Hasil untuk "Astrophysics"

Y. Ralchenko

R. Maartens, K. Koyama

The observable universe could be a 1+3-surface (the “brane”) embedded in a 1+3+d-dimensional spacetime (the “bulk”), with Standard Model particles and fields trapped on the brane while gravity is free to access the bulk. At least one of the d extra spatial dimensions could be very large relative to the Planck scale, which lowers the fundamental gravity scale, possibly even down to the electroweak (∼ TeV) level. This revolutionary picture arises in the framework of recent developments in M theory. The 1+10-dimensional M theory encompasses the known 1+9-dimensional superstring theories, and is widely considered to be a promising potential route to quantum gravity. At low energies, gravity is localized at the brane and general relativity is recovered, but at high energies gravity “leaks” into the bulk, behaving in a truly higher-dimensional way. This introduces significant changes to gravitational dynamics and perturbations, with interesting and potentially testable implications for high-energy astrophysics, black holes, and cosmology. Brane-world models offer a phenomenological way to test some of the novel predictions and corrections to general relativity that are implied by M theory. This review analyzes the geometry, dynamics and perturbations of simple brane-world models for cosmology and astrophysics, mainly focusing on warped 5-dimensional brane-worlds based on the Randall-Sundrum models. We also cover the simplest brane-world models in which 4-dimensional gravity on the brane is modified at low energies — the 5-dimensional Dvali-Gabadadze-Porrati models. Then we discuss co-dimension two branes in 6-dimensional models.

István Berkes

Strong approximation, introduced by Strassen (1964), is one of the most powerful methods to prove limit theorems in probability and statistics. In this paper we use strong approximation of lacunary series with conditionally independent sequences to prove uniform and permutation-invariant limit theorems for such series.

Mainak Singha, Julissa Sarmiento, Sangeeta Malhotra et al.

We searched the Chandra and XMM archives for 900 Green Pea galaxies to identify signs of active galactic nuclei (AGN). Green peas are low-mass, emission-line galaxies that resemble high-redshift dwarf galaxies. From 29 observations, we detected X-rays in nine galaxies with signal-to-noise ratio > 3. These X-ray sources also show He ii and broad H α emissions, suggesting winds, though the weak correlation between their line widths implies that the He ii emission is not from super-Eddington accretors. The ratio of X-ray luminosity to star formation rate aligns with an anticorrelation with metallicity for most detected sources, pointing to ultraluminous X-ray sources as likely contributors. The X-ray emission exceeds what stellar processes can produce, supporting the existence of low-luminosity AGN. Using the broad H α emission lines, we infer black hole masses ranging from 10 ^4 to 10 ^6 M _⊙ in these sources. Since Green Peas are significant Lyman continuum leakers, these AGN may have played a role in cosmic reionization.

Nayana A. J., Raffaella Margutti, Eli Wiston et al.

We present the results from our extensive hard-to-soft X-ray (NuSTAR, Swift-XRT, XMM-Newton, Chandra) and meter-to-millimeter-wave radio (Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope, Very Large Array, NOEMA) monitoring campaign of the very nearby ( d  = 6.9 Mpc) Type II supernova (SN) 2023ixf spanning ≈4–165 days post-explosion. This unprecedented data set enables inferences on the explosion’s circumstellar medium (CSM) density and geometry. In particular, we find that the luminous X-ray emission is well modeled by thermal free–free radiation from the forward shock with rapidly decreasing photoelectric absorption with time. The radio spectrum is dominated by synchrotron radiation from the same shock. Similar to the X-rays, the level of free–free absorption affecting the radio spectrum rapidly decreases with time as a consequence of the shock propagation into the dense CSM. While the X-ray and the radio modeling independently support the presence of a dense medium corresponding to an effective mass-loss rate $\dot{M}\approx 1{0}^{-4}\,{M}_{\odot }\,{\mathrm{yr}}^{-1}$ at R  = (0.4–14) × 10 ^15 cm (for v _w  = 25 km s ^−1 ), our study points at a complex CSM density structure with asymmetries and clumps. The inferred densities are ≈10–100 times those of typical red supergiants, indicating an extreme mass-loss phase of the progenitor in the ≈200 yr preceding core collapse, which leads to the most X-ray luminous Type II SN and the one with the most delayed emergence of radio emission. These results add to the picture of the complex mass-loss history of massive stars on the verge of collapse and demonstrate the need for panchromatic campaigns to fully map their intricate environments.

