Astrophysics and Astronomy Commons^™

Collision Energy Dependence Of Moments Of Net-Kaon Multiplicity Distributions At Rhic, L. Adamczyk, J. R. Adams, James K. Adkins, G. Agakishiev, M. M. Aggarwal, Z. Ahammed, N. N. Ajitanand, I. Alekseev, D. M. Anderson, R. Aoyama, A. Aparin, D. Arkhipkin, E. C. Aschenauer, M. U. Ashraf, A. Attri, G. S. Averichev, X. Bai, V. Bairathi, K. Barish, A. Behera, R. Bellwied, A. Bhasin, A. K. Bhati, P. Bhattarai, J. Bielcik, J. Bielcikova, L. C. Bland, I. G. Bordyuzhin, J. Bouchet, J. D. Brandenburg, Renee H. Fatemi, Suvarna Ramachandran

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

Fluctuations of conserved quantities such as baryon number, charge, and strangeness are sensitive to the correlation length of the hot and dense matter created in relativistic heavy-ion collisions and can be used to search for the QCD critical point. We report the first measurements of the moments of net-kaon multiplicity distributions in Au+Au collisions at √s_NN=7.7, 11.5, 14.5, 19.6, 27, 39, 62.4, and 200 GeV. The collision centrality and energy dependence of the mean (M), variance (σ²), skewness (S), and kurtosis (κ) for net-kaon multiplicity distributions as well …

No Net Charge Separation In Hot Qcd In A Magnetic Field, Efrain J. Ferrer, Vivian De La Incera

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Publications

We study the realization of axion electrodynamics in QCD in the presence of a background magnetic field at temperatures high enough for the occurrence of topological charge transitions that are reflected in the presence of a ��-vacuum term in the action. We show that in this system, the Maxwell equations contain two equal and opposite electric currents that are proportional to the time derivative of the axion field ��. One of these currents comes directly from the Abelian chiral anomaly term in the action and can be interpreted as a polarization current due to the magnetoelectricity of the system with …

Expected And Achievable Accuracy In Estimating Parameters Of Standing Accretion Shock Instability (Sasi) Fluctuations From Neutrinos And Gravitational Wave Oscillations, Colter Richardson, Jonathan Westhouse

Undergraduate Research Symposium - Prescott

Core collapse supernovae are one of the most interesting sources of gravitational waves. When the progenitor star is particularly massive, hydrodynamic instability called standing accretion shock instability can develop and it is characterized by deterministic oscillations in the gravitational wave signal as well as in the neutrino luminosity with frequencies of 100hz. In this talk we will review current efforts to extract physical information from the SASI components of the gravitational wave and enhance the detectability of gravitational waves with such components both using laser interferometers and neutrino detectors.

Modeling And Detectability Of Gravitational Wave Waveform Memory From Core Collapse Supernovae, Pedro Jesus Quinonez, Emily Grimes

Undergraduate Research Symposium - Prescott

Ever since the discovery of gravitational waves by LIGO, studying these waves have become of utmost importance. This is because gravitational waves have the potential to carry information that have remain unseen by physicist in the past. For example, take the case of a core collapse supernovae. Any information transferred through electromagnetic waves that attempts to escape the inner core of a dying star is blocked out by the intense radiation of its outer shell. For this reason, astronomers have been unable to truly study what goes in the core. However, this is not the case for gravitational waves, which …

Research In Optics For Gravitational Wave Detection, Britney Biltz, Noura Ibrahim, Brennan Moore

Undergraduate Research Symposium - Prescott

B.Biltz uses a horizontal “Zollner style” pendulum to monitor changes in the local gravitational field. The pendulum is attracted to the moon and the Sun and so, as the Earth turns, the pendulum’s equilibrium point shifts within a 24-hour period. This is an experiment designed to test the limits of such a pendulum. This sort of system may be useful as a method of monitoring and correcting for gravity gradient noise in future gravitational wave detectors.

