Transition from spot to faculae domination -- An alternate explanation for the dearth of intermediate \textit{Kepler} rotation periods

The study of stellar activity cycles is crucial to understand the underlying dynamo and how it causes activity signatures such as dark spots and bright faculae. We study the appearance of activity signatures in contemporaneous photometric and chromospheric time series. Lomb-Scargle periodograms are used to search for cycle periods present in both time series. To emphasize the signature of the activity cycle we account for rotation-induced scatter in both data sets by fitting a quasi-periodic Gaussian process model to each observing season. After subtracting the rotational variability, cycle amplitudes and the phase difference between the two time series are obtained by fitting both time series simultaneously using the same cycle period. We find cycle periods in 27 of the 30 stars in our sample. The phase difference between the two time series reveals that the variability in fast rotating active stars is usually in anti-phase, while the variability of slowly rotating inactive stars is in phase. The photometric cycle amplitudes are on average six times larger for the active stars. The phase and amplitude information demonstrates that active stars are dominated by dark spots, whereas less active stars are dominated by bright faculae. We find the transition from spot to faculae domination at the Vaughan-Preston gap, and around a Rossby number equal to one. We conclude that faculae are the dominant ingredient of stellar activity cycles at ages >2.55 Gyr. The data further suggest that the Vaughan-Preston gap can not explain the previously detected dearth of Kepler rotation periods between 15-25 days. Nevertheless, our results led us to propose an explanation for the rotation period dearth to be due to the non-detection of periodicity caused by the cancellation of dark spots and bright faculae at 800 Myr.Comment: 12+15 pages, 10+2 figures, accepted for publication in A&

Probing the Noncommutative Standard Model at Hadron Colliders

We study collider signals for the noncommutative extension of the standard model using the Seiberg-Witten maps for SU(3)_C x SU(2)_L x U(1)_Y to first order in the noncommutativity parameters theta_munu. In particular, we investigate the ensitivity of Z-gamma-production at the Tevatron and the LHC to the components of theta_munu. We discuss the range of validity of this approximation and estimate exclusion limits from a Monte Carlo simulation.Comment: 18 pages LaTeX, 23 figures. Slightly expanded introduction and additional references. Accepted for publication in Physical Review

Strong Limit on a Variable Proton-to-Electron Mass Ratio from Molecules in the Distant Universe

The Standard Model of particle physics assumes that the so-called fundamental constants are universal and unchanging. Absorption lines arising in molecular clouds along quasar sightlines offer a precise test for variations in the proton-to-electron mass ratio, mu, over cosmological time and distance scales. The inversion transitions of ammonia are particularly sensitive to mu compared to molecular rotational transitions. Comparing the available ammonia spectra observed towards the quasar B0218+357 with new, high-quality rotational spectra, we present the first detailed measurement of mu with this technique, limiting relative deviations from the laboratory value to |dmu/mu| < 1.8x10^{-6} (95% confidence level) at approximately half the Universe's current age - the strongest astrophysical constraint to date. Higher-quality ammonia observations will reduce both the statistical and systematic uncertainties in these measurements.Comment: Science, 20th June 2008. 22 pages, 5 figures (12 EPS files), 2 tables, including Supporting Online Material; v2: Corrected reference for laboratory mu-variation bound

Collisions of Slow Highly Charged Ions with Surfaces

Progress in the study of collisions of multiply charged ions with surfaces is reviewed with the help of a few recent examples. They range from fundamental quasi-one electron processes to highly complex ablation and material modification processes. Open questions and possible future directions will be discussed.Comment: 13 pages, 16 figures, review pape

Airborne Measurements of Gravity Wave Breaking at the Tropopause

2000 FLORIDA AVE NW, WASHINGTON, DC, 2000

Astrophysical Probes of Fundamental Physics

I review the theoretical motivation for varying fundamental couplings and discuss how these measurements can be used to constrain a number of fundamental physics scenarios that would otherwise be inacessible to experiment. As a case study I will focus on the relation between varying couplings and dark energy, and explain how varying coupling measurements can be used to probe the nature of dark energy, with important advantages over the standard methods. Assuming that the current observational evidence for varying $\alpha$ and $\mu$ is correct, a several-sigma detection of dynamical dark energy is feasible within a few years, using currently operational ground-based facilities. With forthcoming instruments like CODEX, a high-accuracy reconstruction of the equation of state may be possible all the way up to redshift $z\sim4$.Comment: Invited Review talk at the ESO Precision Spectroscopy in Astrophysics conference, to appear in the proceeding

The Sun is less active than other solar-like stars

Magnetic activity of the Sun and other stars causes their brightness to vary. We investigate how typical the Sun's variability is compared to other solar-like stars, i.e. those with near-solar effective temperatures and rotation periods. By combining four years of photometric observations from the Kepler space telescope with astrometric data from the Gaia spacecraft, we measure photometric variabilities of 369 solar-like stars. Most of the solar-like stars with well-determined rotation periods show higher variability than the Sun and are therefore considerably more active. These stars appear nearly identical to the Sun, except for their higher variability. Their existence raises the question of whether the Sun can also experience epochs of such high variability.Comment: Accepted for publication in Science. 3 (main) + 10 (supplementary) figure

Contribution of the magnetic resonance to the third harmonic generation from a fishnet metamaterial

We investigate experimentally and theoretically the third harmonic generated by a double-layer fishnet metamaterial. To unambiguously disclose most notably the influence of the magnetic resonance, the generated third harmonic was measured as a function of the angle of incidence. It is shown experimentally and numerically that when the magnetic resonance is excited by pump beam, the angular dependence of the third harmonic signal has a local maximum at an incidence angle of {\theta} \simeq 20{\deg}. This maximum is shown to be a fingerprint of the antisymmetric distribution of currents in the gold layers. An analytical model based on the nonlinear dynamics of the electrons inside the gold shows excellent agreement with experimental and numerical results. This clearly indicates the difference in the third harmonic angular pattern at electric and magnetic resonances of the metamaterial.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure