61,154 research outputs found
Universal features of electron-phonon interactions in atomic wires
The effect of electron-phonon interactions in the conductance through
metallic atomic wires is theoretically analyzed. The proposed model allows to
consider an atomic size region electrically and mechanically coupled to bulk
electrodes. We show that under rather general conditions the features due to
electron-phonon coupling are described by universal functions of the system
transmission coefficients. It is predicted that the reduction of the
conductance due to electron-phonon coupling which is observed close to perfect
transmission should evolve into an enhancement at low transmission. This
crossover can be understood in a transparent way as arising from the
competition between elastic and inelastic processes.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure
Evidence for a resonant cyclotron line in IGR J16493-4348 from the Swift-BAT hard X-ray survey
Resonant absorption cyclotron features are a key diagnostic tool to directly
measure the strength of the magnetic field of accreting neutron stars. However,
typical values for cyclotron features lie in the high-energy part of the
spectrum between 20 keV and 50 keV, where detection is often damped by the low
statistics from single pointed observations. We show that long-term monitoring
campaign performed with Swift-BAT of persistently, but faint, accreting
high-mass X-ray binaries is able to reveal in their spectra the presence of
cyclotron features. We extracted the average Swift-BAT 15-150 keV spectrum from
the 54 months long Swift-BAT survey of the high-mass X-ray source IGR
J16493-4348. To constrain the broadband spectrum we used soft X-ray spectra
from Swift-XRT and Suzaku pointed observations. We model the spectra using a
set of phenomenological models usually adopted to describe the energy spectrum
of accreting high-mass X-ray binaries; irrespective of the models we used, we
found significant improvements in the spectral fits adding to the models a
broad (10 keV width) absorption feature, with best-fitting energy estimate
between 30 and 33 keV, that we interpret as evidence for a resonant cyclotron
absorption feature. We also discuss instrumental issues related to the use of
Swift-BAT for this kind of studies and the statistical method to weight the
confidence level of this detection. Correcting for the gravitational redshift
of a 1.4 M_{\sun} neutron star, the inferred surface magnetic field is Bsurf
3.7 x 10^{12} Gauss. The spectral parameters of IGR J16493-4348 fit well with
empirical correlations observed when the whole sample of high-mass binaries
with detected cyclotron features is considered.Comment: Published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, 2011, 532, A7
The Swift view of Supergiant Fast X-ray Transients
We report here on the recent results of a monitoring campaign we have been
carrying out with Swift/XRT on a sample of four Supergiant Fast X-ray
Transients. The main goal of this large programme (with a net Swift/XRT
exposure of 540 ks, updated to 2009, August, 31) is to address several main
open issues related to this new class of High Mass X-ray Binaries hosting OB
supergiant stars as companions. Here we summarize the most important results
obtained between October 2007 and August 2009.Comment: Published on the Proceedings of the conference X-Ray Astronomy 2009,
Present Status, multiwavelenght approach and future perspectives, September 7
- 11, 2009, Bologna, Italy. Revised version according to the referee's repor
- …