Astrophysical Plasma

The Faint Object Spectrograph (FOS) aboard Hubble Space Telescope (HST) has been used in the UV to observe the prototypical X-ray pulsar Her X-1 and its companion HZ Her. Optical spectra were also obtained contemporaneously at the Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO) 2.1 m. The FOS spectra encompass the 1150-3300 A range near binary orbital phases 0.5 (X-ray maximum) and

We provide additional information on our recent study of the electromagnetic emission produced during the inspiral and merger of supermassive black holes when these are immersed in a force-free plasma threaded by a uniform magnetic field. As anticipated in a recent letter, our results show that although a dual-jet structure is present, the associated luminosity is 100 times smaller than the total one, which is predominantly quadrupolar. We here discuss the details of our implementation of the equations in which the force-free condition is not implemented at a discrete level, but rather obtained via a damping scheme which drives the solution to satisfy the correct condition. We show that this is important for a correct and accurate description of the current sheets that can develop in the course of the simulation. We also study in greater detail the three-dimensional charge distribution produced as a consequence of the inspiral and show that during the inspiral it possesses a complex...

We present optical lightcurves of the gravitationally lensed components A (=A1+A2+A3) and B of the quadruple quasar RX J0911.4+0551 (z = 2.80). The observations were primarily obtained at the Nordic Optical Telescope between 1997 March and 2001 April and consist of 74 I-band data points for each component. The data allow the measurement of a time delay of 146 +- 8 days (2 sigma) between A and B, with B as the leading component. This value is significantly shorter than that predicted from simple models and indicates a very large external shear. Mass models including the main lens galaxy and the surrounding massive cluster of galaxies at z = 0.77, responsible for the external shear, yield H_0 = 71 +- 4 (random, 2 sigma) +- 8 (systematic) km/s/Mpc. The systematic model uncertainty is governed by the surface-mass density (convergence) at the location of the multiple images.

We monitored the Doppler shift of the G0 V star TrES-2 throughout a transit of its giant planet. The anomalous Doppler shift due to stellar rotation (the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect) is discernible in the data, with a signal-to-noise ratio of 2.9, even though the star is a slow rotator. By modeling this effect we find that the planet's trajectory across the face of the star is tilted by -9° +/- 12° relative to the projected stellar equator. With 98% confidence, the orbit is prograde.
Data presented herein were obtained at the W. M. Keck Observatory, which is operated as a scientific partnership among the California Institute of Technology, the University of California, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and was made possible by the generous financial support of the W. M. Keck Foundation.

This study raises doubts about some fundamental ideas of electrostatics, namely the uniqueness theorems. The Poisson-Boltzmann equation (PBE) gives us very simple formula for charge density distribution (ρe) within fluids. Here we show that the old boundary conditions (BC), which are usually used to solve PBE, have serious defects. For example, Dirichlet condition (DC) assigns values to electrostatic potential (ψ) at different boundaries in an absolute sense i.e. without specifying any reference, which is meaningless and leads to violation of charge conservation principle. The Neumann condition (NC) assigns 'independent' values to ψ at different boundaries, whereas they are actually 'related' to each other through Poisson's equation in electrostatics (PES), which makes the solutions non-unique. We use BCs of mixed type to derive correct formula for ρe that addresses the above defects. A remarkable conclusion follows: the present physical interpretation of 'Debye length' (λD) as a screening length is incorrect.

On the basis of Braaten and Segel's representation of the electro-magnetic dispersion relations in a QED plasma we check the numerical accuracy of several published analytic approximations to the plasma neutrino emission rates. As we find none of them satisfactory we de-rive a ...

BIMA observations of the Orion nebula discovered a giant flare from a young star previously undetected at millimeter wavelengths. The star briefly became the brightest compact object in the nebula at 86 GHz. Its flux density increased by more than a factor of 5 on a timescale of hours, to a peak of 160 mJy. This is one of the most luminous stellar radio flares ever observed. Remarkably, the Chandra X-ray observatory was in the midst of a deep integration of the Orion nebula at the time of the BIMA discovery; the source's X-ray flux increased by a factor of 10 approximately 2 days before the radio detection. Follow-up radio observations with the VLA and BIMA showed that the source decayed on a timescale of days, then flared again several times over the next 70 days, although never as brightly as during the discovery. Circular polarization was detected at 15, 22, and 43 GHz, indicating that the emission mechanism was cyclotron. VLBA observations 9 days after the initial flare yiel...

