On the release of binding energy and accretion power in core collapse-like environments

All accretion models of gamma-ray bursts share a common assumption: accretion power and gravitational binding energy is released and then dissipated locally, with the mass of its origin. This is equivalent to the Shakura-Sunyaev 1973 (SS73) prescription for the dissipation of accretion power and subsequent conversion into radiate output. Since their seminal paper, broadband observations of quasars and black hole X-ray binaries insist that the SS73 prescription cannot wholly describe their behavior. In particular, optically thick black hole accretion flows are almost universally accompanied by coronae whose relative power by far exceeds anything seen in studies of stellar chromospheric and coronal activity. In this note, we briefly discuss the possible repercussions of freeing accretion models of GRBs from the SS73 prescription. Our main conclusion is that the efficiency of converting gravitational binding energy into a GRB power can be increased by an order of magnitude or more.Comment: 6 page Aspen conference proceedin

Warm Jupiters Need Close "Friends" for High-Eccentricity Migration -- A Stringent Upper Limit on the Perturber's Separation

We propose a stringent observational test on the formation of warm Jupiters (gas-giant planets with 10 d <~ P <~ 100 d) by high-eccentricity (high-e) migration mechanisms. Unlike hot Jupiters, the majority of observed warm Jupiters have pericenter distances too large to allow efficient tidal dissipation to induce migration. To access the close pericenter required for migration during a Kozai-Lidov cycle, they must be accompanied by a strong enough perturber to overcome the precession caused by General Relativity (GR), placing a strong upper limit on the perturber's separation. For a warm Jupiter at a ~ 0.2 AU, a Jupiter-mass (solar-mass) perturber is required to be <~ 3 AU (<~ 30 AU) and can be identified observationally. Among warm Jupiters detected by Radial Velocities (RV), >~ 50% (5 out of 9) with large eccentricities (e >~ 0.4) have known Jovian companions satisfying this necessary condition for high-e migration. In contrast, <~ 20 % (3 out of 17) of the low-e (e <~ 0.2) warm Jupiters have detected additional Jovian companions, suggesting that high-e migration with planetary perturbers may not be the dominant formation channel. Complete, long-term RV follow-ups of the warm-Jupiter population will allow a firm upper limit to be put on the fraction of these planets formed by high-e migration. Transiting warm Jupiters showing spin-orbit misalignments will be interesting to apply our test. If the misalignments are solely due to high-e migration as commonly suggested, we expect that the majority of warm Jupiters with low-e (e <~0.2) are not misaligned, in contrast with low-e hot Jupiters.Comment: Minor changes, Accepted by ApJ

Protrepticus

A new translation and edition of Aristotle's Protrepticus (with critical comments on the fragments) Welcome The Protrepticus was an early work of Aristotle, written while he was still a member of Plato's Academy, but it soon became one of the most famous works in the whole history of philosophy. Unfortunately it was not directly copied in the middle ages and so did not survive in its own manuscript tradition. But substantial fragments of it have been preserved in several works by Iamblichus of Chalcis, a third century A.D. neo-Pythagorean philosopher and educator. On the basis of a close study of Iamblichus' extensive use and excerption of Aristotle's Protrepticus, it is possible to reconstruct the backbone of the lost work, and then to flesh it out with the other surviving reports about the work from antiquity (for example in Alexander of Aphrodisias and other ancient commentators on Aristotle). It is also possible to identify several papyrus fragments of the work, and many references and literary allusions in later authors, especially Cicero, whose own lost dialogue Hortensius was a defense of philosophy modeleld on Aristotle's