N.Ibrahim characterizes thermo-optic noise in high-performance mirror coatings of the type used in Advanced LIGO. To characterize thermo-optic noise, she measures the change in …

Multicolor Blackbody Emission In Grb 081221, Shu-Jin Hou, Bin-Bin Zhang, Yan-Zhi Meng, Xue-Feng Wu, En-Wei Liang, Hou-Jun Lü, Tong Liu, Yun-Feng Liang, Lin Lin, Rui-Jing Lu, Jin-Shu Huang, Bing Zhang

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Research

The radiation mechanism of the prompt emission of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) remains an open question. Although their spectra are usually well fitted with the empirical Band function, which is widely believed to be fully nonthermal and interpreted as an optically thin synchrotron emission, accumulating evidence shows that a thermal component actually exists. In this paper, a multicolor blackbody (mBB) model is proposed for the time-integrated spectrum of GRB 081221 by assuming a power-law distribution of the thermal luminosities with temperature, which manifests photospheric emissions from a different radius and/or angle. The effects of the minimum temperature kT min, the maximum …

Veritas And Fermi-Lat Observations Of Tev Gamma-Ray Sources Discovered By Hawc In The 2hwc Catalog, P. T. Reynolds, Et Al

Physical Sciences Publications

The High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) collaboration recently published their 2HWC catalog, listing 39 very high energy (VHE; >100 GeV) gamma-ray sources based on 507 days of observation. Among these, 19 sources are not associated with previously known teraelectronvolt (TeV) gamma-ray sources. We have studied 14 of these sources without known counterparts with VERITAS and Fermi-LAT. VERITAS detected weak gamma-ray emission in the 1 TeV–30 TeV band in the region of DA 495, a pulsar wind nebula coinciding with 2HWC J1953+294, confirming the discovery of the source by HAWC. We did not find any counterpart for the selected 14 …

A Comprehensive Analysis Of Fermi Gamma-Ray Burst Data. Iv. Spectral Lag And Its Relation To E P Evolution, Rui-Jing Lu, Yun-Feng Liang, Da-Bin Lin, Jing Lü, Xiang-Gao Wang, Hou-Jun Lü, Hong-Bang Liu, En-Wei Liang, Bing Zhang

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Research

The spectral evolution and spectral lag behavior of 92 bright pulses from 84 gamma-ray bursts observed by the Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) telescope are studied. These pulses can be classified into hard-to-soft pulses (H2S; 64/92), H2S-dominated-tracking pulses (21/92), and other tracking pulses (7/92). We focus on the relationship between spectral evolution and spectral lags of H2S and H2S-dominated-tracking pulses. The main trend of spectral evolution (lag behavior) is estimated with ( ), where E p is the peak photon energy in the radiation spectrum, t + t 0 is the observer time relative to the beginning of pulse −t …

Origins Of Ultradiffuse Galaxies In The Coma Cluster – Ii. Constraints From Their Stellar Populations, Anna Ferre-Mateu, Adebusola Alabi, Duncan Forbes, Aaron Romanowsky, Jean Brodie, Viraj Pandya, Ignacio Mart´In-Navarro, Sabine Bellstedt, Asher Wasserman, Maria Stone, Nobuhiro Okabe

Faculty Publications

In this second paper of the series we study, with new Keck/DEIMOS spectra, the stellar populations of seven spectroscopically confirmed ultradiffuse galaxies (UDGs) in the Coma cluster. We find intermediate to old ages (∼7 Gyr), low metallicities ([Z/H] ∼ −0.7 dex) and mostly supersolar abundance patterns ([Mg/Fe] ∼ 0.13 dex). These properties are similar to those of low-luminosity (dwarf) galaxies inhabiting the same area in the cluster and are mostly consistent with being the continuity of the stellar mass scaling relations of more massive galaxies. These UDGs’ star formation histories imply a relatively recent infall into the Coma cluster, consistent …

Galaxy And Mass Assembly (Gama): The Environmental Dependence Of The Galaxy Main Sequence, L. Wang, P. Norberg, S. Brough, M. J.I. Brown, E. Da Cunha, L. J. Davies, S. P. Driver, Benne W. Holwerda, A. M. Hopkins, M. A. Lara-Lopez, J. Liske, J. Loveday, M. W. Grootes, C. C. Popescu, A. H. Wright

