Diversity Of Short Gamma-Ray Burst Afterglows From Compact Binary Mergers Hosting Pulsars

Short gamma-ray bursts (sGRBs) are widely believed to result from the mergers of compact binaries. This model predicts an afterglow that bears the characteristic signatures of a constant, low density medium, including a smooth prompt-afterglow transition, and a simple temporal evolution. However, these expectations are in conflict with observations for a non-negligible fraction of sGRB afterglows. In particular, the onset of the afterglow phase for some of these events appears to be delayed and, in addition, a few of them exhibit late- time rapid fading in their lightcurves. We show that these peculiar observations can be explained independently of ongoing central engine activity if some sGRB progenitors are compact binaries hosting at least one pulsar. The Poynting flux emanating from the pulsar companion can excavate a bow-shock cavity surround- ing the binary. If this cavity is larger than the shock deceleration length scale in the undisturbed interstellar medium, then the onset of the afterglow will be delayed. Should the deceleration occur entirely within the swept-up thin shell, a rapid fade in the lightcurve will ensue. We identify two types of pulsar that can achieve the conditions necessary for altering the afterglow: low field, long lived pulsars, and high field pulsars. We find that a sizable fraction (~20-50%) of low field pulsars are likely to reside in neutron star binaries based on observations, while their high field counterparts are not. Hydrodynamical calculations motivated by this model are shown to be in good agreement with observations of sGRB afterglow lightcurves.Comment: Accepted to ApjL. Direct comparison to observed X-Ray afterglows now included. 5 Figure

Expansion Procedures and Similarity Laws for Transonic Flow Part I. Slender Bodies at Zero Incidence

The purpose of this report is to provide a detailed and comprehensive account of a transonic approximation as applied to flows past wings and bodies. It is mainly concerned with the derivation of approximate equations, boundary conditions, etc., rather than with the more difficult problem of the solution of transonic flow problems. Thus the report contains for the most part a re-examination of the basic ideas, as presented for example, in Ref. 1. The essential new point of view introduced here is to regard the approximate transonic equations as part of a systematic expansion procedure. Thus, it becomes possible, in principle, to compute the higher terms of this approximation or at least to estimate errors. In the next section the form of the expansion and the reasons for it are explained. In the succeeding sections the equations of motion, shock relations, and boundary conditions for the flow problem are presented and then the expansion procedure is applied systematically. The resulting system of equations for the first, second, and higher approximations i s presented in Section 5. The main results of interest for practical applications concern similarity laws and the pressure coefficient on the surface of slender bodies and these appear in Section 6. The remaining section treats bodies of non-circular cross-section

Spin-guides and spin-splitters: Waveguide analogies in one-dimensional spin chains

Here we show a direct mapping between waveguide theory and spin chain transport, opening an alternative approach to quantum information transport in the solid-state. By applying temporally varying control profiles to a spin chain, we design a virtual waveguide or 'spin-guide' to conduct individual spin excitations along defined space-time trajectories of the chain. We explicitly show that the concepts of confinement, adiabatic bend loss and beamsplitting can be mapped from optical waveguide theory to spin-guides (and hence 'spin-splitters'). Importantly, the spatial scale of applied control pulses is required to be large compared to the inter-spin spacing, and thereby allowing the design of scalable control architectures.Comment: 5 figure

Age, Metallicity, and the Distance to the Magellanic Clouds From Red Clump Stars

We show that the luminosity dependence of the red clump stars on age and metallicity can cause a difference of up to < ~0.6 mag in the mean absolute I magnitude of the red clump between different stellar populations. We show that this effect may resolve the apparent ~0.4 mag discrepancy between red clump-derived distance moduli to the Magellanic Clouds and those from, e.g., Cepheid variables. Taking into account the population effects on red clump luminosity, we determine a distance modulus to the LMC of 18.36 +/- 0.17 mag, and to the SMC of 18.82 +/- 0.20 mag. Our alternate red clump LMC distance is consistent with the value (m-M){LMC} = 18.50 +/- 0.10 adopted by the HST Cepheid Key Project. We briefly examine model predictions of red clump luminosity, and find that variations in helium abundance and core mass could bring the Clouds closer by some 0.10--0.15 mag, but not by the ~0.4 mag that would result from setting the mean absolute I-magnitude of the Cloud red clumps equal to the that of the Solar neighborhood red clump.Comment: Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, AASTeX 4.0, 10 pages, 1 postscript figur

