139 research outputs found
Breit-Wigner Enhancement of Dark Matter Annihilation
We point out that annihilation of dark matter in the galactic halo can be
enhanced relative to that in the early universe due to a Breit-Wigner tail, if
the dark matter annihilates through a pole just below the threshold. This
provides a new explanation to the "boost factor" which is suggested by the
recent data of the PAMELA, ATIC and PPB-BETS cosmic-ray experiments.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Explosive Nucleosynthesis in GRB Jets Accompanied by Hypernovae
Two-dimensional hydrodynamic simulations are performed to investigate
explosive nucleosynthesis in a collapsar using the model of MacFadyen and
Woosley (1999). It is shown that 56Ni is not produced in the jet of the
collapsar sufficiently to explain the observed amount of a hypernova when the
duration of the explosion is \sim 10 sec, which is considered to be the typical
timescale of explosion in the collapsar model. Even though a considerable
amount of 56Ni is synthesized if all explosion energy is deposited initially,
the opening angles of the jets become too wide to realize highly relativistic
outflows and gamma-ray bursts in such a case. From these results, it is
concluded that the origin of 56Ni in hypernovae associated with GRBs is not the
explosive nucleosynthesis in the jet. We consider that the idea that the origin
is the explosive nucleosynthesis in the accretion disk is more promising. We
also show that the explosion becomes bi-polar naturally due to the effect of
the deformed progenitor. This fact suggests that the 56Ni synthesized in the
accretion disk and conveyed as outflows are blown along to the rotation axis,
which will explain the line features of SN 1998bw and double peaked line
features of SN 2003jd. Some fraction of the gamma-ray lines from 56Ni decays in
the jet will appear without losing their energies because the jet becomes
optically thin before a considerable amount of 56Ni decays as long as the jet
is a relativistic flow. We show that abundance of nuclei whose mass number \sim
40 in the ejecta depends sensitively on the energy deposition rate. So it may
be determined by observations of chemical composition in metal poor stars which
model is the proper one as a model of a gamma-ray burst accompanied by a
hypernova.Comment: 29 pages with 16 figures. ApJ, accepte
Numerical Study on GRB-Jet Formation in Collapsars
Two-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic simulations are performed using the
ZEUS-2D code to investigate the dynamics of a collapsar that generates a GRB
jet, taking account of realistic equation of state, neutrino cooling and
heating processes, magnetic fields, and gravitational force from the central
black hole and self gravity. It is found that neutrino heating processes are
not so efficient to launch a jet in this study. It is also found that a jet is
launched mainly by B_\phi fields that are amplified by the winding-up effect.
However, since the ratio of total energy relative to the rest mass energy in
the jet is not so high as several hundred, we conclude that the jets seen in
this study are not be a GRB jet. This result suggests that general relativistic
effects, which are not included in this study, will be important to generate a
GRB jet. Also, the accretion disk with magnetic fields may still play an
important role to launch a GRB jet, although a simulation for much longer
physical time (\sim 10-100 s) is required to confirm this effect. It is shown
that considerable amount of 56Ni is synthesized in the accretion disk. Thus
there will be a possibility for the accretion disk to supply sufficient amount
of 56Ni required to explain the luminosity of a hypernova. Also, it is shown
that neutron-rich matter due to electron captures with high entropy per baryon
is ejected along the polar axis. Moreover, it is found that the electron
fraction becomes larger than 0.5 around the polar axis near the black hole by
\nu_e capture at the region. Thus there will be a possibility that r-process
and r/p-process nucleosynthesis occur at these regions. Finally, much neutrons
will be ejected from the jet, which suggests that signals from the neutron
decays may be observed as the delayed bump of afterglow or gamma-rays.Comment: 54 pages with 19 postscript figures. Accepted for publication in ApJ.
