A Deep Optical Observation for an Enigmatic Unidentified Gamma-Ray Source 3EG J1835+5918

We report a deep optical imaging observation by the Subaru telescope for a very soft X-ray source RX J1836.2+5925, which has been suspected to be an isolated neutron star associated with the brightest as-yet unidentified EGRET source outside the Galactic plane, 3EG J1835+5918. An extended source having a complex, bipolar shape is found at B ~ 26, and this might be an extended pulsar nebular whose flux is about 5-6 orders of magnitude lower than gamma-ray flux, although finding a galaxy of this magnitude by chance in the error circle is of order unity. We have found two even fainter, possibly point sources at B ~ 28, although their detections are not firm because of low signal-to-noise. If the extended object of B ~ 26 is a galaxy and not related to 3EG J1835+5918, a lower limit on X-ray/optical flux ratio is set as f_X/f_B >~ 2700, giving a further strong support of the neutron-star identification of 3EG J1835+5918. Interestingly, if either of the two sources at B ~ 28 is the real counterpart of RX J1836.2+5925 and thermal emission from the surface of an isolated neutron star, the temperature and distance to the source become ~ 4 x 10^5K and ~300pc, respectively, showing a striking similarity of its spectral energy distribution to the proto-type radio-quiet gamma-ray pulsar Geminga. No detection of nonthermal hard X-ray emission is consistent with the ASCA upper limit, if the nonthermal flux of 3EG J1835+5918/RX J1836.2+5925 is at a similar level with that of Gemiga.Comment: PASJ Letters in press. (Received March 26; Accepted May 17

Positional Coincidence between the High-latitude Steady Unidentified Gamma-ray Sources and Possibly Merging Clusters of Galaxies

We report an evidence for the first time that merging clusters of galaxies are a promising candidate for the origin of high galactic-latitude, steady unidentified EGRET gamma-ray sources. Instead of using past optical catalogs of eye-selected clusters, we made a matched-filter survey of galaxy clusters over 4\arcdeg \times 4\arcdeg areas around seven steady unidentified EGRET sources at |b|>45\arcdeg together with a 100 \sq \arcdeg area near the South Galactic Pole as a control field. In total, 154 Abell-like cluster candidates and 18 close pairs/groups of these clusters, expected to be possibly merging clusters, were identified within estimated redshift $z_{est}\leq 0.15$. Five among the seven EGRET sources have one or two cluster pairs/groups (CPGs) within 1\arcdeg from them. We assess the statistical significance of this result by several methods, and the confidence level of the real excess is maximally 99.8% and 97.8% in a conservative method. In contrast, we found no significant correlation with single clusters. In addition to the spatial correlation, we also found that the richness of CPGs associated with EGRET sources is considerably larger than those of CPGs in the control field. These results imply that a part of the steady unidentified EGRET sources at high-latitude are physically associated with close CPGs, not with single clusters. We also discuss possible interpretations of these results. We argue that, if these associations are real, they are difficult to explain by hadronic processes, but best explained by the inverse-Compton scattering by high energy electrons accelerated in shocks of cluster formation, as recently proposed.Comment: 9 pages, 2 PostScript figures, uses emulateapj5.sty, added new analysis and discussion, ApJ accepte

Solving Cosmological Problems of Supersymmetric Axion Models in an Inflationary Universe

We revisit inflationary cosmology of axion models in the light of recent developments on the inflaton decay in supergravity. We find that all the cosmological difficulties, including gravitino, axino overproduction and axionic isocurvature fluctuation, can be avoided if the saxion field has large initial amplitude during inflation and decays before big-bang nucleosynthesis.Comment: 19 pages, 4 figure

Non-equilibrium critical behavior : An extended irreversible thermodynamics approach

Critical phenomena in non-equilibrium systems have been studied by means of a wide variety of theoretical and experimental approaches. Mode-coupling, renormalization group, complex Lie algebras and diagrammatic techniques are some of the usual theoretical tools. Experimental studies include light and inelastic neutron scattering, X-ray photon correlation spectroscopy, microwave interferometry and several other techniques. Nevertheless no conclusive reatment has been developed from the basic principles of a thermodynamic theory of irreversible processes. We have developed a formalism in which we obtain correlation functions as field averages of the associated functions. By applying such formalism we attempt to find out if the resulting correlation functions will inherit the mathematical properties (integrability, generalized homogeneity, scaling laws) of its parent potentials, and we will also use these correlation functions to study the behavior of macroscopic systems far from equilibrium, specially in the neighborhood of critical points or dynamic phase transitions. As a working example we will consider the mono-critical behavior of a non-equilibrium binary fluid mixture close to its consolute point.Comment: 23 pages, 3 figures, 1 tabl

