arXiv subjects

Steinn Sigurdsson

Publications and source records attributed to Steinn Sigurdsson.

At least 73 records · Page 4Linked to original sources

arXiv2005

Close Binaries as the Progenitors of the Brightest Planetary Nebulae

We investigate the possible progenitors of the planetary nebulae (PNs) which populate the top 0.5 mag of the [O III] 5007 planetary nebula luminosity function (PNLF). We show that the absolute luminosity of the PNLF cutoff demands that the central stars of these most luminous planetaries be greater than 0.6 Msun, and that such high-mass PN cores must exist in every galaxy. We also use the bolometric-luminosity specific PN number density to show that in early-type galaxies, [O III]-bright planetaries are relatively rare, with only about 10% of stars evolving to these bright magnitudes. We demonstrate that the combination of these two facts implies that either all early-type systems contain a small, smoothly distributed component of young (< 1 Gyr old) stars, or another mechanism exists for creating high-core mass planetaries. We argue that binary-star evolution is this second mechanism, and demonstrate that blue stragglers have the appropriate core properties and number density to explain the observations. We discuss the implications of this alternative mode of stellar evolution, and speculate on how coalesced binaries might affect the use of PNs for measuring a galaxy's star-formation history and chemical evolution.

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arXiv2004

Finding Extrasolar Planets in the Stellar Graveyard with the Hubble Space Telescope

In order to directly image an extrasolar planet, the large contrast between a star and a companion planet must be overcome. White Dwarfs (WDs) are the remnants of stars > 1 M_sun and are orders of magnitude dimmer, making searches for planets and brown dwarfs (BDs) possible. We present the preliminary results of a survey of 7 hydrogen white dwarfs with photospheric metal lines (DAZs) for substellar and planetary objects, using NICMOS on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). The extremely high contrast available with the NICMOS coronagraph allows 7-12 M_Jup planets to be detected to within 10-30 AU of the primary WD. This represents the first concerted search for planetary objects around stars that were more massive than the sun. Our results show that there are candidates around three of the seven stars, which are awaiting confirmation through common proper motion studies, some of which can only be confirmed through another observation with HST. Continuing studies of WDs will constrain planet formation scenarios for more massive stars and provide a sample of planets to study with future space missions such as JWST and SIM.

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arXiv2004

Update on Pulsar B1620$-$26 in M4: Observations, Models, and Implications

The combination of ever more precise radio timing data and serendipitous {\it HST} data has confirmed that the outer companion to PSR B1620$-$26 is a planet. Here we summarize the observational situation, including preliminary new timing solutions and the implications of the measured system parameters. We detail the proposed formation scenarios, discussing the advantages and problems of each for explaining the origin of the triple, and we speculate on some of the implications for planet formation in the early universe. Future data on this system will provide additional constraints on fundamental modes of planet formation. We predict that many more exchanged planets will be discovered orbiting recycled pulsars in globular clusters as the sensitivity and duration of radio timing increases. Strong observational tests of some of the alternative formation models should be possible with additional data.

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arXiv2004

Tidal Disruption of a Star By a Black Hole : Observational Signature

We have modeled the time-variable profiles of the Halpha emission line from the non-axisymmetric disk and debris tail created in the tidal disruption of a solar-type star by a million solar mass black hole. Two tidal disruption event simulations were carried out using a three dimensional relativistic smooth-particle hydrodynamic code, to describe the early evolution of the debris during the first fifty to ninety days. We have calculated the physical conditions and radiative processes in the debris using the photoionization code CLOUDY. We model the emission line profiles in the period immediately after the accretion rate onto the black hole became significant. We find that the line profiles at these very early stages of the evolution of the post-disruption debris do not resemble the double peaked profiles expected from a rotating disk since the debris has not yet settled into such a stable structure. As a result of the uneven distribution of the debris and the existence of a ``tidal tail'' (the stream of returning debris), the line profiles depend sensitively on the orientation of the tail relative to the line of sight. Moreover, the predicted line profiles vary on fairly short time scales (of order hours to days). Given the accretion rate onto the black hole we also model the Halpha light curve from the debris and the evolution of the Halpha line profiles in time.