Quantum System Identification by Bayesian Analysis of Noisy Data: Beyond Hamiltonian Tomography

We consider how to characterize the dynamics of a quantum system from a restricted set of initial states and measurements using Bayesian analysis. Previous work has shown that Hamiltonian systems can be well estimated from analysis of noisy data. Here we show how to generalize this approach to systems with moderate dephasing in the eigenbasis of the Hamiltonian. We illustrate the process for a range of three-level quantum systems. The results suggest that the Bayesian estimation of the frequencies and dephasing rates is generally highly accurate and the main source of errors are errors in the reconstructed Hamiltonian basis.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure

The Sunyaev-Zeldovich Effect from Quasar Feedback

The observed relationship between X-ray luminosity and temperature of the diffuse intercluster medium clearly shows the effect of nongravitational heating on the formation of galaxy clusters. Quasar feedback into the intergalactic medium can potentially be an important source of heating, and can have significant impact on structure formation. This feedback process is a source of thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich distortions of the cosmic microwave background. Using a simple one-dimensional Sedov-Taylor model of energy outflow, we calculate the angular power spectrum of the temperature distortion, which has an amplitude on the order of one micro-Kelvin. This signal will be at the noise limit of upcoming arcminute-scale microwave background experiments, including the Atacama Cosmology Telescope and the South Pole Telescope, but will be directly detectable with deep exposures by the Atacama Large Millimeter Array or by stacking many microwave images.Comment: The discussion of detectability is expanded. Matches the ApJ Letters accepted versio

Mapping the dynamic interactions between vortex species in highly anisotropic superconductors

Here we use highly sensitive magnetisation measurements performed using a Hall probe sensor on single crystals of highly anisotropic high temperature superconductors $Bi_{2}Sr_{2}CaCu_{2}O_{8}$ to study the dynamic interactions between the two species of vortices that exist in such superconductors. We observe a remarkable and clearly delineated high temperature regime that mirrors the underlying vortex phase diagram. Our results map out the parameter space over which these dynamic interaction processes can be used to create vortex ratchets, pumps and other fluxonic devices.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, to be published in Supercond. Sci. Techno

Dark Halo and Disk Galaxy Scaling Laws in Hierarchical Universes

We use cosmological N-body/gasdynamical simulations that include star formation and feedback to examine the proposal that scaling laws between the total luminosity, rotation speed, and angular momentum of disk galaxies reflect analogous correlations between the structural parameters of their surrounding dark matter halos. The numerical experiments follow the formation of galaxy-sized halos in two Cold Dark Matter dominated universes: the standard Omega=1 CDM scenario and the currently popular LCDM model. We find that the slope and scatter of the I-band Tully-Fisher relation are well reproduced in the simulations, although not, as proposed in recent work, as a result of the cosmological equivalence between halo mass and circular velocity: large systematic variations in the fraction of baryons that collapse to form galaxies and in the ratio between halo and disk circular velocities are observed in our numerical experiments. The Tully-Fisher slope and scatter are recovered in this model as a direct result of the dynamical response of the halo to the assembly of the luminous component of the galaxy. We conclude that models that neglect the self-gravity of the disk and its influence on the detailed structure of the halo cannot be used to derive meaningful estimates of the scatter or slope of the Tully-Fisher relation. Our models fail, however, to match the zero-point of the Tully-Fisher relation, as well as that of the relation linking disk rotation speed and angular momentum. These failures can be traced, respectively, to the excessive central concentration of dark halos formed in the Cold Dark Matter cosmogonies we explore and to the formation of galaxy disks as the final outcome of a sequence of merger events. (abridged)Comment: submitted to The Astrophysical Journa