High resolution version is available at
http://www2.yukawa.kyoto-u.ac.jp/~nagataki/collapsar.pd
Studying Gaugino Mass in Semi-Direct Gauge Mediation
We study gaugino mass generation in the context of semi-direct gauge
mediation models, where the messengers are charged under both the hidden sector
and the standard model gauge groups while they do not play important roles in
dynamical supersymmetry breaking. We clarify the cancellation of the leading
contributions of the supersymmetry breaking effects to the gaugino mass in this
class of models in terms of the macroscopic effective theory of the hidden
sector dynamics. We also consider how to retrofit the model so that we obtain
the non-vanishing leading contribution to the gaugino mass.Comment: 14 page
Mass Hierarchy via Mossbauer and Reactor Neutrinos
We show how one could determine the neutrino mass hierarchy with Mossbauer
neutrinos and also revisit the question of whether the hierarchy can be
determined with reactor neutrinos.Comment: contribution to NOW 2008, 3 pages, 4 figures, late
Prospects for future very high-energy gamma-ray sky survey: impact of secondary gamma rays
Very high-energy gamma-ray measurements of distant blazars can be well
explained by secondary gamma rays emitted by cascades induced by
ultra-high-energy cosmic rays. The secondary gamma rays will enable one to
detect a large number of blazars with future ground based gamma-ray telescopes
such as Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA). We show that the secondary emission
process will allow CTA to detect 100, 130, 150, 87, and 8 blazars above 30 GeV,
100 GeV, 300 GeV, 1 TeV, and 10 TeV, respectively, up to assuming the
intergalactic magnetic field (IGMF) strength G and an unbiased all
sky survey with 0.5 hr exposure at each Field of View, where total observing
time is hr. These numbers will be 79, 96, 110, 63, and 6 up to
in the case of G. This large statistics of sources will
be a clear evidence of the secondary gamma-ray scenarios and a new key to
studying the IGMF statistically. We also find that a wider and shallower survey
is favored to detect more and higher redshift sources even if we take into
account secondary gamma rays.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in Astroparticle Physic
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Performance Study of Si/CdTe Semiconductor Compton Telescopes With Monte Carlo Simulation
Observation of thundercloud-related gamma rays and neutrons in Tibet
During the 2010 rainy season in Yangbajing (4300 m above sea level) in Tibet, China, a long-duration count enhancement associated with thunderclouds was detected by a solar-neutron telescope and neutron monitors installed at the Yangbajing Comic Ray Observatory. The event, lasting for ∼40 min, was observed on July 22, 2010. The solar-neutron telescope detected significant γ-ray signals with energies >40 MeV in the event. Such a prolonged high-energy event has never been observed in association with thunderclouds, clearly suggesting that electron acceleration lasts for 40 min in thunderclouds. In addition, Monte Carlo simulations showed that >10 MeV γ rays largely contribute to the neutron monitor signals, while >1 keV neutrons produced via a photonuclear reaction contribute relatively less to the signals. This result suggests that enhancements of neutron monitors during thunderstorms are not necessarily clear evidence for neutron production, as previously thought
Discovery of GeV Emission from the Circinus galaxy with the Fermi-LAT
We report the discovery of gamma-ray emission from the Circinus galaxy using
the Large Area Telescope (LAT) onboard the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope.
Circinus is a nearby (~4 Mpc) starburst with a heavily obscured Seyfert-type
active nucleus, bipolar radio lobes perpendicular to the spiral disk, and
kpc-scale jet-like structures. Our analysis of 0.1-100 GeV events collected
during 4 years of LAT observations reveals a significant (~ 7.3 sigma) excess
above the background. We find no indications of variability or spatial
extension beyond the LAT point-spread function. A power-law model used to
describe the 0.1-100 GeV gamma-ray spectrum yields a flux of
(18.8+/-5.8)x10^{-9} ph cm^{-2} s^{-1} and photon index 2.19+/-0.12,
corresponding to an isotropic gamma-ray luminosity of 3 x 10^{40} erg s^{-1}.
This observed gamma-ray luminosity exceeds the luminosity expected from
cosmic-ray interactions in the interstellar medium and inverse Compton
radiation from the radio lobes. Thus the origin of the GeV excess requires
further investigation.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical
Journa
Search for Oxygen Emission from Warm-Hot Intergalactic Medium around A2218 with Suzaku
We searched for redshifted O emission lines from the possible warm-hot
intergalactic medium (WHIM) surrounding the cluster of galaxies A2218 at
z=0.1756 using the XIS instrument on Suzaku. This cluster is thought to have an
elongated structure along the line of sight based on previous studies. We
studied systematic uncertainties in the spectrum of the Galactic emission and
in the soft X-ray response of the detectors due to the contamination building
up on the XIS filters. We detected no significant redshifted O lines, and set a
tight constraint on the intensity with upper limits for the surface brightness
of OVII and OVIII lines of 1.1 x 10^-7 and 3.0 x 10^-7 photons cm^-2 s^-1
arcmin^-2, respectively. These upper limits are significantly lower than the
previously reported fluxes from the WHIM around other clusters of galaxies. We
also discuss the prospect for the detection of the WHIM lines with Suzaku XIS
in the future.Comment: 12 pages, 13 figures. Accepted for publication in PASJ Suzaku special
issue (Vol.59, No.SP1
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