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arXiv2004

Observational Signature of Tidal Disruption of a Star by a Massive Black Hole

We have modeled the time-variable profiles of the Halpha emission line from the non-axisymmetric disk and debris tail created in the tidal disruption of a solar-type star by a million solar mass black hole. We find that the line profiles at these very early stages of the evolution of the post-disruption debris do not resemble the double peaked profiles expected from a rotating disk since the debris has not yet settled into such a stable structure. The predicted line profiles vary on fairly short time scales (of order hours to days). As a result of the uneven distribution of the debris and the existence of a ``tidal tail'' (the stream of returning debris), the line profiles depend sensitively on the orientation of the tail relative to the line of sight. Given the illuminating UV/X-ray light curve, we also model the Halpha light curve from the debris.

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arXiv2003

Planetary Collisions: Electromagnetic Signals

We investigate the electromagnetic signals accompanied with planetary collisions and their event rate, and explore the possibility of directly detecting such events. A typical Earth--Jupiter collision would give rise to a prompt EUV-soft-X-ray flash lasting for hours and a bright IR afterglow lasting for thousands of years. With the current and forthcoming observational technology and facilities, some of these collisional flashes or the post-collision remnants could be discovered.

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arXiv2003

Survival of Terrestrial Planets in the Presence of Giant Planet Migration

The presence of ``Hot Jupiters'', Jovian mass planets with very short orbital periods orbiting nearby main sequence stars, has been proposed to be primarily due to the orbital migration of planets formed in orbits initially much further from the parent star. The migration of giant planets would have profound effects on the evolution of inner terrestrial planets in these systems, and previous analyses have assumed that no terrestrial planets survive after migration has occurred. We present numerical simulations showing that a significant fraction of terrestrial planets could survive the migration process, eventually returning to circular orbits relatively close to their original positions. A fraction of the final orbits are in the Habitable Zone, suggesting that planetary systems with close-in giant planets are viable targets for searches for Earth-like habitable planets around other stars.

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arXiv2003

Electromagnetic signals from planetary collisions

Planet-planet collisions are expected during the early stages of the formation of extra-solar planets, and are also possible in mature planetary systems through secular planet-planet perturbations. We investigate the electromagnetic signals accompanied with these planetary collisions and their event rate, and explore the possibility of directly detecting such events. A typical Earth-Jupiter collision would give rise to a prompt EUV-soft-X-ray flash lasting for hours and a bright IR afterglow lasting for thousands of years. It is suggested that with the current and forthcoming observational technology and facilities, some of these collisional flashes or the post-collision remnants could be discovered.

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arXiv2003

A Young White Dwarf Companion to Pulsar 1620-26: Evidence for Early Planet Formation

The pulsar B1620-26 has two companions, one of stellar mass and one of planetary mass. We detected the stellar companion using Hubble Space Telescope observations. The color and magnitude of the stellar companion indicate that it is an undermassive white dwarf ($0.34 \pm 0.04 M_{\odot}$) of age $480\pm 140$ Myr. This places a constraint on the recent history of this triple system and supports a scenario in which the current configuration arose through a dynamical exchange interaction in the cluster core. This implies that planets may be relatively common in low-metallicity globular clusters and that planet formation is more widespread and happened earlier than previously believed.

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arXiv2003

Loss cone: past, present and future

The capture and subsequent in--spiral of compact stellar remnants by central massive black holes, is one of the more interesting likely sources of gravitational radiation detectable by LISA. The relevant stellar population includes stellar mass black holes, and possibly intermediate mass black holes, generally on initially eccentric orbits. Predicted detectable rates of capture are highly uncertain, but may be high enough that source confusion is an issue. Foreground events with relatively high signal-to-noise ratio may provide important tests of general relativity. I review the rate estimates in the literature, and the apparent discrepancy between different authors' estimates, and discuss some of the relevant uncertainties and physical processes. The white dwarf mergers rate are uncertain by a factor of few; the neutron star merger rate is completely uncertain and likely to be small; the black hole merger rate is likely to be dominant for detectable mergers and is uncertain by at least two orders of magnitude, largely due to unknown physical conditions and processes. The primary difference in rate estimates is due to different initial conditions and less directly due to different estimates of key physical processes, assumed in different model scenarios for in-spiral and capture.

