Host Galaxies of Gamma-Ray Bursts

Host galaxies are an excellent means of probing the natal environments that generate gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). Recent work on the host galaxies of short-duration GRBs has offered new insights into the parent stellar populations and ages of their enigmatic progenitors. Similarly, surveys of long-duration GRB (LGRB) host environments and their ISM properties have produced intriguing new results with important implications for long GRB progenitor models. These host studies are also critical in evaluating the utility of LGRBs as potential tracers of star formation and metallicity at high redshifts. I will summarize the latest research on LGRB host galaxies, and discuss the resulting impact on our understanding of these events' progenitors, energetics, and cosmological applications.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures; to appear in Proceedings of IAU 279 "Death of Massive Stars: Supernovae and Gamma-ray Bursts

Thermalisation of inhomogeneous quantum scalar fields in 1+1D

Using an improved version of the Hartree approximation, allowing for ensembles of inhomogeneous configurations, we show in a $\lambda \phi^4$ theory, that initially the system thermalises with a Bose-Einstein distribution. For later times and larger couplings we see deviations.Comment: Presented at CAPP 2000, 4 pages including figures, typo's correcte

Simulation and theory of fluid demixing and interfacial tension of mixtures of colloids and non-ideal polymers

An extension of the Asakura-Oosawa-Vrij model of hard sphere colloids and non-adsorbing polymers, that takes polymer non-ideality into account through a repulsive stepfunction pair potential between polymers, is studied with grand canonical Monte Carlo simulations and density functional theory. Simulation results validate previous theoretical findings for the shift of the bulk fluid demixing binodal upon increasing strength of polymer-polymer repulsion, promoting the tendency to mix. For increasing strength of the polymer-polymer repulsion, simulation and theory consistently predict the interfacial tension of the free colloidal liquid-gas interface to decrease significantly for fixed colloid density difference in the coexisting phases, and to increase for fixed polymer reservoir packing fraction.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure

Fluids with quenched disorder: Scaling of the free energy barrier near critical points

In the context of Monte Carlo simulations, the analysis of the probability distribution $P_L(m)$ of the order parameter $m$, as obtained in simulation boxes of finite linear extension $L$, allows for an easy estimation of the location of the critical point and the critical exponents. For Ising-like systems without quenched disorder, $P_L(m)$ becomes scale invariant at the critical point, where it assumes a characteristic bimodal shape featuring two overlapping peaks. In particular, the ratio between the value of $P_L(m)$ at the peaks ($P_{L, max}$) and the value at the minimum in-between ($P_{L, min}$) becomes $L$-independent at criticality. However, for Ising-like systems with quenched random fields, we argue that instead $\Delta F_L := \ln (P_{L, max} / P_{L, min}) \propto L^\theta$ should be observed, where $\theta>0$ is the "violation of hyperscaling" exponent. Since $\theta$ is substantially non-zero, the scaling of $\Delta F_L$ with system size should be easily detectable in simulations. For two fluid models with quenched disorder, $\Delta F_L$ versus $L$ was measured, and the expected scaling was confirmed. This provides further evidence that fluids with quenched disorder belong to the universality class of the random-field Ising model.Comment: sent to J. Phys. Cond. Mat

An explanation for the curious mass loss history of massive stars: from OB stars, through Luminous Blue Variables to Wolf-Rayet stars

The stellar winds of massive stars show large changes in mass-loss rates and terminal velocities during their evolution from O-star through the Luminous Blue Variable phase to the Wolf-Rayet phase. The luminosity remains approximately unchanged during these phases. These large changes in wind properties are explained in the context of the radiation driven wind theory, of which we consider four different models. They are due to the evolutionary changes in radius, gravity and surface composition and to the change from optically thin (in continuum) line driven winds to optically thick radiation driven winds.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics (Letter to the Editor

Evolution of Magnetic Fields in Supernova Remnants

Supernova remnants (SNR) are now widely believed to be a source of cosmic rays (CRs) up to an energy of 1 PeV. The magnetic fields required to accelerate CRs to sufficiently high energies need to be much higher than can result from compression of the circumstellar medium (CSM) by a factor 4, as is the case in strong shocks. Non-thermal synchrotron maps of these regions indicate that indeed the magnetic field is much stronger, and for young SNRs has a dominant radial component while for old SNRs it is mainly toroidal. How these magnetic fields get enhanced, or why the field orientation is mainly radial for young remnants, is not yet fully understood. We use an adaptive mesh refinement MHD code, AMRVAC, to simulate the evolution of supernova remnants and to see if we can reproduce a mainly radial magnetic field in early stages of evolution. We follow the evolution of the SNR with three different configurations of the initial magnetic field in the CSM: an initially mainly toroidal field, a turbulent magnetic field, and a field parallel to the symmetry axis. Although for the latter two topologies a significant radial field component arises at the contact discontinuity due to the Rayleigh-Taylor instability, no radial component can be seen out to the forward shock. Ideal MHD appears not sufficient to explain observations. Possibly a higher compression ratio and additional turbulence due to dominant presence of CRs can help us to better reproduce the observations in future studies.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures. To appear in conference proceedings of "Magnetic Fields in the Universe II" (2008), RevMexA