Philip Chang

MAGNETAR SPIN-DOWN, HYPERENERGETIC SUPERNOVAE, AND GAMMA-RAY BURSTS

The Kelvin-Helmholtz cooling epoch, lasting tens of seconds after the birth of a neutron star in a successful core-collapse supernova, is accompanied by a neutrino-driven wind. For magnetar-strength (~1015 G) large-scale surface magnetic fields, this outflow is magnetically dominated during the entire cooling epoch. Because the strong magnetic field forces the wind to corotate with the proto-neutron star, this outflow can significantly affect the neutron stars early angular momentum evolution, as in analogous models of stellar winds. If the rotational energy is large in comparison with the supernova energy and the spin-down timescale is short with respect to the time required for the supernova shock wave to traverse the stellar progenitor, the energy extracted may modify the supernova shock dynamics significantly. This effect is capable of producing hyperenergetic supernovae and, in some cases, provides conditions favorable for gamma-ray bursts. We estimate spin-down timescales for magnetized, rotating proto-neutron stars and construct steady state models of neutrino-magnetocentrifugally driven winds. We find that if magnetars are born rapidly rotating, with initial spin periods (P) of ~1 ms, then of order 1051-1052 ergs of rotational energy can be extracted in ~10 s. If magnetars are born slowly rotating (P 10 ms), they can spin down to periods of ~1 s on the Kelvin-Helmholtz timescale.

Long-Term Evolution of Magnetic Turbulence in Relativistic Collisionless Shocks: Electron-Positron Plasmas

We study the long term evolution of magnetic fields generated by an initially unmagnetized collisionless relativistic e+e− shock. Our two-dimensional particle-in-cell numerical simulations show that downstream of such a Weibel-mediated shock, particle distributions are approximately isotropic, relativistic Maxwellians, and the magnetic turbulence is highly intermittent spatially. The nonpropagating magnetic fields decay in amplitude and do not merge. The fields start with magnetic energy density ~ 0.1-0.2 of equipartition, but rapid downstream decay drives the fields to much smaller values, below ~10−3 of equipartition after ~103 skin depths. To construct a theory to follow field decay to these smaller values, we hypothesize that the observed damping is a variant of Landau damping. The model is based on the small value of the downstream magnetic energy density, which only weakly perturbs particle orbits, for homogeneous turbulence. Using linear kinetic theory, we find a simple analytic form for the damping rates for small-amplitude, subluminous electromagnetic fields. Our theory predicts that overall magnetic energy decays as (ωpt)−q with q ~ 1, which compares with simulations. However, our theory predicts overly rapid damping of short-wavelength modes. Magnetic trapping of particles within the highly spatially intermittent downstream magnetic structures may be the origin of this discrepancy and may allow for some of this initial magnetic energy to persist. Absent additional physical processes that create longer wavelength, more persistent fields, we conclude that initially unmagnetized relativistic shocks in electron-positron plasmas are unable to form persistent downstream magnetic fields. These results put interesting constraints on synchrotron models for the prompt and afterglow emission from GRBs. We also comment on the relevance of these results for relativistic electron-ion shocks.

Variability in the thermal emission from accreting neutron star transients

The composition of the outer 100 m of a neutron star sets the heat flux that flows outward from the core. For an accreting neutron star in an X-ray transient, the thermal quiescent flux depends sensitively on the amount of hydrogen and helium remaining on the surface after an accretion outburst and on the composition of the underlying ashes of previous H/4He burning. Because H/4He has a higher thermal conductivity, a larger mass of H/4He implies a shallower thermal gradient through the low-density envelope and hence a higher effective temperature for a given core temperature. The mass of residual H and 4He varies from outburst to outburst, so the thermal quiescent flux is variable even though the core temperature is constant for timescales 104 yr. Heavy elements settle from an H/4He envelope in a few hours; we therefore model the quiescent envelope as two distinct layers, H/4He over heavier elements, and treat the mass of H/4He as a free parameter. We find that the emergent thermal quiescent flux can vary by a factor of 2-3 between different quiescent epochs. The variation is more pronounced at lower interior temperatures, making systems with low quiescent luminosities and frequent outbursts, such as SAX J1808.4-3658, ideal candidates from which to observe this effect. Because the ashes of H/4He burning are heavier than 56Fe, their thermal conductivity is greatly reduced. This increases the inferred crust temperature beyond previous estimates for a given effective temperature. We survey this effect for different ash compositions and apply our calculations to Cen X-4, Aql X-1, and SAX J1808.4-3658. In the case of Aql X-1, the inferred high interior temperature suggests that neutrino cooling contributes to the neutron stars thermal balance.

