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Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Heliospheric Response To Different Possible Interstellar Environments, Hans-Reinhard Muller, Priscilla C. Frisch, Vladimir Florinski, Gary P. Zank
Heliospheric Response To Different Possible Interstellar Environments, Hans-Reinhard Muller, Priscilla C. Frisch, Vladimir Florinski, Gary P. Zank
Dartmouth Scholarship
At present, the heliosphere is embedded in a warm, low-density interstellar cloud that belongs to a cloud system flowing through the local standard of rest with a velocity near ~18 km s-1. The velocity structure of the nearest interstellar material (ISM), combined with theoretical models of the local interstellar cloud (LIC), suggest that the Sun passes through cloudlets on timescales of ≤103-104 yr, so the heliosphere has been, and will be, exposed to different interstellar environments over time. By means of a multifluid model that treats plasma and neutral hydrogen self-consistently, the interaction of the …
Sudden Gravitational Transition, Robert R. Caldwell, William Komp, Leonard Parker, Daniel A. T. Vanzella
Sudden Gravitational Transition, Robert R. Caldwell, William Komp, Leonard Parker, Daniel A. T. Vanzella
Dartmouth Scholarship
We investigate the properties of a cosmological scenario which undergoes a gravitational phase transition at late times. In this scenario, the Universe evolves according to general relativity in the standard, hot big bang picture until a redshift z≲1. Nonperturbative phenomena associated with a minimally-coupled scalar field catalyzes a transition, whereby an order parameter consisting of curvature quantities such as R2, RabRab, RabcdRabcd acquires a constant expectation value. The ensuing cosmic acceleration appears driven by a dark-energy component with an equation-of-state w<−1. We evaluate the constraints from type 1a supernovae, the cosmic microwave background, and other cosmological observations. We find that a range of models making a sharp transition to cosmic acceleration are consistent with observations.