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arXiv2003

Adiabatic Growth of Massive Black Holes

We discuss the process of adiabatic growth of central black holes in the presence of a stationary, pre-existing distribution of collisionless stars. Within the limitations of the assumptions, the resulting models make robust physical predictions for the presence of a central cusp in the stellar and dark matter density, a Keplerian rise in the velocity dispersion, and a significant tangential polarization of the velocity tensor. New generations of numerical models have confirmed and extended previous results, permit the study of axisymmetric and triaxial systems, and promise new insight into the dynamics of the central regions of galaxies. These studies enable detailed comparisons with observations, further our understanding on the fueling processes for AGNs and quiescent black holes, and help elucidate the secular evolution of the inner regions and spheroids of galaxies.

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arXiv2003

Black Holes and Pulsar Binaries

Stellar mass black holes are formed in the field, and are observed in binaries. Population synthesis estimates for the formation of BH-PSR binaries suggest these may be observed, but with very large formal uncertainties in the formation rate. In globular clusters, exchanges and binary interactions present more channels for BH-PSR formation, while ejection through recoil can remove a large fraction of the initial black hole population. A BH-PSR system ought to be observed in the near future, most likely in a globular cluster.

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arXiv2002

Testing gravity in Large Extra Dimensions using Bose-Einstein Condensates

Recent conjectures that there are mesoscopically ``large'' extra dimensions, through which gravity propagates have interesting implications for much of physics. The scenario implies gross departures from Newton's law of gravity at small length scales. Testing departures from Coulomb's law on sub-millimetre scales is hard. It is now possible to routinely create Bose-Einstein condensates with de Broglie wavelengths of order a $μm$ and total size of order $10 μm$. BEC condensates move coherently under gravitational acceleration, and I propose that the transverse fringe shift due to the acceleration of pair of interfering BECs passing a dense linear mass may be measurable, and provide direct evidence for anomalous gravitational acceleration. Ideally such experiments are best carried out in free fall to maximise the time spent by a BEC in the non-Newtonian regime.

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arXiv2002

Collisional dynamics around binary black holes in galactic centers

We follow the sinking of two massive black holes in a spherical stellar system where the black holes become bound under the influence of dynamical friction. Once bound, the binary hardens by three-body encounters with surrounding stars. We find that the binary wanders inside the core, providing an enhanced supply of reaction partners for the hardening. The binary evolves into a highly eccentric orbit leading to coalescence well beyond a Hubble time. These are the first results from a hybrid ``self consistent field'' (SCF) and direct Aarseth N-body integrator (NBODY6), which combines the advantages of the direct force calculation with the efficiency of the field method. The code is designed for use on parallel architectures and is therefore applicable to collisional N-body integrations with extraordinarily large particle numbers (> 10^5). This creates the possibility of simulating the dynamics of both globular clusters with realistic collisional relaxation and stellar systems surrounding supermassive black holes in galactic nuclei.

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arXiv2002

Nova Sco and coalescing low mass black hole binaries as LIGO sources

Double neutron star binaries, analogous to the well known Hulse--Taylor pulsar PSR 1913+16, are guaranteed-to-exist sources of high frequency gravitational radiation detectable by LIGO. There is considerable uncertainty in the estimated rate of coalescence of such systems, with conservative estimates of ~1 per million years per galaxy, and optimistic theoretical estimates one or more magnitude larger. Formation rates of low-mass black hole-neutron star binaries may be higher than those of NS-NS binaries, and may dominate the detectable LIGO signal rate. We estimate the enhanced coalescence rate for BH-BH binaries due to weak asymmetric kicks during the formation of low mass black holes like Nova Sco, and find they may contribute significantly to the LIGO signal rate, possibly dominating the phase I detectable signals if the range of BH masses for which there is significant kick is broad enough. For a standard Salpeter IMF, assuming mild natal kicks, we project that the R6 merger rate of BH-BH systems is ~0.5, smaller than that of NS-NS systems. However, the higher chirp mass of these systems produces a signal nearly four times greater, on average, with a commensurate increase in search volume. The BH-BH coalescence channel considered here also predicts that a substantial fraction of BH-BH systems should have at least one component with near-maximal spin (a/M ~ 1).The waveforms produced by the coalescence of such a system should produce a clear spin signature, so this hypothesis could be directly tested by LIGO.

