5,952 research outputs found
Particle Acceleration, Magnetic Field Generation, and Associated Emission in Collisionless Relativistic Jets
Nonthermal radiation observed from astrophysical systems containing
relativistic jets and shocks, e.g., active galactic nuclei (AGNs), gamma-ray
bursts (GRBs), and Galactic microquasar systems usually have power-law emission
spectra. Recent PIC simulations using injected relativistic electron-ion
(electro-positron) jets show that acceleration occurs within the downstream
jet. Shock acceleration is a ubiquitous phenomenon in astrophysical plasmas.
Plasma waves and their associated instabilities (e.g., the Buneman instability,
other two-streaming instability, and the Weibel instability) created in the
shocks are responsible for particle (electron, positron, and ion) acceleration.
The simulation results show that the Weibel instability is responsible for
generating and amplifying highly nonuniform, small-scale magnetic fields. These
magnetic fields contribute to the electron's transverse deflection behind the
jet head. The ``jitter'' radiation from deflected electrons has different
properties than synchrotron radiation which assumes a uniform magnetic field.
This jitter radiation may be important to understanding the complex time
evolution and/or spectral structure in gamma-ray bursts, relativistic jets, and
supernova remnants.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, contributed talk at the workshop: High Energy
Phenomena in Relativistic Outflows (HEPRO), Dublin, 24-28 September 2007.
Fig. 3 is replaced by the correct versio
Fermi Large Area Telescope Detection of Two Very-High-Energy (E>100 GeV) Gamma-ray Photons from the z = 1.1 Blazar PKS 0426-380
We report the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) detection of two
very-high-energy (VHE, E>100 GeV) gamma-ray photons from the directional
vicinity of the distant (redshift, z = 1.1) blazar PKS 0426-380. The null
hypothesis that both the 134 and 122 GeV photons originate from unrelated
sources can be rejected at the 5.5 sigma confidence level. We therefore claim
that at least one of the two VHE photons is securely associated with the
blazar, making PKS 0426-380 the most distant VHE emitter known to date. The
results are in agreement with the most recent Fermi-LAT constraints on the
Extragalactic Background Light (EBL) intensity, which imply a
horizon for 100 GeV photons. The LAT detection of the two VHE
gamma-rays coincided roughly with flaring states of the source, although we did
not find an exact correspondence between the VHE photon arrival times and the
flux maxima at lower gamma-ray energies. Modeling the gamma-ray continuum of
PKS 0426-380 with daily bins revealed a significant spectral hardening around
the time of detection of the first VHE event (LAT photon index \Gamma\
1.4) but on the other hand no pronounced spectral changes near the detection
time of the second one. This combination implies a rather complex variability
pattern of the source in gamma rays during the flaring epochs. An additional
flat component is possibly present above several tens of GeV in the
EBL-corrected Fermi-LAT spectrum accumulated over the ~8-month high state.Comment: 5 pages, 1 table, 4 figures. Accepted by ApJ
Particle acceleration in electron-ion jets
Weibel instability created in collisionless shocks is responsible for
particle (electron, positron, and ion) acceleration. Using a 3-D relativistic
electromagnetic particle (REMP) code, we have investigated particle
acceleration associated with a relativistic electron-ion jet fronts propagating
into an ambient plasma without initial magnetic fields with a longer simulation
system in order to investigate nonlinear stage of the Weibel instability and
its acceleration mechanism. The current channels generated by the Weibel
instability induce the radial electric fields. The z component of the Poynting
vector (E x B) become positive in the large region along the jet propagation
direction. This leads to the acceleration of jet electrons along the jet. In
particular the E x B drift with the large scale current channel generated by
the ion Weibel instability accelerate electrons effectively in both parallel
and perpendicular directions.Comment: 2 pages, 1 figure, Proceedings for Astrophysical Sources of High
Energy Particles and Radiation, AIP proceeding Series, eds . T. Bulik, G.
