Theoretical astrophysics and plasma physics at RPC

Abstract:

We review in a tutorial fashion some of the causes of impurity density variations along field lines and radial impurity transport in the moment approach framework. An explicit and compact form of the parallel inertia force valid for arbitrary toroidal geometry and magnetic coordinates is derived and shown to be non-negligible for typical TJ-II plasma conditions. In the second part of the article, we apply the fluid model including main ion-impurity friction and inertia to observations of asymmetric emissivity patterns in neutral beam heated plasmas of the TJ-II stellarator. The model is able to explain qualitatively several features of the radiation asymmetry, both in stationary and transient conditions, based on the calculated in-surface variations of the impurity density.

Abstract:

© 2016. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.. The dynamical formation of stellar-mass black hole-black hole binaries has long been a promising source of gravitational waves for the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO). Mass segregation, gravitational focusing, and multibody dynamical interactions naturally increase the interaction rate between the most massive black holes in dense stellar systems, eventually leading them to merge. We find that dynamical interactions, particularly three-body binary formation, enhance the merger rate of black hole binaries with total mass M tot roughly as ∝Mtotβ, with β ≳ 4. We find that this relation holds mostly independently of the initial mass function, but the exact value depends on the degree of mass segregation. The detection rate of such massive black hole binaries is only further enhanced by LIGO's greater sensitivity to massive black hole binaries with M tot ≲ 80 . We find that for power-law BH mass functions dN/dM ∝ M -α with α ≤ 2, LIGO is most likely to detect black hole binaries with a mass twice that of the maximum initial black hole mass and a mass ratio near one. Repeated mergers of black holes inside the cluster result in about ∼5% of mergers being observed between two and three times the maximum initial black hole mass. Using these relations, one may be able to invert the observed distribution to the initial mass function with multiple detections of merging black hole binaries.

Abstract:

© 2016 The Authors Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. Most, if not all, stars in the field are born in binary configurations or higher multiplicity systems. In dense stellar environment such as the Galactic Center (GC), many stars are expected to be in binary configurations as well. These binaries form hierarchical triple-body systems, with the massive black hole (MBH) as the third, distant object. The stellar binaries are expected to undergo large-amplitude eccentricity and inclination oscillations via the so-called 'eccentric Kozai-Lidov' mechanism. These eccentricity excitations, combined with post-main-sequence stellar evolution, can drive the inner stellar binaries to merge. We study the mergers of stellar binaries in the inner 0.1 pc of the GC caused by gravitational perturbations due to the MBH. We run a large set of Monte Carlo simulations that include the secular evolution of the orbits, general relativistic precession, tides and post-main-sequence stellar evolution. We find that about 13 per cent of the initial binary population will have merged after a few Myr and about 29 per cent after a few Gyr. These expected merged systems represent a new class of objects at the GC, and we speculate that they are connected to G2-like objects and the young stellar population.

Abstract:

We fit an extended distribution function (EDF) to K giants in the Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and Exploration survey. These stars are detected to radii ∼80 kpc and span a wide range in [Fe/H]. Our EDF, which depends on [Fe/H] in addition to actions, encodes the entanglement of metallicity with dynamics within the Galaxy's stellar halo. Our maximum-likelihood fit of the EDF to the data allows us to model the survey's selection function. The density profile of the K giants steepens with radius from a slope ∼−2 to ∼−4 at large radii. The halo's axis ratio increases with radius from 0.7 to almost unity. The metal-rich stars are more tightly confined in action space than the metal-poor stars and form a more flattened structure. A weak metallicity gradient ∼−0.001 dex kpc−1, a small gradient in the dispersion in [Fe/H] of ∼0.001 dex kpc−1, and a higher degree of radial anisotropy in metal-richer stars result. Lognormal components with peaks at ∼−1.5 and ∼−2.3 are required to capture the overall metallicity distribution, suggestive of the existence of two populations of K giants. The spherical anisotropy parameter varies between 0.3 in the inner halo to isotropic in the outer halo. If the Sagittarius stream is included, a very similar model is found but with a stronger degree of radial anisotropy throughout.