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Aims: We aim to investigate if the environment (characterised by the host dark matter halo mass) plays any role in shaping the galaxy star formation main sequence (MS). Methods: The Galaxy and Mass Assembly project (GAMA) combines a spectroscopic survey with photometric information in 21 bands from the far-ultraviolet (FUV) to the far-infrared (FIR). Stellar masses and dust-corrected star-formation rates (SFR) are derived from spectral energy distribution (SED) modelling using MAGPHYS. We use the GAMA galaxy group catalogue to examine the variation of the fraction of star-forming galaxies (SFG) and properties of the MS with respect to the environment. Results: …

The Optical/Nir Afterglow Of Grb 111209a: Complex Yet Not Unprecedented, D. A. Kann, P. Schady, E. F. Olivares, S. Klose, A. Rossi, D. A. Perley, Bing Zhang, T. Krühler, J. Greiner, A. Nicuesa Guelbenzu, J. Elliott, F. Knust, Z. Cano, R. Filgas, E. Pian, P. Mazzali, J. P. U. Fynbo, G. Leloudas, P. M. J. Afonso, C. Delvaux, J. F. Graham, A. Rau, S. Schmidl, S. Schulze, M. Tanga, A. C. Updike, K. Varela

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Research

Context. Afterglows of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are simple in the most basic model, but can show many complex features. The ultra-long duration GRB 111209A, one of the longest GRBs ever detected, also has the best-monitored afterglow in this rare class of GRBs. Aims. We want to address the question whether GRB 111209A was a special event beyond its extreme duration alone, and whether it is a classical GRB or another kind of high-energy transient. The afterglow may yield significant clues. Methods. We present afterglow photometry obtained in seven bands with the GROND imager as well as in further seven bands …

Time-Dependent Radiation-Driven Winds, Sergei Dyda, Daniel Proga

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Research

We study temporal variability of radiation-driven winds using one-dimensional, time-dependent simulations and an extension of the classic theory of line-driven winds developed by Castor Abbott & Klein. We drive the wind with a sinusoidally varying radiation field and find that after a relaxation time, determined by the propagation time for waves to move out of the acceleration zone of the wind, the solution settles into a periodic state. Winds driven at frequencies much higher than the dynamical frequency behave like stationary winds with time averaged radiation flux, whereas winds driven at much lower frequencies oscillate between the high and low …

Probing The Rotational Velocity Of Galactic Wo Stars With Spectropolarimetry, H. F. Stevance, Richard Igance, P. A. Crowther, J. R. Maund, B. Davies, G. Rate

ETSU Faculty Works

Oxygen sequence Wolf-Rayet stars (WO) are thought to be the final evolution phase of some high-mass stars, as such they may be the progenitors of Type Ic SNe as well as potential progenitors of broad-lined Ic and long gamma-ray bursts. We present the first spectropolarimetric observations of the Galactic WO stars WR93b and WR102 obtained with FORS1 on the Very Large Telescope. We find no sign of a line effect, which could be expected if these stars were rapid rotators. We also place constraints on the amplitude of a potentially undetected line effect. This allows us to derive upper limits …

An Acoustical Analogue Of A Galactic-Scale Gravitational-Wave Detector, Michael T. Lam, Joseph D. Romano, Joey Key, M. E. Normandin, ‪Jeffrey S. Hazboun

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Publications

By precisely monitoring the “ticks” of Nature's most precise clocks (millisecond pulsars), scientists are trying to detect the “ripples in spacetime” (gravitational waves) produced by the inspirals of supermassive black holes in the centers of distant merging galaxies. Here, we describe a relatively simple demonstration that uses two metronomes and a microphone to illustrate several techniques used by pulsar astronomers to search for and detect gravitational waves. An adapted version of this demonstration could be used as an instructional laboratory investigation at the undergraduate level.