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arXiv2002

Are There Unstable Planetary Systems Around White Dwarfs?

The presence of planets around solar-type stars suggests that many white dwarfs should have relic planetary systems. While planets closer than $\sim$ 5~AU will most likely not survive the post-main sequence lifetime of its parent star, any planet with semimajor axis $>$ 5~AU will survive, and its semimajor axis will increase as the central star loses mass. Since the stability of adjacent orbits to mutual planet-planet perturbations depends on the ratio of the planet mass to the central star's mass, some planets in previously stable orbits around a star undergoing mass loss will become unstable. We show that when mass loss is slow, systems of two planets that are marginally stable can become unstable to close encounters, while for three planets the timescale for close approaches decreases significantly with increasing mass ratio. These processes could explain the presence of anomalous IR excesses around white dwarfs that cannot be explained by close companions, such as G29-38, and may also be an important factor in explaining the existence of DAZ white dwarfs. The onset of instability through changing mass-ratios will also be a significant effect for planetary embryos gaining mass in protoplanetary disks.

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arXiv2002

Intracluster Red Giant Stars in the Virgo Cluster

We have used the WFPC2 camera of the Hubble Space Telescope to obtain deep F814W images of a blank field in the Virgo Cluster located 41 arcmin northwest of M87. We perform star counts in that field, and in another Virgo field observed by Ferguson, Tanvir & von Hippel (1998), and show that, when compared to the Hubble Deep Field North and South, the Virgo Cluster contains an excess of objects with magnitudes I > 27. We attribute this excess to a population of intracluster red-giant branch (IC-RGB) stars. By modeling the luminosity function of these stars, we show that the tip of the Virgo RGB is at I = 27.31 +0.27/-0.17 and that the cluster contains a small, but significant, excess of stars that are up to ~1 mag brighter than this tip. If this luminous component is due entirely to stars on the asymptotic giant branch (AGB), it implies an age for the population of > 2 Gyr; if foreground RGB stars contribute to the luminous tail, then the derived age for the stars is older still. The luminosity function also suggests that most of the intracluster stars are moderately metal-rich (-0.8 < [Fe/H] <-0.2), a result consistent with that expected from stars that have been tidally stripped from intermediate luminosity galaxies. Additionally, a comparison with the planetary nebulae in our field also supports this view, although the existence of a more metal-poor population (from stripped dwarfs) cannot be ruled out. Our derived average surface brightness, mu_I = 27.9 +0.3/-0.5 mag/arcsec^2 for Virgo's diffuse component suggests that intracluster stars contribute 10% to 20% of the cluster's total I-band luminosity.

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arXiv2001

The Evolution of Cuspy Triaxial Galaxies Harboring Central Black Holes

We use numerical simulations to study the evolution of triaxial elliptical galaxies with central black holes. In contrast to earlier numerical studies which used galaxy models with central density ``cores,'' our galaxies have steep central cusps, like those observed in real ellipticals. As a black hole grows in these cuspy triaxial galaxies, the inner regions become rounder owing to chaos induced in the orbit families which populate the model. At larger radii, however, the models maintain their triaxiality, and orbital analyses show that centrophilic orbits there resist stochasticity over many dynamical times. While black hole induced evolution is strong in the inner regions of these galaxies, and reaches out beyond the nominal ``sphere of influence'' of a black hole, our simulations do not show evidence for a rapid {\it global} transformation of the host. The triaxiality of observed elliptical galaxies is therefore not inconsistent with the presence of supermassive black holes at their centers.

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