Magnetic hydrogen atmosphere models and the neutron star RX J1856.5–3754

RX J1856.5−3754 is one of the brightest nearby isolated neutron stars (INSs), and consider- able observational resources have been devoted to it. However, current models are unable to satisfactorily explain the data. We show that our latest models of a thin, magnetic, partially ionized hydrogen atmosphere on top of a condensed surface can fit the entire spectrum, from X-rays to optical, of RX J1856.5−3754, within the uncertainties. In our simplest model, the best-fitting parameters are an interstellar column density NH ≈ 1 × 10 20 cm −2 and an emitting area with R ∞ ≈ 17 km (assuming a distance to RX J1856.5−3754 of 140 pc), temperature T ∞ ≈ 4.3 × 10 5 K, gravitational redshift zg ∼ 0.22, atmospheric hydrogen column yH ≈ 1gc m −2 , and magnetic field B ≈ (3-4) × 10 12 G; the values for the temperature and magnetic field indicate an effective average over the surface. We also calculate a more realistic model, which accounts for magnetic field and temperature variations over the NS surface as well as general relativistic effects, to determine pulsations; we find that there exist viewing geometries that produce pulsations near the currently observed limits. The origin of the thin atmospheres required to fit the data is an important question, and we briefly discuss mechanisms for pro- ducing these atmospheres. Our model thus represents the most self-consistent picture to date for explaining all the observations of RX J1856.5−3754.

SHOCK BREAKOUT FROM TYPE Ia SUPERNOVA

The mode of explosive burning in Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) remains an outstanding problem. It is generally thought to begin as a subsonic deflagration, but this may transition into a supersonic detonation (the delayed detonation transition, DDT). We argue that this transition leads to a breakout shock, which would provide the first unambiguous evidence that DDTs occur. Its main features are a hard X-ray flash (~20 keV) lasting ~10–2 s with a total radiated energy of ~1040 erg, followed by a cooling tail. This creates a distinct feature in the visual light curve, which is separate from the nickel decay. This cooling tail has a maximum absolute visual magnitude of MV ≈ –9 to –10 at ≈1 day, which depends most sensitively on the white dwarf radius at the time of the DDT. As the thermal diffusion wave moves in, the composition of these surface layers may be imprinted as spectral features, which would help to discern between SN Ia progenitor models. Since this feature should accompany every SNe Ia, future deep surveys (e.g., m = 24) will see it out to a distance of ≈80 Mpc, giving a maximum rate of ~60 yr-1. Archival data sets can also be used to study the early rise dictated by the shock heating (at ≈20 days before maximum B-band light). A similar and slightly brighter event may also accompany core bounce during the accretion-induced collapse to a neutron star, but with a lower occurrence rate.

The Lyman α forest in a blazar-heated Universe

It has been realized only recently that TeV emission from blazars can significantly heat the intergalactic medium (IGM) by pair-producing high-energy electrons and positrons, which in turn excite vigorous plasma instabilities, leading to a local dissipation of the pairs’ kinetic energy. In this work, we use cosmological hydrodynamical simulations to model the impact of this blazar heating on the Lyman α forest at intermediate redshifts (z∼ 2–3). We find that blazar heating produces an inverted temperature–density relation in the IGM and naturally resolves many of the problems present in previous simulations of the forest that included photoionization heating alone. In particular, our simulations with blazar heating simultaneously reproduce the observed effective optical depth and temperature as a function of redshift, the observed probability distribution functions (PDFs) of the transmitted flux, and the observed flux power spectra, over the full redshift range 2 < z < 3 analysed here. Additionally, by deblending the absorption features of Lyman α spectra into a sum of thermally broadened individual lines, we find superb agreement with the observed lower cut-off of the linewidth distribution and abundances of neutral hydrogen column densities per unit redshift. Using the most recent constraints on the cosmic ultraviolet (UV) background, this excellent agreement with observations does not require rescaling the amplitude of the UV background – a procedure that was routinely used in the past to match the observed level of transmitted flux. We also show that our blazar-heated model matches the data better than standard simulations even when such a rescaling is allowed. This concordance between Lyman α data and simulation results, which are based on the most recent cosmological parameters, also suggests that the inclusion of blazar heating alleviates previous tensions on constraints for σ8 derived from Lyman α measurements and other cosmological data. Finally, we show that blazar heating dramatically alters the volume-weighted temperature PDF, implying an important change in the strengths of structure formation shocks (and thereby possibly particle acceleration in these shocks). The density PDF is also modified, suggesting that blazar heating may have interesting effects on structure formation, particularly on the smallest galaxies.

Suppression of Star Formation in NGC 1266

NGC1266 is a nearby lenticular galaxy that harbors a massive outflow of molecular gas powered by the mechanical energy of an active galactic nucleus (AGN). It has been speculated that such outflows hinder star formation (SF) in their host galaxies, providing a form of feedback to the process of galaxy formation. Previous studies, however, indicated that only jets from extremely rare, high power quasars or radio galaxies could impart significant feedback on their hosts. Here we present detailed observations of the gas and dust continuum of NGC1266 at millimeter wavelengths. Our observations show that molecular gas is being driven out of the nuclear region at

Fossil Gas and the Electromagnetic Precursor of Supermassive Binary Black Hole Mergers

\dot{M}_{\rm out} \approx 110 M_\odot

CONVECTION DURING THE LATE STAGES OF SIMMERING IN TYPE Ia SUPERNOVAE

yr

EVOLUTION OF YOUNG NEUTRON STAR ENVELOPES

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