Chromodynamical Analysis Of Lenticular Galaxies Using Globular Clusters And Planetary Nebulae, Emilio Zanatta, Arianna Cortesi, Ana Chies-Santos, Duncan Forbes, Aaron Romanowsky, Adebusola Alabi, Lodovico Coccato, Claudia Mendes De Oliveira, Jean Brodie, Michael Merrifield

Faculty Publications

Recovering the origins of lenticular galaxies can shed light on the understanding of galaxy and compare them with the kinematics of planetary nebulae (PNe). The PNe and GC data come from the Planetary Nebulae Spectrograph and the SLUGGS Surveys. Through photometric spheroid-disc decomposition and PNe kinematics. we find the probability for a given GC to belong to either the spheroid or the disc of its host galaxy or be rejected from the model. We find that there is no correlation between the components that the GCs are likely to belong to and their colours. Particularly, for NGC 2768, we find …

Event Engineering Studies For Heavy Flavor Production And Hadronization In High Multiplicity Hadron-Hadron And Hadron-Nucleus Collisions, Yan-Qing Ma, Prithwish Tribedy, Raju Venugopalan, Kazuhiro Watanabe

Physics Faculty Publications

Heavy flavor measurements in high multiplicity proton-proton and proton-nucleus collisions at collider energies enable unique insights into their production and hadronization mechanism because experimental and theoretical uncertainties cancel in ratios of their cross sections relative to minimum bias events. We explore such event engineering using the color glass condensate (CGC) effective field theory to compute short-distance charmonium cross sections. The CGC is combined with heavy-quark fragmentation functions to compute D-meson cross sections; for the J/ψ, hadronization is described employing nonrelativistic QCD (NRQCD) and an improved color evaporation model. Excellent agreement is found between the CGC computations and the LHC heavy …

How Many Points Are There In A Line Segment? A New Answer From Discrete Cellular Space Viewpoint, Florentin Smarandache, Victor Christianto

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

While it is known that Euclid’s five axioms include a proposition that a line consists at least of two points, modern geometry avoid consistently any discussion on the precise definition of point, line, etc. It is our aim to clarify one of notorious question in Euclidean geometry: how many points are there in a line segment? – from discrete-cellular space (DCS) viewpoint. In retrospect, it may offer an alternative of quantum gravity, i.e. by exploring discrete gravitational theories. To elucidate our propositions, in the last section we will discuss some implications of discrete cellular-space model in several areas of interest: …

Non-Locality, Precognition & Spirit From The Physics Point Of View, Florentin Smarandache, Victor Christianto

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

There are various supernatural phenomena which can hardly be explained by the existing mainstream science, for instance non-local interactions (e.g. ESP) and also precognitive interdictions. And there are other problems such as how to include the Spirit in the framework of physics. For example, it has been known for long time that intuition plays significant role in many professions and human life, including entrepreneurship, government, and also in detective or law enforcement activities. Despite these examples, such a precognitive interdiction is hardly accepted in mainstream science. In this paper, we discuss non-local interactions and advanced solutions of Maxwell equations, and …

A Bayesian Analysis Of The Ages Of Four Open Clusters, Elizabeth Jeffery, Ted Von Hippel, David A. Van Dyk, David C. Stenning, Elliot Robinson, Nathan Sten, William H. Jefferys

Publications

In this paper we apply a Bayesian technique to determine the best fit of stellar evolution models to find the main sequence turn off age and other cluster parameters of four intermediate-age open clusters: NGC 2360, NGC 2477, NGC 2660, and NGC 3960. Our algorithm utilizes a Markov chain Monte Carlo technique to fit these various parameters, objectively finding the best-fit isochrone for each cluster. The result is a high-precision isochrone fit. We compare these results with the those of traditional “by-eye” isochrone fitting methods. By applying this Bayesian technique to NGC 2360, NGC 2477, NGC 2660, and NGC 3960, …

Yukawa Potential Orbital Energy: Its Relation To Orbital Mean Motion As Well To The Graviton Mediating The Interaction In Celestial Bodies, Connor Martz, Sheldon Van Middelkoop, Ioannis Gkigkitzis, Ioannis Haranas, Ilias S. Kotsireas

