9+-2.5)x10^-14, (7.3+-2.0)x10^-14, and
(1.17+-0.22)x10^-13 erg cm^-2 s^-1 for the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Chandra
observation, respectively. We find that this source flux is consistent with
that found by ROSAT [~(5.4+-2.4)x10^-14 erg cm^-2 s^-1]. Under the assumption
that the interstellar extinction, N_H, does not vary between the observations,
we find that the blackbody temperature during the 2nd Chandra observation is
significantly higher than that during the 1st and 3rd observation. Furthermore,
the effective temperature of the neutron star derived from fitting an absorbed
blackbody or neutron star atmosphere model to the data is rather high in
comparison with many other neutron star soft X-ray transients in quiescence,
even during the 1st and 3rd observation. If we assume that the source quiescent
luminosity is similar to that measured for two other accretion powered
millisecond pulsars in quiescence, the distance to IGR J00291+5934 is 2.6-3.6
kpc.Comment: 7 pages, 3 Figures, accepted for publication in MNRA
Micromagnetic understanding of stochastic resonance driven by spin-transfertorque
In this paper, we employ micromagnetic simulations to study non-adiabatic
stochastic resonance (NASR) excited by spin-transfer torque in a
super-paramagnetic free layer nanomagnet of a nanoscale spin valve. We find
that NASR dynamics involves thermally activated transitions among two static
states and a single dynamic state of the nanomagnet and can be well understood
in the framework of Markov chain rate theory. Our simulations show that a
direct voltage generated by the spin valve at the NASR frequency is at least
one order of magnitude greater than the dc voltage generated off the NASR
frequency. Our computations also reproduce the main experimentally observed
features of NASR such as the resonance frequency, the temperature dependence
and the current bias dependence of the resonance amplitude. We propose a simple
design of a microwave signal detector based on NASR driven by spin transfer
torque.Comment: 25 pages 8 figures, accepted for pubblication on Phys. Rev.
Spatio-temporal vortex beams and angular momentum
We present a space-time generalization of the known spatial (monochromatic)
wave vortex beams carrying intrinsic orbital angular momentum (OAM) along the
propagation direction. Generic spatio-temporal vortex beams are polychromatic
and can carry intrinsic OAM at an arbitrary angle to the mean momentum.
Applying either (i) a transverse wave-vector shift or (ii) a Lorentz boost to a
monochromatic Bessel beam, we construct a family of either (i) time-diffracting
or (ii) non-diffracting spatio-temporal Bessel beams, which are exact solutions
of the Klein-Gordon wave equations. The proposed spatio-temporal OAM states are
able to describe either photon or electron vortex states (both relativistic and
nonrelativistic), and can find applications in particle collisions, optics of
moving media, quantum communications, and astrophysics.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev.
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