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Symmetry 2015, xx, 1-x; doi:10.3390/—— OPEN ACCESS symmetry ISSN 2073-8994 www.mdpi.com/journal/symmetry Article Supersymmetry with radiatively-driven naturalness: implications for WIMP and axion searches arXiv:1503.04137v1 [hep-ph] 13 Mar 2015 Kyu Jung Bae1 , Howard Baer1, *, Vernon Barger2 , Michael R. Savoy1 and Hasan Serce1 1 2 Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK 73019, USA Dept. of Physics, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706, USA * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; [email protected], 405-325-3961 ext 36315 Received: xx / Accepted: xx / Published: xx Abstract: By insisting on naturalness in both the electroweak and QCD sectors of the MSSM, the portrait for dark matter production is seriously modified from the usual WIMP miracle picture. In SUSY models with radiatively-driven naturalness (radiative natural SUSY or RNS) which include a DFSZ-like solution to the strong CP and SUSY µ problems, dark matter is expected to be an admixture of both axions and higgsino-like WIMPs. The WIMP/axion abundance calculation requires simultaneous solution of a set of coupled Boltzmann equations which describe quasi-stable axinos and saxions. In most of parameter space, axions make up the dominant contribution of dark matter although regions of WIMP dominance also occur. We show the allowed range of PQ scale fa and compare to the values expected to be probed by the ADMX axion detector in the near future. We also show WIMP detection rates which are suppressed from usual expectations because now WIMPs comprise only a fraction of the total dark matter. Nonetheless, ton-scale noble liquid detectors should be able to probe the entirety of RNS parameter space. Indirect WIMP detection rates are less propitious since they are reduced by the square of the depleted WIMP abundance. Keywords: supersymmetry; dark matter; WIMPs; axions; naturalness arXiv:1503.04109v1 [hep-ph] 13 Mar 2015 Prepared for submission to JCAP Dark matter signals at neutrino telescopes in effective theories Riccardo Catenaa a Institut f¨ ur Theoretische Physik, Friedrich-Hund-Platz 1, 37077 G¨ottingen, Germany E-mail: [email protected] Abstract. We constrain the effective theory of one-body dark matter-nucleon interactions using neutrino telescope observations. We derive exclusion limits on the 28 coupling constants of the theory, exploring interaction operators previously considered in dark matter direct detection only, and using new nuclear response functions recently derived through nuclear structure calculations. We determine for what interactions neutrino telescopes are superior to current direct detection experiments, and show that Hydrogen is not the most important element in the exclusion limit calculation for the majority of the spin-dependent operators. Keywords: dark matter theory, dark matter experiments RUP-15-5 RESCEU-4/15 Cosmological long-wavelength solutions and primordial black hole formation 1 Tomohiro Harada,∗ 2 Chul-Moon Yoo,† 3 Tomohiro Nakama,‡ and 1 Yasutaka Koga§ 1 Department of Physics, Rikkyo University, Toshima, Tokyo 171-8501, Japan Gravity and Particle Cosmology Group, Division of Particle and Astrophysical Science, Graduate School of Science, Nagoya University, Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya 464-8602, Japan and 3 Research Center for the Early Universe (RESCEU), Graduate School of Science, University of Tokyo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan (Dated: March 16, 2015) 2 arXiv:1503.03934v1 [gr-qc] 13 Mar 2015 We construct cosmological long-wavelength solutions without symmetry in general gauge conditions which are compatible with the long-wavelength scheme. We then specify the relationship among the solutions in different time slicings. Nonspherical long-wavelength solutions are particularly important for primordial structure formation in the epoch of very soft equations of state. Applying this general framework to spherical symmetry, we show the equivalence between longwavelength solutions in the constant mean curvature slicing with conformally flat spatial coordinates and asymptotic quasi-homogeneous solutions in the comoving slicing with the comoving threading. We derive the correspondence relation between these two solutions and compare the results of numerical simulations of primordial black hole (PBH) formation in these two different approaches. To discuss the PBH formation, it is convenient and conventional to use δ˜c , the value which the averaged density perturbation at threshold in the comoving slicing would take at horizon entry in the first-order long-wavelength expansion. We numerically find that within (approximately) compensated models, the sharper the transition from the overdense region to the FRW universe is, the larger the δ˜c becomes. We suggest that, for the equation of state √ p = (Γ − 1)ρ, we can apply the analytic formula for the minimum δ˜c,min ≃ 3Γ/(3Γ + 2) sin2 π Γ − 1/(3Γ − 2) and the maximum δ˜c,max ≃ 3Γ/(3Γ + 2). As for the threshold peak value of the curvature perturbation ψ0,c , we find that the sharper the transition is, the smaller the ψ0,c becomes. We analytically explain this intriguing feature qualitatively with a compensated top-hat density model. We also analytically deduce an environmental effect for primordial structure formation in the presence of much longer wavelength perturbations using simplified models. We conclude that PBH formation can be significantly suppressed (enhanced) in the underlying positive (negative) density perturbation of much longer wavelength, provided that the smaller value of ψ0,c implies higher production rate of PBHs. PACS numbers: 04.70.Bw, 98.80.-k, 97.60.Lf ∗ † ‡ § [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Numerical solution of the non-linear Schr¨ odinger equation using smoothed-particle hydrodynamics Philip Mocz∗ Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA arXiv:1503.03869v1 [physics.comp-ph] 12 Mar 2015 Sauro Succi† Istituto per le Applicazioni del Calcolo, CNR, Viale del Policlinico 137, I-00161, Roma, Italy Institute of Applied Computational Science, Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Northwest B162, 52 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA (Dated: March 16, 2015) We formulate a smoothed-particle hydrodynamics numerical method, traditionally used for the Euler equations for fluid dynamics in the context of astrophysical simulations, to solve the non-linear Schr¨ odinger equation in the Madelung formulation. The probability density of the wavefunction is discretized into moving particles, whose properties are smoothed by a kernel function. The traditional fluid pressure is replaced by a quantum pressure tensor, for which a novel, robust discretization is found. We demonstrate our numerical method on a variety of numerical test problems involving the simple harmonic oscillator, Bose-Einstein condensates, collapsing singularities, and dark matter halos governed by the Gross-Pitaevskii-Poisson equation. Our method is conservative, applicable to unbounded domains, and is automatically adaptive in its resolution, making it well suited to study problems with collapsing solutions. PACS numbers: 02.60.-x, 03.65.-w, 47.11.-j, 67.85.Hj, 67.85.Jk I. INTRODUCTION Quantum mechanics is one of the basic pillars of modern physics. The Schr¨odinger equation describes the quantum mechanical evolution of the wavefunction of a particle over time. The non-linear Schr¨odinger equation (NLSE), also called the Gross-Pitaevskii equation, is a non-linear extension of the Schr¨odinger equation, which describes the ground state of a quantum system of identical bosons using a single-particle wavefunction approximation and a pseudopotential model for interaction. It is ideal for describing a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC): dilute gas of bosons in a low-temperature state very close to absolute zero. BECs were first predicted in the early days of quantum theory by Bose and Einstein in 19241925. The first realization in the laboratory was achieved in 1995 [1, 2], which marked a new era in atomic, molecular and optical (AMO) physics and quantum optics [3]. The NLSE has applications and extensions to entirely different physical systems as well, including the propagation of light in non-linear fiber optics [4], Langmuir waves in plasmas [5], and self-gravitating BEC models for dark matter, governed by the Gross-Pitaevskii-Poisson equations [6]. The NLSE is challenging to solve and almost always requires numerical solutions. Ongoing research has led to the development of a variety of methods to solve these systems in various contexts, such as those for solving time-evolution of BEC systems [3, 7–10] and obtaining their ground states [11–14]. These methods solve for the ∗ † [email protected] [email protected] solution to the NSLE in the standard form, and typically employ finite-difference, finite-element, or spectral methods. Other non-standard methods for solving quantum systems have been proposed as well, such as lattice Boltzmann [15, 16]. Each method has different strengths and limitations when applied to different systems [17]. We propose a novel, conservative numerical approach for solving the NLSE that is quite different from the standard approaches. We solve the NLSE in Madelung hydrodynamic form, using a smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) algorithm. The Schr¨odinger equation, as well as the NLSE, can be reformulated under the Madelung transformation to take a different form that resembles the fluid equations [18]. The equation in Madelung form describes the evolution of the quantum probability density of the wavefunction under a quantum “pressure” tensor, and is equivalent to the standard form. SPH is a particle-based method for computational fluid dynamics. It was originally invented to simulate polytropic stellar models under non-axisymmetric conditions [19, 20]. It has since been extended and coupled with additional physical processes and plays a central role in astrophysical and cosmological simulations [21–23]. SPH operates independently of any grid, unlike finitedifference, finite-volume, or finite-element methods, and interactions between volume elements, such as the pressure gradient, are represented as a force between particles. The method is purely Lagrangian, meaning that interactions and derivatives are evaluated in a coordinate system attached to a moving fluid element. The two fundamental ideas of SPH are (1) to evolve the positions and velocities of particles according to the calculation of the forces on each particle at each time-step, and (2) to use an interpolating/smoothing kernel to calculate forces Prepared for submission to JCAP arXiv:1503.03214v1 [gr-qc] 11 Mar 2015 Non-minimally coupled varying constants quantum cosmologies Adam Balcerzaka,b a Institute of Physics, University of Szczecin, Wielkopolska 15, 70-451 Szczecin, Poland b Copernicus Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, Sławkowska 17, 31-016 Kraków, Poland E-mail: [email protected] Abstract. We consider gravity theory with varying speed of light and varying gravitational constant. Both constants are represented by non-minimally coupled scalar fields. We examine the cosmological evolution in the near curvature singularity regime. We find that at the curvature singularity the speed of light goes to infinity while the gravitational constant vanishes. This corresponds to the Newton’s Mechanics limit represented by one of the vertex of the Bronshtein-Zelmanov-Okun cube [1, 2]. The cosmological evolution includes both the pre-big-bang and post-big-bang phases separated by the curvature singularity. We also investigate the quantum counterpart of the considered theory and find the probability of transition of the universe from the collapsing pre-big-bang phase to the expanding post-big-bang phase. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 000, 000–000 (0000) Printed 16 March 2015 (MN LATEX style file v2.2) arXiv:1503.04195v1 [astro-ph.GA] 13 Mar 2015 Photoionization analysis of chemo-dynamical dwarf galaxies simulations B. Melekh1 , S. Recchi2 , G. Hensler2, O. Buhajenko1, 1 2 Department of Astrophysics, Ivan Franko National University, Kyrylo & Methodiy str. 8, 79005 Lviv, Ukraine Institute for Astrophysics, University of Vienna, T¨urkenschanzstrasse 17, A-1180 Vienna, Austria Accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Main Journal, 12 March 2015. ABSTRACT Photoionization modelling allows to follow the transport, the emergence, and the absorption of photons taking into account all important processes in nebular plasmas. Such modelling needs the spatial distribution of density, chemical abundances and temperature, that can be provided by chemo-dynamical simulations (ChDS) of dwarf galaxies. We perform multicomponent photoionization modelling (MPhM) of the ionized gas using 2-D ChDSs of dwarf galaxies. We calculate emissivity maps for important nebular emission lines. Their intensities are used to derive the chemical abundance of oxygen by the so-called T e − and R23 −methods. Some disagreements are found between oxygen abundances calculated with these methods and the ones coming from the ChDSs. We investigate the fraction of ionizing radiation emitted in the star-forming region which is able to leak out the galaxy. The time- and direction-averaged escape fraction in our simulation is 0.35–0.4. Finally, we have calculated the total Hα luminosity of our model galaxy using Kennicutt’s calibration to derive the star-formation rate. This value has been compared to the ’true’ rate in the ChDSs. The Hα -based star-formation rate agrees with the true one only at the beginning of the simulation. Minor deviations arise later on and are due in part to the production of high-energy photons in the warm-hot gas, in part to the leakage of energetic photons out of the galaxy. The effect of artificially introduced thin dense shells (with thicknesses smaller than the ChDSs spatial resolution) is investigated, as well. Key words: Galaxies: modelling – Galaxies: dwarf – Galaxies: evolution – Galaxies: ISM – Galaxies: emission lines 1 INTRODUCTION The main information about physical processes and the physical state of the interstellar medium (ISM) in star-forming dwarf galaxies (DGs) are obtained from observed emission line spectra from their nebular components – gaseous nebulae or nebulae surrounding the compact star-forming (SF) region (see the textbooks of Dopita & Sutherland 2003; Osterbrock & Ferland 2005). Line intensity ratios are used to infer the physical state (density, temperature, chemical composition) of ionized regions. These indicators are commonly dubbed diagnostic methods and their use date back to the seventies (Searle 1971; Pagel et al. 1979), although research is still ongoing in this field (see Pilyugin 2003; Pettini & Pagel 2004; Stasi´nska 2006). As it is well known, (see e.g. Osterbrock & Ferland 2005) some intensity ratios (such as [OIII]λ4363Å versus λ4959Å and λ5007Å) in range typical for HII regions are much more sensitive to the electron temperature than to electron density, whereas others (e.g. [SII]λ6716Å/λ6731Å and [OII]λ3729Å/λ3726Å) are sensitive to the electron density. In some cases, intensity ratios are very sensitive to both T e and ne . In this case, two or more diagnostics must be used at the same time to determine both quantities (see Golovaty et al. 1993; Shaw 1995). Physical conditions inside nebulae can thus be recovered and, from them, the relative abundances of ions can be determined. Most of diagnostic methods assume constant electron temperatures and densities as well as ionic abundances over the whole ionized regime, although many attempts can be found in the literature to relax this hypothesis. The assumption of non-uniformity is necessary for instance to explain the discrepancies between electron temperatures found with different diagnostic methods. In particular, the temperature fluctuations are characterized by the socalled t2 parameter (Peimbert 1967). A different approach was proposed by Mathis et al. (1998), who used ratios f between weights of emitting regions1 to characterize the temperature inhomogeneities. Based on this work, Stasi´nska (2002) modified the Peimbert’s t2 parameter to allow for temperature inhomogeneities in ionized nebulae. However, in all these methods (and in other 1 f = (N n V )/(N n V ), where n and n are electron densities in emit2 2 2 1 1 1 1 2 ting regions, V1 and V2 are their volumes, and N1 , N2 are densities of the emitting ions Library and Information Services in Astronomy VII ASP Conference Series, Vol. TBD Andras Holl, Soizick Lesteven, Dianne Dietrich, and Antonella Gasperini, eds. c 2014 Astronomical Society of the Pacific arXiv:1503.04194v1 [astro-ph.IM] 13 Mar 2015 ADS: The Next Generation Search Platform Alberto Accomazzi, Michael J. Kurtz, Edwin A. Henneken, Roman Chyla, James Luker, Carolyn S. Grant, Donna M. Thompson, Alexandra Holachek, Rahul Dave, Stephen S. Murray Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA Abstract. Four years after the last LISA meeting, the NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS) finds itself in the middle of major changes to the infrastructure and contents of its database. In this paper we highlight a number of features of great importance to librarians and discuss the additional functionality that we are currently developing. Starting in 2011, the ADS started to systematically collect, parse and index full-text documents for all the major publications in Physics and Astronomy as well as many smaller Astronomy journals and arXiv e-prints, for a total of over 3.5 million papers. Our citation coverage has doubled since 2010 and now consists of over 70 million citations. We are normalizing the affiliation information in our records and, in collaboration with the CfA library and NASA, we have started collecting and linking funding sources with papers in our system. At the same time, we are undergoing major technology changes in the ADS platform which affect all aspects of the system and its operations. We have rolled out and are now enhancing a new high-performance search engine capable of performing full-text as well as metadata searches using an intuitive query language which supports fielded, unfielded and functional searches. We are currently able to index acknowledgments, affiliations, citations, funding sources, and to the extent that these metadata are available to us they are now searchable under our new platform. The ADS private library system is being enhanced to support reading groups, collaborative editing of lists of papers, tagging, and a variety of privacy settings when managing one’s paper collection. While this effort is still ongoing, some of its benefits are already available through the ADS Labs user interface and API at http://adslabs.org/adsabs/. 1. Introduction The ADS was originally conceived over 20 years ago as a system to support the discovery and retrieval of data from the NASA Astrophysics missions and the scholarly literature written about it (Kurtz et al. 2000). With the restructuring of the ADS program in 1994, the system became the primary service providing a bibliographic discovery platform to researchers in Astronomy, Astrophysics, and related fields. Today, the ADS is best described as a “disciplinary repository” for bibliographic content in Astronomy and Physics. In addition to its search capabilities, ADS tracks citations between papers, links to datasets associated with the publications, provides article-level metrics, and features personalized notification services to registered users. Over its lifetime, ADS has seen an astonishing growth in its data holdings and capabilities. The current number of bibliographic records in ADS is now above 10 1 Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. , (2015) Printed 16 March 2015 (MN LATEX style file v2.2) Defining the frame of minimum Hubble expansion variance arXiv:1503.04192v1 [astro-ph.CO] 13 Mar 2015 James H. McKay⋆ & David L. Wiltshire† Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of Canterbury, Private Bag 4800, Christchurch 8140, New Zealand 16 March 2015 ABSTRACT We characterize a cosmic rest frame in which the variation of the spherically averaged Hubble expansion is most uniform, under local Lorentz boosts of the central observer. Using the COMPOSITE sample of 4534 galaxies, we identify a degenerate set of candidate minimum variance frames, which includes the rest frame of the Local Group (LG) of galaxies, but excludes the standard Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) frame. Candidate rest frames defined by a boost from the LG frame close to the plane of the galaxy have a statistical likelihood similar to the LG frame. This may result from a lack of constraining data in the Zone of Avoidance in the COMPOSITE sample. We extend our analysis to the Cosmicflows-2 (CF2) sample of 8,162 galaxies. While the signature of a systematic boost offset between the CMB and LG frames averages is still detected, the spherically averaged expansion variance in all rest frames is significantly larger in the CF2 sample than would be reasonably expected. We trace this to an omission of any correction for inhomogeneous distribution Malmquist bias in the CF2 distances. Systematic differences in the inclusion of the large SFI++ subsample into the COMPOSITE and CF2 catalogues are analysed. Our results highlight the importance of a careful treatment of Malmquist biases for future peculiar velocities studies, including tests of the hypothesis of Wiltshire et al. (2013) that a significant fraction of the CMB temperature dipole may be nonkinematic in origin. Key words: cosmology: observations — cosmology: theory — distance scale 1 INTRODUCTION Although the Universe is spatially homogeneous in some statistical sense, at the present epoch it exhibits a complex hierarchical structure, with galaxy clusters forming knots, filaments and sheets that thread and surround voids, in a complex cosmic web (Forero–Romero et al. 2009; Bilicki et al. 2014; Einasto 2014). Deviations from homogeneity are conventionally treated in the framework of peculiar velocities, by which the mean redshift, z, and luminosity distance, r, of a galaxy cluster are converted to a peculiar velocity according to vpec = cz − H0 r (1) where c is the speed of light and H0 = 100 h km sec−1 Mpc−1 the Hubble constant. The peculiar velocity framework makes a strong geometrical assumption over and above what is demanded by general relativity. In particular, the quantity vpec defined by (1) only has the physical characteristics of a velocity if one implicitly assumes the spatial geometry on all ⋆ E-mail: [email protected] † E-mail: [email protected] c 2015 RAS scales larger than those of bound systems is exactly described by a homogeneous isotropic Friedmann-LemaˆıtreRobertson-Walker (FLRW) model with a single cosmic scale factor, a(t), whose derivative defines a single global Hubble constant, H0 = a/a| ˙ t0 . Deviations from the uniform expansion are then ascribed to local Lorentz boosts of each galaxy cluster with respect to the spatial hypersurfaces of average homogeneity. It is a consequence of general relativity, however, that inhomogeneous matter distributions generally give rise to a differential expansion of space that cannot be reduced to a single uniform expansion plus local boosts. This is a feature of general exact solutions to the cosmological Einstein equations, such as the Lemaˆıtre–Tolman–Bondi (LTB) (Lemaˆıtre 1933; Tolman 1934; Bondi 1947) and Szekeres (1975) models. Any definition of the expansion rate in such models depends on the spatial scale relative to that of the inhomogeneities. Although one can define scale dependent Hubble parameters for specific exact solutions – for example, given the spherical symmetry of the LTB model – the actual cosmic web is sufficiently complex that in reality one must deal with spatial or null cone averages in general relativity. In recent work Wiltshire et al. (2013) examined the variation of the Hubble expansion from a fresh perspec- The Chemical Composition of τ Ceti and Possible Effects on Terrestrial Planets arXiv:1503.04189v1 [astro-ph.EP] 13 Mar 2015 Michael Pagano1 , Amanda Truitt1 , Patrick A. Young1 , Sang-Heon Shim1 ABSTRACT τ Ceti (HD10700), a G8 dwarf with mass 0.78 M , is a close (3.65 pc) sun-like star where 5 possibly terrestrial planet candidates (minimum masses of 2, 3.1, 3.5, 4.3, and 6.7 M⊕ ) have recently been discovered. We report abundances of 23 elements using spectra from the MIKE spectrograph on Magellan. We find [Fe/H] = −0.49 and T e f f = 5387 K. Using stellar models with the abundances determined here, we calculate the position of the classical habitable zone with time. At the current best fit age, 7.63+0.87 −1.5 Gy, up to two planets (e and f) may be in the habitable zone, depending on atmospheric properties. The Mg/Si ratio of the star is found to be 2.01, which is much greater than for Earth (∼1.2). With a system that has such an excess of Mg to Si ratio it is possible that the mineralogical make-up of planets around τ Ceti could be significantly different from that of Earth, with possible oversaturation of MgO, resulting in an increase in the content of olivine and ferropericlase compared with Earth. The increase in MgO would have a drastic impact on the rheology of the mantles of the planets around τ Ceti. Subject headings: astrobiology, planets and satellites: composition, planets and satellites: interiors, stars: abundances, stars: individual(τ Ceti.) 1. Introduction With the number of extrasolar planets increasing rapidly, it appears that Earth-sized planets in their host star’s habitable zone (HZ, (e.g. Kasting, Whitmire, & Reynolds 1993; Kopparapu et al. 2013a)) should be numerous (Marcy et al. 2000; Gaidos 2013; Dressing & Charbonneau 2013; Kasting et al. 2013; Petigura et al. 2013). In two decades we have progressed from having no candidate planets to having too many to practically search for detectable biosignatures. A more nuanced analysis than the location of a planet relative to the instantaneous HZ is necessary to choose among candidates. One way of conceptualizing this process is through a “detectability 1 School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287 March 16, 2015 0:39 WSPC - Proceedings Trim Size: 9.75in x 6.5in main 1 arXiv:1503.04176v1 [astro-ph.SR] 13 Mar 2015 SGRS AND AXPS AS MASSIVE FAST ROTATING HIGHLY MAGNETIZED WHITE DWARFS: THE CASE OF SGR 0418+5729 K. BOSHKAYEV1,2,3 , J.A. RUEDA1,2 AND R. RUFFINI1,2 1 Department of Physics and ICRA, Sapienza University of Rome, Aldo Moro Square 5, I-00185 Rome, Italy 2 ICRANet, Square of Republic 10, I-65122 Pescara, Italy 3 Physicotechnical Department, Al-Farabi Kazakh National University, Al-Farabi avenue 71, 050038 Almaty, Kazakhstan; ∗ E-mail: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] We describe one of the so-called low magnetic field magnetars SGR 0418+5729, as a massive fast rotating highly magnetized white dwarf following Malheiro et. al.1 We give bounds for the mass, radius, moment of inertia, and magnetic field for these sources, by requesting the stability of realistic general relativistic uniformly rotating configurations. Based on these parameters, we improve the theoretical prediction of the lower limit of the spin-down rate of SGR 0418+5729. In addition, we compute the electron cyclotron frequencies corresponding to the predicted surface magnetic fields. Keywords: general relativistic white dwarfs; SGRs and AXPs; spin-down rate. 1. Introduction Soft Gamma Ray Repeaters (SGRs) and Anomalous X-ray Pulsars (AXPs) are a class of compact objects that show interesting observational properties see e.g. Mereghetti (2008):2 rotational periods in the range P ∼ (2–12) s, a narrow range with respect to the wide range of ordinary pulsars P ∼ (0.001–10) s; spin-down rates P˙ ∼ (10−13 –10−10 ), larger than ordinary pulsars P˙ ∼ 10−15 ; strong outburst of energies ∼ (1041 –1043 ) erg, and for the case of SGRs, giant flares of even large energies ∼ (1044 –1047 ) erg, not observed in ordinary pulsars. The observation of SGR 0418+5729 with a rotational period of P = 9.08 s, an upper limit of the first time derivative of the rotational period P˙ < 6.0 × 10−15 Rea et. al.(2010),12 and an X-ray luminosity of LX = 6.2 × 1031 erg s−1 can be considered as the Rosetta Stone for alternative models of SGRs and AXPs. The magnetar model, based on a neutron star of fiducial parameters M = 1.4M⊙, R = 10 km and a moment of inertia I = 1045 g cm2 , needs a magnetic field larger than the critical field for vacuum polarization Bc = m2e c3 /(e~) = 4.4 × 1013 G in order to explain the observed X-ray luminosity in terms of the release of magnetic energy see4,5 for details. The inferred upper limit of the surface magnetic field of SGR 0418+5729 B < 7.5×1012 G describing it as a neutron star see Rea et. al.12 for details, is well below the critical field, which has challenged the power mechanism based on magnetic field decay in the magnetar scenario. Alternatively, it has been recently pointed out how the pioneering works of Morini et. al.10 and Paczynski11 on the description of 1E 2259+586 as a white dwarf (WD) can be indeed extended to all SGRs and AXPs. These WDs were assumed to have fiducial parameters M = 1.4M⊙, R = 103 km, I = 1049 g cm2 , and magnetic fields B & 107 G see1 for details inferred from the observed rotation March 16, 2015 0:32 WSPC - Proceedings Trim Size: 9.75in x 6.5in main 1 arXiv:1503.04171v1 [astro-ph.SR] 13 Mar 2015 GENERAL RELATIVISTIC AND NEWTONIAN WHITE DWARFS K. BOSHKAYEV1,2,3 , J.A. RUEDA1,2 , R. RUFFINI1,2 AND I. SIUTSOU2 1 Department of Physics and ICRA, Sapienza University of Rome, Aldo Moro Square 5, I-00185 Rome, Italy 2 ICRANet, Square of Republic 10, I-65122 Pescara, Italy 3 Physicotechnical Department, Al-Farabi Kazakh National University, Al-Farabi avenue 71, 050038 Almaty, Kazakhstan; ∗ E-mail: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] The properties of uniformly rotating white dwarfs (RWDs) are analyzed within the framework of Newton’s gravity and general relativity. In both cases Hartle’s formalism is applied to construct the internal and external solutions to the field equations. The white dwarf (WD) matter is described by the Chandrasekhar equation of state. The region of stability of RWDs is constructed taking into account the mass-shedding limit, inverse βdecay instability, and the boundary established by the turning points of constant angular momentum J sequences which separates stable from secularly unstable configurations. We found the minimum rotation period ∼ 0.28 s in both cases and maximum rotating masses ∼ 1.534M⊙ and ∼ 1.516M⊙ for the Newtonian and general relativistic WDs, respectively. By using the turning point method we show that general relativistic WDs can indeed be axisymmetrically unstable whereas the Newtonian WDs are stable. Keywords: Newtonian and general relativistic white dwarfs; maximum mass; minimum period; stability. 1. Introduction Recently, equilibrium configurations of non-rotating (static) 4 He, 12 C, 16 O and 56 Fe white dwarfs (WDs) within general relativity (GR) have been constructed in Ref. 1. The white dwarf matter has been there described by the relativistic generalization of the Feynman-Metropolis-Teller (RFMT) equation of state (EOS) obtained by Rotondo et al.2 A new mass-radius relation that generalizes both the works of Chandrasekhar3 and Hamada & Salpeter4 has been there obtained, leading to a smaller maximum mass and a larger minimum radius with respect to the previous calculations. In addition, it has been shown how both GR and inverse β-decay are relevant for the determination of the maximum stable mass of non-rotating WDs. It is therefore of interest to generalize the above results to the case of rotation. As a first attempt, we constructed in Ref. 5 general relativistic uniformly rotating WDs in the simplified case when microscopic Coulomb screening is neglected in the EOS, following the Chandrasekhar3 approximation by describing the matter as a locally uniform fluid of electrons and nuclei. The average molecular weight in the Chandrasekhar EOS is µ = A/Z, where A is the mass number and Z is the number of protons in a nucleus. As a second attempt, in Ref. 6 we calculated the maximum mass of rotating 4 He, 12 C, 16 O and 56 Fe WDs using the Salpeter11 and the RFMT EOS. As a result we obtained there different maximum mass for different chemical composition of WD matter. As a third attempt, in Ref. 7 we investigated the stability of general relativistic Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 000, 1–8 (2014) Printed 16 March 2015 (MN LaTEX style file v2.2) arXiv:1503.04170v1 [astro-ph.HE] 13 Mar 2015 Collisionless Shocks and TeV Neutrinos before Supernova Shock Breakout from an Optically Thick Wind G. Giacinti1⋆ and A. R. Bell1 1 University of Oxford, Clarendon Laboratory, Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PU, United Kingdom Released 2014 Xxxxx XX ABSTRACT During a supernova explosion, a radiation-dominated shock (RDS) travels through its progenitor. A collisionless shock (CS) is usually assumed to replace it during shock breakout (SB). We demonstrate here that for some realistic progenitors enshrouded in optically thick winds, such as possibly SN 2008D, a CS forms deep inside the wind, soon after the RDS leaves the core, and therefore significantly before SB. The RDS does not survive the transition from the core to the thick wind when the wind close to the core is not sufficiently dense to compensate for the r−2 dilution of photons due to shock curvature. This typically happens when the shock velocity ˙ r∗ w ˙ is . 0.1c ( 10 ukm/s )( 5·10−4MM⊙ /yr )−1 ( 1013 cm ), where uw , M and r∗ are respectively the wind velocity, mass-loss rate and radius of the progenitor star. The radiative CS results in a hard spectrum of the photon flash at breakout, which would produce an X-ray flash. Cosmic ray acceleration would start before SB, for such progenitors. A fraction of secondary TeV neutrinos can reach the observer up to more than ten hours before the first photons from breakout, providing information on the invisible layers of the progenitor. Key words: acceleration of particles – plasmas – shock waves – cosmic rays – supernovae: general. 1 INTRODUCTION Type Ib/c and II supernovae (SNe) are generated by core collapse in massive stars. When the central engine forms, a shock wave is launched through the hydrostatic core of the progenitor. The shock is radiation-dominated (or radiationmediated), i.e. the radiation pressure in the downstream exceeds the fluid pressure (Zel’dovich & Raizer 1966). Once the radiation-dominated shock (RDS) reaches the optically thin outer layers of the stellar core or of its wind (if optically thick), photons cannot stay confined in the immediate downstream and escape ahead of the shock. This flash of photons corresponds to shock breakout (SB) (Colgate 1974; Falk 1978; Klein & Chevalier 1978; Chevalier & Klein 1979; Ensman & Burrows 1992; Matzner & McKee 1999; Blinnikov et al. 2000; Calzavara & Matzner 2004; Waxman et al. 2007; Katz et al. 2010, 2012; Piro et al. 2010; Nakar & Sari 2010; Sapir et al. 2011, 2013). Up until now a few of them have been observed (Campana et al. 2006; Gezari et al. 2008; Modjaz et al. 2009; Schawinski et al. 2008; Soderberg et al. 2008; Ofek et al. 2010), and some Xray flashes (XRFs) may be related to SB (e.g. Kulkarni et al. (1998); Tan et al. (2001); Mazzali et al. (2008); Katz et al. ⋆ E-mail: [email protected] (2011)). See Ofek et al. (2013a,b) and Murase et al. (2014) for radiative signatures at and following breakout. At SB, the RDS disappears and a collisionless shock (CS) later forms (Chevalier & Klein 1979; Ensman & Burrows 1992; Waxman & Loeb 2001; Chevalier & Fransson 2008). The Larmor radius rL of suprathermal particles is smaller than the width of the RDS, which is ≃ λc/3us for a shock velocity us and photon mean free path λ (Weaver 1976). On the other hand, rL is larger than the CS width (Bell 1978a,b) and diffusive shock acceleration becomes possible. A thorough understanding of the CS formation time is then crucial to study the onset of CR acceleration, when very high energies might be reached: & TeV (Waxman & Loeb 2001; Katz et al. 2011), PeV (Tatischeff 2009; Bell et al. 2013), and maybe ultra-high energies for transrelativistic SNe (Budnik 2008). Post-main-sequence mass-loss of massive stars is sufficiently high for some SN progenitors, such as some WolfRayet (WR) stars, blue and red supergiants (RSG), to end up surrounded with optically thick winds (Crowther 2007; Langer 2012). Also, remarkable outbursts can occur before the explosion, see e.g. Ofek et al. (2013b) and Svirski & Nakar (2014). For optically thick winds, the hydrostatic surface is not observable, which complicates our understanding of the late stages of massive star evolu- Astronomy & Astrophysics manuscript no. Version08 March 16, 2015 c ESO 2015 Letter to the Editor Candidate hypervelocity stars of spectral type G and K revisited E. Ziegerer1 , M. Volkert1 , U. Heber1 , A. Irrgang1 , B.T. Gänsicke2 , and S. Geier3,1 1 2 3 Dr. Remeis-Observatory & ECAP, Astronomical Institute, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg, Sternwartstr. 7, 96049 Bamberg, Germany e-mail: [email protected] Department of Physiks, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK European Southern Observatory, Karl-Schwarzschild-Str. 2, 85748 Garching, Germany arXiv:1503.04164v1 [astro-ph.SR] 13 Mar 2015 Received/ Accepted ABSTRACT Hypervelocity stars (HVS) move so fast that they are unbound to the Galaxy. When they were first discovered in 2005, dynamical ejection from the supermassive black hole (SMBH) in the Galactic Centre (GC) was suggested as their origin. The two dozen HVSs known today are young massive B stars, mostly of 3–4 solar masses. Recently, 20 HVS candidates of low mass were discovered in the Segue G and K dwarf sample, but none of them originates from the GC. We embarked on a kinematic analysis of the Segue HVS candidate sample using the full 6D phase space information based on new proper motion measurements. Their orbital properties can then be derived by tracing back their trajectories in different mass models of our Galaxy. We present the results for 14 candidate HVSs, for which proper motion measurements were possible. Significantly lower proper motions than found in the previous study were derived. Considering three different Galactic mass models we find that all stars are bound to the Galaxy. We confirm that the stars do not originate from the GC. The distribution of their proper motions and radial velocities is consistent with predictions for runaway stars ejected from the Galactic disk by the binary supernova mechanism. However, their kinematics are also consistent with old disk membership. Moreover, most stars have rather low metallicities and strong α-element enrichment as typical for thick disk and halo stars, whereas the metallicity of the three most metal-rich stars could possibly indicate that they are runaway stars from the thin disk. One star shows halo kinematics. Key words. stars: kinematics and dynamics – stars: low-mass – stars: late-type – stars: abundances – stars: Population II 1. Introduction The high space velocities and large distances of hypervelocity stars (HVS) unbound to the Galaxy make them important probes to map the Galactic dark matter halo. When HVSs were first discovered (Brown et al. 2005; Hirsch et al. 2005; Edelmann et al. 2005), the tidal disruption of a binary by the supermassive black hole (SMBH) in the Galactic Centre (GC) was suggested as their origin (Hills 1988). Brown et al. (2014) carried out a systematic survey for B-type stars in the halo and found about two dozen HVSs with intermediate masses in the range of 3 to 4 M . As such stars are luminous their survey covered a large volume (out to 100 kpc from the GC). Low-mass stars on the other hand can be accelerated more easily and may gain higher ejection velocities (Tauris 2015). Since they are long-lived they can travel very large distances during their main-sequence lifetime. However, they are less luminous than the B-type HVSs and can only be detected in a smaller volume by flux-limited surveys (<10 kpc), such as Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and Exploration (SEGUE). Moreover, a photometric pre-selection of low mass main-sequence stars is very difficult because of the overwhelmingly large number of red stars in the halo. Therefore attempts have been made to isolate HVS candidates of low mass from the SEGUE G and K Dwarf Sample (Palladino et al. 2014, hereafter P14), LAMOST (Zhong et al. 2014) and RAVE (Hawkins et al. 2015) surveys using proper motion criteria. P14 carried out a search for G and K candidate-HVS from the SEGUE. High proper motion stars were selected for a detailed analysis of the 6D phase space information and 20 candidates were found likely to be unbound, four of which at 3σ and six at 2σ significance levels. Calculating the stars’ trajectories in the Galactic potential P14 derived possible places of origin in the Galactic disk. Amongst the seven stars with the highest probability of being unbound (> 98%) none crossed the disk near the GC, but at distances of 5 to 10 kpc away from it. Hence, an origin in the GC was excluded for those stars, challenging the SMBH slingshot mechanism. Other ejection mechanisms were discussed including the classical scenarii for dynamical interaction in star clusters and the binary supernova scenario (Blaauw 1961). The latter has been revisited by Tauris (2015) to derive the maximum speed of HVS stars ejected from binaries. The simulations indicate that Galactic rest-frame velocities of up to 1280 kms−1 are possible. Such high velocities can explain many, if not all, of the G/K-dwarf HVSs in the SEGUE sample. As stressed by P14, the HVS nature of the stars depends strongly on the proper motion adopted. Therefore, the data was carefully checked for reliability by simulations. Three stars met all criteria and therefore were characterized as “clean”. The remaining 17 stars were regarded as “reliable”. P14 found that the candidates’ tangential velocities are much higher than their radial velocities unlike expected for an isotropic distribution of stars. The authors therefore caution that the high tangential- vs. radial-velocity ratio may be characteristic for a sample with large proper motion errors and built a Monte Carlo test to estimate the chance of the stars being outliers. All stars show a likelihood of less than 25%, half of them even less than 10%. Nevertheless, an independent determination of the proper motions is required. Article number, page 1 of 6 arXiv:1503.04162v1 [astro-ph.HE] 13 Mar 2015 Prepared for submission to JCAP Generation of the magnetic helicity in a neutron star driven by the electroweak electron-nucleon interaction Maxim Dvornikova,b,c Victor B. Semikozb a Institute of Physics, University of S˜ ao Paulo, CP 66318, CEP 05315-970 S˜ ao Paulo, SP, Brazil b Pushkov Institute of Terrestrial Magnetism, Ionosphere and Radiowave Propagation (IZMIRAN), 142190 Troitsk, Moscow, Russia c Physics Faculty, National Research Tomsk State University, 36 Lenin Ave., 634050 Tomsk, Russia E-mail: [email protected], [email protected] Abstract. We study the instability of magnetic fields in a neutron star core driven by the parity violating part of the electron-nucleon interaction in the Standard Model. Assuming a seed field of the order 1012 G, that is a common value for pulsars, one obtains its amplification due to such a novel mechanism by about five orders of magnitude, up to 1017 G, at time scales ∼ (103 − 105 ) yr. This effect is suggested to be a possible explanation of the origin of the strongest magnetic fields observed in magnetars. The growth of a seed magnetic field energy density is stipulated by the corresponding growth of the magnetic helicity density due to the presence of the anomalous electric current in the Maxwell equation. Such an anomaly is the sum of the two competitive effects: (i) the chiral magnetic effect driven by the difference of chemical potentials for the right and left handed massless electrons and (ii) constant chiral electroweak electron-nucleon interaction term, which has the polarization origin and depends on the constant neutron density in a neutron star core. The remarkable issue for the decisive role of the magnetic helicity evolution in the suggested mechanism is the arbitrariness of an initial magnetic helicity including the case of non-helical fields from the beginning. The tendency of the magnetic helicity density to the maximal helicity case at large evolution times provides the growth of a seed magnetic field to the strongest magnetic fields in astrophysics. Keywords: Chern-Simons term, magnetic fields, magnetic helicity, neutron star c ESO 2015 Astronomy & Astrophysics manuscript no. RWaur˙revised March 16, 2015 Another deep dimming of the classical T Tauri star RW Aur A ? (Research Note) arXiv:1503.04158v1 [astro-ph.SR] 13 Mar 2015 P. P. Petrov1 , G. F. Gahm2 , A. A. Djupvik3 , E. V. Babina1 , S. A. Artemenko1 , and K. N. Grankin1 1 Crimean Astrophysical Observatory, p/o Nauchny, 298409 Republic of Crimea email: [email protected]; [email protected] 2 Stockholm Observatory, AlbaNova University Centre, Stockholm University, SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden 3 Nordic Optical Telescope, Rambla Jos´e Ana Fern´andez P´erez 7, ES-38711 Bre˜na Baja, Spain ABSTRACT Context. RW Aur A is a classical T Tauri star (CTTS) with an unusually rich emission line spectrum. In 2014 the star faded by ∼3 magnitudes in the V band and went into a long-lasting minimum. In 2010 the star suffered from a similar fading, although less deep. These events in RW Aur A are very unusual among the CTTS, and have been attributed to occultations by passing dust clouds. Aims. We want to find out if any spectral changes took place after the last fading of RW Aur A with the intention to gather more information on the occulting body and the cause of the phenomenon. Methods. We collected spectra of the two components of RW Aur. Photometry was made before and during the minimum. Results. The overall spectral signatures reflecting emission from accretion flows from disk to star did not change after the fading. However, blue-shifted absorption components related to the stellar wind had increased in strength in certain resonance lines, and the profiles and strengths, but not fluxes, of forbidden lines had become drastically different. Conclusions. The extinction through the obscuring cloud is grey indicating the presence of large dust grains. At the same time, there are no traces of related absorbing gas. The cloud occults the star and the interior part of the stellar wind, but not the wind/jet further out. The dimming in 2014 was not accompanied by changes in the accretion flows at the stellar surface. There is evidence that the structure and velocity pattern of the stellar wind did change significantly. The dimmings could be related to passing condensations in a tidally disrupted disk, as proposed earlier, but we also speculate that large dust grains have been stirred up from the inclined disk into the line-of-sight through the interaction with an enhanced wind. Key words. stars: pre-main sequence – stars: variables: T Tau – stars: circumstellar matter – stars: individual: RW Aur 1. Introduction The classical T Tauri star (CTTS) RW Aur A stands out among the low-mass pre-main-sequence (PMS) stars with its unusually rich emission line spectrum as noted early by Joy (1945). The star has been subject to a large number of investigations. Several spectral features respond to changes in the accretion rate, like narrow components in emission lines of e.g. He i, excess continuous emission (called veiling), and red-shifted absorption components flanking certain strong emission lines. These signatures are prominent in RW Aur A and indicate that the accretion from a circumstellar disk is heavy and variable (e.g., Petrov et al. 2001; hereafter called P2001). RW Aur is a visual binary with a separation of 1.400 , where the faint component B is a weak-line TTS, a PMS star with little or no evidence of accretion. In 2010, RW Aur A went through a deep minimum reaching an amplitude of ∼2 magnitudes in V and which lasted for 180 days (Rodriguez et al. 2013; hereafter called R2013). They attributed this drop to an occultation by part of a tidally disrupted disk as evidenced in Cabrit et al. (2006) and noted that such a long-lasting event had never been observed before in at least 50 years. Chou et al. (2013) collected high-resolution spectra durSend offprint requests to: P. P. Petrov ? Based on observations collected at the Nordic Optical Telescope, La Palma, Spain; Fast-Track Service program 50-409. ing the beginning of the minimum indicating that no significant changes in the emission line spectrum had occurred. Normally, the star fluctuates in brightness by sometimes more than one magnitude in the V band and on time scales of a few days. No distinct period has been found as summarised in e.g. Gahm et al. (1993) and R2013. However, colour changes with periods of 2.7 to 2.8 days have been reported (Petrov et al. 2001, R2013), which is close to half the expected rotational period of about 5.6 days as determined from variations of the longitudal magnetic field of the star (Dodin et al. 2012). The star becomes redder with decreasing brightness, and the frequent drops in brightness from an average level of V ≈ 10.4 appears to be, at least in part, related to variable foreground extinction (e.g., Herbst et al. 1994). In 2014, RW Aur A entered a second long-lasting minimum in brightness, and this time even deeper than in 2010. According to the data collected by the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO) the brightness dropped by more than 2 magnitudes between May 1 and October 23. Resolved U BVRI photometry of both components of RW Aur was performed on November 13/14 2014 by Antipin et al. (2015). They found that RW Aur A was ∼3 magnitudes fainter in all bands compared to normal levels and that the star was fainter than component B on this date. Furthermore, they concluded that the drop in brightness was caused by an increase in foreground, mainly grey extinction. 1 Astronomy & Astrophysics manuscript no. wasp19_sedaghati March 16, 2015 c ESO 2015 Letter to the Editor Regaining the FORS: optical ground-based transmission spectroscopy of the exoplanet WASP-19b with VLT+FORS2 E. Sedaghati1, 2 , H.M.J. Boffin1 , Sz. Csizmadia2 , N. Gibson3 , P. Kabath4 , M. Mallonn5 , and M.E. Van den Ancker3 1 2 arXiv:1503.04155v1 [astro-ph.EP] 13 Mar 2015 3 4 5 ESO, Alonso de Córdova 3107, Casilla 19001, Santiago, Chile e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] Institut für Planetenforschung, Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt, Rutherfordstr. 2, 12489 Berlin, Germany ESO, Karl-Schwarzschild-str. 2, 85748 Garching, Germany Astronomical Institute ASCR, Friˇcova 298, Ondˇrejov, Czech Republic Leibniz-Institut für Astrophysik Potsdam, An der Sternwarte 16, 14482 Potsdam, Germany Received February 5, 2015; accepted March 12, 2015 ABSTRACT Since a few years, the study of exoplanets has evolved from being purely discovery and exploratory in nature to being quite quantitative. In particular, transmission spectroscopy now allows the study of exoplanetary atmospheres. Such studies rely heavily on space-based or large ground-based facilities, as one needs to perform time-resolved, high signal-to-noise spectroscopy. The very recent exchange of the prisms of the FORS2 atmospheric diffraction corrector on ESO’s Very Large Telescope should allow us to reach higher data quality than was possible before. With FORS2, we have obtained the first optical ground-based transmission spectrum of WASP-19b, with a 20 nm resolution in the 550–830 nm range. For this planet, the data set represents the highest resolution transmission spectrum obtained to date. We detect large deviations from planetary atmospheric models in the transmission spectrum redward of 790 nm, indicating the presence of additional sources of opacity not included in the current atmospheric models for WASP-19b, or additional, unexplored sources of systematics. Nonetheless, this work shows the new potential of FORS2 to study the atmospheres of exoplanets in greater detail than has been possible so far. Key words. Planets and satellites: atmospheres – Techniques: spectroscopic – Instrumentation: spectrographs – Stars: individual: WASP-19 1. Introduction Transiting exoplanets provide a wealth of information for studying planetary atmospheres in detail, particularly via spectroscopy. During a planetary transit, some of the stellar light passes through the limb of the planetary disc, where the presence of an atmosphere allows its indirect inference. When observed at different wavelengths, the transit depth, directly linked to the apparent planetary radius, may vary, providing constraints on the scale height of the atmosphere, the chemical composition and the existence of cloud layers (Seager & Sasselov 1998, 2000; Brown 2001; Burrows 2014). Such measurements require extremely precise relative photometry in as many wavebands as possible and as such can only be done using space telescopes or large ground-based facilities. The FOcal Reducer and low-dispersion Spectrograph (FORS2) attached to the 8.2-m Unit Telescope 1, is one of the workhorse instruments of ESO’s Very Large Telescope (Appenzeller et al. 1998). Using its capability to perform multi-object spectroscopy, Bean et al. (2010) have shown the potential of FORS2 in producing transmission spectra for exoplanets even in the mini-Neptune and super-Earth regime. They obtained the transmission spectrum of GJ 1214b between wavelengths of 780 and 1,000 nm, showing that the lack of features in this spectrum rules out cloud-free atmospheres composed primarily of hydrogen. However, except for this pioneering result, all further attempts to use FORS2 for exoplanet transit studies have apparently failed, most likely due to systematics introduced by the degradation of the antireflective coating of the prisms of the longitudinal atmospheric dispersion corrector (LADC; Berta et al. 2011, see also Moehler et al. 2010). A project was therefore started at ESO Paranal to make use of the available decommissioned twin instrument FORS1 (Boffin et al. 2015). The FORS2 LADC prisms were replaced by their FORS1 counterparts, which had their coating removed. This resulted in a transmission gain of 0.05 mag in the red to 0.1 mag in the blue, most likely because the uncoating of the LADC largely eliminates the contribution of scattered light from the previously damaged antireflective coating. As a further test of the improvement provided by the prism exchange, we also observed a transit of the exoplanet WASP-19b (Hebb et al. 2010). WASP-19 is a 12.3 magnitude G8V star, hosting a hot Jupiter with a mass of 1.17 Jupiter masses (MJ ) and an orbital period of 0.789 days, making it the Jupiter-like planet with the shortest orbital period known and one of the most irradiated hot-Jupiters discovered to date. Due to its short orbital period, and subsequently brief transit duration of ∼1h30, Wasp-19b was an ideal target for assessing the impact of the prisms exchange on the FORS2 performance. 2. Observations We observed WASP-19 between 16 November 2014 05:16 UT and 08:49 UT with FORS2, under thin cirrus, in multi-object Article number, page 1 of 7 arXiv:1503.04152v1 [astro-ph.HE] 13 Mar 2015 The Five Year Fermi /GBM Magnetar Burst Catalog A. C. Collazzi1 , C. Kouveliotou2,3 , A. J. van der Horst2 , G. A. Younes4,2 , Y. Kaneko5 , E. G¨og˘u ¨¸s5 , L. Lin6 , J. Granot7 , M. H. Finger4 , V. L. Chaplin8 , D. Huppenkothen9,10 , A. L. Watts11 , A. von Kienlin12 , M. G. Baring13 , D. Gruber14 , P. N. Bhat15 , M. H. Gibby16 , N. Gehrels17 , J. McEnery17 , M. van der Klis11 , R. A. M. J. Wijers11 ABSTRACT Since launch in 2008, the Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) has detected many hundreds of bursts from magnetar sources. While the vast majority of these bursts have been attributed to several known magnetars, there is also 1 SciTec, Inc., 100 Wall Street, Princeton, NJ 08540, USA, [email protected] 2 Department of Physics, The George Washington University, 725 21st Street NW, Washington, DC 20052, USA 3 Space Science Office, ZP12, NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL 35812, USA 4 Universities Space Research Association, NSSTC, 320 Sparkman Drive, Huntsville, AL 35805, USA 5 ˙ Sabancı University, Orhanlı-Tuzla, Istanbul 34956, Turkey 6 Fran¸cois Arago Centre, APC, 10 rue Alice Domon et L´eonie Duquet, F-75205 Paris, France 7 Department of Natural Sciences, The Open University of Israel, 1 University Road, P.O. Box 808, Raanana 43537, Israel 8 School of Medicine, Vanderbilt University, 1161 21st Ave S, Nashville, TN 37232, USA 9 Center for Data Science, New York University, 726 Broadway, 7th Floor, New York, NY 10003 10 Center for Cosmology and Particle Physics, Department of Physics, New York University, 4 Washington Place, New York, NY 10003 11 Anton Pannekoek Institute, University of Amsterdam, Postbus 94249, 1090 GE Amsterdam, The Netherlands 12 Max-Planck-Institut f¨ ur extraterrestrische Physik, Giessenbachstrasse 1, 85748 Garching, Germany 13 Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rice University, MS-108, P.O. Box 1892, Houston, TX 77251, USA 14 Planetarium S¨ udtirol, Gummer 5, 39053 Karneid, Italy 15 CSPAR, University of Alabama in Huntsville, 320 Sparkman Dr., Huntsville, AL 35899, USA 16 Jacobs Technology, Inc., Huntsville, AL, USA 17 NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA Draft version March 16, 2015 Preprint typeset using LATEX style emulateapj v. 5/2/11 HAT-P-50b, HAT-P-51b, HAT-P-52b, AND HAT-P-53b: THREE TRANSITING HOT JUPITERS AND A TRANSITING HOT SATURN FROM THE HATNET SURVEY.† arXiv:1503.04149v1 [astro-ph.EP] 13 Mar 2015 ´ Bakos1,2 , A. Bieryla3 , G. Kova ´ cs4 , D. W. Latham3 , Z. Csubry1 , J. D. Hartman1 , W. Bhatti1 , G. A. 1 1 3,5 3 M. de Val-Borro , K. Penev , L. A. Buchhave , G. Torres , A. W. Howard6 , G. W. Marcy7 , J. A. Johnson3 , H. Isaacson7 , B. Sato8 , I. Boisse9 , E. Falco3 , M. E. Everett10 , T. Szklenar11 , B. J. Fulton6 , A. Shporer12 , ´ cs4,1,14 , T. Hansen13 , B. B´ ´ za ´ r11 , I. Papp11 , P. Sa ´ ri11 T. Kova eky3 , R. W. Noyes3 , J. La Draft version March 16, 2015 ABSTRACT We report the discovery and characterization of four transiting exoplanets by the HATNet survey. The planet HAT-P-50b has a mass of 1.35 MJ and radius of 1.29 RJ , and orbits a bright (V = 11.8 mag) M = 1.27 M⊙ , R = 1.70 R⊙ star every P = 3.1220 days. The planet HAT-P-51b has a mass of 0.31 MJ and radius of 1.29 RJ , and orbits a V = 13.4 mag, M = 0.98 M⊙ , R = 1.04 R⊙ star with a period of P = 4.2180 days. The planet HAT-P-52b has a mass of 0.82 MJ and radius of 1.01 RJ , and orbits a V = 14.1 mag, M = 0.89 M⊙ , R = 0.89 R⊙ star with a period of P = 2.7536 days. The planet HAT-P-53b has a mass of 1.48 MJ and radius of 1.32 RJ , and orbits a V = 13.7 mag, M = 1.09 M⊙ , R = 1.21 R⊙ star with a period of P = 1.9616 days. All four planets are consistent with having circular orbits and have masses and radii measured to better than 10% precision. The low stellar jitter and favorable Rp /R⋆ ratio for HAT-P-51 make it a promising target for measuring the RossiterMcLaughlin effect for a Saturn-mass planet. Subject headings: planetary systems — stars: individual ( HAT-P-50, GSC 0787-00340, HAT-P51, GSC 2296-00637, HAT-P-52, GSC 1793-01136, HAT-P-53, GSC 2813-01266 ) techniques: spectroscopic, photometric 1 Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544; email: [email protected] 2 Sloan and Packard Fellow 3 Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, MA 02138 4 Konkoly Observatory, Budapest, Hungary 5 Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, DK-2100, Denmark, and Centre for Star and Planet Formation, National History Museum of Denmark, DK-1350 Copenhagen 6 Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI 96822 7 Department of Astronomy, University of California, Berkeley, CA 8 Tokyo Institute of Technology, 2-12-1 Ookayama, Meguroku, Tokyo 152-8550, Japan 9 Aix Marseille Universit´ e, CNRS, LAM (Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille) UMR 7326, 13388, Marseille, France 10 National Optical Astronomy Observatory, 950 N. Cherry Ave, Tucson, AZ 85719 11 Hungarian Astronomical Association, Budapest, Hungary 12 Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109 13 Landessternwarte, ZAH, K¨ onigstuhl 12, D-69117 Heidelberg, Germany 14 Fulbright Fellow † Based on observations obtained with the Hungarian-made Automated Telescope Network. Based on observations obtained at the W. M. Keck Observatory, which is operated by the University of California and the California Institute of Technology. Keck time has been granted by NOAO (A245Hr) and NASA (N154Hr, N130Hr). Based on data collected at Subaru Telescope, which is operated by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan. Based on observations made with the Nordic Optical Telescope, operated on the island of La Palma jointly by Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, in the Spanish Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos of the Instituto de Astrof´ısica de Canarias. Based on observations obtained with the Tillinghast Reflector 1.5 m telescope and the 1.2 m telescope, both operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory at the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory in AZ. Based on radial velocities obtained with the Sophie spectrograph mounted on the 1.93 m telescope at Observatoire de Haute-Provence. Based on observations obtained with facilities of the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope. arXiv:1503.04127v1 [astro-ph.SR] 13 Mar 2015 Image patch analysis of sunspots and active regions. I. Intrinsic dimension and correlation analysis Kevin R. Moon1 , Jimmy J. Li1 , Véronique Delouille2 , Ruben De Visscher2 , Fraser Watson3 , and Alfred O. Hero III1 1 2 3 Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department, University of Michigan SIDC, Royal Observatory of Belgium National Solar Observatory Abstract Context. Complexity of an active region is related to its flare-productivity. Mount Wilson or McIntosh sunspot classifications measure such complexity but in a categorical way, and may therefore not use all the information present in the observations. Moreover, such categorical schemes hinder a systematic study of an active region’s evolution for example. Aims. We propose fine-scale quantitative descriptors for an active region’s complexity and relate them to the Mount Wilson classification. We analyze the local correlation structure within continuum and magnetogram data, as well as the cross-correlation between continuum and magnetogram data. Methods. We compute the intrinsic dimension, partial correlation and canonical correlation analysis (CCA) of image patches of continuum and magnetogram active region images taken from the SOHO-MDI instrument. We use masks of sunspots derived from continuum as well as larger masks of magnetic active regions derived from magnetogram to analyze separately the core part of an active region from its surrounding part. Results. We find relationships between the complexity of an active region as measured by its Mount Wilson classification and the intrinsic dimension of its image patches. Partial correlation patterns exhibit approximately a third-order Markov structure. CCA reveals different patterns of correlation between continuum and magnetogram within the sunspots and in the region surrounding the sunspots. Conclusions. Intrinsic dimension has the potential to distinguish simple from complex active regions. These results also pave the way for patch-based dictionary learning with a view towards automatic clustering of active regions. Key words. Sun – active region – sunspot – data analysis – classification – image patches – intrinsic dimension – partial correlation – CCA 1 To be published in the Astrophysical Journal arXiv:1503.04116v1 [astro-ph.SR] 13 Mar 2015 Revealing δ Cephei’s Secret Companion and Intriguing Past R.I. Anderson1,2,4 , J. Sahlmann3 , B. Holl2 , L. Eyer2 , L. Palaversa2 , N. Mowlavi2 , M. S¨ uveges2 , M. Roelens2 1 Department of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA 2 D´epartement d’Astronomie, Universit´e de Gen`eve, 51 Ch. des Maillettes, 1290 Sauverny, Switzerland 3 European Space Agency, European Space Astronomy Centre, P.O. Box 78, Villanueva de la Ca˜ nada, 28691 Madrid, Spain [email protected] ABSTRACT Classical Cepheid variable stars are crucial calibrators of the cosmic distance scale thanks to a relation between their pulsation periods and luminosities. Their archetype, δ Cephei, is an important calibrator for this relation. In this paper, we show that δ Cephei is a spectroscopic binary based on newly-obtained highprecision radial velocities. We combine these new data with literature data to determine the orbit, which has period 2201 days, semi-amplitude 1.5 km s−1 , and high eccentricity (e = 0.647). We re-analyze Hipparcos intermediate astrometric data to measure δ Cephei’s parallax ($ = 4.09 ± 0.16 mas) and find tentative evidence for an orbital signature, although we cannot claim detection. We estimate that Gaia will fully determine the astrometric orbit. Using the available information from spectroscopy, velocimetry, astrometry, and Geneva stellar evolution models (MδCep ∼ 5.0 − 5.25 M ), we constrain the companion mass to within 0.2 < M2 < 1.2 M . We discuss the potential of ongoing and previous interactions between the companion and δ Cephei near pericenter passage, informing reported observations of circumstellar material and bow-shock. The orbit may have undergone significant changes due to a Kozai-Lidov mechanism 4 Swiss National Science Foundation Fellow c ESO 2015 Astronomy & Astrophysics manuscript no. AB_Aur_final March 16, 2015 Chemical composition of the circumstellar disk around AB Aurigae S. Pacheco-Vázquez1 , A. Fuente1 , M. Agúndez2 , C. Pinte6 , T. Alonso-Albi1 , R. Neri3 , J. Cernicharo2 , J. R. Goicoechea2 , O. Berné4, 5 , L. Wiesenfeld6 , R. Bachiller1 , and B. Lefloch6 1 arXiv:1503.04112v1 [astro-ph.EP] 13 Mar 2015 2 3 4 5 6 Observatorio Astronómico Nacional (OAN), Apdo 112, E-28803 Alcalá de Henares, Madrid, Spain e-mail: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Madrid, ICMM-CSIC, C/ Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz 3, E-28049 Cantoblanco, Spain e-mail: [email protected],[email protected], [email protected] Institut de Radioastronomie Millimétrique, 300 Rue de la Piscine, F-38406 Saint Martin d’Hères, France e-mail: [email protected] Université de Toulouse, UPS-OMP, IRAP, Toulouse, France CNRS, IRAP, 9 Av. colonel Roche, BP 44346, F-31028 Toulouse cedex 4, France e-mail: [email protected] Institut de Planétologie et d’Astrophysique de Grenoble (IPAG) UMR 5274, Université UJF-Grenoble 1/CNRS-INSU, F-38041 Grenoble, France e-mail: [email protected], [email protected] Received September 15, 1996; accepted March 16, 1997 ABSTRACT Aims. Our goal is to determine the molecular composition of the circumstellar disk around AB Aurigae (hereafter, AB Aur). AB Aur is a prototypical Herbig Ae star and the understanding of its disk chemistry is of paramount importance to understand the chemical evolution of the gas in warm disks. Methods. We used the IRAM 30-m telescope to perform a sensitive search for molecular lines in AB Aur as part of the IRAM Large program ASAI (A Chemical Survey of Sun-like Star-forming Regions). These data were complemented with interferometric observations of the HCO+ 1→0 and C17 O 1→0 lines using the IRAM Plateau de Bure Interferometer (PdBI). Single-dish and interferometric data were used to constrain chemical models. Results. Throughout the survey, several lines of CO and its isotopologues, HCO+ , H2 CO, HCN, CN and CS, were detected. In addition, we detected the SO 54 →33 and 56 →45 lines, confirming the previous tentative detection. Comparing to other T Tauri’s and Herbig Ae disks, AB Aur presents low HCN 3→2/HCO+ 3→2 and CN 2→1/HCN 3→2 line intensity ratios, similar to other transition disks. AB Aur is the only protoplanetary disk detected in SO thus far, and its detection is consistent with the interpretation of this disk being younger than those associated with T Tauri stars. Conclusions. We modeled the line profiles using a chemical model and a radiative transfer 3D code. Our model assumes a flared disk in hydrostatic equilibrium. The best agreement with observations was obtained for a disk with a mass of 0.01 M⊙ , Rin =110 AU, Rout =550 AU, a surface density radial index of 1.5 and an inclination of 27◦ . The intensities and line profiles were reproduced within a factor of ∼2 for most lines. This agreement is reasonable taking into account the simplicity of our model that neglects any structure within the disk. However, the HCN 3→2 and CN 2→1 line intensities were predicted more intense by a factor of >10. We discuss several scenarios to explain this discrepancy. Key words. stars: formation – stars: individual: AB Aur – stars: pre-main sequence – stars: variables: T Tauri, Herbig Ae/Be – circumstellar matter – protoplanetary disks 1. Introduction Circumstellar disks are commonly observed around pre-main sequence stars (e.g., Howard et al. 2013; Strom et al. 1989). The formation of disks, together with ejecta phenomena such as outflows and jets, dissipate away the excess of angular momentum that prevents accretion from the parent cloud. The chemical composition of dust and gas contained in these disks provides information about the initial conditions in the formation of planetary systems (Dutrey et al. 2014). The comprehension of chemistry in disks is an important step in the understanding of the formation of complex organic, even prebiotic molecules, on planets. However, the disk chemistry is a quite unexplored field from the observational point of view with very few molecular detections. This scarcity of molecules seems more accentuated in disks around Herbig Ae stars (Öberg et al. 2011). This is mainly due to the low molecular abundances in a gas disk which itself has a low mass content. The ultraviolet radiation from the central star photodissociates molecules in the surface layers of the disk. Deeper in the midplane, the temperatures drop and all the detectable molecules freeze out onto dust grains. Hence, molecules can survive only in the gas phase inside a thin layer. For F and A stars with effective temperatures in the range between 6000 to 10000 K, the UV-photons penetrate deeper into the disk than the colder M and K stars (Teff ∼ 2500 - 5000K), causing the drop of the molecular detection rates. Most species detected are simple molecules, molecular radicals and ions such as CO, 13 CO, C18 O, CN, CS, C34 S, C2 H, HCN, H13 CN, HNC, DCN, HC3 N, HCO+ , H13 CO+ , DCO+ , H2 D+ , N2 H+ , c-C3 H2 , H2 CO, H2 O and HD (e.g., Kastner et al. 1997; van Dishoeck et al. 2003; Thi et al. 2004; Qi et al. 2008; Guilloteau et al. 2006; Piétu et al. 2007; Dutrey et al. 2007). Unfortunately most disks remain unresolved even with the largest millimeter interferometers. A detailed study of the chemArticle number, page 1 of 15 c ESO 2015 Astronomy & Astrophysics manuscript no. mdwarf˙v13 March 16, 2015 New evolutionary models for pre-main sequence and main sequence low-mass stars down to the hydrogen-burning limit Isabelle Baraffe1,2 , Derek Homeier2 , France Allard2 , and Gilles Chabrier2,1 1 arXiv:1503.04107v1 [astro-ph.SR] 13 Mar 2015 2 University of Exeter, Physics and Astronomy, EX4 4QL Exeter, UK (e-mail: [email protected]) ´ Ecole Normale Sup´erieure, Lyon, CRAL (UMR CNRS 5574), Universit´e de Lyon, France [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]) (e-mail: ABSTRACT We present new models for low-mass stars down to the hydrogen-burning limit that consistently couple atmosphere and interior structures, thereby superseding the widely used BCAH98 models. The new models include updated molecular linelists and solar abundances, as well as atmospheric convection parameters calibrated on 2D/3D radiative hydrodynamics simulations. Comparison of these models with observations in various colour-magnitude diagrams for various ages shows significant improvement over previous generations of models. The new models can solve flaws that are present in the previous ones, such as the prediction of optical colours that are too blue compared to M dwarf observations. They can also reproduce the four components of the young quadruple system LkCa 3 in a colour-magnitude diagram with one single isochrone, in contrast to any presently existing model. In this paper we also highlight the need for consistency when comparing models and observations, with the necessity of using evolutionary models and colours based on the same atmospheric structures. Key words. stars: low-mass - stars: evolution - stars: pre-main sequence - stars: Hertzsprung-Russell diagrams and C-M diagrams - convection 1. Introduction In 1998, our team released a set of evolutionary models for low-mass stars (Baraffe et al., 1998, hereafter BCAH98) based on the so-called NextGen atmosphere models (Hauschildt et al., 1999) that marked a new era of models that consistently coupled interior and atmosphere structures. These models became very popular because they successfully reproduce various observational constraints, such as mass-luminosity and mass-radius relationships and colour-magnitude diagrams. The models, however, had some important shortcomings, such as predicting optical (V −I) colours that are too blue for a given magnitude (see §3.1). Later generations of models included improved molecular linelists for various atmospheric absorbers, such as the AMES linelists used in the Dusty and Cond models (Chabrier et al., 2000; Allard et al., 2001; Baraffe et al., 2003), but they still show shortcomings (see §3.2). After a long effort to solve these flaws, efforts have paid off with the release of current models that supersede the BCAH98 models. In this paper, we describe the main physical ingredients of the models and compare them to a selection of observations that highlight the improvement of these new models over previous ones. 2. Model description Evolutionary calculations are based on the same input physics describing stellar and substellar interior structures as are used in Chabrier & Baraffe (1997) and Baraffe et al. Send offprint requests to: I. Baraffe (1998). The major changes concern the atmosphere models, which provide the outer boundary conditions for the interior structure calculation, and the colours and magnitudes for a given star mass at any given age. Substantial changes have been made since the NextGen atmosphere models used in the BCAH98 evolutionary models. A preliminary set of atmosphere models, referred to as the BT-Settl models (Allard et al., 2012a,b; Rajpurohit et al., 2013), include some of these changes, which are briefly summarised below. More recent modifications concerning the treatment of convection are described in §2.3. 2.1. Molecular linelists and cloud formation Line opacities for several important molecules have been updated, notably the water linelist from Barber et al. (2006), metal hydrides such as CaH, FeH, CrH, TiH from Bernath (2006), vanadium oxide from Plez (2004, priv. comm.), and carbon dioxide from Tashkun et al. (2004). For TiO, the present set of atmosphere models uses the linelist from Plez (1998). This list is not as complete at high energies as the AMES linelist (Schwenke, 1998) adopted in Allard et al. (2001, 2012a), with only 11×106 lines compared to the 160×106 of Schwenke (1998). But the Plez linelist reproduces the overall band strengths better and thus generally improves the optical colours (Fig. 4). Obviously, the field is still in need of a new, complete, and accurate theoretical TiO linelist to allow quantitative high-resolution spectroscopic analysis of this important molecule, as recently pointed by the high-resolution transmission spectrum analysis of a transiting exoplanet (Hoeijmakers et al., 2014). 1 Journal reference: Icarus 210 (2010) 230-257. Preprint typeset using LATEX style emulateapj v. 5/2/11 THE SOURCE OF WIDESPREAD 3-µm ABSORPTION IN JUPITER’S CLOUDS: CONSTRAINTS FROM 2000 CASSINI VIMS OBSERVATIONS† L.A. Sromovsky1 and P.M. Fry1 arXiv:1503.04097v1 [astro-ph.EP] 13 Mar 2015 Journal reference: Icarus 210 (2010) 230-257. ABSTRACT The Cassini flyby of Jupiter in 2000 provided spatially resolved spectra of Jupiter’s atmosphere using the Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS). A prominent characteristic of these spectra is the presence of a strong absorption at wavelengths from about 2.9 µm to 3.1 µm, previously noticed in a 3-µm spectrum obtained by the Infrared Space Observatory (ISO) in 1996. While Brooke et al. (1998, Icarus 136, 1-13) were able to fit the ISO spectrum very well using ammonia ice as the sole source of particulate absorption, Sromovsky and Fry (2010, Icarus 210, 211-229), using significantly revised NH3 gas absorption models, showed that ammonium hydrosulfide (NH4 SH) provided a better fit to the ISO spectrum than NH3 , but that the best fit was obtained when both NH3 and NH4 SH were present in the clouds. Although the large FOV of the ISO instrument precluded identification of the spatial distribution of these two components, the VIMS spectra at low and intermediate phase angles show that 3-µm absorption is present in zones and belts, in every region investigated, and both lowand high-opacity samples are best fit with a combination of NH4 SH and NH3 particles at all locations. The best fits are obtained with a layer of small ammonia-coated particles (r ∼ 0.3 µm) overlying but often close to an optically thicker but still modest layer of much larger NH4 SH particles (r ∼ 10 µm), with a deeper optically thicker layer, which might also be composed of NH4 SH. Although these fits put NH3 ice at pressures less than 500 mb, this is not inconsistent with the lack of prominent NH3 features in Jupiter’s longwave spectrum because the reflectivity of the core particles strongly suppresses the NH3 absorption features, at both near-IR and thermal wavelengths. Unlike Jupiter, Saturn lacks the broad 3-µm absorption feature, but does exhibit a small absorption near 2.965 µm, which resembles a similar Jovian feature and suggests that both planets contain upper tropospheric clouds of sub-micron particles containing ammonia as a minor fraction. Subject headings: Jupiter; Jupiter, Atmosphere; Jupiter, Clouds 1. INTRODUCTION Analysis of Pioneer and groundbased observations of Jupiter, summarized by West et al. (1986), led to an expected Jovian cloud structure that included an upper ammonia cloud layer starting near 700-mb and a putative NH4 SH cloud top near 2 bars, which was thought to be optically thick outside the hot spot regions. The putative ammonia cloud was thought to have two particle populations: a vertically compact layer of large particles (of 3 to 100 µm in radius) and a vertically diffuse component of small particles (r ∼ 1µm) extending up to 200300 mb in low latitude regions. However, the more diffuse component should have produced prominent spectral signatures at 9.4 µm and 26 µm, which were not observed (Orton et al. 1982). After considering possible masking of these features by the likely tetrahedral shapes of these particles, West et al. (1989) concluded that these particles could not be primarily composed of ammonia ice. It was also the case that neither Voyager Infrared Interferometer Spectrometer (IRIS) observations (Carlson et al. 1993), nor microwave observations (de Pater 1986), ever found an ammonia vapor profile that would support a 700-mb condensation level. Carlson’s derived condensation pressure was closer to 500 mb, while a later analy1 University of Wisconsin - Madison, Madison WI 53706 Partly based on observations obtained from the data archive at the Space Telescope Science Institute. STScI is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. under NASA contract NAS 5-26555. † sis of microwave observations (de Pater et al. 2001) suggested NH3 condensation near 600 mb. Only in the last decade or so has there been even a hint of the spectral signatures expected of NH3 ice clouds. From an analysis of a 3-µm absorption anomaly in a central-disk spectrum of Jupiter, Brooke et al. (1998) inferred the existence of a layer of ammonia ice particles of 10 µm in radius, beginning at 550 mb with a scale height of 30% of the gas scale height. The wide field of view covered by the observation (roughly a quarter of the Jovian disk) suggested that the ammonia ice was widely distributed. Irwin et al. (2001) found a similar absorption anomaly in analysis of observations by the Galileo Near Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (NIMS), but concluded that it was not due to NH3 ice because a key spectral signature at 2.0 µm was missing. The subsequent Baines et al. (2002) detection of spectrally identifiable ammonia clouds (SIACs) in other NIMS observations was based on depressed reflectivity at 2.7 µm as well as at 2.0 µm, but these detections covered a very tiny fraction (< 1%) of Jupiter’s cloud features. On the other hand, Wong et al. (2004) inferred more widely distributed ammonia ice, at least in some latitude bands, from a detection of a 9.4-µm spectral feature in Jovian spectra obtained from the Cassini Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS). The model calculations of Wong et al. (2004) implied that the 9.4-µm ice feature could only be detected when the aerosols were at pressures ≤500 mb and the particle effective radius was within a factor of two of Preprint typeset in JINST style - HYPER VERSION arXiv:1503.04096v1 [astro-ph.IM] 13 Mar 2015 An introduction to some imperfections of CCD sensors P. Astiera a LPNHE/IN2P3/CNRS, UPMC, 4 place Jussieu F75005 Paris, France E-mail: [email protected] A BSTRACT: CCD sensors do not deliver a perfect image of the light they receive. Beyond the well known linear image smearing due to diffusion of charges during their drift towards the pixel wells, non-linear effects are at play in these sensors. We now have ample evidence for both a fluxdependent and static image distortions, especially but not only, on deep-depleted CCDs. For large surveys relying on CCD sensors, these effects should now be taken into account when reducing data. We present here a summary of current results on sensor characterization and mitigation methods. K EYWORDS : Detectors for UV, visible and IR photons (solid-state); Image processing. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 000, 000–000 (0000) Printed 16 March 2015 (MN LATEX style file v2.2) arXiv:1503.04092v1 [astro-ph.GA] 13 Mar 2015 On the generation of triaxiality in the collapse of cold spherical self-gravitating systems Francesco Sylos Labini1,2, David Benhaiem1,2 and Michael Joyce3,4 1 Centro Studi e Ricerche Enrico Fermi, Via Panisperna 89 A, Compendio del Viminale, 00184 Rome, Italy dei Sistemi Complessi Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Via dei Taurini 19, 00185 Rome, Italy 3 UPMC Univ Paris 06, UMR 7585, LPNHE, F-75005, Paris, France 4 CNRS IN2P3, UMR 7585, LPNHE, F-75005, Paris, France 2 Istituto 16 March 2015 ABSTRACT Initially cold and spherically symmetric self-gravitating systems may give rise to a virial equilibrium state which is far from spherically symmetric, and typically triaxial. We focus here on how the degree of symmetry breaking in the final state depends on the initial density profile. We note that the most asymmetric structures result when, during the collapse phase, there is a strong injection of energy preferentially into the particles which are localized initially in the outer shells. These particles are still collapsing when the others, initially located in the inner part, are already reexpanding; the motion of particles in a time varying potential allow them to gain kinetic energy — in some cases enough to be ejected from the system. We show that this mechanism of energy gain amplifies the initial small deviations from perfect spherical symmetry due to finite N fluctuations. This amplification is more efficient when the initial density profile depends on radius, because particles have a greater spread of fall times compared to a uniform density profile, for which very close to symmetric final states are obtained. These effects lead to a distinctive correlation of the orientation of the final structure with the distribution of ejected mass, and also with the initial (very small) angular fluctuations. Key words: Cosmological structure formation, gravitational clustering, N -body simulation 1 INTRODUCTION That self-gravitating systems initially in highly spherically symmetric configurations can relax to virial equilibria which break this symmetry strongly has been known for several decades (Polyachenko & Shukhman 1981; Merritt & Aguilar 1985) and documented since then by many numerical studies (see e.g. Aguilar & Merritt (1990); Theis & Spurzem (1999); Boily & Athanassoula (2006); Barnes, Lanzel & Williams (2009); Worrakitpoonpon (2014)). This phenomenon, of formation, and argued to play a crucial role in cosmological structure formation (see e.g. Huss, Jain & Steinmetz (1999); MacMillan, Widrow & Henriksen (2006)) has come to be referred to as “radial orbit instability” (ROI). This name has been adopted since such an instability has been shown (Antonov 1961; Fridman et al. 1984) to characterize spherically symmetric stationary solutions of the collisionless Boltzmann equation with purely radial orbits. Further it is plausible, as argued originally by Merritt & Aguilar (1985), that a similar mechanism is responsible for the formation of triaxial structures observed starting from very cold initial c 0000 RAS conditions, as in this case collapse tends to produce strongly radial orbits. Different authors (see references above) have discussed how the symmetry breaking develops during the evolution from both simple power law density profiles (e.g. Boily & Athanassoula (2006)) and from cosmological initial conditions (e.g. MacMillan, Widrow & Henriksen (2006). In this paper we consider how the degree of the final symmetry breaking is related to the initial condition — specifically to the exponent of the initial density profile — for the case of completely cold initial conditions. Our focus on this aspect of the problem allows us to elucidate the mechanism by which the symmetry breaking actually occurs in the process of collapse from cold initial conditions. More specifically, we show in detail how fluctuations breaking spherical symmetry may be amplified by the very large energy changes characteristic of the very violent relaxation from cold initial conditions. This amplification is most effective when the energy change a particle undergoes is both large and strongly correlated with its initial radial position, leading to a maximal effect from density profiles with intermediate exponents. We underline that the mechanism we arXiv:1503.04074v1 [astro-ph.HE] 13 Mar 2015 Magnetically-Driven Accretion-Disk Winds and Ultra-Fast Outflows in PG 1211+143 Keigo Fukumura1,2 , Francesco Tombesi3,4 Demosthenes Kazanas3 , Chris Shrader3,5 , Ehud Behar6 , and Ioannis Contopoulos7 Received ; accepted 1 Email: [email protected] 2 James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA 22807 3 Astrophysics Science Division, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771 4 Department of Astronomy and CRESST, University of Maryland, College Park, MD20742 5 Universities Space Research Association, 7178 Columbia Gateway Dr. Columbia, MD 21046 6 Department of Physics, Technion, Haifa 32000, Israel 7 Research Center for Astronomy, Academy of Athens, Athens 11527, Greece –2– ABSTRACT We present a study of X-ray ionization of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) accretion-disk winds in an effort to constrain the physics underlying the highlyionized ultra-fast outflows (UFOs) inferred by X-ray absorbers often detected in various sub-classes of Seyfert active galactic nuclei (AGNs). Our primary focus is to show that magnetically-driven outflows are indeed physically plausible candidates for the observed outflows accounting for the AGN absorption properties of the present X-ray spectroscopic observations. Employing a stratified MHD wind launched across the entire AGN accretion disk, we calculate its X-ray ionization and the ensuing X-ray absorption line spectra. Assuming an appropriate ionizing AGN spectrum, we apply our MHD winds to model the absorption features in an XMM-Newton/EPIC spectrum of the narrow-line Seyfert, PG 1211+143. We find, through identifying the detected features with Fe Kα transitions, that the absorber has a characteristic ionization parameter of log(ξc [erg cm s−1 ]) ≃ 5 − 6 and a column density on the order of NH ≃ 1023 cm−2 , outflowing at a characteristic velocity of vc /c ≃ 0.1 − 0.2 (where c is the speed of light). The best-fit model favors its radial location at rc ≃ 200Ro (Ro is the black hole innermost stable circular orbit), with an inner wind truncation radius at Rt ≃ 30Ro . The overall K-shell feature in the data is suggested to be dominated by Fe xxv with very little contribution from Fe xxvi and weakly-ionized iron, which is in a good agreement with a series of earlier analysis of the UFOs in various AGNs including PG 1211+143. Subject headings: accretion, accretion disks — galaxies: Seyfert — methods: numerical — galaxies: individual (PG 1211+143) — X-rays: galaxies Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 000, 000–000 (0000) Printed 16 March 2015 (MN LATEX style file v2.2) arXiv:1503.04060v1 [astro-ph.HE] 13 Mar 2015 Modeling of the γ-ray pulsed spectra of Geminga, Crab, and Vela with synchro-curvature radiation Daniele Vigan`o1 & Diego F. Torres1,2 1 Institute of Space Sciences (CSIC–IEEC), Campus UAB, C. de Can Magrans, s/n 08193, Cerdanyola del Valles (Barcelona), Spain Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avan¸cats (ICREA), 08010, Barcelona, Spain 2 Instituci´ o ABSTRACT γ-ray spectra of pulsars have been mostly studied in a phenomenological way, by fitting them to a cut-off power-law function. Here, we analyze a model where pulsed emission comes from synchro-curvature processes in a gap. We calculate the variation of kinetic energy of magnetospheric particles along the gap and the associated radiated spectra, considering an effective particle distribution. We fit the phase-averaged and phaseresolved Fermi-LAT spectra of the three brightest γ-ray pulsars: Geminga, Crab, and Vela, and constrain the three free parameters we leave free in the model. Our best-fit models well reproduce the observed data, apart from residuals above a few GeV in some cases, range for which the inverse Compton scattering likely becomes the dominant mechanism. In any case, the flat slope at low-energy (. GeV) seen by Fermi-LAT both in the phase-averaged and phase-resolved spectra of most pulsars, including the ones we studied, requires that most of the detected radiation below ∼GeV is produced during the beginning of the particle trajectories, when radiation mostly come from the loss of perpendicular momentum. 1 INTRODUCTION The wealth of Fermi-LAT data (Abdo et al. 2013) has boosted our knowledge about γ-ray emission from pulsars, allowing a better understanding of the fundamental highenergy processes which are responsible for the conversion of the rotational energy into radiation. Two main channels are the likely origin of the detected radiation: photons emitted by particles moving in curved magnetic fields and accelerating electric fields, i.e., the synchro-curvature (SC) radiation, and the inverse Compton (IC) scattering of background photons against energetic magnetospheric particles (Bogovalov & Aharonian 2000). This paper is the continuation of a series of works (Vigan` o et al. 2015a,b,c), in which we focus on the highenergy SC radiation, and to which we refer the reader for further details. Our approach applies to any general gap located in the outer magnetosphere (even outside the light cylinder), since our parameters do not depend on an a-priori, detailed choice of the location of the gap. Instead, we show here how data can be used to constrain the values of the most relevant gap parameters of the model. The E 2 dN/dE spectra of pulsed γ-ray emission from most pulsars peak around a few GeV, above which the flux quickly decreases with energy. Spectra are usually described by a cut-off power-law: s dP E µ , (1) = P0 E exp − dE Ep where the four parameters to be fit are the normalization P0 , the low-energy slope index µ, the peak energy Ep , and the exponential index s. The values of the best-fit models give a µ-range in the interval (−1, 0.5), with the distribution peaking close to µ ∼ −0.5 (see Fig. 7 of Abdo et al. 2013, where their Γ is related to µ as Γ = 1 − µ). This relative flatness at low energies (0.1-1 GeV) contrasts with the value of µ predicted by the SC spectrum of a single-particle, which has a value µ = 0.25 due to mathematical properties of the functions involved. The latter is consistent only with a small minority of observed pulsars. This fact means that a simple SC radiation model which considers a mono-energetic distribution of particles is unable on a first-principle-basis to explain most of the observed spectra. The relative flatness (i.e., µ ∼ −1) of many pulsar spectra at low Fermi-LAT energies is a basic issue that to our knowledge has never been properly addressed. In particular, we believe it could signal that non-saturated particles are important contributors to the total emitted radiation. Put otherwise, that the contribution of different parts of the particle trajectories is non-uniform. In Vigan` o et al. (2015a,c) we showed how a large weight given to the initial parts of the trajectories, where the radiation is dominated by synchrotron-like emission, can explain flatter slopes (µ < 0.25). We study this possibility in more detail here, and advance that it is in agreement with data. Pulsar spectra show another important feature: for some sources, the phase-averaged spectrum shows a subexponential cut-off, i.e., s < 1. The high-energy tail (E & few GeV) decreases in energy slower than a the expected SC radiation emitted by mono-energetic particles, which produces a purely exponential cut-off, s = 1. This issue alone does not rule out SC radiation as the dominant mechanism: the phase-averaged spectrum is the super-position of radi- arXiv:1503.04056v1 [astro-ph.CO] 13 Mar 2015 New Cosmographic Constraints on the Dark Energy and Dark Matter Coupling Yu.L. Bolotin1 , V.A. Cherkaskiy2 , O.A. Lemets3 A.I.Akhiezer Institute for Theoretical Physics, National Science Center ”Kharkov Institute of Physics and Technology”, Akademicheskaya Str. 1, 61108 Kharkov, Ukraine Abstract We consider some models describing interaction between the dark components and obtain an expression for the coupling constant which contains only the cosmographic parameters. It enables us on the one hand to find constrains on the coupling constants using observational data, and on the other hand, given fixed constraints on the coupling, to restrict number of numerous models describing the interaction in the dark sector. Keywords: cosmographic parameters, interaction in the dark sector Introduction Typically, dark energy (DE) models are based on scalar fields minimally coupled to gravity, and do not implement the explicit coupling of the field to the background matter [1, 2]. However there is no fundamental reason for this assumption in the absence of an underlying symmetry which would suppress the coupling. Given that we do not know the true nature of neither DE nor dark matter (DM) one cannot exclude that there exists a coupling between them. Whereas new forces between DE and normal matter particles are heavily constrained by observations (e.g. in the solar system and gravitational experiments on Earth), this is not the case for DM particles. In other words, it is possible 1 [email protected] 2 [email protected] 3 [email protected] Preprint submitted to Physics Letters B March 16, 2015 Vertical convection in neutrino-dominated accretion flows arXiv:1503.04054v1 [astro-ph.HE] 13 Mar 2015 Tong Liu1,2,3,4 , Wei-Min Gu1,4 , Norita Kawanaka5 , and Ang Li1,3,4 [email protected] ABSTRACT We present the effects of the vertical convection on the structure and luminosity of the neutrino-dominated accretion flow (NDAF) around a stellar-mass black hole in spherical coordinates. We found that the convective energy transfer can suppress the radial advection in the NDAF, and that the density, temperature and opening angle are slightly changed. As a result, the neutrino luminosity and annihilation luminosity are increased, which is conducive to achieve the energy requirement of gamma-ray bursts. Subject headings: accretion, accretion disks - black hole physics - convection gamma-ray burst: general - neutrinos 1. Introduction The central engine of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) is usually modelled as the system consisting of a rapidly spinning stellar black hole and an extremely optically thick disk with high density and temperature, namely neutrino-dominated accretion flow (NDAF). The neutrino radiation is the main cooling mechanism, which possibly has the ability to power GRBs via neutrino annihilation outside the disk. A lot of works on this model had been done 1 Department of Astronomy and Institute of Theoretical Physics and Astrophysics, Xiamen University, Xiamen, Fujian 361005, China; [email protected] 2 Key Laboratory for the Structure and Evolution of Celestial Objects, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, Yunnan 650011, China 3 State Key Laboratory of Theoretical Physics, Institute of Theoretical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China 4 5 SHAO-XMU Joint Center for Astrophysics, Xiamen University, Xiamen, Fujian 361005, China Department of Astronomy, Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1, Hongo, Bunkyoku, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan; [email protected] arXiv:1503.04051v1 [astro-ph.CO] 13 Mar 2015 Data and images available http://swxcs.ustc.edu.cn at http://www.arcetri.astro.it/SWXCS/ and The Swift X-ray Telescope Cluster Survey III: cluster catalog from 2005-2012 archival data Teng Liu (刘腾)1 , Paolo Tozzi2 , Elena Tundo2, Alberto Moretti3, Piero Rosati4 , Jun-Xian Wang (王俊贤)1 , Gianpiero Tagliaferri5 , Sergio Campana5 , Mauro Giavalisco6 ABSTRACT We present the catalog of the Swift X-ray Cluster Survey (SWXCS) obtained using the archival data of the X-ray Telescope (XRT) onboard the Swift satellite acquired from February 2005 to November 2012, extending the first release of the SWXCS. The catalog provides positions, soft fluxes and, when possible, optical counterparts for a flux-limited sample of X-ray group and cluster candidates. We consider the fields with Galactic latitude |b| > 20◦ to avoid high HI column densities. We discard all the observations targeted at groups or clusters of galaxies, as well as particular extragalactic fields not suitable to search for faint extended sources. We finally select ∼ 3000 useful fields covering a total solid angle of ∼ 400 deg2 . We identify extended source candidates in the soft-band (0.5-2 keV) images of these fields, using the software EXSdetect, which is specifically calibrated on XRT data. Extensive simulations are used to evaluate contamination and completeness as a function of the source signal, allowing us to minimize the number of spurious detections and to robustly assess the selection function. Our catalog includes 263 candidate galaxy clusters and groups, down to a flux limit of 7 × 10−15 erg cm−2 s−1 in the soft band, and the logN-logS is in very good agreement with previous deep X-ray surveys. The final list of sources 1 CAS Key Laboratory for Research in Galaxies and Cosmology, Department of Astronomy, University of Science and Technology of China, 230026, Hefei, Anhui, P.R. China; [email protected] 2 INAF, Osservatorio Astrofisico di Firenze, Largo Enrico Fermi 5, I-50125, Firenze, Italy 3 INAF, Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera, Via Brera 28, I-20121 Milano, Italy 4 Universit`a degli Studi di Ferrara, Dipartimento di Fisica e Scienze della Terra, Via Saragat 1 I-44121 Ferrara, Italy 5 INAF, Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera, Via Bianchi 46, I-23807, Merate (LC), Italy 6 University of Massachusetts, Department of Astronomy, LGRT-B 619E, 710 North Pleasant Street, Amherst, MA (USA) Astronomy & Astrophysics manuscript no. N3198A_A2col March 16, 2015 c ESO 2015 The Dark Matter Distribution in the Spiral NGC 3198 out to 0.22 Rvir E.V. Karukes1, 2 , P. Salucci1, 2 and G. Gentile3, 4 1 2 3 4 SISSA/ISAS, International School for Advanced Studies, Via Bonomea 265, 34136, Trieste, Italy e-mail: [email protected] INFN, Sezione di Trieste, Via Valerio 2, 34127, Trieste, Italy Department of Physics and Astrophysics, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Brussels, Belgium Sterrenkundig Observatorium, Universiteit Gent, Krijgslaan 281, B-9000 Gent, Belgium arXiv:1503.04049v1 [astro-ph.GA] 13 Mar 2015 March 16, 2015 ABSTRACT Aims. We use recent very extended (out to 48 kpc) HI kinematics alongside with previous Hα kinematics of the spiral galaxy NGC 3198 in order to derive its distribution of Dark Matter (DM). Methods. First, we use a chi-square method to model the Rotation Curve of this galaxy in terms of different profiles of its DM distribution: the Universal Rotation Curve (URC) mass model (stellar disk + Burkert halo + gaseous disk), the NFW mass model (stellar disk + NFW halo + gaseus disk) and the BaryonΛCDM mass model (stellar disk + NFW halo modified by baryonic physics + gaseous disk). Secondly, in order to derive the DM halo density distribution we apply a new method developed by Salucci et al. (2010) which does not require a global and often uncertain mass modelling. Results. We find that, while, according to the standard method, both URC and NFW mass models can account for the RC, the new method instead leads to a density profile which is in sharp disagreement with the dark halo density distribution predicted within the Lambda Cold Dark Matter (ΛCDM) scenario. We find that the effects of baryonic physics proposed by Di Cintio et al. (2014) modify the original ΛCDM halo densities in such a way that the resulting profile is more compatible with the DM density of NGC 3198 derived using our new method. However, at large distances, r ∼ 25 kpc, also this modified BaryonΛCDM halo profile appears in tension with the derived DM halo density. Key words. Dark Matter; Galaxy: NGC 3198; NFW halos; Universal Rotation Curve; Baryonic Feedback 1. Introduction It has been known for several decades that the kinematics of disk galaxies leads to a mass discrepancy (e.g. Bosma (1978); Bosma & van der Kruit (1979); Rubin et al. (1980)). More precisely, while in their inner regions, ranging between 1 and 3 disk exponential scale lengths according to the galaxy luminosity (Salucci & Persic 1999), the observed stellar/baryonic matter accounts for the Rotation Curves (RCs) (e.g. Athanassoula et al. (1987); Persic & Salucci (1988); Palunas & Williams (2000)), in the outer regions, we must add an extra mass component, namely a Dark Matter (DM) halo in order to account for the latter. The kinematics of spirals is now routinely interpreted in the framework of a DM component. In the widely accepted Lambda Cold Dark Matter (ΛCDM) scenario the virialized structures are distributed according the well known NFW profile, proposed by Navarro, Frenk and White (Navarro et al. 1996). ΛCDM scenario describes well the large-scale structure of the Universe (e.g. Springel et al. (2006)), but it seems to fail on the scales of galaxies (de Blok & Bosma 2002; Gentile et al. 2004, 2005). In detail, the NFW density profile leads to the ”core-cusp problem”: empirical profiles with a central core of constant density, such as the pseudo-isothermal (Begeman et al. 1991; Kent 1986), and the Burkert (Salucci & Burkert 2000) fit the available RCs much better than the mass models based on NFW halos. In the present paper, we derive the DM content and distribution in the spiral galaxy NGC 3198. This galaxy has been subject of several investigations: it was studied by means of optical (Cheriguène 1975; Hunter et al. 1986; Bottema 1988; Wevers et al. 1986; Kent 1987; Corradi et al. 1991; Daigle et al. 2006) and HI-21 cm radio observations (Bosma (1981); van Albada et al. (1985); Begeman (1987) established it as the object with the clearest evidence for dark matter (see also de Blok et al. (2008); Gentile (2008))). Our present analysis is based, mainly, on the HI observations by Gentile et al. (2013), part of the HALOGAS (Westerbork Hydrogen Accretion in LOcal GAlaxieS) survey. The main goal of HALOGAS is to investigate the amount and properties of extraplanar gas by using very deep HI observations. In fact, for this galaxy, they presented a very extended RC out to 720 arcsec, corresponding to ∼ 48 kpc for a galaxy distance at 13.8 Mpc (Freedman et al. 2001). Notice, that the previous HI observations by de Blok et al. (2008) were extended only out to ∼ 38 kpc, for the same galaxy distance. In Gentile et al. (2013) this extended RC was modelled in the framework of Modified Newtonian dynamics (MOND). Here, we want to use such an uniquely extended kinematics to help resolving the Dark Matter core/cusp issue. In detail, we will apply to the very reliable kinematics available from 2 to 48 kpc two different mass decomposition methods that will derive the DM halo structure. This will be compared with a) the empirically based halo profiles coming from the Universal Rotation Curve, b) the NFW halos and c) the BaryonΛCDM halos, the outcome of scenarios in which baryonic physics has shaped the DM halo density. This paper is organized as follows. In Sec. 2 we present the HI and Hα kinematics used in this study. In Sec.3 we model the RC by using the quadrature sum of the contributions of the individual mass components (stellar disk + dark halo + gas disk) Article number, page 1 of 11 Influence from cosmological uncertainties on galaxy number count at faint limit Keji Shen1 , Qiang Zhang1 , and Xin-he Meng1,2∗ 1 arXiv:1503.04033v1 [astro-ph.CO] 13 Mar 2015 Department of Physics, Nankai University, Tianjin 300071, China. and 2 State Key Laboratory of Theoretical Physics, Institute of Theoretical Physics, Chinese Academic of Science, Beijing 100190, China. (Dated: March 16, 2015) Counting galaxy number density with wide range sky surveys has been well adopted in researches focusing on revealing evolution pattern of different types of galaxies. As understood intuitively the astrophysics environment physics is intimated affected by cosmology priors with theoretical estimation or vise versa, or simply stating that the astrophysics effect couples the corresponding cosmology observations or the way backwards. In this article we try to quantify the influence on galaxy number density prediction at faint luminosity limit from the uncertainties in cosmology, and how much the uncertainties blur the detection of galaxy evolution, with the hope that this trying may indeed help for precise and physical cosmology study in near future or vise versa. I. INTRODUCTION Galaxy number count measures the number density n of galaxies per unit solid angle dω at redshift z within the luminosity range [L, L + dL] as [1, 11] n (ˆ r , L, z) dL dz dω = φ (L, z) dL dVˆ , (1) where φ(L, z) is the luminosity function (LF for short); rˆ represents a specific direction on comoving coordinate with the corresponding differential volume dVˆ . The anisotropic metric is encoded in the direction, while for isotropic and homogeneous FRW metric, the relation between number density and LF is much simpler by integration over the solid angle and gives DL2 n (L, z) dL dz = φ(L, z) dL dz, (1 + z)5 h3 E (2) where E, the dimensionless Hubble parameter at redshift z equals to H/(100h km · s−1 · Mpc−1 ) and the luminosity distance is defined as dL = c D . The dimensional constant parameters are H0 L absorbed by normalization factor in luminosity function, leaving dimensionless terms. The luminosity functions are usually measured in the non-parametric way by astrophysicist, but that ∗ Electronic address: [email protected] approach is based on pre-selected fiducial modeling of background cosmological evolution. It is believed that variations in cosmological parameters are too weak to be captured through the noisy observation, but we are driven by the optimism that sooner or later we are able to detect them. II. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK Luminosity function contains the intrinsic characteristic of different sets of galaxies, usually affected by redshifts, galaxy types and local environments. According to the assumption of the hierarchical structure formation with cold dark matter model, the most adopted analytical parameterization of luminosity function is the Schechter form [2] which reads φ(L)dL = φ∗ L α L ( ∗ ) exp(− ∗ )dL, ∗ L L L (3) with L∗ , the characteristic luminosity and α, the faint-end slope parameter. Other well-known luminosity function forms are for example, the power-law model [3]: φ(L)dL = φ∗ L1−η (1 + L −β ) dL, βL∗ (4) 5th Fermi Symposium : Nagoya, Japan : 20-24 Oct, 2014 Kanata optical and X-ray monitoring of Gamma-ray emitting Narrow-Line Seyfert 1 and Radio galaxies K. Kawaguchi, Y. Fukazawa, R. Itoh, Y. Kanda, K. Shiki, K. Takaki Department of Physical Science, Hiroshima University, Higashi-Hiroshima, Hiroshima 739-8526, Japan Y.T. Tanaka, M. Uemura, H.Akitaya arXiv:1503.04019v1 [astro-ph.HE] 13 Mar 2015 Hiroshima Astrophysical Science Center, Hiroshima University, Higashi-Hiroshima, Hiroshima 739-8526, Japan Broadband spectrum of AGN consists of multiple components such as jet emission and accretion disk emission. Temporal correlation study is useful to understand emission components and their physical origins. We have performed optical monitoring using Kanata telescope for 4 radio galaxies and 6 radio-loud Narrow-Line Seyfert 1 (RL-NLSy1): 2 gamma-ray-loud RL-NLSy1s, 1H 0323+342 and PMN J0948+0022, and 4 gamma-ray-quiet RL-NLSy1s. From these results, it is suggested that RL-NLSy1s show a disk-dominant phase and a jet-dominant phase in the optical band, but it is not well correlated with brightness. 1. Introduction Active Galactic Nucleus (AGNs) emit electromagnetic radiation from radio up to TeV gamma-ray ranges. Spectral Energy Distribution (SED) of blazars is often dominanted by 2 component, synchrotron emission and Inverse Compton from a relativistic jet. However, SED of misaligned radio-loud AGNs is complicated due to disk/corona emission. In addition to the above two components, we can see disk emission from near-infrared to ultraviolet bands and corona emission in X-ray band. Because it is difficult to separate these components, optical emission mechanism is still unclear. Radio galaxy is radio-loud AGN which has a relative large viewing angle. Thanks to high sensitive observation by Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope/ Large Area Telescope (LAT), correlation study between optical and MeV/GeV gamma-ray bands has become available, but correlation between optical and X-ray bands is still unclear. Narrow-Line Seyfert 1(NLSy1) is a subclass of Seyfert 1 galaxies. Most of NLSy1 is radio-quiet, but a few objects( 7%) are radio-loud. Recently, Fermi-LAT detected MeV/GeV gamma-ray emission from radioloud NLSy1 (RL-NLSy1) and now RL-NLSy1 is a new class of gamma-ray emitting AGNs. Radioloud NLSy1 shows fast and strong variability like blazars. The most gamma-ray bright NLSy1 PMN J0948+0022 showed minute-scale optical variability, correlated with polarization degree[4]. This indicates that synchrotron emision from the jet is dominant in the optical band, but other study shows disk emission is also dominant in the optical band[1]. Hence emission mechanism in the optical band in RL-NLSy1 is still unclear. eConf C141020.1 Table I Target lists Radio galaxies 3C 111 3C 120 3C 390.3 NGC 1275 Gamma-ray loud NLSy1s PMN J0948+0022 1H 0323+342 Gamma-ray quiet NLSy1s FBQS J1629+4007 FBQS J1644+2619 SDSS J1722+5654 SDSS J1450+5919 2. Observation We have performed optical monitor with the Kanata optical telescope. We use MAXI, Swift-BAT and Fermi-LAT public data for X-ray and gamma-ray monitor. We selected famous and X-ray bright objects for radio galaxies. For RL-NLSy1, we selected gammaray loud objects and a few gamma-ray quiet objects. These gamma-ray quiet objects are reported to have a blazar-like radio structure and high brightness temperature by Komossa et al. (2006)[2] Doi et al. (2011)[6] and Doi et al. (2012)[7]. So if these gammaray quiet NLSy1 has a relativistic jet, flares in the optical band are expected. 3. Results Radio galaxies Fig 1–4 show the results for radio galaxies. Each figure show optical R-band(top), V-band(second) magnitude by Kanata, 2-20 keV daily X-ray count rate by MAXI (third), and 15-150 keV weekly count rate by SwiftBAT (bottom). The gaps in MAXI light curves are the period when objects are not in FOV of MAXI. There is no Swift-BAT public data for 3C 390.3. We 1 Astronomy & Astrophysics manuscript no. aa_ACHer_arXiv March 16, 2015 c ESO 2015 The evolved circumbinary disk of AC Her: a radiative transfer, interferometric and mineralogical study ? M. Hillen1 , B.L. de Vries2, 3 , J. Menu1 , H. Van Winckel1 , M. Min4 , and G. D. Mulders5 1 2 3 4 arXiv:1503.03984v1 [astro-ph.SR] 13 Mar 2015 5 Instituut voor Sterrenkunde (IvS), KU Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200D, B-3001 Leuven, Belgium e-mail: [email protected] AlbaNova University Centre, Stockholm University, Department of Astronomy, SE-106 91, Stockholm, Sweden Stockholm University Astrobiology Centre, SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden Sterrenkundig Instituut Anton Pannekoek, University of Amsterdam, Science Park 904, 1098 XH Amsterdam, The Netherlands Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, The University of Arizona, 1629 E. University Blvd., Tucson AZ 85721, USA Received 19 November, 2014; accepted 11 March, 2015 ABSTRACT Context. Many post-asymptotic giant branch (post-AGB) stars in binary systems have an infrared (IR) excess arising from a dusty circumbinary disk. The disk formation, current structure, and further evolution are, however, poorly understood. Aims. We aim to constrain the structure of the circumstellar material around the post-AGB binary and RV Tauri pulsator AC Her. We want to constrain the spatial distribution of the amorphous as well as of the crystalline dust. Methods. We present very high-quality mid-IR interferometric data that were obtained with the MIDI/VLTI instrument. We analyse the MIDI visibilities and differential phases in combination with the full SED, using the MCMax radiative transfer code, to find a good structure model of AC Her’s circumbinary disk. We include a grain size distribution and midplane settling of dust self-consistently in our models. The spatial distribution of crystalline forsterite in the disk is investigated with the mid-IR features, the 69 µm band and the 11.3 µm signatures in the interferometric data. Results. All the data are well fitted by our best model. The inclination and position angle of the disk are well determined at i = 50 ± 8◦ and PA = 305 ± 10◦ . We firmly establish that the inner disk radius is about an order of magnitude larger than the dust sublimation radius. The best-fit dust grain size distribution shows that significant grain growth has occurred, with a significant amount of mmsized grains now being settled to the midplane of the disk. A large total dust mass ≥ 10−3 M is needed to fit the sub-mm fluxes. By assuming αturb = 0.01, a good fit is obtained with a small grain size power law index of 3.25, combined with a small gas/dust ratio ≤10. The resulting gas mass is compatible with recent estimates employing direct gas diagnostics. The spatial distribution of the forsterite is different from the amorphous dust, as more warm forsterite is needed in the surface layers of the inner disk. Conclusions. The disk in the AC Her system is in a very evolved state, with its small gas/dust ratio and large inner hole. Mid-IR interferometry offers unique constraints, complementary to mid-IR features, for studying the mineralogy in disks. A better uv coverage is needed to constrain in detail the distribution of the crystalline forsterite in the disk of AC Her, but we find strong similarities with the protoplanetary disk HD100546. Key words. Stars: AGB and post-AGB – Stars: circumstellar matter – Stars: binaries: general – Techniques: photometric – Tech- niques: interferometric – Infrared: stars 1. Introduction Post-Asymptotic Giant Branch stars (post-AGB stars) are an evolved evolutionary phase of low- to intermediate mass stars. They show a large variety in circumstellar characteristics (van Winckel 2003), but a significant fraction of the optically-bright objects show a distinctive near-IR excess (de Ruyter et al. 2006; Kamath et al. 2014). This excess can be explained as due to thermal emission of warm dust in the close environment of the central source (de Ruyter et al. 2006). It is now well established that this SED characteristic indicates the presence of a stable and compact dusty reservoir, likely a Keplerian disk (e.g. de Ruyter et al. 2006; Deroo et al. 2007a; Hillen et al. 2013, 2014). This was confirmed when the Keplerian rotation of the gas was first resolved by Bujarrabal et al. (2005) in one object, and recently endorsed by the most detailed position-velocity maps of the same object with the Atacama Large Millimeter Ar? Based on observations made with ESO Telescopes at the La Silla Paranal Observatory under program ID 075.D-0605. ray (ALMA) by Bujarrabal et al. (2013b). A survey using singledish CO line data confirms that rotation is widespread (Bujarrabal et al. 2013a), which is a strong observational indicator of stability. While the formation nor the evolution of these disks is well understood, both are linked to binary interaction processes, as evidence is mounting that sources with disk-like SEDs are indeed all binaries (van Winckel et al. 2009; Gorlova et al. 2013). The longevity of the disk is further corroborated by the strong processing of the dust grains as attested by the infrared spectral dust-emission features (e.g. Gielen et al. 2008, 2011) and the mm continuum fluxes that indicate the presence of large grains (de Ruyter et al. 2005). A striking result is the large abundance and almost ubiquitous presence of crystalline grains (Molster et al. 2002b; Gielen et al. 2011). Crystalline olivine grains ((Mg,Fe)2 SiO4 ) are formed by high temperature (>1000 K) processes, either condensation from the gas phase or annealing of amorphous dust grains. This makes crystalline dust a tracer of high temperature regions and processes in the disk. In protoplanetary disks crystalline dust is Article number, page 1 of 16 Hα and EUV observations of a partial CME Damian J. Christian arXiv:1503.03982v1 [astro-ph.SR] 13 Mar 2015 Department of Physics and Astronomy, California State University Northridge, 18111 Nordhoff Street, Northridge, CA 91330, USA; [email protected] David B. Jess Astrophysics Research Centre, School of Mathematics and Physics, Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, BT7 1NN, Northern Ireland, U.K. Patrick Antolin National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, 2-21-1 Osawa, Mitaka, Tokyo 181-8588, Japan Mihalis Mathioudakis Astrophysics Research Centre, School of Mathematics and Physics, Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, BT7 1NN, Northern Ireland, U.K. ; Received accepted –2– ABSTRACT We have obtained Hα high spatial and time resolution observations of the upper solar chromosphere and supplemented these with multi-wavelength observations from the Solar Dynamic Observatory (SDO) and the Hinode ExtremeUltraviolet Imaging Spectrometer (EIS). The Hα observations were conducted on 11 February 2012 with the Hydrogen-Alpha Rapid Dynamics Camera (HARDcam) instrument at the National Solar Observatory’s Dunn Solar Telescope. Our Hα observations found large downflows of chromospheric material returning from coronal heights following a failed prominence eruption. We have detected several large condensations (“blobs”) returning to the solar surface at velocities of ≈200 km s−1 in both Hα and several SDO AIA band passes. The average derived size of these “blobs” in Hα is 500 by 3000 km2 in the directions perpendicular and parallel to the direction of travel, respectively. A comparison of our “blob” widths to those found from coronal rain, indicate there are additional smaller, unresolved “blobs” in agreement with previous studies and recent numerical simulations. Our observed velocities and decelerations of the “blobs” in both Hα and SDO bands are less than those expected for gravitational free-fall and imply additional magnetic or gas pressure impeding the flow. We derived a kinetic energy ≈2 orders of magnitude lower for the main eruption than a typical CME, which may explain its partial nature. Subject headings: Sun:chromosphere – Sun: corona – Sun: filaments, prominences Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 000, 000–000 (0000) Printed 16 March 2015 (MN LATEX style file v2.2) arXiv:1503.03977v1 [astro-ph.GA] 13 Mar 2015 The effects of binary interactions on parameter determinations for early-type galaxies Yu Zhang1? , Jinzhong Liu1 , Fenghui Zhang2 1 Xinjiang Astronomical Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011, China Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming 650011, China 2 Yunnan 16 March 2015 ABSTRACT Based on stellar population models without (SSP) and with (BSP) binary interactions, we investigate the effects of binary interactions on parameter determinations for early-type galaxies (ETGs). We present photometric redshift (photo-z), age and spectral type for photometric data sample by fitting observed magnitudes with the SSP and BSP models. Our results show that binary interactions have no effect on photo-z estimation. Once we neglect binary interactions, the age of ETGs will be underestimated, by contrast, the effects on the age estimations can be negligible for other type of galaxies. For ETG sample, we derive their properties by fitting their spectra with the SSP and BSP models. When comparing these galaxy properties, we find no variation of the overall metallicities for ETGs among the SSP and BSP models. Moreover, the inclusion of binary interactions can affect age estimations. Our results show that the BSP-fitted ages in ∼ 33.3% of ETG sample are around 0.5 − 1.0 Gyr larger than the SSP-fitted ages; ∼ 44.2% are only 0.1 − 0.5 Gyr larger; the rest ∼ 22.5% are approximately equal. By comparisons, we find the difference of the star formation rate between the SSP and BSP models is large at the late evolution stage. Key words: binaries: general – galaxies: fundamental parameters – galaxies: stellar content 1 INTRODUCTION Early-type galaxies (ETGs), which comprise elliptical and lenticular (S0) galaxies, are the oldest class of galaxy. And their stellar populations formed at early time (Trager et al. 2000; Temi et al. 2005; De Lucia et al. 2006) and passively evolved to their present styles. The phenomenon of far-ultraviolet (FUV) excess in ETGs became surprising since its first discovery by the Orbitting Astronomical Observatory − 2 in 1969 (Code et al. 1972; Burstein et al. 1988). The flux in the spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of ETGs increases with a decreasing wavelength ˚ This behavior is known as UV in the range from 2000 to 1200A. upturn, UV rising-branch, or UVX (see O’Connell 1999, for a review). And some recent studies show evidence that ETGs have some current events of minor star formation (Kaviraj et al. 2007; Schawinski et al. 2007; Salim et al. 2012; Barway et al. 2013), which contribute the FUV spectra. The favored origin of the UV-upturn is extreme horizontal branch (EHB) stars and their descendants, either metal poor (Lee 1994; Park & Lee 1997) or metal rich (Bressan et al. 1994; Yi et al. 1997). And the detection of EHB stars in the dwarf elliptical galaxy M32 provide direct evidence for the EHB origin of the UV-upturn. Meanwhile, binary evolution can also reproduce EHB stars (Han et al. 2002, 2003). Han et al. (2007) have used three possible bi- ? E-mail: [email protected] nary evolution channels for EHB stars to explain the UV-upturn in ETGs, with limited dependence on age and metallicity. Hern´andezP´erez & Bruzual (2014) also used the stellar population model with binary stars to study the UV-upturn of ETGs, and found that the UV-upturn was very sensitive to the fraction of binary stars. Binary stars are very common in galaxies, and the evolution of binary stars is different from that of single stars. Meanwhile, observations also show that binary stars are common in nearby star clusters and galaxies (Abt 1983; Carney et al. 2005; Sollima et al. 2007; Raghavan et al. 2010; Minor 2013). Brinchmann (2010) also indicated that the importance of binary stars was one of six important challenges in stellar population studies in the next decades. However, only few works had done for studying the influence of binary evolution on stellar population properties. Zhang et al. (2004, 2005) have shown that the UV passbands could be about 2.0 − 3.0 mag enhanced once binary interactions have been taken into account. Therefore, ignoring the binary interactions in evolution population synthesis (EPS) models can underestimate the UV flux and affect the property determinations for stellar population systems (Zhang et al. 2012a,b, 2013) While the importance of binary evolution has been shown, detailed studies of the effects of binary stars on property determinations of ETGs are not enough. Therefore, we investigate the effects of binary interactions on parameter determinations for ETGs based on the EPS models with and without binary interactions. At the first step, we use a standard SED fitting procedure to fit the SED Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 000, 000–000 (0000) Printed 16 March 2015 (MN LATEX style file v2.2) Testing subhalo abundance matching from redshift-space clustering Mikito Yamamoto,1 Shogo Masaki2 and Chiaki Hikage3 arXiv:1503.03973v1 [astro-ph.GA] 13 Mar 2015 1 2 3 Department of Physics, Nagoya University, Aichi 464-8602, Japan NTT Secure Platform Laboratories, NTT Corporation, Tokyo 180-8585, Japan Kobayashi Maskawa Institute (KMI), Nagoya University, Aichi 464-8602, Japan 16 March 2015 ABSTRACT We present a first application of the subhalo abundance matching (SHAM) method to describe the redshift-space clustering of galaxies including the non-linear redshift-space distortion, i.e., the Fingers-of-God. We find that the standard SHAM connecting the luminosity of galaxies to the maximum circular velocity of subhalos well reproduces the luminosity dependence of redshift-space clustering of galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey in a wide range of scales from 0.3 to 40 h−1 Mpc. The result indicates that the SHAM approach is very promising for establishing a theoretical model of redshift-space galaxy clustering without additional parameters. We also test color abundance matching using two different proxies for colors: subhalo age and local dark matter density following the method by Masaki et al. (2013b). Observed clustering of red galaxies exhibits much stronger Fingers-of-God effect than blue galaxies. We find that the subhalo age model describes the observed color-dependent redshiftspace clustering much better than the local dark matter density model. The result infers that the age of subhalos is a key ingredient to determine the color of galaxies. Key words: galaxies: formation – galaxies: haloes – galaxies: statistics cosmology: observations – cosmology: large-scale structure of Universe 1 INTRODUCTION Establishing connection between the properties of galaxies and the underlying dark matter is crucial for both studies of galaxy evolution and cosmology. Star formation histories of galaxies has been studied by associating galaxies with their host dark matter halos and their connection provides fundamental constraints on galaxy formation models (e.g., Conroy & Wechsler 2009; Leauthaud et al. 2010; Behroozi et al. 2013). Future galaxy surveys such as Prime Focus Spectrograph (PFS) (Takada et al. 2012), the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) (Levi et al. 2013), Euclid (Laureijs et al. 2011) and the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) (Spergel et al. 2013) use both luminous red galaxies and < emission line galaxies to trace the large-scale structure at z ∼ 2. A major uncertainty for the precision cosmology using galaxy surveys comes from the challenge of relating galaxies and dark matter. Subhalo abundance matching (SHAM) is a promising approach to relate the properties of galaxies to dark matter subhalos (e.g., Kravtsov et al. 2004; Nagai & Kravtsov 2005; Conroy et al. 2006). The simple abundance matching model by assigning luminosity in the order of the maximum circular velocity of dark matter subhalos successfully reproduces the galaxy clustering at different redshifts (Conroy et al. 2006). Masaki et al. (2013a) also finds a good abundance matching between the progenitor halos of luminous red galaxies (LRGs) and the massive halos at z ∼ 2 and then explains the clustering properties of LRGs very well. There also has been recent attempts to relate the galaxy color to the subhalo propc 0000 RAS erties, i.e., color abundance matching. Galaxy color reflects the activity of on-going star formation: red galaxies consists of aged stars and the star formation is quenched, whereas blue galaxies are relatively young and their star formation is active. It is also known that redder galaxies live in denser environments via the measurement of galaxy clustering (Norberg et al. 2002; Zehavi et al. 2005; Coil et al. 2008; Guo et al. 2014; Skibba et al. 2014) and also from the colordensity relation (Balogh et al. 2004; Cooper et al. 2006; Blanton & Berlind 2007; Bamford et al. 2009). Masaki et al. (2013b) extends a SHAM technique to explain color-dependent properties of galaxy clustering as well as galaxy-galaxy lensing using two proxies of color: one is the local dark matter density motivated by the environmental dependence of galaxy color; the other is the subhalo age reflecting the different aged population between red and blue galaxies. Hearin & Watson (2013) also perform color abundance matching by assigning the redshift zstarve characterizing the epoch of star formation quenching to subhalos. So far, the projected correlation function along the line-ofsight has been commonly used for testing SHAM to avoid the effect of redshift-space distortion (RSD) due to peculiar motion of galaxies. The velocity of galaxies within and outskirts of clusters is complicated and affected by different physics including the dynamical friction, tidal stripping/disruption, merging, and ram pressure. The internal motion of galaxies elongate the RSD of galaxies along the line-of-sight direction, known as Fingers-of-God (FoG; Jackson 1972). The FoG effect is clearly different by colors: red galaxies show much stronger FoG effect than blue galaxies (Zehavi arXiv:1503.03939v1 [astro-ph.HE] 13 Mar 2015 Multi-wavelength Emission from the Fermi Bubble III. Stochastic (Fermi) Re-Acceleration of Relativistic Electrons Emitted by SNRs. K. S. Cheng1 , D. O. Chernyshov1,2 , V. A. Dogiel1,2,3 , and C. M. Ko4 1 2 Department of Physics, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong, China I.E.Tamm Theoretical Physics Division of P.N.Lebedev Institute of Physics, Leninskii pr. 53, 119991 Moscow, Russia 3 Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (State University), 9, Institutsky lane, Dolgoprudny, 141707, Russia 4 Institute of Astronomy, Department of Physics and Center for Complex Systems, National Central University, Jhongli, Taiwan March 16, 2015 Received 0 ; accepted ........ –2– ABSTRACT We analyse the model of stochastic re-acceleration of electrons, which are emitted by supernova remnants (SNRs) in the Galactic Disk and propagate then into the Galactic halo, in order to explain the origin on nonthermal (radio and gamma-ray) emission from the Fermi Bubbles (FB). We assume that the energy for re-acceleration in the halo is supplied by shocks generated by processes of star accretion onto the central black hole. Numerical simulations show that regions with strong turbulence (places for electron re-acceleration) are located high up in the Galactic Halo about several kpc above the disk. The energy of SNR electrons that reach these regions does not exceed several GeV because of synchrotron and inverse Compton energy losses. At appropriate parameters of re-acceleration these electrons can be re-accelerated up to the energy 1012 eV which explains in this model the origin of the observed radio and gamma-ray emission from the FB. However although the model gamma-ray spectrum is consistent with the Fermi results, the model radio spectrum is steeper than the observed by WMAP and Planck. If adiabatic losses due to plasma outflow from the Galactic central regions are taken into account, then the re-acceleration model nicely reproduces the Planck datapoints. 1. Introduction Recently Fermi has discovered two giant gamma-ray Bubbles (FBs) that extend nearly 10 kpc in diameter north and south of the Galactic center (cf. Dobler et al. 2010; Su et al. 2010, for more recent analyses, see Hooper & Slatyer (2013); Yang et al., (2014); Ackermann et al. (2014)). These gamma-ray Bubbles also correlate with the earlier CHINESE ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS arXiv:1503.03933v1 [astro-ph.HE] 13 Mar 2015 Chinese Astronomy and Astrophysics 000 (2014) 0–2 Quark-Hadron Phase Transition with Finite-Size Effects in Neutron Stars† N. Yasutake△,1 , S. Benic2 , D. Blaschke3 , T. Maruyama4 , T. Tastumi5 1. Physics Department, Chiba Institute of Technology, Shibazono 2-1-1, Narashino, Chiba, 275-0023, Japan 2. Physics Department, Faculty of Science, University of Zagreb, Zagreb 10000, Croatia 3. Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Wroclaw, Max Born pl. 9, 50-204 Wroclaw, Poland 4. Advanced Science Research Center, Japan Atomic Energy Agency, Tokai, Ibaraki 319-1195, Japan 5. Department of Physics, Kyoto University, Kyoto 606-8502, Japan Abstract We study the quark-hadron phase transition with the finite-size effects in neutron stars. The finite-size effects should be, generally, taken into account in the phase transition of multi-component system. The behavior of the phase transition, however, strongly depends on the quark model, hadron model, surface tension, neutrino fraction, and temperature. We find that, if the surface tension is strong, the EOS becomes to be close the one with the Maxwell condition for any hadron and/or quark models, though we adopt the Gibbs conditions. We also find that the mass-radius relations by the EOS are consistent with the observations, and our model is, then, applicable to realistic astrophysical phenomena such as the thermal evolutions of compact stars. Key words equation of state—stars: neutron stars, magnetars 1. INTRODUCTION The equation of state (EOS) is one of the most important topic to study on neutron stars. But there is large uncertainty at finite-density region in the EOS. One of the possibility for understanding the EOS of neutron stars (NSs) is to study baryon-baryon(BB) interactions by Lattice QCD (LQCD) simulations [1] and/or experiments such as heavy-ion † This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Numbers 25105510, 23540325, 24105008. △ [email protected] c 2011 Elsevier Science B. V. All rights reserved. 0275-1062/01/$-see front matter PII: DRAFT: March 16, 2015 Preprint typeset using LATEX style emulateapj v. 5/2/11 INVESTIGATING Hα, UV, AND IR STAR-FORMATION RATE DIAGNOSTICS FOR A LARGE SAMPLE OF z ∼ 2 GALAXIES Irene Shivaei1,2, Naveen A. Reddy1,3 , Charles C. Steidel4 , Alice E. Shapley5 arXiv:1503.03929v1 [astro-ph.GA] 13 Mar 2015 DRAFT: March 16, 2015 ABSTRACT We use a sample of 262 spectroscopically confirmed star-forming galaxies at redshifts 2.08 ≤ z ≤ 2.51 to compare Hα, UV, and IR star-formation-rate diagnostics and to investigate the dust properties of the galaxies. At these redshifts, the Hα line shifts to the Ks -band. By comparing Ks -band photometry to underlying stellar population model fits to other UV, optical, and near-infrared data, we infer the Hα flux for each galaxy. We obtain the best agreement between Hα- and UV-based SFRs if we assume that the ionized gas and stellar continuum are reddened by the same value and that the Calzetti attenuation curve is applied to both. Aided with MIPS 24 µm data, we find that an attenuation curve steeper than the Calzetti curve is needed to reproduce the observed IR/UV ratios of galaxies younger than 100 Myr. Furthermore, using the bolometric star-formation rate inferred from the UV and mid-IR data (SFRIR +SFRUV ), we calculated the conversion between the Hα luminosity and SFR to be (7.5 ± 1.3) × 10−42 for a Salpeter IMF, which is consistent with the Kennicutt (1998) conversion. The derived conversion factor is independent of any assumption of the dust correction and is robust to stellar population model uncertainties. Subject headings: galaxies: evolution — galaxies: high-redshift – galaxies: star formation 1. INTRODUCTION One of the most important diagnostics in understanding the evolution of galaxies is the star-formation rate (SFR). The evolution of the SFR of galaxies can give clues as to how galaxies were enriched with heavy elements, how they build up their stellar mass through cosmic time, and helps us to understand the bolometric output of galaxies. At redshift z ∼ 2, when the universe was just ∼ 3 Gyr old, star-formation activity in the universe was at its peak and galaxies were in the process of assembling most of their stellar mass (see Reddy & Steidel 2009; Bouwens et al. 2010; Shapley 2011; Madau & Dickinson 2014). Studying this critical epoch is essential to gaining a better understanding of the evolution of the progenitors of the local galaxy population. The ultra-violet (UV) continuum (1500 to 2800 ˚ A ) intensity of a galaxy is one of the most commonly used diagnostics for the SFR as it is observable over a wide range of redshifts and intrinsic luminosities. It is sensitive to massive stars (M∗ & 5 M⊙ ), making it a direct tracer of current SFR. By extrapolating the formation rate of massive stars to lower masses, for an assumed form of the initial mass function (IMF), one can estimate the total SFR (Madau et al. 1998). Another widely used diagnostic for measuring the SFR is nebular emission, with Hα being the most common because of its higher 1 Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Riverside, 900 University Avenue, Riverside, CA 92521, USA 2 NSF Graduate Research Fellow 3 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow 4 Cahill Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics, California Institute of Technology, 1216 E. California Blvd., MS 249-17, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA 5 Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of California, Los Angeles, 430 Portola Plaza, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA intensity compared to the other hydrogen recombination lines such as Hβ, Paα, Paβ, etc., and it is easier to interpret than the Lyα line. Hα is an “instantaneous” tracer of SFR because it is sensitive only to the most massive stars (M∗ & 10 M⊙ ). However, it becomes more challenging to observe Hα from the ground at z & 1 because the line is redshifted to the near-IR where the terrestrial background is much higher than at optical wavelengths. The main disadvantage of using UV/optical luminosities as tracers of the SFR is their sensitivity to dust attenuation. The dust absorption cross-section is larger for shorter wavelengths and choosing the appropriate attenuation curve to correct the observed luminosities plays an important role in determining intrinsic physical quantities. Aside from the assumed attenuation curve, the geometry of dust with respect to the stars can lead to different color excesses, E(B−V ), between the ionized gas and the stellar continuum. E(B − V ) is the color excess measured between the B and V bands, E(B −V ) ≡ AB −AV , where Aλ is the total extinction at wavelength λ in magnitudes. In particular, the nebular recombination lines arise from the HII regions around the most massive O and early-type B stars (with masses of M∗ & 10 M⊙ and main sequence lifetimes of . 10 Myr). On the other hand, for a Salpeter IMF, solar metallicity, and a constant or rising star-formation history, the UV continuum in starburst galaxies originates from stars over a broader range of mass that includes later-type B stars with lifetimes . 100 Myr (Kennicutt 1998; Madau & Dickinson 2014). These older non-ionizing stars have more time to migrate to regions of lower dust density in the galaxy, while H-ionizing stars with shorter lifetimes do not have enough time to escape from their dusty birthplace or let the parent molecular clouds to dissipate. As a result, the nebular lines can be subject to a higher degree of reddening than the UV continuum. Calzetti et al. (1994) found that the nebular emission Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 000, 000–000 (0000) Printed 16 March 2015 (MN LATEX style file v2.2) Rhapsody-G simulations: Galaxy clusters as baryonic closed boxes and the covariance between hot gas and galaxies Hao-Yi Wu,1 ? August E. Evrard,1 Oliver Hahn,2 Davide Martizzi,3 Romain Teyssier,4 Risa H. Wechsler5 1 Department of Physics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA Department of Physics, ETH Zurich, CH-8093 Z¨ urich, Switzerland 3 Department of Astronomy, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-3411, USA 4 Institute for Computational Science, University of Zurich, CH-8057 Z¨ urich, Switzerland 5 KIPAC, Physics Department, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, CA 94025, USA arXiv:1503.03924v1 [astro-ph.CO] 13 Mar 2015 2 16 March 2015 ABSTRACT Within a sufficiently large cosmic volume, conservation of baryons implies a simple “closed box” view in which the sum of the baryonic components must equal a constant fraction of the total enclosed mass. We present evidence from Rhapsody-G hydrodynamic simulations of massive galaxy clusters that the closed-box expectation may hold to a surprising degree within the interior, non-linear regions of very massive haloes. We find a significant anticorrelation between hot gas mass fraction and galaxy mass fraction (cold gas + stars), with rank correlation coefficient, −0.69, within R500c . Because of this anti-correlation, the total baryon mass serves as a low-scatter proxy for total cluster mass. The fractional scatter in total baryon fraction scales approximately as 0.02(∆c /100)0.6 , while the scatter of either gas mass or stellar mass is larger in magnitude and declines more slowly with increasing radius. We discuss potential observational tests using cluster samples selected by optical and hot gas properties; the simulations suggest that joint selection on stellar and hot gas has potential to achieve 5% scatter in total halo mass. Key words: methods: numerical — galaxies: clusters: general — cosmology: theory — X-rays: galaxies: clusters 1 INTRODUCTION The abundance of galaxy clusters as a function of cluster mass is sensitive to both the growth of structure and cosmic expansion, providing not only stringent constraints on cosmological parameters but also consistency checks for the theory of gravity (see, e.g., Miller et al. 2001; Vikhlinin et al. 2009; Mantz et al. 2010; Rozo et al. 2010; Rapetti et al. 2013; Benson et al. 2013; and Allen et al. 2011 for a review). In cluster cosmology, the key is to accurately infer the mass of galaxy clusters from their observable properties, including gas mass and temperature from X-ray emission (e.g., Mantz et al. 2014), galaxy content from imaging and galaxy dynamics from spectroscopy (e.g., Kravtsov et al. 2014; Mamon et al. 2013), and strong and weak gravitational lensing effects (e.g., von der Linden et al. 2014). Each of these mass proxies exhibit a certain amount of scatter around the true mass, and minimizing and characterizing this scatter is essential for precision cosmology from galaxy cluster surveys (e.g., Lima & Hu 2005; Wu et al. 2010). ? Current address: California Institute of Technology, MC 367-17, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA. E-mail: [email protected] c 0000 RAS To achieve accurate mass measurements, multi-wavelength observations have often been conducted for the same sample of clusters; for example, the CLASH project includes comparison between mass proxies from weak lensing, X-ray, and velocity dispersion (Postman et al. 2012; Donahue et al. 2014; Biviano et al. 2013); clusters observed by the South Pole Telescope using the Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect have been followed up photometrically and spectroscopically (Song et al. 2012; Ruel et al. 2014). When multiple mass tracers are available for the same sample of galaxy clusters, a joint selection can reduce the mass scatter. In particular, the reduction of mass scatter is most effective when the two mass tracers are anti-correlated with each other at a given mass (e.g., Cunha 2009; Stanek et al. 2010; Rozo et al. 2014; Evrard et al. 2014). Hydrodynamical simulations of galaxy clusters have been a powerful tool for understanding mass proxies (e.g., Evrard et al. 1996; Kravtsov et al. 2006; Rasia et al. 2006; Nagai et al. 2007; Stanek et al. 2010; Rasia et al. 2012; Saro et al. 2012; Angulo et al. 2012) and the evolution of gas and stars in clusters (e.g., Kravtsov et al. 2005; Ettori et al. 2006; Puchwein et al. 2010; Young et al. 2011; Battaglia et al. 2013; Planelles et al. 2013). Recent results have shown that it is necessary to include the arXiv:1503.03904v1 [astro-ph.SR] 12 Mar 2015 The Gould’s Belt Very Large Array Survey II: The Serpens region Gisela N. Ortiz-Le´on1 , Laurent Loinard1,2 , Amy J. Mioduszewski3 , Sergio A. Dzib2 , Luis F. Rodr´ıguez1,4 , Gerardo Pech1 , Juana L. Rivera1 , Rosa M. Torres5 , Andrew F. Boden6 , Lee Hartmann7 , Neal J. Evans II8 , Cesar Brice˜ no9,10 , John Tobin11,12 , Marina A. Kounkel7 , and Rosa A. Gonz´alez-L´opezlira1 [email protected] –3– ABSTRACT We present deep (∼ 17 µJy) radio continuum observations of the Serpens molecular cloud, the Serpens south cluster, and the W40 region obtained using the Very Large Array in its A configuration. We detect a total of 146 sources, 29 of which are young stellar objects (YSOs), 2 are BV stars and 5 more are associated with phenomena related to YSOs. Based on their radio variability and spectral index, we propose that about 16 of the remaining 110 unclassified sources are also YSOs. For approximately 65% of the known YSOs detected here as radio sources, the emission is most likely non-thermal, and related to stellar coronal activity. As also recently observed in Ophiuchus, our sample of YSOs with X-ray counterparts lies below the fiducial G¨ udel & Benz relation. Finally, we analyze the proper motions of 9 sources in the W40 region. This allows us to better constrain the membership of the radio sources in the region. Subject headings: astrometry - magnetic fields - radiation mechanisms: non-thermal radio continuum: stars - techniques: interferometric Submitted to ApJ 2015-01-21, under review Preprint typeset using LATEX style emulateapj v. 5/2/11 THE DISTANCE TO NOVA V959 MON FROM VLA IMAGING 1 J. D. Linford , V. A. R. M. Ribeiro2,3 , L. Chomiuk1 , T. Nelson4 , J. L. Sokoloski5 , M. P. Rupen6 , K. Mukai7,8 , T. J. O’Brien9 , A. J. Mioduszewski10 , and J. Weston5 arXiv:1503.03899v1 [astro-ph.HE] 12 Mar 2015 Submitted to ApJ 2015-01-21, under review ABSTRACT Determining reliable distances to classical novae is a challenging but crucial step in deriving their ejected masses and explosion energetics. Here we combine radio expansion measurements from the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array with velocities derived from optical spectra to estimate an expansion parallax for nova V959 Mon, the first nova discovered through its γ-ray emission. We spatially resolve the nova at frequencies of 4.5–36.5 GHz in nine different imaging epochs. The first five epochs cover the expansion of the ejecta from 2012 October to 2013 January, while the final four epochs span 2014 February to 2014 May. These observations correspond to days 126 through 199 and days 615 through 703 after the first detection of the nova. The images clearly show a non-spherical ejecta geometry. Utilizing ejecta velocities derived from 3D modelling of optical spectroscopy, the radio expansion implies a distance between 0.9 ± 0.2 and 2.2 ± 0.4 kpc, with a most probable distance of 1.4 ± 0.4 kpc. This distance implies a γ-ray luminosity much less than the prototype γ-ray-detected nova, V407 Cyg, possibly due to the lack of a red giant companion in the V959 Mon system. V959 Mon also has a much lower γ-ray luminosity than other classical novae detected in γ-rays to date, indicating a range of at least a factor of 10 in the γ-ray luminosities for these explosions. Subject headings: white dwarfs — novae, cataclysmic variables — stars: individual (V959 Mon) — gamma-rays — radio continuum 1. INTRODUCTION The discovery of a γ-ray transient coincident with the 2010 nova event in V407 Cyg was a source of much excitement and surprise for the nova and γ-ray communities alike (Abdo et al. 2010). Although MeV γrays produced by nuclear decay in nova ejecta have been predicted for many years (e.g., Hernanz 2013, and references therein), GeV emission from novae, as detected with Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT; Atwood et al. 2009), had received little attention prior to the event in V407 Cyg (with the notable exception of Tatischeff & Hernanz 2007). Abdo et al. (2010) suggested that a blast wave driven into the wind from the Mira giant companion accelerated particles to relativistic speeds and produced γ-rays through either leptonic or hadronic secondary interaction. In follow-up work exploring the X-ray properties of V407 Cyg, Nelson et al. [email protected] 1 Department of Physics and Astronomy, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA 2 Department of Astrophysics/IMAPP, Radboud University, PO Box 9010, 6500 GL, Nijmegen, The Netherlands 3 Astrophysics, Cosmology, and Gravity Centre, Department of Astronomy, University of Cape Town, Private Bag X3, Rondebosch 7701, South Africa 4 School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Minnesota, 116 Church St SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455 5 Columbia Astrophysics Laboratory, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA 6 Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics, National Research Council of Canada, Penticton, BC, Canada 7 Center for Space Science and Technology, University of Maryland Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD 21250, USA 8 CRESST and X-ray Astrophysics Laboratory, NASA/GSFC, Greenbelt MD 20771 USA 9 Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics, Alan Turing Building, University of Manchester, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK 10 National Radio Astronomy Observatory, P.O. Box 0, Socorro, NM 87801, USA (2012) also claimed that the presence of a red giant companion was the primary characteristic of the system responsible for generating such a γ-ray event and efficient acceleration of particles. They predicted that γ-ray emission from novae would be very rare, as most systems have main sequence (MS) donors (see also L¨ u et al. 2011). It did not take long for nature to prove this prediction incorrect. In 2012, the Fermi-LAT detected two new transients that were spatially coincident with novae. The association of Fermi J1750-3243 with the nova V1324 Sco was made within a few weeks of the outburst (Cheung et al. 2012a). However, the nature of γ-ray transient FGL J0639+0548 remained a mystery for several months after discovery (Cheung et al. 2012b), because its proximity to the sun prevented follow-up by optical observers. When the region became optically observable a few months after γ-ray detection, a nova was discovered at the location of the Fermi transient (Cheung et al. 2012c). Thus V959 Mon was the first nova discovered in the γ-rays. In 2013, the two nakedeye visible novae V339 Del and V1369 Cen joined the collection of novae detected in γ-rays (Hays et al. 2013, Cheung et al. 2013, Ackermann et al. 2014). The novae V1324 Sco, V959 Mon, V339 Del, and V1369 Cen do not show evidence of an evolved companion (Greimel et al. 2012; Wagner et al. 2012; Darnley et al. 2013; Schaefer et al. 2014), making them very different from V407 Cyg. Greimel et al. discuss the identification of the likely progenitor of V959 Mon in images obtained as part of the IPHAS survey (Drew et al. 2005). They find only a faint source (r ≈ 17.9 mag) at the location of the nova, which is too faint to be associated with a giant star within the Milky Way. Furthermore, no spectral signatures of an evolved Submitted to Astrophysical Journal Preprint typeset using LATEX style emulateapj v. 05/12/14 THE MASS AND RADII OF STRONGLY MAGNETIZED NEUTRON STARS Farbod Kamiab, Avery E. Broderick, and Niayesh Afshordi arXiv:1503.03898v1 [astro-ph.HE] 12 Mar 2015 Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, 31 Caroline Street North, Waterloo, ON N2L 2Y5, Canada Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Waterloo, 200 University Avenue West, Waterloo, ON, N2L 3G1, Canada Submitted to Astrophysical Journal ABSTRACT It has been clear for some time now that super-critical surface magnetic fields, exceeding 4 × 1013 G, exist on a subset of neutron stars. These magnetars may harbor interior fields many orders of magnitude larger, potentially reaching equipartition values. However, the impact of these strong fields on stellar structure has been largely ignored, potentially complicating attempts to infer the high density nuclear equation of state. Here we assess the effect of these strong magnetic fields on the mass-radius relationship of neutron stars. We employ an effective field theory model for the nuclear equation of state that includes the impact of hyperons, anomalous magnetic moments, and the physics of the crust. We consider two magnetic field geometries, bounding the likely magnitude of the impact of magnetic fields: a statistically isotropic, tangled field and a force-free configuration. In both cases even equipartition fields have at most a 30% impact on the maximum mass. However, the direction of the effect of the magnetic field depends on the geometry employed – force-free fields leading to reductions in the maximum neutron star mass and radius while tangled fields increase both – challenging the common intuition in the literature on the impact of magnetic fields. Keywords: Neutron Stars, Pulsars, Magnetic Field, Magnetar 1. INTRODUCTION Observations and theoretical studies of soft gammaray repeaters and X-ray pulsars point to the existence of neutron stars with very high surface magnetic fields (B > 1014 G), comprising the so-called magnetars (Duncan and Thompson 1992; Paczynski 1992; Thompson and Duncan 1995, 1996; Melatos 1999). These surface magnetic fields are inferred through the observed slowing of the stellar rotation, presumed to be a result of the emission of energy and angular momentum via large-scale magnetic fields at the light cylinder, the point beyond which they are unable to continue to rigidly rotate with the star. This is expected to spin the star down on a timescale ≈ P/P˙ ∝ B −2 P 4 , where P is the spin period. Thus, magnetars are universally observed to have long periods, roughly 1 s, and thus correspondingly large light cylinders cP/(2π) ≈ 5 × 104 km. As a result, the implied surface fields necessarily rely on a significant extrapolation, and typically assume a dipolar magnetospheric magnetic field geometry, necessarily producing a lower limit on the surface field strength, which is itself likely to be a lower limit on the interior field strengths. As a recent example, Gotthelf et al. (2013) monitored the temporal and spectral evolution of a pulsar, originally discovered by the NuSTAR X-ray Observatory, and from the spin-down measurement, inferred a dipole magnetic field strength B = 3 × 1014 G. Magnetars can also be observed in the radio band. Follow-up observations of the pulsar PSR J1622-4950, discovered by Levin et al. (2010) in a survey of radio pulsars with the Parkes 64 m telescope, show that the pulsar has the highest inferred surface magnetic field of the known radio pulsars (B ∼ 3×1014 G), making it the first magnetar discovered via its radio emission. A catalog of 26 currently known magnetars was presented recently by Olausen and Kaspi [email protected] (2014). The existence of extremely strong magnetic fields observed in magnetars can be explained by a number of processes. Neutron stars with strong magnetic dipole fields B ∼ 1014 - 1015 G, can form when conditions for efficient helical dynamo action are met during the first few seconds after gravitational collapse (Duncan and Thompson 1992). In addition to differential rotation, convection may play a significant role in amplifying the magnetic field (Thompson and Duncan 1993). In the context of more sophisticated simulations of field amplification in non-rotating stellar cores during the collapse and postbounce accretion phases of a supernova, including magnetohydrodynamics and neutrino transport, it was found that initial magnetic field strengths stronger than 1010 G could yield magnetar-like final field strengths (Obergaulinger et al. 2014). As neutron stars with very strong magnetic fields appear to exist in nature, one is tempted to ask how these field strengths affect the structure of these stars. This is particularly important as the equilibrium mass and radius of neutron stars vary based on the nuclear and gravitational physics assumed (for example, see Lattimer and Prakash (2001, 2007) for the effects of various nuclear equations of state on the structure of neutron stars, and see Kamiab and Afshordi (2011); Pani et al. (2011); Alavirad and Weller (2013) for effects of modifying general relativity). As a result, observational measurements of these masses and radii have the potential to constrain theoretical models. In particular, observing neutron stars with very high masses is useful, as each set of models (nuclear equation of state and gravitational model) predicts a maximum mass beyond which no neutron stars would exist. For example, the detection of a 1.97 ± 0.04 M pulsar by Demorest et al. (2010), or the measurement of a 2.01 ± 0.04 M pulsar by Antoniadis et al. (2013) have been used to significantly constrain Draft version March 16, 2015 Preprint typeset using LATEX style emulateapj v. 5/2/11 STELLAR SUBSTRUCTURES AROUND THE HERCULES DWARF SPHEROIDAL GALAXY T. A. Roderick 1 , H. Jerjen1 , A. D. Mackey1 , and G. S. Da Costa1 arXiv:1503.03896v1 [astro-ph.GA] 12 Mar 2015 Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 2611, Australia Draft version March 16, 2015 ABSTRACT We present deep g, i-band DECam stellar photometry of the Hercules Milky Way satellite galaxy, and its surrounding field, out to a radial distance of 5.4 times the tidal radius. We have identified nine extended stellar substructures associated with the dwarf; preferentially distributed along the major axis of the galaxy. Two significant over-densities lie outside the 95% confidence band for the likely orbital path of the galaxy and appear to be free-floating tidal debris. We estimate the luminosity of the new stellar substructures, and find that approximately the same amount of stellar flux is lying in these extended structures as inside the main body of Hercules. We also analyse the distribution of candidate blue-horizontal-branch stars and find agreement with the alignment of the substructures at a confidence level greater than 98%. Our analysis provides a quantitative demonstration that Hercules is a strongly tidally disrupted system, with noticeable stellar features at least 1.9 kpc away from the galaxy. Subject headings: galaxies: dwarf (galaxies:) Local Group 1. INTRODUCTION Ultra-faint Milky Way (MW) satellite galaxies are the most dark matter dominated stellar systems in the Universe (Mateo 1998; Simon & Geha 2007; McConnachie 2012). The high mass-to-light ratios seen in these pressure-dominated systems are determined from their velocity dispersion, which assumes that the underlying stellar populations are in dynamic-equilibrium. However, satellite galaxies interacting with their hosts can undergo significant tidal stirring (Lokas et al. 2012), leaving kinematic samples potentially contaminated by unbound stars (Klimentowski et al. 2007). In the case where a galaxy is being tidally disrupted, the mass-to-light ratio can be overestimated, and this may not be apparent in the galaxy’s dispersion profile (Pe˜ narrubia et al. 2008). It is also possible for a galaxy that has undergone tidal disruption to retain its spherical shape (Mu˜ noz et al. 2008). The dynamical state of a satellite galaxy is thus a highly relevant question. For that reason it is important to search for signs of tidal disruption not only in the central region of these galaxies, but in the vicinity around them where tidal debris may be present. The MW satellites provide an excellent opportunity for this type of investigation, as they are close enough to be resolved into individual stars and can be studied in great detail (see Tolstoy et al. 2009; McConnachie 2012; Jerjen 2012, for a discussion and census of local satellites). Comprehensive studies of the MW satellite galaxies have led to numerous investigations of their role in galaxy formation. In the ΛCDM cosmological paradigm, galaxies form hierarchically through merger and accretion of smaller structures (Blumenthal et al. 1984; Van Den Bosch et al. 2005; Giocoli et al. 2009). Moore et al. (1999) demonstrated that dark matter sub-structure occurs on galactic scales, resulting in galaxy halos appearing as scaled versions of galaxy clusters. Mergers and [email protected] cretion are a feature of galaxy clusters, therefore the outskirts of larger galaxies should also show signs of merger and accretion events (Diemand et al. 2007). A rather striking example in this context is Andromeda (M31), which possesses numerous satellite systems and copious substructure in its stellar halo (McConnachie et al. 2009; Ibata et al. 2014). Substructures are also observed in our own Milky Way in the form of stellar streams (e.g. Newberg 2002; Belokurov et al. 2007a; Grillmair 2006; Newberg et al. 2010; Sesar et al. 2013; Grillmair 2014), with perhaps the quintessential example being the Sagittarius dwarf (Ibata et al. 1994), and its great tidal tails strewn across the sky (Majewski et al. 2003; Newby et al. 2013). Contrary to the predictions of ΛCDM, Kroupa et al. (2005) demonstrated that the distribution of the MW satellite population is inconsistent with that of a dwarf galaxy population drawn from cosmological substructure. Further investigation of the satellite populations of both the MW and M31 has found, in both cases, that the satellites have a disc-like distribution with high inclination to the plane of the host galaxy (Metz et al. 2005, 2007, 2009; Pawlowski et al. 2013; Ibata et al. 2013; Conn et al. 2013). This has led to the alternative picture that a significant fraction of the currently known MW satellite galaxies is of tidal origin (Kroupa et al. 2010; Pawlowski et al. 2014); forming from a major collision of the MW and another galaxy. This theory accounts for many of the observed features of the dwarf galaxy population, including the high mass-to-light ratios (explained as systems driven out of equilibrium (Yang et al. 2014)). Learning whether or not the dwarf population is largely comprised of systems driven out of equilibrium, or shows signs more indicative of hierarchical build-up, may be a key factor in determining the origin of the population as a whole. Most of the research into the MW dwarf galaxy population to date has been restricted to the main stellar body of each dwarf. However, it is in the outer regions where we expect to see more subtle signs of tidal disruption. The obvious example is Sagittarius (Ibata et al. The current impact flux on Mars and its seasonal variation Youngmin JeongAhn and Renu Malhotra arXiv:1503.03885v1 [astro-ph.EP] 12 Mar 2015 Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA. [email protected],[email protected] ABSTRACT We calculate the present-day impact flux on Mars and its variation over the Martian year, using the current data on the orbital distribution of known Mars¨ crossing minor planets. We adapt the Opik-Wetherill formulation for calculating collision probabilities, paying careful attention to the non-uniform distribution of the perihelion longitude and the argument of perihelion owed to secular planetary perturbations. We find that these previously neglected non-uniformities have a significant effect on the mean annual impact flux as well as its seasonal variation. The impact flux peaks when Mars is at aphelion, but the near-alignment of Mars’ eccentricity vector with the mean direction of the eccentricity vectors of Marscrossers causes the mean annual impact flux as well as the amplitude of the seasonal variation to be significantly lower than the estimate based on a uniform random distribution of perihelion longitudes of Mars-crossers. We estimate that the flux of large impactors (of absolute magnitude H < 16) within ±30◦ of Mars’ aphelion is about four times larger than when the planet is near perihelion. Extrapolation of our results to a model population of meter-size Mars-crossers shows that if these small impactors have a uniform distribution of their angular elements, then their aphelion-to-perihelion impact flux ratio would be as large as 25. These theoretical predictions can be tested with observational data of contemporary impacts that is becoming available from spacecraft currently in orbit about Mars. 1. Introduction The impact crater record on the surfaces of the terrestrial planets over geologically long timescales provides a window on the dynamical history of the solar system, including a chronology of major geological and dynamical events. This crater-based chronology is calibrated primarily on estimates of the cratering rate on the Moon over geological timescales. The presence of space observatories in orbit about Mars now offers a new opportunity to Planet formation around binary stars: Tatooine made easy arXiv:1503.03876v1 [astro-ph.EP] 12 Mar 2015 Benjamin C. Bromley Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of Utah, 115 S 1400 E, Rm 201, Salt Lake City, UT 84112 [email protected] Scott J. Kenyon Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, 60 Garden St., Cambridge, MA 02138 [email protected] ABSTRACT We examine characteristics of circumbinary orbits in the context of current planet formation scenarios. Analytical perturbation theory predicts the existence of nested circumbinary orbits that are generalizations of circular orbits in a Keplerian potential. They contain forced epicyclic motion aligned with the binary as well as higher frequency oscillations, yet they do not cross, even in the presence of massive disks and perturbations from large planets. For this reason, dissipative gas and planetesimals can settle onto these “most circular” orbits, facilitating the growth of protoplanets. Outside a region close to the binary where orbits are generally unstable, circumbinary planets form in much the same way as their cousins around a single star. Here, we review the theory and confirm its predictions with a suite of representative simulations. We then consider the circumbinary planets discovered with NASA’s Kepler satellite. These Neptune- and Jupiter-size planets, or their planetesimal precursors, may have migrated inward to reach their observed orbits, since their current positions are outside of unstable zones caused by overlapping resonances. In situ formation without migration seems less likely, only because the surface density of the protoplanetary disks must be implausibly high. Otherwise, the circumbinary environment is friendly to planet formation, and we expect that many Earth-like “Tatooines” will join the growing census of circumbinary planets. Subject headings: planetary systems – planets and satellites: formation – planets and satellites: dynamical evolution and stability – planets and satellites: individual (Kepler-16b, Kepler-34b, Kepler-35b, Kepler-38a, Kepler-47b, PH1, Kepler-413b) – planet disk interactions – stars: binaries Draft version March 16, 2015 Preprint typeset using LATEX style emulateapj v. 5/2/11 EXTRACTING RADIAL VELOCITIES OF A- AND B-TYPE STARS FROM ECHELLE SPECTROGRAPH CALIBRATION SPECTRA Juliette C. Becker1,2,3 , John Asher Johnson4,5 , Andrew Vanderburg3,4 , Timothy D. Morton6 arXiv:1503.03874v1 [astro-ph.SR] 12 Mar 2015 Draft version March 16, 2015 ABSTRACT We present a technique to extract radial velocity measurements from echelle spectrograph observations of rapidly rotating stars (V sin i & 50 km s−1 ). This type of measurement is difficult because the line widths of such stars are often comparable to the width of a single echelle order. To compensate for the scarcity of lines and Doppler information content, we have developed a process that forward–models the observations, fitting the radial velocity shift of the star for all echelle orders simultaneously with the echelle blaze function. We use our technique to extract radial velocity measurements from a sample of rapidly rotating A– and B–type stars used as calibrator stars observed by the California Planet Survey observations. We measure absolute radial velocities with a precision ranging from 0.5–2.0 km s−1 per epoch for more than 100 A- and B-type stars. In our sample of 10 well-sampled stars with radial velocity scatter in excess of their measurement uncertainties, three of these are single–lined binaries with long observational baselines. From this subsample, we present detections of two previously unknown spectroscopic binaries and one known astrometric system. Our technique will be useful in measuring or placing upper limits on the masses of sub-stellar companions discovered by wide–field transit surveys, and conducting future spectroscopic binarity surveys and Galactic space–motion studies of massive and/or young, rapidly–rotating stars. Subject headings: binaries: general — methods: data analysis — techniques: radial velocities 1. INTRODUCTION Stellar radial velocity (RV) measurements have become increasingly precise over the past 30 years due to the advent and development of high–resolution spectrographs equipped with digital detectors (Campbell et al. 1981), including HIRES at Keck (Vogt et al. 1994; Howard et al. 2010); and particularly with the construction of environmentally-stabilized spectrometers such as the HARPS-South and -North spectrographs (Mayor et al. 2003; Cosentino et al. 2012), SOPHIE at Haute-Provence (Bouchy et al. 2009), CHIRON at CTIO (Schwab et al. 2010), and the Planet Finder Spectrograph (PFS) at Magellan (Crane et al. 2006, 2010). While the discovery and characterization of exoplanets has been the driving scientific motivation behind these developments (e.g. Mayor & Queloz 1995; Butler et al. 1999, 2004; Dumusque et al. 2012), increased measurement precision has also led to significant advances in understanding stellar binarity, particularly around Sun-like stars (Duquennoy & Mayor 1991; Fischer & Marcy 1992; Raghavan et al. 2010). However, the stability of a given spectrometer is only part of what enables high radial velocity precision. The attainable Doppler precision also depends greatly on the type of star observed. Measurements at the highest [email protected] 1 Department of Astronomy, University of Michigan, 1085 S University Ave, Ann Arbor, MI 48109 2 Cahill Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics, California Institute of Technology, 1200 E. California Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91125 3 NSF Graduate Research Fellow 4 Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden St., Cambridge, MA 02138 5 David & Lucile Packard Fellow 6 Department of Astrophysical Sciences, 4 Ivy Lane, Peyton Hall, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544 tainable precision today, levels at or below 1 m s−1 , can only be performed on stars with spectra that contain many sharp spectral lines. As a result, most RV–based planet surveys have been restricted to F-,G-,K-,and Mtype dwarf stars, which rotate slowly and display numerous fine spectral features. On the other hand, more massive A- and B-type stars have hotter atmospheres and exhibit fewer absorption features. Also, because these hot stars lack convective outer layers, they retain most of their primordial angular momentum, and what few spectral features they show are highly rotationally broadened. For these reasons, rapidly–rotating hot and massive stars have nearly featureless blackbody spectra, showing only very broad hydrogen and helium absorption lines, as illustrated in Figure 1. Rotational smearing also affects young stars of all masses if they have not yet lived long enough to have experienced sufficient magnetic braking. It is thus much more challenging to obtain precise RVs for rapidly rotating stars from high–resolution echelle observations. At the same time, their nearly featureless spectra make hot stars excellent calibrators for measuring and removing telluric absorption features, and as calibrators for Doppler surveys (as well as for instrumental tests, as in Spronck et al. 2013). These “blackbodies in the sky” are excellent calibrators of the transmission functions of absorption cells used as wavelength references, and as means of measuring the spectrometer’s instrumental profile for surveys using gas absorption cells. As a result, there exists a large library of high–resolution spectra of hot stars obtained as calibrators of high-precision, gas-cell calibrated Doppler surveys such as the California Planet Survey (CPS). While this library was obtained for calibration purposes rather than as a scientific data product, it serendip- D RAFT VERSION M ARCH 16, 2015 Preprint typeset using LATEX style emulateapj v. 2/16/10 THE EVENT HORIZON OF M87 AVERY E. B RODERICK 1,2 , R AMESH NARAYAN 3 , J OHN KORMENDY 4,5,6 , E RIC S. P ERLMAN 7 , M ARCIA J. R IEKE 8 , AND S HEPERD S. D OELEMAN 3,9 1 Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, 31 Caroline Street North, Waterloo, ON, N2L 2Y5, Canada Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Waterloo, 200 University Avenue West, Waterloo, ON, N2L 3G1, Canada 3 Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA, 02138 4 Department of Astronomy, University of Texas at Austin, 2515 Speedway, Mail Stop C1400, Austin, TX 78712-1205, USA; [email protected] 5 Max-Planck-Institut für Extraterrestrische Physik, Giessenbachstrasse, D-85748 Garching-bei-München, Germany 6 Universitäts-Sternwarte, Scheinerstrasse 1, D-81679 München, Germany 7 Department of Physics and Space Sciences, 150 W. University Blvd., Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, FL 32901, USA; [email protected] 8 Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, 933 North Cherry Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85721-0065 9 MIT Haystack Observatory, Off Route 40, Westford, MA 01886, USA Draft version March 16, 2015 arXiv:1503.03873v1 [astro-ph.HE] 12 Mar 2015 2 ABSTRACT The 6 × 109 M⊙ supermassive black hole at the center of the giant elliptical galaxy M87 powers a relativistic jet. Observations at millimeter wavelengths with the Event Horizon Telescope have localized the emission from the base of this jet to angular scales comparable to the putative black hole horizon. The jet might be powered directly by an accretion disk or by electromagnetic extraction of the rotational energy of the black hole. However, even the latter mechanism requires a confining thick accretion disk to maintain the required magnetic flux near the black hole. Therefore, regardless of the jet mechanism, the observed jet power in M87 implies a certain minimum mass accretion rate. If the central compact object in M87 were not a black hole but had a surface, this accretion would result in considerable thermal near-infrared and optical emission from the surface. Current flux limits on the nucleus of M87 strongly constrain any such surface emission. This rules out the presence of a surface and thereby provides indirect evidence for an event horizon. Subject headings: black hole physics – galaxies: individual (M87) – gravitation – radio continuum: galaxies – infrared: galaxies – ultraviolet: galaxies 1. INTRODUCTION It is now widely accepted that active galactic nuclei (AGN) are powered by supermassive objects (reaching 1010 M⊙ ) that are sufficiently compact to exclude all other astrophysically credible alternatives to black holes (Rees 1984). However, it is less clear that these objects possess the defining characteristic of a black hole: an event horizon1. The existence of black hole event horizons plays a central role in a number of puzzles associated with black holes, e.g., the information paradox. A number of recent results suggest that a resolution of these puzzles may result in modifications on horizon scales (e.g., Mathur 2011; Almheiri et al. 2013; Mathur 2014), which provides strong motivation for seeking astronomical evidence for the reality of event horizons. Accretion onto compact objects with a surface, e.g., white dwarfs, neutrons stars, results in the formation of a boundary layer in which any remaining kinetic energy contained within the accretion flow is thermalized and radiated. In contrast, gas accreting onto a black hole is free to advect any excess energy across the horizon without further observational consequence. ˙ can be independently estimated, If the mass accretion rate, M, this difference provides an observational means to distinguish between the presence of a surface, or more accurately a “photosphere,” and a horizon. The above argument has already been used to argue 1 Here we will employ an astrophysically motivated definition of the horizon: a surface from inside which astronomical signals cannot propagate to large distances in astronomically relevant timescales. Formally, for a dynamical system, such a surface is identified with the apparent horizon. However, in the context of astrophysical black holes described by general relativity, it corresponds to the event horizon as well. for the existence of event horizons in X-ray binaries by comparing neutron star and black hole systems in aggregate (Narayan et al. 1997; Garcia et al. 2001; Narayan & Heyl 2002; Done & Gierli´nski 2003; Narayan & McClintock 2008). However, the advent of horizon-resolving observations, enabled by millimeter-wavelength very long baseline intererometric observations (mm-VLBI) carried out by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT, Doeleman et al. 2009; Doeleman 2010; Doeleman et al. 2008; Fish et al. 2011; Doeleman et al. 2012), has made it possible to extended the argument to individual systems. This is primarily because restricting the size of any photospheric emission to horizon scales enables two important simplifications: 1. Any putative photosphere that lies within the photon orbit is expected to radiate to a good approximation like a blackbody, independently of the details of its composition (Broderick & Narayan 2006, 2007). This is because a majority of the photons emitted from the photosphere will be strongly lensed back onto the photosphere, thermally coupling the photosphere to itself and to the emitted photon field. As the redshift of the surface increases, the blackbody approximation becomes increasingly accurate. 2. The expected temperature of the photosphere emission, as seen by distant observers, is dependent upon the ˙ and the apparent photosphere size, mass accretion rate M the latter of which is fixed when the photosphere lies within the photon orbit. Thus, assuming that the system has reached steady state2 , any independent estimate of 2 The additional gravitational time delay for radiation to escape from version March 16, 2015: fm Preprint typeset using LATEX style emulateapj v. 11/10/09 OPTICAL SPECTROSCOPIC OBSERVATIONS OF BLAZARS AND γ-RAY BLAZAR CANDIDATES IN THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY DATA RELEASE NINE F. Massaro1 , N. Masetti3 , R. D’Abrusco4 , A. Paggi4 , & S. Funk2 arXiv:1503.03868v1 [astro-ph.HE] 12 Mar 2015 version March 16, 2015: fm ABSTRACT We present an analysis of the optical spectra available in the Sloan Digital Sky survey data release nine (SDSS DR9) for the blazars listed in the ROMA-BZCAT and for the γ-ray blazar candidates selected according to their IR colors. First, we adopt a statistical approach based on MonteCarlo simulations to find the optical counterparts of the blazarslisted in the ROMA-BZCAT catalog. Then we crossmatched the SDSS spectroscopic catalog with our selected samples of blazars and γ-ray blazar candidates searching for those with optical spectra available to classify our blazar-like sources and, whenever possible, to confirm their redshifts. Our main objectives are determining the classification of uncertain blazars listed in the ROMA-BZCAT and discovering new gamma-ray blazars. For the ROMA-BZCAT sources we investigated a sample of 84 blazars confirming the classification for 20 of them and obtaining 18 new redshift estimates. For the γ-ray blazars, indicated as potential counterparts of unassociated Fermi sources or with uncertain nature, we established the blazar-like nature of 8 out the 27 sources analyzed and confirmed 14 classifications. Subject headings: methods: statistical - galaxies: active - quasars: general - surveys - radiation mechanisms: non-thermal 1. INTRODUCTION According to the well assessed unification scenario of the active galactic nuclei (AGN; e.g., Antonucci 1993; Urry & Padovani 1995) blazars are radio loud sources, featuring compact radio cores combined with a “flat” radio spectra that extends from frequencies below ∼1GHz (e.g., Massaro et al. 2013a; Massaro et al. 2013b; Nori et al. 2013) up to the submillimeter band (e.g., Giommi et al. 2012). They are characterized by a variable, non-thermal, continuum and exhibit a typical double bumped spectral energy distribution (SED), and represent the largest known population of γ-ray sources (e.g., Abdo et al. 2010a; Ackermann et al. 2011) proving the most relevant contribution to the extragalactic γ-ray background (e.g., Mukherjee et al. 1997; Abdo et al. 2010b). Blazars are generally classified on the basis of their optical spectra and divided in two main classes: i) BL Lac objects, labeled as BZBs according to the nomenclature of the ROMA-BZCAT5 (Massaro et al. 2009; Massaro et al. 2011a) when presenting featureless optical spectra and ii) flat spectrum radio quasars (hereinafter BZQs) having a typical quasar-like optical appearance but also featuring high and variable optical polarization. In particular, blazars are classified as BZB if the rest-frame equivalent width of their optical features is lower than 5 ˚ A (Stickel et al. 1991; Stoke et al. 1991; 1 Yale Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Physics Department, Yale University, PO Box 208120, New Haven, CT 06520-8120, USA 2 SLAC National Laboratory and Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, 2575 Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park, CA 94025, USA 3 INAF - Istituto di Astrofisica Spaziale e Fisica Cosmica di Bologna, via Gobetti 101, 40129, Bologna, Italy 4 Harvard - Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA 5 http://www.asdc.asi.it/bzcat/ Laurent-Muehleisen et al. 1999; Landoni et al. 2013). As recently discovered using the WISE all-sky survey (Wright et al. 2010), blazars show by peculiar infrared (IR) colors (Massaro et al. 2011b) mostly due to their non-thermal continuum that allowed to distinguish them from other classes of active galaxies (e.g., D’Abrusco et al. 2012; Massaro et al. 2012a). This IR property was also interpreted as due to the lack of observational signatures form a dusty torus in the case of BZBs (e.g., Plotkin et al. 2012). The variable, non-thermal emission of both BZBs and BZQs, extending from radio up to TeV energies, is interpreted as arising from high-energy particles accelerated in a relativistic jet oriented along to the line of sight, whereas relativistic effects amplifies both their luminosity and the amplitude of their variability (Blandford & Rees 1978; Giommi et al. 2013). Recently, we searched for blazar-like objects as potential counterparts of the unidentified γ-ray sources (UGSs) observed with Fermi (Abdo et al. 2010a; Nolan et al. 2012) with several methods based on the IR colors alone (Massaro et al. 2012b; D’Abrusco et al. 2013) or combined with other multifrequency observations, as radio (Massaro et al. 2013d) or X-ray properties (Paggi et al. 2013). We also explored the use of low radio frequency observations (i.e., below ∼1 GHz) as an alternative possibility to find blazar-like counterparts (e.g., Massaro et al. 2013a; Nori et al. 2013) for the UGSs listed in the second Fermi-Large Area Telescope (LAT) catalog (2FGL, Nolan et al. 2012) in addition to other multifrequency analysis (e.g., Mirabal & Halpern 2009; Ackermann et al. 2012; Cowperthwaite et al. 2013; Masetti et al. 2013). All these investigations provided several lists of gamma-ray blazar candidates that has to be confirmed and classified via optical spectroscopy. Here we investigate the optical spectra of two QED Plasma and Magnetars Marat Freytsis and Samuel E. Gralla arXiv:1503.03867v1 [astro-ph.HE] 12 Mar 2015 Center for the Fundamental Laws of Nature, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA Magnetars are surrounded by diffuse plasma in magnetic field strengths well above the quantum electrodynamic critical value. We derive equations of “quantum force-free electrodynamics” for this plasma using an effective field theory arguments. We argue that quantum effects do not modify the large scale structure of the magnetosphere, and in particular that the spin-down rate does not deviate significantly from the classical result. We provide definite evolution equations that can be used to explore potentially important small-scale corrections, such as shock formation, which has been proposed as a mechanism for both burst and quiescent emission from magnetars. Introduction — From the earliest days of the quantum theory of light, before even the development of quantum electrodynamics (QED) proper, it was recognized that quantum effects should become important in electromagnetic field strengths of order m2 /(e¯h), where m and e are the mass and charge of the electron [1, 2]. Near this “Schwinger limit,” new effective photon-photon interactions emerge, mediated by electron loops, leading to phenomena such as vacuum birefringence and light-by-light scattering. Most dramatically, strong electric fields create electron-positron pairs out of the vacuum, a non-perturbative effect [3]. The most promising route to reaching these field strengths in the laboratory is the use of high-intensity lasers [4]. While some of the effects may be observable in upcoming facilities, the actual field strengths will still be well below the Schwinger limit. Fortunately, nature provides us with another avenue to investigate strong-field QED: a class of astrophysical objects known as magnetars. Magnetars are pulsars (rotating, magnetized neutron stars) with exceptionally strong surface magnetic field strengths. In fact, magnetars can have field strengths of up to 1015 G and maybe higher, which exceed the critical field strength, BQ = m2 ≈ 4.4 × 1013 G, h¯ e (1) by two orders of magnitude! Much work has been devoted to understanding the physical processes that take place in such magnetic field strengths; see [5–7] for reviews. Most of this work is done assuming a vacuum environment, whereas in fact magnetars (and pulsars in general) are surrounded by a diffuse plasma. The existence and properties of this plasma can be understood from the smallness of the dimensionless parameter χ= m ≈ 10−15 . eBR (2) Here B is the magnetic field strength, R is the stellar radius, and we have assumed canonical pulsar values B ≈ 1012 G and R ≈ 10 km. This number accounts for the plasma as follows [8, 9]. A conductor moving with velocity v in a magnetic field B generates an electric field of order Bv by “unipolar induction”. For a rotating magnetized sphere in vacuum this electric field has a component along B, and hence can accelerate particles. The energy to which the particles can be accelerated over a typical system size is thus eBvR. Computing v/ χ shows that this energy exceeds the rest mass of the electron by many orders of magnitude. (For pulsars a typical surface velocity is v ∼ 10−4 .) Thus any stray charges are rapidly accelerated to above the pair-production threshold, and the ensuing pair-creation cascade will populate the magnetosphere with plasma. As charges are generated they will arrange themselves to cancel the electric field, driving the Lorentz invariant E · B to zero. Production ceases as this invariant becomes too small to produce the required acceleration. For charge corotating with the star the density required to cancel E · B is the so-called Goldreich–Julian charge density vB/R. This sets a typical scale for the plasma mass density, mvB/(eR). The ratio of the particle mass/energy density to the electromagnetic field energy density is then vχ , which is exceedingly tiny, making the plasma dynamics completely dominated by the field. Assuming classical electrodynamics, such plasmas are described by a non-linear theory of the electromagnetic field known as force-free electrodynamics (FFE) [8, 10–12]. The theory follows from the assumption that the electromagnetic stress-energy is conserved on its own, leading to the condition that the Lorentz force density everywhere vanishes. Naively, one might expect any classical description to break down at or near the critical field strength BQ . The measurement of the surface magnetic field strength of a pulsar/magnetar relies on the dipole radiation spin-down formula, which has only been derived in classical electrodynamics (vacuum or forcefree [13, 14]) or in vacuum QED [15]. Thus the very evidence for super-critical magnetic fields in nature is sensitive to the question of magnetically dominated QED plasma. In this letter we will derive equations of “quantum forcefree electrodynamics” to describe this plasma. The strategy is to integrate out electron loop fluctuations from the QED action, following the basic approach established by Euler and Heisenberg (EH) in 1935 [2]. However, the EH calculation is done assuming no fermion in- or out-states, allowing the electron to be integrated out entirely in the effective action, whereas we wish to consider plasma. We therefore proceed in two steps. First, we consider a collisionless multiparticle system and use effective field theory (EFT) arguments to establish the size and form of the modifications due to QED. We then show that the modifications that survive in the magnetically dominated limit follow from the EH Lagrangian, without requiring a new QED calculation. We thereby write down Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 000, 1–11 (2015) Printed 16 March 2015 (MN LATEX style file v2.2) The incidence of magnetic fields in cool DZ white dwarfs M.A. Hollands1, B.T. G¨ansicke1, D. Koester2 1 arXiv:1503.03866v1 [astro-ph.SR] 12 Mar 2015 2 Department of Physics, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK Institut f¨ ur Theoretische Physik und Astrophysik, University of Kiel, 24098 Kiel, Germany Accepted 2015 March 12. ABSTRACT Little is known about the incidence of magnetic fields among the coolest white dwarfs. Their spectra usually do not exhibit any absorption lines as the bound-bound opacities of hydrogen and helium are vanishingly small. Probing these stars for the presence of magnetic fields is therefore extremely challenging. However, external pollution of a cool white dwarf by, e.g., planetary debris, leads to the appearance of metal lines in its spectral energy distribution. These lines provide a unique tool to identify and measure magnetism in the coolest and oldest white dwarfs in the Galaxy. We report the identification of 7 strongly metal polluted, cool (Teff < 8000 K) white dwarfs with magnetic field strengths ranging from 1.9 to 9.6 MG. An analysis of our larger magnitude-limited sample of cool DZ yields a lower limit on the magnetic incidence of 13 ± 4 percent, noticeably much higher than among hot DA white dwarfs. Key words: stars: white dwarfs - stars: magnetic field - stars: planetary systems stars: evolution 1 INTRODUCTION White dwarfs (WDs) have been known to harbour magnetic fields since the detection of circularly polarised light from GJ 742 (Kemp et al. 1970). In the following decades a plethora of magnetic WDs (MWDs) have been identified either from Zeeman splitting of absorption lines in their spectra or by spectropolarimetry (Kawka et al. 2007, and references therein). A wide variety is seen in temperature, atmospheric composition, and field strength. The advent of large scale spectroscopic surveys, in particular the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), has in the last decade increased the number of known MWDs to several hundred (G¨ ansicke et al. 2002; Schmidt et al. 2003; Vanlandingham et al. 2005; Kleinman et al. 2013; Kepler et al. 2013, 2015). Despite the ever growing list of these previously rare objects, two questions continue to remain without a definite answer: What is the origin of these magnetic fields? And what is the fraction of WDs that are magnetic, and how does this vary with cooling age/temperature? Two distinct models have been proposed to explain the emergence of fields & 1 MG in isolated WDs. In the fossil field hypothesis, the magnetic fields of the chemically peculiar Ap/Bp stars are thought to be amplified due to flux conservation during post-main sequence evolution resulting in WDs with fields in the MG regime (Woltjer 1964; Angel & Landstreet 1970; Angel et al. 1981; Wickramasinghe & Ferrario 2000). A more recent hypothc 2015 RAS esis (Tout et al. 2008) considers a binary origin, where a system undergoing a common envelope leads to magnetic dynamo generation. The incidence of magnetism in WDs remains poorly estimated due to selection effects. Independent studies are difficult to reconcile with one another as each suffers from its own set of biases. This problem becomes significantly more pronounced when focusing on subsets of the total WD population where small number statistics dominate. Recent volume limited samples of nearby WDs present the most unbiased estimates of the magnetic incidence when considering all WD sub types, and suggest incidences of 21 ± 8 percent for WDs within 13 pc of the Sun, and 13±4 percent for those within 20 pc (Kawka et al. 2007). However these MWDs are dominated by fields lower than 100 kG and strongly magnetic objects with fields above 10 MG. Only 1 out of the 15 MWDs in the compilation of Kawka et al. (2007) has a field strength between 1 and 10 MG (the range that we discuss in this work). More recently, Sion et al. (2014) have presented a volume limited WD sample within 25 pc from the Sun. They find a magnetic incidence of 8 percent when considering magnetic fields above 2 MG only. Other studies have investigated the magnetic incidence with much larger, but magnitude-limited samples. For instance Kleinman et al. (2013) identified over 12000 DAs1 from SDSS data release 7 1 WDs showing only hydrogen/helium lines in their spectra are classified DA/DB, with only metal lines as DZ, and without any spectral lines as DC. Magnetic DA WDs where magnetism is de-