2,090 research outputs found
Between War and Peace, Past and Future:Experiencing the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park
Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park is widely known as a universal symbol of peace, but there have not been studies of how people actually experience and interpret it. This article presents a detailed case study of a visit to the memorial by using an innovative methodology based on the use of subjective cameras (subcams). Results show that despite the monolithic idea of peace that the memorial officially represents, it is experienced and interpreted in terms of a constant tension which exposes conflicts in post-war Japan memory politics. The dichotomies of war/peace, death/life, past/future, and old /new emerge as part of the participant’s encounter with different situations during his visit. This is particularly clear where he perceives border zones and points of intersection. The article concludes by interpreting these dichotomies through the notion of themata, as elementary dichotomies that underlie a social debate around a specific topic. Specifically, two themata are proposed: one revolving around the temporal problematisation of the past and the future in the memory politics of the A-Bomb, and the other revolving around the spatial dichotomy between the old and the new underlying Hiroshima’s urban renewalOpen Access funding provided thanks to the CRUE-CSIC agreement with Springer Natur
PArthENoPE: Public Algorithm Evaluating the Nucleosynthesis of Primordial Elements
We describe a program for computing the abundances of light elements produced
during Big Bang Nucleosynthesis which is publicly available at
http://parthenope.na.infn.it/. Starting from nuclear statistical equilibrium
conditions the program solves the set of coupled ordinary differential
equations, follows the departure from chemical equilibrium of nuclear species,
and determines their asymptotic abundances as function of several input
cosmological parameters as the baryon density, the number of effective
neutrino, the value of cosmological constant and the neutrino chemical
potential. The program requires commercial NAG library routines.Comment: 18 pages, 2 figures. Version accepted by Comp. Phys. Com. The code
(and an updated manual) is publicly available at
http://parthenope.na.infn.it
Numerically generated quasi-equilibrium orbits of black holes: Circular or eccentric?
We make a comparison between results from numerically generated,
quasi-equilibrium configurations of compact binary systems of black holes in
close orbits, and results from the post-Newtonian approximation. The
post-Newtonian results are accurate through third PN order (O(v/c)^6 beyond
Newtonian gravity), and include rotational and spin-orbit effects, but are
generalized to permit orbits of non-zero eccentricity. Both treatments ignore
gravitational radiation reaction. The energy E and angular momentum J of a
given configuration are compared between the two methods as a function of the
orbital angular frequency \Omega. For small \Omega, corresponding to orbital
separations a factor of two larger than that of the innermost stable orbit, we
find that, if the orbit is permitted to be slightly eccentric, with e ranging
from \approx 0.03 to \approx 0.05, and with the two objects initially located
at the orbital apocenter (maximum separation), our PN formulae give much better
fits to the numerically generated data than do any circular-orbit PN methods,
including various ``effective one-body'' resummation techniques. We speculate
that the approximations made in solving the initial value equations of general
relativity numerically may introduce a spurious eccentricity into the orbits.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, to be submitted to Phys. Rev.
Note on Possible Emergence Time of Newtonian Gravity
If gravity were an emergent phenomenon, some relativistic as well as
non-relativistic speculations claim it is, then a certain emergence time scale
tau_? would characterize it. We argue that the available experimental evidences
have poor time resolution regarding how immediate the creation of Newton field
of accelerated mass sources is. Although the concrete theoretical model of
gravity's `laziness' is missing, the concept and the scale tau_? ~ 1ms, rooted
in an extrapolation of spontaneous wave function collapse theory, might be
tested directly in reachable experiments.Comment: 2pp, essentially revised, clarified, concretized version accepted in
PL
Disc-oscillation resonance and neutron star QPOs: 3:2 epicyclic orbital model
The high-frequency quasi-periodic oscillations (HF QPOs) that appear in the
X-ray fluxes of low-mass X-ray binaries remain an unexplained phenomenon. Among
other ideas, it has been suggested that a non-linear resonance between two
oscillation modes in an accretion disc orbiting either a black hole or a
neutron star plays a role in exciting the observed modulation. Several possible
resonances have been discussed. A particular model assumes resonances in which
the disc-oscillation modes have the eigenfrequencies equal to the radial and
vertical epicyclic frequencies of geodesic orbital motion. This model has been
discussed for black hole microquasar sources as well as for a group of neutron
star sources. Assuming several neutron (strange) star equations of state and
Hartle-Thorne geometry of rotating stars, we briefly compare the frequencies
expected from the model to those observed. Our comparison implies that the
inferred neutron star radius "RNS" is larger than the related radius of the
marginally stable circular orbit "rms" for nuclear matter equations of state
and spin frequencies up to 800Hz. For the same range of spin and a strange star
(MIT) equation of state, the inferrred radius RNS is roughly equal to rms. The
