PSR J1012+5307: younger than it looks?     

L. Burderi  A. R. King  & G. A. Wynn 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》1998,300(4):1127-1130

Lorimer et al. have recently reported that the spin-down age (∼7 × 10⁹ yr) of the low-mass binary pulsar PSR J1012+5307 is much higher than the cooling age (3 × 10⁸ yr) of its white dwarf companion. The proposed solutions for this discrepancy are outlined and discussed. In particular, the revised cooling age estimate proposed by Alberts et al. agrees with data from other low-mass binary pulsar systems if a transition to the 'classical' cooling regime occurs between ∼0.14 and ∼0.28 M_⊙. If this transition is excluded, PSR J1012+5307 seems to have finished its accretion phase far from the spin-up line.  相似文献   

Gamma-ray bursts from stellar remnants: probing the Universe at high redshift     

Ralph A. M. J. Wijers  Joshua S. Bloom  Jasjeet S. Bagla  & Priyamvada Natarajan 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》1998,294(1):L13-L17

A gamma-ray burst (GRB) releases an amount of energy similar to that of a supernova explosion, which combined with its rapid variability suggests an origin related to neutron stars or black holes. Since these compact stellar remnants form from the most massive stars not long after their birth, GRBs should trace the star formation rate in the Universe; we show that the GRB flux distribution is consistent with this. Because of the strong evolution of the star formation rate with redshift, it follows that the dimmest known bursts have z  ∼ 6, much above the value usually quoted and beyond the most distant quasars. This explains the absence of bright galaxies in well-studied GRB error boxes. The increased distances imply a peak luminosity of 8.3 × 10⁵¹ erg s⁻¹ and a rate density of 0.025 per million years per galaxy. These values are 20 times higher and 150 times lower, respectively, than are implied by fits with non-evolving GRB rates. This means either that GRBs are caused by a much rarer phenomenon than mergers of binary neutron stars, or that their gamma-ray emission is often invisible to us due to beaming. Precise burst locations from optical transients will discriminate between the various models for GRBs from stellar deaths, because the distance between progenitor birth place and burst varies greatly among them. The dimmest GRBs are then the most distant known objects, and may probe the Universe at an age when the first stars were forming.  相似文献   

Are Q-stars a serious threat for stellar-mass black hole candidates?     

Miller  Shahbaz  & Nolan 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》1998,294(2):L25-L29

We examine the status of the threat posed to stellar-mass black hole candidates by the possible existence of Q-stars (compact objects with an exotic equation of state that might have masses well above the normally accepted maximum for standard neutron stars). We point out that Q-stars could be extremely compact (with radii less than 1.5 times the corresponding Schwarzschild radius) making it difficult to determine observationally that a given object is a black hole rather than a Q-star, unless there is direct evidence for the absence of a material surface. On the other hand, in order for a Q-star to have a mass as high as that inferred for the widely favoured black hole candidate V404 Cygni, it would be necessary for the Q-matter equation of state to apply already at densities an order of magnitude below that of nuclear matter and this might well be considered implausible on physical grounds. We also describe how rotation affects the situation and discuss the prospects for determining observationally that black hole candidates are not Q-stars.  相似文献   

'Stokes imaging' of the accretion region in magnetic cataclysmic variables — I. Conception and realization     

S. B. Potter  P. J. Hakala  & Mark Cropper 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》1998,297(4):1261-1268

Modelling the polarized cyclotron emission from magnetic cataclysmic variables has been a pivotal technique for determining the structure of the accretion zones on the white dwarf. To date, model solutions have been obtained from trial fits to the intensity and polarization data, which have been constructed from emission regions (for example arcs and spots) put in by hand. These models were all inferred indirectly from arguments based on the polarization and X-ray light curves.   We present a more analytical and objective technique using optimization by a genetic algorithm, Tikhonov regularization and Powell's method that robustly models the details of polarized emission.   To demonstrate the success of this technique, we show the results of several simulations in which we calculated the intensity and polarization curves from arbitrarily shaped emission regions on the surface of a sphere and then applied our code to these curves to recover the original test data. We also show how adding artificial noise affects the outcome of the optimization technique.  相似文献   

Three-dimensional numerical simulation of gaseous flow structure in semidetached binaries     

D. V. Bisikalo  A. A. Boyarchuk  V. M. Chechetkin  O. A. Kuznetsov  & D. Molteni 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》1998,300(1):39-48