Physics and Computer Science Faculty Publications

Research on gravitational theories involves several contemporary modified models that predict the existence of a non-Newtonian Yukawa-type correction to the classical gravitational potential. In this paper we consider a Yukawa potential and we calculate the time rate of change of the orbital energy as a function of the orbital mean motion for circular and elliptical orbits. In both cases we find that there is a logarithmic dependence of the orbital energy on the mean motion. Using that, we derive an expression for the mean motion as a function of the Yukawa orbital energy, as well as specific Yukawa potential parameters. …

Continuum And Spectral Line Radiation From A Random Clumpy Medium, John E. Conway, Moshe Elitzur, Rodrigo Para

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

We present a formalism for continuum and line emission from random clumpy media together with its application to problems of current interest, including CO spectral lines from ensembles of clouds and radio emission from H ii regions, supernovae, and star-forming regions. For line emission, we find that the effects of clump opacity on observed line ratios can be indistinguishable from variations of intrinsic line strengths, adding to the difficulties in determining abundances from line observations. Our formalism is applicable to arbitrary distributions of cloud properties, provided the cloud volume filling factor is small; numerical simulations show it to hold up …

Challenges And Techniques For Simulating Line Emission, Karen P. Olsen, Andrea Pallottini, Aida Wofford, Marios Chatzikos, Mitchell Revalski, Francisco Guzmán, Gergö Popping, Enrique Vázquez-Semadeni, Georgios E. Magdis, Mark L. A. Richardson, Michaela Hirschmann, William J. Gray

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

Modeling emission lines from the millimeter to the UV and producing synthetic spectra is crucial for a good understanding of observations, yet it is an art filled with hazards. This is the proceedings of “Walking the Line”, a 3-day conference held in 2018 that brought together scientists working on different aspects of emission line simulations, in order to share knowledge and discuss the methodology. Emission lines across the spectrum from the millimeter to the UV were discussed, with most of the focus on the interstellar medium, but also some topics on the circumgalactic medium. The most important quality of a …

Survivability Of Moon Systems Around Ejected Gas Giants, Ian Rabago, Jason H. Steffen

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Research

We examine the effects that planetary encounters have on the moon systems of ejected gas giant planets. We conduct a suite of numerical simulations of planetary systems containing three Jupiter-mass planets (with the innermost planet at 3 AU) up to the point where a planet is ejected from the system. The ejected planet has an initial system of 100 test-particle moons. We determine the survival probability of moons at different distances from their host planet, measure the final distribution of orbital elements, examine the stability of resonant configurations, and characterize the properties of moons that are stripped from the planets. …

Localization Effects On The Dissipation Of Gravity Wave Packets In The Upper Mesophere And Lower Thermosphere, C. J. Heale, R. L. Walterscheid, J. B. Snively

Publications

Gravity waves not subject to breaking or filtering will dissipate due to viscosity and thermal conduction in the thermosphere. However, the evolutions of wave packets, and the altitudes they reach, are highly dependent upon the spectral content. In this paper, a 2‐D numerical model is used to investigate the effect of spatial localization (and thus spectral content) of a wave packet on its dissipation, dispersion, and spectral evolution. It is found that most wave packets launched below the thermosphere evolve to smaller central vertical wavelengths as the faster, longer vertical wavelength components reach the dissipative thermosphere and are removed first, …

Long-Lived Remnants From Binary Neutron Star Mergers, David Radice, Albino Perego, Sebastiano Bernuzzi, Bing Zhang

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Research

Massive neutron stars (NSs) with lifetimes of at least several seconds are expected to be the result of a sizable fraction of NS mergers. We study their formation using a large set of numerical relativity simulations. We show that they are initially endowed with angular momentum that significantly exceeds the mass-shedding limit for rigidly rotating equilibria. We find that gravitational wave (GW) emission is not able to remove this excess angular momentum within the time over which solid body rotation should be achieved. Instead, we argue that the excess angular momentum could be carried away by massive winds. Long-lived merger …

Galaxy And Mass Assembly (Gama): The Signatures Of Galaxy Interactions As Viewed From Small-Scale Galaxy Clustering, M. L.P. Gunawardhana, P. Norberg, I. Zehavi, D. J. Farrow, J. Loveday, A. M. Hopkins, L. J.M. Davies, L. Wang, M. Alpaslan, J. Bland-Hawthorn, S. Brough, Benne W. Holwerda, M. S. Owers, A. H. Wright