Paczynski modulation mechanism considered within the model requires that RNS <
rms. However, we find this condition to be fulfilled only for the strange
matter equation of state, masses below one solar mass, and spin frequencies
above 800Hz. This result most likely falsifies the postulation of the neutron
star 3:2 resonant eigenfrequencies being equal to the frequencies of geodesic
radial and vertical epicyclic modes. We suggest that the 3:2 epicyclic modes
could stay among the possible choices only if a fairly non-geodesic accretion
flow is assumed, or if a different modulation mechanism operates.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures (in colour), accepted for publication in Astronomy
& Astrophysic
A General Relativistic Magnetohydrodynamic Model of High Frequency Quasi-periodic Oscillations in Black Hole Low-Mass X-ray Binaries
We suggest a possible explanation for the high frequency quasi-periodic
oscillations (QPOs) in black hole low mass X-ray binaries. By solving the
perturbation general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic equations, we find two
stable modes of the Alf\'ven wave in the the accretion disks with toroidal
magnetic fields. We suggest that these two modes may lead to the double high
frequency QPOs if they are produced in the transition region between the inner
advection dominated accretion flow and the outer thin disk. This model
naturally accounts for the 3 : 2 relation for the upper and lower frequencies
of the QPOs, and the relation between the black hole mass and QPO frequency.Comment: Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journa
Gravitational wave bursts induced by r-mode spin-down of hybrid stars
We show that sudden variations in the composition and structure of an hybrid
star can be triggered by its rapid spin-down, induced by r-mode instabilities.
The discontinuity of this process is due to the surface tension between
hadronic and quark matter and in particular to the overpressure needed to
nucleate new structures of quark matter in the mixed phase. The consequent
mini-collapses in the star can produce highly energetic gravitational wave
bursts. The possible connection between the predictions of this model and the
burst signal found by EXPLORER and NAUTILUS detectors during the year 2001 is
also investigated.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures, revised version, to be published in Astronomy &
Astrophysic
Where is the Radiation Edge in Magnetized Black Hole Accretion discs?
General Relativistic (GR) Magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations of black hole
accretion find significant magnetic stresses near and inside the innermost
stable circular orbit (ISCO), suggesting that such flows could radiate in a
manner noticeably different from the prediction of the standard model, which
assumes that there are no stresses in that region. We provide estimates of how
phenomenologically interesting parameters like the ``radiation edge", the
innermost ring of the disc from which substantial thermal radiation escapes to
infinity, may be altered by stresses near the ISCO. These estimates are based
on data from a large number of three-dimensional GRMHD simulations combined
with GR ray-tracing. For slowly spinning black holes (), the radiation
edge lies well inside where the standard model predicts, particularly when the
system is viewed at high inclination. For more rapidly spinning black holes,
the contrast is smaller. At fixed total luminosity, the characteristic
temperature of the accretion flow increases between a factor of over
that predicted by the standard model, whilst at fixed mass accretion rate,
there is a corresponding enhancement of the accretion luminosity which may be
anywhere from tens of percent to order unity. When all these considerations are
combined, we find that, for fixed black hole mass, luminosity, and inclination
angle, our uncertainty in the characteristic temperature of the radiation
reaching distant observers due to uncertainty in dissipation profile (around a
factor of 3) is {\it greater} than the uncertainty due to a complete lack of
knowledge of the black hole's spin (around a factor of 2) and furthermore that
spin estimates based on the stress-free inner boundary condition provide an
upper limit to .Comment: 20 pages, 17 figures, accepted by MNRAS; major changes to original,
including entirely new sections discussing characteristic temperature of
black hole accretion flows and implications for measurements of black hole
spin, along with substantially expanded conclusio
Epicyclic oscillations of non-slender fluid tori around Kerr black holes
Considering epicyclic oscillations of pressure-supported perfect fluid tori
orbiting Kerr black holes we examine non-geodesic (pressure) effects on the
epicyclic modes properties. Using a perturbation method we derive fully general
relativistic formulas for eigenfunctions and eigenfrequencies of the radial and
vertical epicyclic modes of a slightly non-slender, constant specific angular
momentum torus up to second-order accuracy with respect to the torus thickness.
The behaviour of the axisymmetric and lowest-order () non-axisymmetric
epicyclic modes is investigated. For an arbitrary black hole spin we find that,
in comparison with the (axisymmetric) epicyclic frequencies of free test
particles, non-slender tori receive negative pressure corrections and exhibit
thus lower frequencies. Our findings are in qualitative agreement with the
results of a recent pseudo-Newtonian study of analogous problem defined within
the Paczy{\'n}ski-Wiita potential. Implications of our results on the
high-frequency QPO models dealing with epicyclic oscillations are addressed.Comment: 24 pages, 8 figure
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