Mode coupling theory in the FDR-preserving field theory of interacting Brownian particles

We develop a renormalized perturbation theory for the dynamics of interacting Brownian particles, which preserves the fluctuation-dissipation relation order by order. We then show that the resulting one-loop theory gives a closed equation for the density correlation function, which is identical with that in the standard mode coupling theory.Comment: version to be published in Fast Track Communication in Journal of Physics A:Math. Theo

Hysteretic current-voltage characteristics and resistance switching at an epitaxial oxide Schottky junction SrRuO3_{3}/SrTi0.99_{0.99}Nb0.01_{0.01}O3_{3}

Transport properties have been studied for a perovskite heterojunction consisting of SrRuO$_{3}$ (SRO) film epitaxially grown on SrTi$_{0.99}$Nb$_{0.01}$O$_{3}$ (Nb:STO) substrate. The SRO/Nb:STO interface exhibits rectifying current-voltage ($I$-$V$) characteristics agreeing with those of a Schottky junction composed of a deep work-function metal (SRO) and an $n$-type semiconductor (Nb:STO). A hysteresis appears in the $I$-$V$ characteristics, where high resistance and low resistance states are induced by reverse and forward bias stresses, respectively. The resistance switching is also triggered by applying short voltage pulses of 1 $\mu$s - 10 ms duration.Comment: 3 pages, 3 figures, Appl. Phys. Lett., in pres

Cosmological Constraints on Late-time Entropy Production

We investigate cosmological effects concerning the late-time entropy production due to the decay of non-relativistic massive particles. The thermalization process of neutrinos after the entropy production is properly solved by using the Boltzmann equation. If a large entropy production takes place at late time t$\simeq$ 1 sec, it is found that a large fraction of neutrinos cannot be thermalized. This fact loosens the tight constraint on the reheating temperature T_R from the big bang nucleosynthesis and T_R could be as low as 0.5 MeV. The influence on the large scale structure formation and cosmic microwave background anisotropies is also discussed.Comment: 4 pages, using RevTeX and five postscript figures, comments added, to appear in Phys. Rev. Let

New Superconducting and Magnetic Phases Emerge on the Verge of Antiferromagnetism in CeIn3_3

We report the discovery of new superconducting and novel magnetic phases in CeIn$_3$ on the verge of antiferromagnetism (AFM) under pressure ($P$) through the In-nuclear quadrupole resonance (NQR) measurements. We have found a $P$-induced phase separation of AFM and paramagnetism (PM) without any trace for a quantum phase transition in CeIn$_3$. A new type of superconductivity (SC) was found in $P=2.28-2.5$ GPa to coexist with AFM that is magnetically separated from PM where the heavy fermion SC takes place. We propose that the magnetic excitations such as spin-density fluctuations induced by the first-order magnetic phase transition might mediate attractive interaction to form Cooper pairs.Comment: 4 pages, 4 EPS figures, submitted to J. Phys. Soc. Jp

Non-destructive imaging of an individual protein

The mode of action of proteins is to a large extent given by their ability to adopt different conformations. This is why imaging single biomolecules at atomic resolution is one of the ultimate goals of biophysics and structural biology. The existing protein database has emerged from X-ray crystallography, NMR or cryo-TEM investigations. However, these tools all require averaging over a large number of proteins and thus over different conformations. This of course results in the loss of structural information. Likewise it has been shown that even the emergent X-FEL technique will not get away without averaging over a large quantity of molecules. Here we report the first recordings of a protein at sub-nanometer resolution obtained from one individual ferritin by means of low-energy electron holography. One single protein could be imaged for an extended period of time without any sign of radiation damage. Since ferritin exhibits an iron core, the holographic reconstructions could also be cross-validated against TEM images of the very same molecule by imaging the iron cluster inside the molecule while the protein shell is decomposed