Osvaldo Chandia

Abstract We construct integrated and unintegrated vertex operators for the type II superstring using the B-RNS-GSS formalism. The construction is done in flat spacetime background for both type II superstrings and type IIB superstring in a $$AdS_5\times S^5$$ A d S 5 × S 5 background.

Danny Marfatia, Po-Yan Tseng, Yu-Min Yeh

Abstract In a cosmological first-order phase transition (FOPT), the true and false vacuum bubble radius distributions are not expected to be monochromatic, as is usually assumed. Consequently, Fermi balls (FBs) and primordial black holes (PBHs) produced in a dark FOPT will have extended mass distributions. We show how gravitational wave (GW), microlensing and Hawking evaporation signals for extended bubble radius/mass distributions deviate from the case of monochromatic distributions. The peak of the GW spectrum is shifted to lower frequencies, and the spectrum is broadened at frequencies below the peak frequency. Thus, the radius distribution of true vacuum bubbles introduces another uncertainty in the evaluation of the GW spectrum from a FOPT. The extragalactic gamma-ray signal at AMEGO-X/e-ASTROGAM from PBH evaporation may evince a break in the power-law spectrum between 5 MeV and 10 MeV for an extended PBH mass distribution. Optical microlensing surveys may observe PBH mass distributions with average masses below $$10^{-10}M_\odot $$ 10 - 10 M ⊙ , which is not possible for monochromatic mass distributions. This expands the FOPT parameter space that can be explored with microlensing.

Gabriel Verrier, Ugo Lebreuilly, Patrick Hennebelle

Stars and planets form in collapsing clouds of gas and dust. The presence of dust grains and their local distribution play a significant role throughout the protostellar sequence, from the thermodynamics and the chemistry of molecular clouds to the opacity of collapsing protostellar cores and the coupling between the gas and the magnetic field and down to planet formation in young and evolved disks. We aim to simulate the dynamics of the dust, considering the whole range of grain sizes, from few nanometers to millimeters. We implemented a neutral pressureless multifluid that samples the dust size distribution in the RAMSES code. This multifluid is dynamically coupled to the gas via a drag source term and self-gravity, relying on the Eulerian approach. We designed a Riemann solver for the gas and dust mixture that prevents unphysical dust-to-gas ratio variations for well-coupled grains. We illustrated the capacities of the code by performing simulations of a protostellar collapse down to the formation of a first hydrostatic core, both for small and large dust grains. Grains over 100 microns significantly decouple from the gas. The spatial maps and the probability density functions indicate that dust enrichment within the first hydrostatic core and in some locations of the envelope increases as a function of the grain size and the level of initial turbulence. Thanks to the novel Riemann solver, we recovered the terminal velocity regime, even at low resolution. Moreover, we successfully extended it to regimes where the grain inertia matters. The multifluid module performs the coupling between the dust and the gas self-consistently all through the dynamical scales. The dust enrichment in the first hydrostatic core and the envelope have been revised here, assuming the initial turbulence and grain sizes. This enables us to probe new potential conditions for planet formation.

Payaswinee Arvikar, Sakshi Gautam, Anagh Venneti et al.

We studied the properties of dark matter admixed-neutron stars (DMANS), considering fermionic dark matter (DM) that interacts gravitationally with hadronic matter (HM). Using relativistic mean-field equations of state (EoSs) for both components, we solved the two-fluid Tolman Oppenheimer Volkoff (TOV) equations to determine neutron star (NS) properties assuming that DM is confined within the stellar core. For hadronic matter, we employed realistic EoSs derived from low energy nuclear physics experiments, heavy-ion collision data, and NS observations. To constrain key dark matter parameters such as particle mass, mass fraction, and the coupling to mass ratio, we applied Bayesian inference, incorporating various astrophysical data including mass, radii, and NICER mass-radius distributions for PSR J0740+6620 and PSR J0030+0451. Additionally, we explored the influence of high-density HM EoSs and examined the impact of stiffer hadronic EoSs, excluding the vector meson self-interaction term. Our findings indicate that current astrophysical observations primarily constrain the dark matter fraction, while providing limited constraints on the particle mass or coupling. However, the dark matter fraction is largely insensitive to how astrophysical observations or uncertainties in the high-density EoS are incorporated. Instead, it is predominantly determined by the stiffness of the hadronic EoS at high densities, with stiffer hadronic EoSs yielding a higher dark matter mass fraction. Therefore, we conclude that the dark matter fraction plays a crucial role in shaping the properties of DMANS. Future investigations incorporating more realistic EoSs and astrophysical observations of other compact objects may provide deeper insights into dark matter.

Matteo Guardiani, Vincent Eberle, Margret Westerkamp et al.

Modern observatories are designed to deliver increasingly detailed views of astrophysical signals. To fully realize the potential of these observations, principled data-analysis methods are required to effectively separate and reconstruct the underlying astrophysical components from data corrupted by noise and instrumental effects. In this work, we introduce a novel multi-frequency Bayesian model of the sky emission field that leverages latent-space tension as an indicator of model misspecification, enabling automated separation of diffuse, point-like, and extended astrophysical emission components across wavelength bands. Deviations from latent-space prior expectations are used as diagnostics for model misspecification, thus systematically guiding the introduction of new sky components, such as point-like and extended sources. We demonstrate the effectiveness of this method on synthetic multi-frequency imaging data and apply it to observational X-ray data from the eROSITA Early Data Release (EDR) of the SN1987A region in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). Our results highlight the method's capability to reconstruct astrophysical components with high accuracy, achieving sub-pixel localization of point sources, robust separation of extended emission, and detailed uncertainty quantification. The developed methodology offers a general and well-founded framework applicable to a wide variety of astronomical datasets, and is therefore well suited to support the analysis needs of next-generation multi-wavelength and multi-messenger surveys.

Ewan O’Sullivan, Kamlesh Rajpurohit, Gerrit Schellenberger et al.

NGC 777 provides an example of a phenomenon observed in some group-central ellipticals, in which the temperature profile shows a central peak, despite the short central cooling time of the intragroup medium. We use deep Chandra X-ray observations of the galaxy, supported by uGMRT 400 MHz radio imaging, to investigate the origin of this hot core. We confirm the centrally peaked temperature profile and find that the entropy and cooling time both monotonically decline to low values (2.62 ${}_{-0.18}^{+0.19}$ keV cm ^2 and ${71.3}_{-13.1}^{+12.8}$ Myr, respectively) in the central ∼700 pc. Faint diffuse radio emission surrounds the nuclear point source, with no clear jets or lobes but extending to ∼10 kpc on the northwest–southeast axis. This alignment and extent agree well with a previously identified filamentary H α + [N ii ] nebula. While cavities are not firmly detected, we see X-ray surface brightness decrements on the same axis at 10–20 kpc radii, which are consistent with the intragroup medium having been pushed aside by expanding radio lobes. Any such outburst must have occurred long enough ago for lobe emission to have faded below detectability. Cavities on this scale would be capable of balancing radiative cooling for at least ∼240 Myr. We consider possible causes of the centrally peaked temperature profile, including gravitational heating of gas as the halo relaxes after a period of active galactic nucleus jet activity, and heating by particles leaking from the remnant relativistic plasma of the old radio jets.

Nancy Remage Evans, Pierre Kervella, Joanna Kuraszkiewicz et al.

Cepheid masses continue to be important tests of evolutionary tracks for intermediate-mass stars as well as important predictors of their future fate. For systems where the secondary is a B star, Hubble Space Telescope ultraviolet spectra have been obtained. From these spectra a temperature can be derived, and from this a mass of the companion M _2 . Once Gaia DR4 is available, proper motions can be used to determine the inclination of the orbit. Combining mass of the companion, M _2 , the mass function from the ground-based orbit of the Cepheid and the inclination produces the mass of the Cepheid, M _1 . The Cepheid system FN Vel is used here to demonstrate this approach and what limits can be put on the Cepheid mass for inclination between 50° and 130°.

Sukalpa Kundu, Jayanta Dutta

Recent numerical simulations have shown that the unstable disk within the central regime of the primordial gas cloud fragments to form multiple protostars on several scales. Their evolution depends on the mass accretion phenomenon, interaction with the surrounding medium and radiative feedback respectively. In this work, we use a fast semianalytical framework in order to model multiple protostars within a rotating cloud, where the mass accretion is estimated via a Bondi–Hoyle flow and the feedback process is approximated through radiation pressure. We observe that while some of the evolving protostars possibly grow massive (≈1–75 M _⊙ ) via accretion and mergers, a fraction of them (≈20%) are likely to be ejected from the parent cloud with a mass corresponding to M _* ≲ 0.8 M _⊙ . These low-mass protostars may be considered as the potential candidates to enter the zero-age-main-sequence phase and possibly survive until the present epoch.

Alexey Potapov, Cornelia Jäger, Harald Mutschke et al.

Existence of strongly bound water molecules on silicate surfaces, above the desorption temperature of water ice, has been first predicted by computational studies and recently demonstrated by laboratory experiments. Such trapped water may be present in various astrophysical environments and there is now evidence for its presence in the diffuse interstellar medium and in extraterrestrial particles. We present here new results of a laboratory study of the phenomenon of trapping (strong bonding) of water molecules by silicates. We show that the efficiency of trapping is strongly dependent on the properties and composition of the surface. Our results point out that the presence of trapped water should be due to the hydrophilic properties of the silicate surface and that the nature of trapping is physical (physisorption rather than chemisorption). We demonstrate that water can be trapped on silicates up to the temperatures of about 470 K, which speaks for the presence of wet silicate grains in the terrestrial planet formation zone in planet-forming disks. Studying the thermal and UV stability of trapped water, we conclude that the detection of trapped water in the diffuse ISM speaks for its efficient continuous formation. We discuss our results as relevant to fundamental scientific questions, such as the oxygen depletion problem, the origin of water on Earth, and the formation of rocky planets.

D. O. Jones, P. McGill, T. A. Manning et al.

Characterizing the host galaxies of astrophysical transients is important to many areas of astrophysics, including constraining the progenitor systems of core-collapse supernovae, correcting Type Ia supernova distances, and probabilistically classifying transients without photometric or spectroscopic data. Given the increasing transient discovery rate in the coming years, there is substantial utility in providing public, transparent, reproducible, and automatic characterization for large samples of transient host galaxies. Here we present Blast, a web application that ingests live streams of transient alerts, matches transients to their host galaxies, and performs photometry on coincident archival imaging data of the host galaxy. The photometry is then used to infer both global host-galaxy properties and galaxy properties within 2 kpc of the transient location by using the Prospector Bayesian inference framework, with an acceleration in evaluation speed achieved via simulation-based inference. Blast provides host-galaxy properties to users via a web browser or an application program interface. The software can be extended to support alternative photometric or SED-fitting algorithms, and can be scaled via an asynchronous worker queue across multiple compute nodes to handle the processing of large volumes of transient alerts for upcoming transient surveys. Blast has been ingesting newly discovered transients from the Transient Name Server since mid-2024, and has currently measured SED parameters for more than 6000 transients. The service is publicly available at https://blast.scimma.org/.

Xuezheng Wang, Wu Jiang, Zhiqiang Shen et al.

Through very long baseline interferometry observations of one of the closest low-luminosity active galactic nuclei, M81*, at multiple frequencies of 8.8, 22, and 44 GHz, a bright discrete knot with an unusual low apparent speed ∼0.1 c was detected. Combined with the contemporaneous monitoring of X-ray data at 2–10 keV, our data indicate that a moderate X-ray flare happened when the knot was launched from the core region. Three possible origins of the knot are proposed to explain our observational results. They are an episodic jet ejection, a low-speed shock wave, and a possible secondary black hole in a binary system. Future intensive multiwavelength monitoring can help to understand the discrete knot as well as the central black hole better.

