2,156 research outputs found
Temporal variability in early afterglows of short gamma-ray bursts
The shock model has successfully explained the observed behaviors of
afterglows from long gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). Here we use it to investigate the
so-called early afterglows from short GRBs, which arises from blast waves that
are not decelerated considerably by their surrounding medium. We consider a
nearby medium loaded with pairs (Beloborodov 2002). The temporal
behaviors show first a soft-to-hard spectral evolution, from the optical to
hard X-ray, and then a usual hard-to-soft evolution after the blast waves begin
to decelerate. The light curves show variability, and consist of two peaks. The
first peak, due to the pair effect, can be observed in the X-ray, though too
faint and too short in the optical. The second peak will be easily detected by
{\it Swift}. We show that detections of the double-peak structure in the light
curves of early afterglows are very helpful to determine all the shock
parameters of short GRBs, including both the parameters of the relativistic
source and the surroundings. Besides, from the requirement that the
forward-shock emission in short GRBs should be below the BATSE detection
threshold, we give a strong constraint on the shock model parameters. In
particular, the initial Lorentz factor of the source is limited to be no more
than , and the ambient medium density is inferred to be low, n\la
10^{-1} cm.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure, minor changes to match the publish in MNRA
GeV-TeV and X-ray flares from gamma-ray bursts
The recent detection of delayed X-ray flares during the afterglow phase of
gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) suggests an inner-engine origin, at radii inside the
deceleration radius characterizing the beginning of the forward shock afterglow
emission. Given the observed temporal overlapping between the flares and
afterglows, there must be inverse Compton (IC) emission arising from such flare
photons scattered by forward shock afterglow electrons. We find that this IC
emission produces GeV-TeV flares, which may be detected by GLAST and
ground-based TeV telescopes. We speculate that this kind of emission may
already have been detected by EGRET from a very strong burst--GRB940217. The
enhanced cooling of the forward shock electrons by the X-ray flare photons may
suppress the synchrotron emission of the afterglows during the flare period.
The detection of GeV-TeV flares combined with low energy observations may help
to constrain the poorly known magnetic field in afterglow shocks. We also
consider the self-IC emission in the context of internal-shock and
external-shock models for X-ray flares. The emission above GeV from internal
shocks is low, while the external shock model can also produce GeV-TeV flares,
but with a different temporal behavior from that caused by IC scattering of
flare photons by afterglow electrons. This suggests a useful approach for
distinguishing whether X-ray flares originate from late central engine activity
or from external shocks.Comment: slightly shortened version, accepted for publication in ApJ Letters,
4 emulateapj pages, no figure
Pair loading in Gamma-Ray Burst Fireball And Prompt Emission From Pair-Rich Reverse Shock
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are believed to originate from ultra-relativistic
winds/fireballs to avoid the "compactness problem". However, the most energetic
photons in GRBs may still suffer from absorption leading to
electron/positron pair production in the winds/fireballs. We show here that in
a wide range of model parameters, the resulting pairs may dominate those
electrons associated with baryons. Later on, the pairs would be carried into a
reverse shock so that a shocked pair-rich fireball may produce a strong flash
at lower frequencies, i.e. in the IR band, in contrast with optical/UV emission
from a pair-poor fireball. The IR emission would show a 5/2 spectral index due
to strong self-absorption. Rapid responses to GRB triggers in the IR band would
detect such strong flashes. The future detections of many IR flashes will infer
that the rarity of prompt optical/UV emissions is in fact due to dust
obscuration in the star formation regions.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, ApJ accepte
Comparison of Proxy and Multimodel Ensemble Means
Proxyâmodel comparisons show large discrepancies in the impact of volcanic aerosols on the hydrology of the Asian monsoon region (AMR). This was mostly imputed to uncertainties arising from the use of a single model in previous studies. Here we compare two groups of CMIP5 multimodel ensemble mean (MMEM) with the treeâringâbased reconstruction Monsoon Asia Drought Atlas (MADA PDSI), to examine their reliability in reproducing the hydrological effects of the volcanic eruptions in 1300â1850 CE. Time series plots indicate that the MADA PDSI and the MMEMs agree on the significant drying effect of volcanic perturbation over the monsoonâdominated subregion, while disparities exist over the westerliesâdominated subregion. Comparisons of the spatial patterns suggest that the MADA PDSI and the MMEMs show better agreement 1 year after the volcanic eruption than in the eruption year and in subregions where more treeâring chronologies are available. The MADA PDSI and the CMIP5 MMEMs agree on the drying effect of volcanic eruptions in westernâEast Asia, South Asian summer monsoon, and northern East Asian summer monsoon (EASM) regions. Model results suggest significant wetting effect in southern EASM and westernâSouth Asia, which agrees with the observed hydrological response to the 1991 Mount Pinatubo eruption. Analysis on model output from the Last Millennium Ensemble project shows similar hydrological responses. These results suggest that the CMIP5 MMEM is able to reproduce the impact of volcanic eruptions on the hydrology of the southern AMR
Implementing universal nonadiabatic holonomic quantum gates with transmons
Geometric phases are well known to be noise-resilient in quantum
evolutions/operations. Holonomic quantum gates provide us with a robust way
towards universal quantum computation, as these quantum gates are actually
induced by nonabelian geometric phases. Here we propose and elaborate how to
efficiently implement universal nonadiabatic holonomic quantum gates on simpler
superconducting circuits, with a single transmon serving as a qubit. In our
proposal, an arbitrary single-qubit holonomic gate can be realized in a
single-loop scenario, by varying the amplitudes and phase difference of two
microwave fields resonantly coupled to a transmon, while nontrivial two-qubit
holonomic gates may be generated with a transmission-line resonator being
simultaneously coupled to the two target transmons in an effective resonant
way. Moreover, our scenario may readily be scaled up to a two-dimensional
lattice configuration, which is able to support large scalable quantum
computation, paving the way for practically implementing universal nonadiabatic
holonomic quantum computation with superconducting circuits.Comment: v3 Appendix added, v4 published version, v5 published version with
correction
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