arXiv subjects

Jeremy S. Heyl

Publications and source records attributed to Jeremy S. Heyl.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2017

Tests of Gravity Theories Using Supermassive Black Holes

Scalar-tensor theories of gravity generally violate the strong equivalence principle, namely compact objects have a suppressed coupling to the scalar force, causing them to fall slower. A black hole is the extreme example where such a coupling vanishes, i.e. black hole has no scalar hair. Following earlier work, we explore observational scenarios for detecting strong equivalence principle violation, focusing on galileon gravity as an example. For galaxies in-falling towards galaxy clusters, the supermassive black hole can be offset from the galaxy center away from the direction of the cluster. Hence, well resolved images of galaxies around nearby clusters can be used to identify the displaced black hole via the star cluster bound to it. We show that this signal is accessible with imaging surveys, both ongoing ones such as the Dark Energy Survey, and future ground and space based surveys. Already, the observation of the central black hole in M~87 places new constraints on the galileon parameters, which we present here. $\mathcal{O}(1)$ matter couplings are disfavored for a large region of the parameter space. We also find a novel phenomenon whereby the black hole can escape the galaxy completely in less than one billion years.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2017

Polluting White Dwarfs with Perturbed Exo-Comets

We present a model to account for the observed debris disks around young white dwarfs and the presence of metal-lines in their spectra. Stellar evolution models predict that the mass-loss on the AGB will be pulsed; furthermore, observations indicate that the bulk of the mass-loss occurs on the AGB. In this case, if the progenitors of the white dwarfs had remnants of planetary formation like the Sun's Oort cloud or the Kuiper Belt and a planet lying within that cloud or nearby, we find that up to 2% of the planetesimals will fall either into planet-crossing orbits or into chaotic regions after the mass-loss, depending on the location and mass of the planet (from Mars to Neptune). This yields a sufficient mass of comets that can be scattered toward the star, form a debris disk and pollute the atmosphere.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2017

Globular cluster absolute ages from cooling brown dwarfs

Globular clusters are the oldest conglomerates of stars in our Galaxy and can be useful laboratories to test theories from stellar evolution to cosmology. In this paper, we present a new method to estimate the absolute age of a globular cluster from observations of its brown dwarfs. The transition region between the end of the main sequence and the brown dwarf regime is characterized by a dearth of objects as function of magnitude. The brightest of the cooling brown dwarfs is easily identified by an increase in density in the color-magnitude diagram as you go fainter in magnitudes, and these brightest brown dwarfs get fainter with age. By identifying the brightest brown dwarfs, it is thus possible to determine the age of a globular cluster within a 1 Gyr precision with four-sigma confidence. This new method, which is independent of current methods of age estimation and which does not rely on the knowledge of the cluster's distance from Earth, will become feasible thanks to the high spatial resolution and incredible infrared sensitivity of the James Webb Space Telescope.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2016

Eötvös Experiments with Supermassive Black Holes

By examining the locations of central black holes in two elliptical galaxies, M\,32 and M\,87, we derive constraints on the violation of the strong equivalence principle for purely gravitational objects, i.e. black holes, of less than about two-thirds, $η_N<0.68$ from the gravitational interaction of M\,87 with its neighbours in the Virgo cluster. Although M\,32 appears to be a good candidate for this technique, the high concentration of stars near its centre substantially weakens the constraints. On the other hand, if a central black hole is found in NGC 205 or one of the other satellite ellipticals of M\,31, substantially better constraints could be obtained. In all cases the constraints could improve dramatically with better astrometry.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2016

A Fast Algorithm for Finding Point Sources in the Fermi Data Stream: FermiFAST

We present a new and efficient algorithm for finding point sources in the photon event data stream from the Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope, FermiFAST. The key advantage of FermiFAST is that it constructs a catalogue of potential sources very fast by arranging the photon data in a hierarchical data structure. Using this structure FermiFAST rapidly finds the photons that could have originated from a potential gamma-ray source. It calculates a likehihood ratio for the contribution of the potential source using the angular distribution of the photons within the region of interest. It can find within a few minutes the most significant half of the Fermi Third Point Source catalogue (3FGL) with nearly 80\% purity from the four years of data used to construct the catalogue. If a higher purity sample is desirable, one can achieve a sample that includes the most significant third of the Fermi 3FGL with only five percent of the sources unassociated with Fermi sources. Outside the galaxy plane, all but eight of the 580 FermiFAST detections are associated with 3FGL sources. And of these eight, six yield significant detections of greater than five sigma when a further binned likelihood analysis is performed. This software allows for rapid exploration of the Fermi data, simulation of the source detection to calculate the selection function of various sources and the errors in the obtained parameters of the sources detected.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2016

Using Galaxy Formation Simulations to optimise LIGO Follow-Up Observations

The recent discovery of gravitational radiation from merging black holes poses a challenge of how to organize the electromagnetic follow-up of gravitational-wave events as well as observed bursts of neutrinos. We propose a technique to select the galaxies that are most likely to host the event given some assumptions of whether the particular event is associated with recent star formation, low metallicity stars or simply proportional to the total stellar mass in the galaxy. We combine data from the 2-MASS Photometric Redshift Galaxy Catalogue with results from galaxy formation simulations to develop observing strategies that potentially reduce the area of sky to search by up to a factor of two relative to an unweighted search of galaxies, and a factor twenty to a search over the entire LIGO localization region.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2016