Zixuan Peng, Crystal L. Martin, Pierre Thibodeaux et al.

J1044+0353 is considered a local analog of the young galaxies that ionized the intergalactic medium at high redshift due to its low mass, low metallicity, high specific star formation rate, and strong high-ionization emission lines. We use integral field spectroscopy to trace the propagation of the starburst across this small galaxy using Balmer emission- and absorption-line equivalent widths and find a poststarburst population (∼15–20 Myr) roughly 1 kpc east of the much younger, compact starburst (∼3–4 Myr). Using the direct electron temperature method to map the O/H abundance ratio, we find similar metallicities (1–3 σ ) between the starburst and poststarburst regions but with a significant dispersion of about 0.3 dex within the latter. We also map the Doppler shift and width of the strong emission lines. Over scales several times the size of the galaxy, we discover a velocity gradient parallel to the galaxy’s minor axis. The steepest gradients (∼30 km s ^−1 kpc ^−1 ) appear to emanate from the oldest stellar association. We identify the velocity gradient as an outflow viewed edge on based on the increased line width and skew in a biconical region. We discuss how this outflow and the gas inflow necessary to trigger the starburst affect the chemical evolution of J1044+0353. We conclude that the stellar associations driving the galactic outflow are spatially offset from the youngest association, and a chemical evolution model with a metal-enriched wind requires a more realistic inflow rate than a homogeneous chemical evolution model.

Guillermo F. Quispe Peña, Andrei V. Frolov

To create high-fidelity cosmic microwave background maps, current component separation methods rely on availability of information on different foreground components, usually through multi-band frequency coverage of the instrument. Internal linear combination (ILC) methods provide an unbiased estimators for CMB which are easy to implement, but component separation quality crucially depends on the signal to noise ratio of the input maps. In the present paper, we develop an efficient non-linear filter along the lines of non-local means used in digital imaging research which significantly improves signal to noise ratio for astrophysical foreground maps, while having minimal signal attenuation, and evaluate it performance in map and spectral domains. Noise reduction is achieved by averaging ``similar'' pixels in the map. We construct the rotationally-invariant feature vector space and compute the similarity metric on it for the case of non-Gaussian signal contaminated by an additive Gaussian noise. The proposed filter has two tuneable parameters, and with minimal tweaking achieves a factor of two improvement in signal to noise spectral density in Planck dust maps. A particularly desirable feature is that signal loss is extremely small at all scales.

Roberto Casadio

Abstract We present a simple quantum description of the gravitational collapse of a ball of dust which excludes those states whose width is arbitrarily smaller than the gravitational radius of the matter source and supports the conclusion that black holes are macroscopic extended objects. We also comment briefly on the relevance of this result for the ultraviolet self-completion of gravity and the connection with the corpuscular picture of black holes.

Jian-Fu Zhang, Jian-Fu Zhang, Ru-Yue Wang

It is well known that magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence is ubiquitous in astrophysical environments. The correct understanding of the fundamental properties of MHD turbulence is a pre-requisite for revealing many key astrophysical processes. The development of observation-based measurement techniques has significantly promoted MHD turbulence theory and its implications in astrophysics. After describing the modern understanding of MHD turbulence based on theoretical analysis and direct numerical simulations, we review recent developments related to synchrotron fluctuation techniques. Specifically, we comment on the validation of synchrotron fluctuation techniques and the measurement performance of several properties of magnetic turbulence based on data cubes from MHD turbulence simulations and observations. Furthermore, we propose to strengthen the studies of the magnetization and 3D magnetic field structure’s measurements of interstellar turbulence. At the same time, we also discuss the prospects of new techniques for measuring magnetic field properties and understanding astrophysical processes, using a large number of data cubes from the Low-Frequency Array (LOFAR) and the Square Kilometre Array (SKA).