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Statistical studies of galaxy-galaxy interactions often utilize net change in physical properties of progenitors as a function of the separation between their nuclei to trace both the strength and the observable time-scale of their interaction. In this study, we use two-point auto-, cross-, and mark-correlation functions to investigate the extent to which small-scale clustering properties of star-forming galaxies can be used to gain physical insight into galaxy-galaxy interactions between galaxies of similar optical brightness and stellar mass. The Ha star formers, drawn from the highly spatially complete Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey, show an increase in clustering at small …

Separated Fringe Packet Observations With The Chara Array. Iii. The Very High-Eccentricity Binary Hr 7345, Chris D. Farrington, Francis C. Fekel, Gail Schaefer, Theo A. Ten Brummelaar

Information Systems and Engineering Management Research Publications

After an 11-year observing campaign, we present the combined visual–spectroscopic orbit of the formerly unremarkable bright star HR 7345 (HD 181655, HIP 94981, GJ 754.2). Using the Separated Fringe Packet method with the CHARA Array, we were able to determine a difficult-to-complete orbital period of 331.609 ± 0.004 days. The 11-month period causes the system to be hidden from interferometric view behind the Sun for three years at a time. Due to the high-eccentricity orbit of about 90% of a year, after 2018 January the periastron phase will not be observable again until late 2021. Hindered by its extremely high …

On The Dynamics Of Near-Extremal Black Holes, Pranjal Nayak, Ashish Shukla, Ronak M. Soni, Sandip P. Trivedi, V. Vishal

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

We analyse the dynamics of near-extremal Reissner-Nordström black holes in asymptotically four-dimensional Anti de Sitter space (AdS₄). We work in the spherically symmetric approximation and study the thermodynamics and the response to a probe scalar field. We find that the behaviour of the system, at low energies and to leading order in our approximations, is well described by the Jackiw-Teitelboim (JT) model of gravity. In fact, this behaviour can be understood from symmetry considerations and arises due to the breaking of time reparametrisation invariance. The JT model has been analysed in considerable detail recently and related to the …

Beam Energy Dependence Of Rapidity-Even Dipolar Flow In Au + Au Collisions, J. Adam, L. Adamczyk, J. R. Adams, James K. Adkins, G. Agakishiev, M. M. Aggarwal, Z. Ahammed, N. N. Ajitanand, I. Alekseev, D. M. Anderson, R. Aoyama, A. Aparin, D. Arkhipkin, E. C. Aschenauer, M. U. Ashraf, F. Atetalla, A. Attri, G. S. Averichev, X. Bai, V. Bairathi, K. Barish, A. J. Bassill, A. Behera, R. Bellwied, A. Bhasin, A. K. Bhati, J. Bielcik, J. Bielcikova, L. C. Bland, I. G. Bordyuzhin, Renee H. Fatemi, Suvarna Ramachandran

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

New measurements of directed flow for charged hadrons, characterized by the Fourier coefficient v₁, are presented for transverse momenta p_T, and centrality intervals in Au+Au collisions recorded by the STAR experiment for the center-of-mass energy range √s_NN=7.7–200 GeV. The measurements underscore the importance of momentum conservation, and the characteristic dependencies on √s_NN, centrality and p_T are consistent with the expectations of geometric fluctuations generated in the initial stages of the collision, acting in concert with a hydrodynamic-like expansion. The centrality and p_T dependencies of v₁^{even …}

Effects Of Radiation Field Geometry On Line Driven Disc Winds, Sergei Dyda, Daniel Proga

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Research

We study line driven winds for models with different radial intensity profiles: standard Shakura–Sunyaev radiating thin discs, uniform intensity discs, and truncated discs where driving radiation is cut-off at some radius. We find that global outflow properties depend primarily on the total system luminosity but truncated discs can launch outflows with ∼2 times higher mass flux and ∼50 per cent faster outflow velocity than non-truncated discs with the same total radiation flux. Streamlines interior to the truncation radius are largely unaffected and carry the same momentum flux as non-truncated models whereas those far outside the truncation radius effectively carry no …