Using the 2-MASS Photometric Redshift Survey to optimize LIGO Follow-Up Observations

The initial discovery of LIGO on 14 September 2015 was the inspiral merger and ring-down of the black hole binary at a distance of about 500~Mpc or a redshift of about 0.1. The search for electromagnetic counterparts for the inspiral of binary black holes is impeded by coarse initial source localisations and a lack of a compelling model for the counterpart; therefore, rapid electromagnetic follow-up is required to understand the astrophysical context of these sources. Because astrophysical sources of gravitational radiation are likely to reside in galaxies, it would make sense to search first in regions where the LIGO-Virgo probability is large and where the density of galaxies is large as well. Under the assumption that the probability of a gravitational-wave event from a given region of space is proportional to the density of galaxies within the probed volume, one can calculate an improved localisation of the position of the source simply by multiplying the LIGO-Virgo skymap by the density of galaxies in the range of redshifts. We propose using the 2-MASS Photometric Redshift Galaxy Catalogue for this purpose and demonstrate that using it can dramatically reduce the search region for electromagnetic counterparts.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2015

Casimir Interactions between Magnetic Flux Tubes in a Dense Lattice

We use the worldline numerics technique to study a cylindrically symmetric model of magnetic flux tubes in a dense lattice and the non-local Casimir forces acting between regions of magnetic flux. Within a superconductor the magnetic field is constrained within magnetic flux tubes and if the background magnetic field is on the order the quantum critical field strength, $B_k = \frac{m^2}{e} = 4.4 \times 10^{13}$ Gauss, the magnetic field is likely to vary rapidly on the scales where \acs{QED} effects are important. In this paper, we construct a cylindrically symmetric toy model of a flux tube lattice in which the non-local influence of \acs{QED} on neighbouring flux tubes is taken into account. We compute the effective action densities using the worldline numerics technique. The numerics predict a greater effective energy density in the region of the flux tube, but a smaller energy density in the regions between the flux tubes compared to a locally-constant-field approximation. We also compute the interaction energy between a flux tube and its neighbours as the lattice spacing is reduced from infinity. Because our flux tubes exhibit compact support, this energy is entirely non-local and predicted to be zero in local approximations such as the derivative expansion. This Casimir-Polder energy can take positive or negative values depending on the distance between the flux tubes, and it may cause the flux tubes in neutron stars to form bunches. In addition to the above results we also discuss two important subtleties of determining the statistical uncertainties within the worldline numerics technique and recommend a form of jackknife analysis.

hep-th↗

arXiv2014

Parallel Worldline Numerics: Implementation and Error Analysis

We give an overview of the worldline numerics technique, and discuss the parallel CUDA implementation of a worldline numerics algorithm. In the worldline numerics technique, we wish to generate an ensemble of representative closed-loop particle trajectories, and use these to compute an approximate average value for Wilson loops. We show how this can be done with a specific emphasis on cylindrically symmetric magnetic fields. The fine-grained, massive parallelism provided by the GPU architecture results in considerable speedup in computing Wilson loop averages. Furthermore, we give a brief overview of uncertainty analysis in the worldline numerics method. There are uncertainties from discretizing each loop, and from using a statistical ensemble of representative loops. The former can be minimized so that the latter dominates. However, determining the statistical uncertainties is complicated by two subtleties. Firstly, the distributions generated by the worldline ensembles are highly non-Gaussian, and so the standard error in the mean is not a good measure of the statistical uncertainty. Secondly, because the same ensemble of worldlines is used to compute the Wilson loops at different values of $T$ and $x_\mathrm{ cm}$, the uncertainties associated with each computed value of the integrand are strongly correlated. We recommend a form of jackknife analysis which deals with both of these problems.

hep-th↗

arXiv2014

Energy levels of light atoms in strong magnetic fields

In this review article we provide an overview of the field of atomic structure of light atoms in strong magnetic fields. There is a very rich history of this field which dates back to the very birth of quantum mechanics. At various points in the past significant discoveries in science and technology have repeatedly served to rejuvenate interest in atomic structure in strong fields, broadly speaking, resulting in three eras in the development of this field; the historical, the classical and the modern eras. The motivations for studying atomic structure have also changed significantly as time progressed. The review presents a chronological summary of the major advances that occurred during these eras and discusses new insights and impetus gained. The review is concluded with a description of the latest findings and the future prospects for one of the most remarkably cutting-edge fields of research in science today.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2014

A two-dimensional pseudospectral Hartree-Fock method for low-Z atoms in intense magnetic fields

