First Search for Unstable Sterile Neutrinos with the IceCube Neutrino Observatory
(2022)
Magnetized laser–plasma interactions in high-energy-density systems: Parallel propagation
Physics of Plasmas AIP Publishing 29:4 (2022) 042113
Time-resolved hadronic particle acceleration in the recurrent nova RS Ophiuchi.
Science (New York, N.Y.) 376:6588 (2022) 77-80
Abstract:
Recurrent novae are repeating thermonuclear explosions in the outer layers of white dwarfs, due to the accretion of fresh material from a binary companion. The shock generated when ejected material slams into the companion star's wind can accelerate particles. We report very-high-energy (VHE; [Formula: see text]) gamma rays from the recurrent nova RS Ophiuchi, up to 1 month after its 2021 outburst, observed using the High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.). The temporal profile of VHE emission is similar to that of lower-energy giga-electron volt emission, indicating a common origin, with a 2-day delay in peak flux. These observations constrain models of time-dependent particle energization, favoring a hadronic emission scenario over the leptonic alternative. Shocks in dense winds provide favorable environments for efficient acceleration of cosmic rays to very high energies.Search for GeV-scale dark matter annihilation in the Sun with IceCube DeepCore
Physical Review D American Physical Society (APS) 105:6 (2022) 062004
Strong suppression of heat conduction in a laboratory replica of galaxy-cluster turbulent plasmas
Science Advances 8, 10 (2022)
Abstract:
In conventional gases and plasmas, it is known that heat fluxes are proportional to temperature gradients, with collisions between particles mediating energy flow from hotter to colder regions and the coefficient of thermal conduction given by Spitzer’s theory. However, this theory breaks down in magnetized, turbulent, weakly collisional plasmas, although modifications are difficult to predict from first principles due to the complex, multiscale nature of the problem. Understanding heat transport is important in astrophysical plasmas such as those in galaxy clusters, where observed temperature profiles are explicable only in the presence of a strong suppression of heat conduction compared to Spitzer’s theory. To address this problem, we have created a replica of such a system in a laser laboratory experiment. Our data show a reduction of heat transport by two orders of magnitude or more, leading to large temperature variations on small spatial scales (as is seen in cluster plasmas).