Atomic X-Ray Spectra of Accretion Disk Atmospheres in the Kerr Metric

We calculate the atmospheric structure of an accretion disk around a Kerr black hole and obtain its X-ray spectrum, which exhibits prominent atomic transitions under certain circumstances. The gravitational and Doppler (red)shifts of the C V, C VI, O VII, O VIII, and Fe I-XXVI emission lines are observable in active galaxies. We quantify the line emissivities as a function of radius, to identify the effects of atmospheric structure, and to determine the usefulness of these lines for probing the disk energetics. The line emissivities do not always scale linearly with the incident radiative energy, as in the case of Fe XXV and Fe XXVI. Our model incorporates photoionization and thermal balance for the plasma, the hydrostatic approximation perpendicular to the plane of the disk, and general relativistic tidal forces. We include radiative recombination rates, fluorescence yields, Compton scattering, and photoelectric opacities for the most abundant elements.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, to appear in the Proc. of the 10th Marcel Grossmann Meeting on General Relativity, World Scientific, Rio de Janeiro, July 20-26, 200

The Fe XXII I(11.92 A)/I(11.77 A) Density Diagnostic Applied to the Chandra High Energy Transmission Grating Spectrum of EX Hydrae

Using the Livermore X-ray Spectral Synthesizer, which calculates spectral models of highly charged ions based primarily on HULLAC atomic data, we investigate the temperature, density, and photoexcitation dependence of the I(11.92 A)/I(11.77 A) line ratio of Fe XXII. We find that this line ratio has a critical density n_c \approx 5x10^13 cm^-3, is approximately 0.3 at low densities and 1.5 at high densities, and is very insensitive to temperature and photoexcitation, so is a useful density diagnostic for sources like magnetic cataclysmic variables in which the plasma densities are high and the efficacy of the He-like ion density diagnostic is compromised by the presence of a bright ultraviolet continuum. Applying this diagnostic to the Chandra High Energy Transmission Grating spectrum of the intermediate polar EX Hya, we find that the electron density of its T_e \approx 12 MK plasma is n_e = 1.0^{+2.0}_{-0.5} x 10^14 cm^-3, orders of magnitude greater than that typically observed in the Sun or other late-type stars.Comment: 11 pages including 3 encapsulated postscript figures; LaTeX format, uses aastex.cls; accepted on 2003 April 3 for publication in The Astrophysical Journa

QCD spectroscopy with three light quarks

We report about a simulation using three dynamical Wilson quarks and on the progress in going to small quark masses.Comment: Lattice2001(spectrum), 3 pages, 4 figure

Diverter AI based decision aid, phases 1 and 2

It was determined that a system to incorporate artificial intelligence (AI) into airborne flight management computers is feasible. The AI functions that would be most useful to the pilot are to perform situational assessment, evaluate outside influences on the contemplated rerouting, perform flight planning/replanning, and perform maneuver planning. A study of the software architecture and software tools capable of demonstrating Diverter was also made. A skeletal planner known as the Knowledge Acquisition Development Tool (KADET), which is a combination script-based and rule-based system, was used to implement the system. A prototype system was developed which demonstrates advanced in-flight planning/replanning capabilities

Reprocessing of Soft X-ray Emission Lines in Black Hole Accretion Disks

By means of a Monte Carlo code that accounts for Compton scattering and photoabsorption followed by recombination, we have investigated the radiation transfer of Ly alpha, He alpha, and recombination continua photons of H- and He-like C, N, O, and Ne produced in the photoionized atmosphere of a relativistic black hole accretion disk. We find that photoelectric opacity causes significant attenuation of photons with energies above the O VIII K-edge; that the conversion efficiencies of these photons into lower-energy lines and recombination continua are high; and that accounting for this reprocessing significantly (by factors of 21% to 105%) increases the flux of the Ly alpha and He alpha emission lines of H- and He-like C and O escaping the disk atmosphere.Comment: 4 pages including 4 encapsulated postscript figures; LaTeX format, uses aastex.cls and emulateapj5.sty; accepted on 2004 January 13 for publication in The Astrophysical Journa

Collisional Plasma Models with APEC/APED: Emission Line Diagnostics of Hydrogen-like and Helium-like Ions

New X-ray observatories (Chandra and XMM-Newton) are providing a wealth of high-resolution X-ray spectra in which hydrogen- and helium-like ions are usually strong features. We present results from a new collisional-radiative plasma code, the Astrophysical Plasma Emission Code (APEC), which uses atomic data in the companion Astrophysical Plasma Emission Database (APED) to calculate spectral models for hot plasmas. APED contains the requisite atomic data such as collisional and radiative rates, recombination cross sections, dielectronic recombination rates, and satellite line wavelengths. We compare the APEC results to other plasma codes for hydrogen- and helium-like diagnostics, and test the sensitivity of our results to the number of levels included in the models. We find that dielectronic recombination with hydrogen-like ions into high (n=6-10) principal quantum numbers affects some helium-like line ratios from low-lying (n=2) transitions.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figures, accepted by ApJ Letter

Adiabatic and Non-Adiabatic Contributions to the Free Energy from the Electron-Phonon Interaction for Na, K, Al, and Pb

We calculate the adiabatic contributions to the free energy due to the electron--phonon interaction at intermediate temperatures, $0 \leqslant k_{B} T < \epsilon_{F}$ for the elemental metals Na, K, Al, and Pb. Using our previously published results for the nonadiabatic contributions we show that the adiabatic contribution, which is proportional to $T^{2}$ at low temperatures and goes as $T^{3}$ at high temperatures, dominates the nonadiabatic contribution for temperatures above a cross--over temperature, $T_{c}$, which is between 0.5 and 0.8 $T_{m}$, where $T_{m}$ is the melting temperature of the metal. The nonadiabatic contribution falls as $T^{-1}$ for temperatures roughly above the average phonon frequency.Comment: Updated versio

Hadron Spectrum in QCD with Valence Wilson Fermions and Dynamical Staggered Fermions at $6/g^2=5.6

We present an analysis of hadronic spectroscopy for Wilson valence quarks with dynamical staggered fermions at lattice coupling $6/g^2 = \beta=5.6$ at sea quark mass $am_q=0.01$ and 0.025, and of Wilson valence quarks in quenched approximation at $\beta=5.85$ and 5.95, both on $16^3 \times 32$ lattices. We make comparisons with our previous results with dynamical staggered fermions at the same parameter values but on $16^4$ lattices doubled in the temporal direction.Comment: 32 page