Three-body treatment of the penetration through the Coulomb field of a two-fragment nucleus

On the basis of the Faddeev integral equations method and the Watson- Feshbach concept of the effective (optical) interaction potential, the first fully consistent three-body approach to the description of the penetration of a charged particle through the Coulomb field of a two-particle bound complex (composed of one charged and one neutral particles) has been developed. A general formalism has been elaborated and on its basis, to a first approximation in the Sommerfeld parameter, the influence of the nuclear structure on the probability of the penetration of a charged particle (the muon, the pion, the kaon and the proton) through the Gamow barrier of a two-fragment nucleus (the deuteron and the two lightest lambda hypernuclei, lambda hypertriton and lambda hyperhelium-5, has been calculated and studied.Comment: LaTeX, 30 pages, 4 eps figure

OVII and OVIII line emission in the diffuse soft X-ray background: heliospheric and galactic contributions

We study the 0.57 keV (O VII triplet) and 0.65 keV (O VIII) diffuse emission generated by charge transfer collisions between solar wind (SW) oxygen ions and interstellar H and He neutral atoms in the inner Heliosphere. These lines which dominate the 0.3-1.0 keV energy interval are also produced by hot gas in the galactic halo (GH) and possibly the Local Interstellar Bubble (LB). We developed a time-dependent model of the SW Charge-Exchange (SWCX) X-ray emission, based on the localization of the SW Parker spiral at each instant. We include input SW conditions affecting three selected fields, as well as shadowing targets observed with XMM-Newton, Chandra and Suzaku and calculate X-ray emission fot O VII and O VIII lines. We determine SWCX contamination and residual emission to attribute to the galactic soft X-ray background. We obtain ground level intensities and/or simulated lightcurves for each target and compare to X-ray data. The local 3/4 keV emission (O VII and O VIII) detected in front of shadowing clouds is found to be entirely explained by the CX heliospheric emission. No emission from the LB is needed at these energies. Using the model predictions we subtract the heliospheric contribution to the measured emission and derive the halo contribution. We also correct for an error in the preliminary analysis of the Hubble Deep Field North (HDFN).Comment: 21 pages (3 on-line), 10 figures (4 on-line), accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysic

Theory and simulation of spectral line broadening by exoplanetary atmospheric haze

Atmospheric haze is the leading candidate for the flattening of expolanetary spectra, as it's also an important source of opacity in the atmospheres of solar system planets, satellites, and comets. Exoplanetary transmission spectra, which carry information about how the planetary atmospheres become opaque to stellar light in transit, show broad featureless absorption in the region of wavelengths corresponding to spectral lines of sodium, potassium and water. We develop a detailed atomistic model, describing interactions of atomic or molecular radiators with dust and atmospheric haze particulates. This model incorporates a realistic structure of haze particulates from small nano-size seed particles up to sub-micron irregularly shaped aggregates, accounting for both pairwise collisions between the radiator and haze perturbers, and quasi-static mean field shift of levels in haze environments. This formalism can explain large flattening of absorption and emission spectra in haze atmospheres and shows how the radiator - haze particle interaction affects the absorption spectral shape in the wings of spectral lines and near their centers. The theory can account for nearly all realistic structure, size and chemical composition of haze particulates and predict their influence on absorption and emission spectra in hazy environments. We illustrate the utility of the method by computing shift and broadening of the emission spectra of the sodium D line in an argon haze. The simplicity, elegance and generality of the proposed model should make it amenable to a broad community of users in astrophysics and chemistry.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figures, submitted to MNRA