Madejski and B. Ruda
Jet-torus connection in radio galaxies: Relativistic hydrodynamics and synthetic emission
High-resolution Very-Long-Baseline Interferometry observations of active
galactic nuclei have revealed asymmetric structures in the jets of radio
galaxies. These asymmetric structures may be due to internal asymmetries in the
jet, could be induced by the different conditions in the surrounding ambient
medium including the obscuring torus, or a combination of the two. In this
paper we investigate the influence of the ambient medium (including the
obscuring torus) on the observed properties of jets from radio galaxies. We
performed special-relativistic hydrodynamic (RHD) simulations of over-pressured
and pressure-matched jets using the special-relativistic hydrodynamics code
\texttt{Ratpenat}, which is based on a second-order accurate finite-volume
method and an approximate Riemann solver. Using a newly developed emission code
to compute the electromagnetic emission, we have investigated the influence of
different ambient medium and torus configurations on the jet structure and
subsequently computed the non-thermal emission produced by the jet and the
thermal absorption due to the torus. To better compare the emission simulations
with observations we produced synthetic radio maps, taking into account the
properties of the observatory. The detailed analysis of our simulations shows
that the observed asymmetries can be produced by the interaction of the jet
with the ambient medium and by the absorption properties of the obscuring
torus.Comment: 14 pages, 17 figures, submitted to A&
A Catalog of HI Clouds in the Large Magellanic Cloud
A 21 cm neutral hydrogen interferometric survey of the Large Magellanic Cloud
(LMC) combined with the Parkes multi-beam HI single-dish survey clearly shows
that the HI gas is distributed in the form of clumps or clouds. The HI clouds
and clumps have been identified using a thresholding method with three separate
brightness temperature thresholds (). Each catalog of HI cloud candidates
shows a power law relationship between the sizes and the velocity dispersions
of the clouds roughly following the Larson Law scaling , with steeper indices associated with dynamically hot regions. The
clouds in each catalog have roughly constant virial parameters as a function
mass suggesting that that the clouds are all in roughly the same dynamical
state, but the values of the virial parameter are significantly larger than
unity showing that turbulent motions dominate gravity in these clouds. The mass
distribution of the clouds is a power law with differential indices between
-1.6 and -2.0 for the three catalogs. In contrast, the distribution of mean
surface densities is a log-normal distribution.Comment: 24 pages, 15 figures, ApJS, in pres
Dynamical structure factors of two-leg spin ladder systems
We investigate dynamical properties of two-leg spin ladder systems.
In a strong coupling region, an isolated mode appears in the lowest excited
states, while in a weak coupling region, an isolated mode is reduced and the
lowest excited states become a lower bound of the excitation continuum. We find
in the system with equal intrachain and interchain couplings that due to a
cyclic four-spin interaction, the distribution of the weights for the dynamical
structure factor and characteristics of the lowest excited states are strongly
influenced. The dynamical properties of two systems proposed for are also discussed.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figure
The dynamics of a hole in a CuO_4 plaquette: electron energy-loss spectroscopy of Li_2CuO_2
We have measured the energy and momentum dependent loss function of Li_2CuO_2
single crystals by means of electron energy-loss spectroscopy in transmission.
Using the same values for the model parameters, the low-energy features of the
spectrum as well as published Cu 2p_(3/2) x-ray photoemission data of Li_2CuO_2
are well described by a cluster model that consists of a single CuO_4 plaquette
only. This demonstrates that charge excitations in Li_2CuO_2 are strongly
localized.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure
Raman Response of Magnetic Excitations in Cuprate Ladders and Planes
An unified picture for the Raman response of magnetic excitations in cuprate
spin-ladder compounds is obtained by comparing calculated two-triplon Raman
line-shapes with those of the prototypical compounds SrCu2O3 (Sr123),
Sr14Cu24O41 (Sr14), and La6Ca8Cu24O41 (La6Ca8). The theoretical model for the
two-leg ladder contains Heisenberg exchange couplings J_parallel and J_perp
plus an additional four-spin interaction J_cyc. Within this model Sr123 and
Sr14 can be described by x:=J_parallel/J_perp=1.5, x_cyc:=J_cyc/J_perp=0.2,
J_perp^Sr123=1130 cm^-1 and J_perp^Sr14=1080 cm^-1. The couplings found for
La6Ca8 are x=1.2, x_cyc=0.2, and J_perp^La6Ca8=1130 cm^-1. The unexpected sharp
two-triplon peak in the ladder materials compared to the undoped
two-dimensional cuprates can be traced back to the anisotropy of the magnetic
exchange in rung and leg direction. With the results obtained for the isotropic
ladder we calculate the Raman line-shape of a two-dimensional square lattice
using a toy model consisting of a vertical and a horizontal ladder. A direct
comparison of these results with Raman experiments for the two-dimensional
cuprates R2CuO4 (R=La,Nd), Sr2CuO2Cl2, and YBa2Cu3O(6+delta) yields a good
agreement for the dominating two-triplon peak. We conclude that short range
quantum fluctuations are dominating the magnetic Raman response in both,
ladders and planes. We discuss possible scenarios responsible for the
high-energy spectral weight of the Raman line-shape, i.e. phonons, the
triple-resonance and multi-particle contributions.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figure
Large-Scale Gravitational Instability and Star Formation in the Large Magellanic Cloud
Large-scale star formation in disk galaxies is hypothesized to be driven by
global gravitational instability. The observed gas surface density is commonly
used to compute the strength of gravitational instability, but according to
this criterion star formation often appears to occur in gravitationally stable
regions. One possible reason is that the stellar contribution to the
instability has been neglected. We have examined the gravitational instability
of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) considering the gas alone, and considering
the combination of collisional gas and collisionless stars. We compare the
gravitationally unstable regions with the on-going star formation revealed by
Spitzer observations of young stellar objects. Although only 62% of the massive
young stellar object candidates are in regions where the gas alone is unstable,
some 85% lie in regions unstable due to the combination of gas and stars. The
combined stability analysis better describes where star formation occurs. In
agreement with other observations and numerical models, a small fraction of the
star formation occurs in regions with gravitational stability parameter Q > 1.
We further measure the dependence of the star formation timescale on the
strength of gravitational instability, and quantitatively compare it to the
exponential dependence expected from numerical simulations.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ, 10 pages, 5 figure
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