A comprehensive analysis of Swift/XRT data: I. Apparent spectral evolution of GRB X-ray tails

An early steep decay component following the prompt GRBs is commonly observed in {\em Swift} XRT light curves, which is regarded as the tail emission of the prompt gamma-rays. Prompted by the observed strong spectral evolution in the tails of GRBs 060218 and 060614, we present a systematic time-resolved spectral analysis for the {\em Swift} GRB tails detected between 2005 February and 2007 January. We select a sample of 44 tails that are bright enough to perform time-resolved spectral analyses. Among them 11 tails are smooth and without superimposing significant flares, and their spectra have no significant temporal evolution. We suggest that these tails are dominated by the curvature effect of the prompt gamma-rays due to delay of propagation of photons from large angles with respect to the line of sight . More interestingly, 33 tails show clear hard-to-soft spectral evolution, with 16 of them being smooth tails directly following the prompt GRBs,while the others being superimposed with large flares. We focus on the 16 clean, smooth tails and consider three toy models to interpret the spectral evolution. The curvature effect of a structured jet and a model invoking superposition of the curvature effect tail and a putative underlying soft emission component cannot explain all the data. The third model, which invokes an evolving exponential spectrum, seems to reproduce both the lightcurve and the spectral evolution of all the bursts, including GRBs 060218 and 060614. More detailed physical models are called for to understand the apparent evolution effect.Comment: 13 pages in emulateapj style,6 figures, 1 table, expanded version, matched to published version, ApJ, 2007, in press. This is the first paper of a series. Paper II see arXiv:0705.1373 (ApJ,2007, in press

First Principles Study of Work Functions of Double Wall Carbon Nanotubes

Using first-principles density functional calculations, we investigated work functions (WFs) of thin double-walled nanotubes (DWNTs) with outer tube diameters ranging from 1nm to 1.5nm. The results indicate that work function change within this diameter range can be up to 0.5 eV, even for DWNTs with same outer diameter. This is in contrast with single-walled nanotubes (SWNTs) which show negligible WF change for diameters larger than 1nm. We explain the WF change and related charge redistribution in DWNTs using charge equilibration model (CEM). The predicted work function variation of DWNTs indicates a potential difficulty in their nanoelectronic device applications.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures, to appear as rapid communication on Physical Review

QCD corrections to polarization of J/\psi and \Upsilon at Fermilab Tevatron and CERN LHC

In this work, we present more detail of the calculation on the NLO QCD corrections to polarization of direct J/psi production via color singlet at Tevatron and LHC, as well as the results for Upsilon for the first time. Our results show that the J/psi polarization status drastically changes from transverse polarization dominant at LO into longitudinal polarization dominant in the whole range of the transverse momentum $p_t$ of J/psi when the NLO corrections are counted. For Upsilon production, the p_t distribution of the polarization status behaves almost the same as that for J/psi except that the NLO result is transverse polarization at small p_t range. Although the theoretical evaluation predicts a larger longitudinal polarization than the measured value at Tevatron, it may provide a solution towards the previous large discrepancy for J/psi and Upsilon polarization between theoretical predication and experimental measurement, and suggests that the next important step is to calculate the NLO corrections to hadronproduction of color octet state J/psi^(8) and Upsilon^(8). Our calculations are performed in two ways, namely we do and do not analytically sum over the polarizations, and then check them with each other.Comment: 12 pages, 12 figures, two columns, use revtex4; to appear in PR