The energy levels of the first few low-lying states of helium and lithium atoms in intense magnetic fields up to $\approx 10^8-10^9$~T are calculated in this study. A pseudospectral method is employed for the computational procedure. The methodology involves computing the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of the generalized two-dimensional Hartree-Fock partial differential equations for these two- and three-electron systems in a self-consistent manner. The method exploits the natural symmetries of the problem without assumptions of any basis functions for expressing the wave functions of the electrons or the commonly employed adiabatic approximation. It is seen that the results obtained here for a few of the most tightly bound states of each of the atoms, helium and lithium, are in good agreement with findings elsewhere. In this regard, we report new data for two new states of lithium that have not been studied thus far in the literature. It is also seen that the pseudospectral method employed here is considerably more economical, from a computational point of view, than previously employed methods such as a finite-element based approach. The key enabling advantage of the method described here is the short computational times which are on the order of seconds for obtaining accurate results for heliumlike systems.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2013

Statistical ages and the cooling rate of X-ray dim isolated neutron stars

The cooling theory of neutron stars is corroborated by its comparison with observations of thermally emitting isolated neutron stars and accreting neutron stars in binary systems. An important ingredient for such an analysis is the age of the object, which, typically, is obtained from the spin-down history. This age is highly uncertain if the object's magnetic field varies appreciably over time. Other age estimators, such as supernova remnant ages and kinematic ages, only apply to few handful of neutron stars. We conduct a population synthesis study of the nearby isolated thermal emitters and obtain their ages statistically from the observed luminosity function of these objects. We argue that a more sensitive blind scan of the galactic disk with the upcoming space telescopes can help to constrain the ages to higher accuracy.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2013

k-d Match: A Fast Matching Algorithm for Sheared Stellar Samples

This paper presents new and efficient algorithms for matching stellar catalogues where the transformation between the coordinate systems of the two catalagoues is unknown and may include shearing. Finding a given object whether a star or asterism from the first catalogue in the second is logarithmic in time rather than polynomial, yielding a dramatic speed up relative to a naive implementation. Both acceleration of the matching algorithm and the ability to solve for arbitrary affine transformations not only will allow the registration of stellar catalogues and images that are now impossible to use but also will find applications in machine vision and other imaging applications.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2013

Magnetic Reconnection Instabilities in Soft-Gamma Repeaters

We examine an external trigger mechanism that gives rise to the intense soft gamma-ray repeater (SGR) giant flares. Out of the three giant flares, two showcased the existence of a precursor, which we show to have had initiated the main flare. We develop a reconnection model based on the hypothesis that shearing motion of the footpoints causes the materialization of a Sweet-Parker current layer in the magnetosphere. The thinning of this macroscopic layer due to the development of an embedded super-hot turbulent current layer switches on the impulsive Hall reconnection, which powers the giant flare. We show that the thinning time is on the order of the pre-flare quiescent time.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2013

Diffractive Microlensing: A New Probe of the Local Universe

Diffraction is important when nearby substellar objects gravitationally lens distant stars. If the wavelength of the observation is comparable to the Schwarzschild radius of lensing object, diffraction leaves an observable imprint on the lensing signature. The SKA may have sufficient sensitivity to detect the typical sources, giant stars in the bulge. The diffractive signatures in a lensing event break the degeneracies between the mass of the lens, its distance and proper motion.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2012

Is Mira a magneto-dusty rotator?

We investigate the possibility that a magnetic field may be present in the star $o-$Ceti (hereafter, Mira) and that the field plays a role in the star's mass loss. The model presented here is an application of an earlier derived theory that has been successfully employed for intermediate and high-mass evolved stars, and is now extended to the low-mass end. The modelling shows that it is possible to obtain a hybrid magnetohydrodynamic-dust-driven wind scenario for Mira, in which the role of a magnetic field in the equatorial plane of the star is dynamically important for producing a stellar wind. The wind velocity and the temperatures obtained from the model appear consistent with findings elsewhere.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2012

Proper Motions and Internal Dynamics in the Core of the Globular Cluster M71

We have used Gemini North together with the NIRI-ALTAIR adaptive optics imager in the H and K bands to explore the core of the Galactic globular cluster M71 (NGC 6838). We obtained proper motions for 217 stars and have resolved its internal proper motion dispersion. Using a 3.8 year baseline, the proper motion dispersion in the core is found to be 179 +/- 17 microarcsec/yr. We find no evidence of anisotropy in the motions and no radial variation in the proper motions with respect to distance from the cluster center. We also set an upper limit on any central black hole to be ~150 Msun at 90% confidence level.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2012

Hydrogen and Helium atoms in strong magnetic fields

The energy levels of hydrogen and helium atoms in strong magnetic fields are calculated in this study. The current work contains estimates of the binding energies of the first few low-lying states of these systems that are improvements upon previous estimates. The methodology involves computing the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of the generalized two-dimensional Hartree-Fock partial differential equations for these one- and two-electron systems in a self-consistent manner. The method described herein is applicable to calculations of atomic structure in magnetic fields of arbitrary strength as it exploits the natural symmetries of the problem without assumptions of any basis functions for expressing the wave functions of the electrons or the commonly employed adiabatic approximation. The method is found to be readily extendable to systems with more than two electrons.

astro-ph↗