We present a detailed study of s-process nucleosynthesis in massive stars of solar-like initial composition and masses 15, 20, 25, and 30 M⊙. We update our previous results of s-process nucleosynthesis during the core He-burning of these stars and then focus on an analysis of the s-process under the physical conditions encountered during the shell-carbon burning. We show that the recent compilation of the 22 Ne(α, n) 25 Mg rate leads to a remarkable reduction of the efficiency of the s-process during core He-burning. In particular, this rate leads to the lowest overproduction factor of 80 Kr found to date during core He-burning in massive stars. The s-process yields resulting from shell carbon burning turn out to be very sensitive to the structural evolution of the carbon shell. This structure is influenced by the mass fraction of 12 C attained at the end of core helium burning, which in turn is mainly determined by the 12 C(α, γ) 16 O reaction. The still present uncertainty in the ...

We present a kinetic theory for the evolution of the phase-space distribution of dark matter particles in galaxy halos in the presence of a cosmological spectrum of fluctuations. This theory introduces a new way to model the formation and evolution of halos, which traditionally have been investigated by analytic gravitational infall models or numerical N-body methods. Unlike the collisionless Boltzmann equation, our kinetic equation contains nonzero terms on the right-hand side arising from stochastic fluctuations in the gravitational potential due to substructures in the dark matter mass distribution. Using statistics for constrained Gaussian random fields in standard cosmological models, we show that our kinetic equation to second-order in perturbation theory is of the Fokker-Planck form, with one scattering term representing drift and the other representing diffusion in velocity-space. The drift is radial, and the drift and diffusion coefficients depend only on positions and not ...

We report on the γ-ray activity of the high-synchrotron-peaked BL Lacertae object Markarian 421 (Mrk 421) during the first 1.5 years of Fermi operation, from 2008 August 5 to 2010 March 12. We find that the Large Area Telescope (LAT) γ-ray spectrum above 0.3 GeV can be well described by a power-law function with photon index Γ = 1.78 ± 0.02 and average photon flux F(> 0.3 GeV) = (7.23 ± 0.16) × 10-8 ph cm-2 s-1. Over this time period, the Fermi-LAT spectrum above 0.3 GeV was evaluated on seven-day-long time intervals, showing significant variations in the photon flux (up to a factor ~3 from the minimum to the maximum flux) but mild spectral variations. The variability amplitude at X-ray frequencies measured by RXTE/ASM and Swift/BAT is substantially larger than that in γ-rays measured by Fermi-LAT, and these two energy ranges are not significantly correlated. We also present the first results from the 4.5 month long multifrequency campaign on Mrk 421, which included the VLBA, Swift, RXTE, MAGIC, the F-GAMMA, GASP-WEBT, and other collaborations and instruments that provided excellent temporal and energy coverage of the source throughout the entire campaign (2009 January 19 to 2009 June 1). During this campaign, Mrk 421 showed a low activity at all wavebands. The extensive multi-instrument (radio to TeV) data set provides an unprecedented, complete look at the quiescent spectral energy distribution (SED) for this source. The broadband SED was reproduced with a leptonic (one-zone synchrotron self-Compton) and a hadronic model (synchrotron proton blazar). Both frameworks are able to describe the average SED reasonably well, implying comparable jet powers but very different characteristics for the blazar emission site.

The author presents an exciting new hypothesis for megafauna extinction based upon historical, mythical, geological, astronomic, and atmospheric evidence. While not conclusive, it is highly compelling and demands further investigation. Examples of cross cultural motifs in the form of glyphs, mounds, and earthworks are provided with mythic comparisons and contrasts. Counter arguments are provided throughout as well as strong debunking of prior archaeological biases rooted in Victorian, antiquated pseudoscience. Assumptions in the two models presented for plasma-arc-discharge mechanism are clearly listed, as well as known facts. Citations enable cross reference while the work focuses not on diffusion anthropology, but realistic atmospheric/astronomical plasmoid petroglyph formations recorded in rock