  相似文献   

The 1996 outburst of GRO J1655–40: the challenge of interpreting the multiwavelength spectra     

R. I. Hynes  C. A. Haswell  C. R. Shrader  W. Chen  Keith Horne  E. T. Harlaftis  K. O'Brien  C. Hellier  & R. P. Fender 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》1998,300(1):64-82

  相似文献   

Dynamical determination of the quadrupole mass moment of a white dwarf     

Lorenzo Iorio 《Astrophysics and Space Science》2007,310(1-2):73-76

In this paper we dynamically determine the quadrupole mass moment Q of the magnetic white dwarf WD 0137-349 by looking for deviations from the third Kepler law induced by Q in the orbital period of the recently discovered brown dwarf moving around it in a close 2-hr orbit. It turns out that a purely Newtonian model for the orbit of WD 0137-349B, assumed circular and equatorial, is adequate, given the present-day accuracy in knowing the orbital parameters of such a binary system. Our result is Q=(−1.5±0.9)×10⁴⁷ kg m² for i=35 deg. It is able to accommodate the 3-sigma significant discrepancy of (1.0±0.3)×10⁻⁸ s⁻² between the inverse square of the phenomenologically determined orbital period and the inverse square of the calculated Keplerian one. The impact of i, for which an interval Δ i of possible values close to 35 deg is considered, is investigated as well.  相似文献   

On the ultracompact nature of 4U 1822−000     

T. Shahbaz  C. A. Watson  H. Hernandez-Peralta 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2007,376(4):1886-1888

We report the discovery of a periodic modulation in the optical lightcurve of the candidate ultracompact X-ray binary 4U 1822−000. Using time-resolved optical photometry taken with the William Herschel Telescope we find evidence for a sinusoidal modulation with a semi-amplitude of 8 per cent and a period of 191 min, which is most likely close to the true orbital period of the binary. Using the van Paradijs & McClintock relation for the absolute magnitude and the distance modulus allowing for interstellar reddening, we estimate the distance to 4U 1822−000 to be 6.3 kpc. The long orbital period casts severe doubts on the ultracompact nature of 4U 1822−000.  相似文献   

The population of AM CVn stars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey     

G. H. A. Roelofs  G. Nelemans  P. J. Groot 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2007,382(2):685-692

The AM Canum Venaticorum (AM CVn) stars are rare interacting white dwarf binaries, whose formation and evolution are still poorly known. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey provides, for the first time, a sample of six AM CVn stars (out of a total population of 18) that are sufficiently homogeneous that we can start to study the population in some detail.
We use the Sloan sample to 'calibrate' theoretical population synthesis models for the space density of AM CVn stars. We consider optimistic and pessimistic models for different theoretical formation channels, which yield predictions for the local space density that are more than two orders of magnitude apart. When calibrated with the observations, all models give a local space density  ρ₀= 1–3 × 10⁻⁶ pc⁻³  , which is lower than expected.
We discuss the implications for the formation of AM CVn stars, and conclude that at least one of the dominant formation channels (the double-degenerate channel) has to be suppressed relative to the optimistic models. In the framework of the current models this suggests that the mass transfer between white dwarfs usually cannot be stabilized. We furthermore discuss evolutionary effects that have so far not been considered in population synthesis models, but which could be of influence for the observed population. We finish by remarking that, with our lower space density, the expected number of Galactic AM CVn stars resolvable by gravitational-wave detectors like the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna ( LISA ) should be lowered from current estimates, to about 1000 for a mission duration of 1 yr.  相似文献   

The space density of cataclysmic variables: constraints from the ROSAT North Ecliptic Pole survey     

M. L. Pretorius  C. Knigge  D. O'Donoghue  J. P. Henry  I. M. Gioia  C. R. Mullis 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2007,382(3):1279-1288

We use the ROSAT North Ecliptic Pole (NEP) survey to construct a small, but purely X-ray flux-limited sample of cataclysmic variable stars (CVs). The sample includes only four systems, two of which (RX J1715.6+6856 and RX J1831.7+6511) are new discoveries. We present time-resolved spectroscopy of the new CVs and measure orbital periods of 1.64 ± 0.02 and 4.01 ± 0.03 h for RX J1715.6+6856 and RX J1831.7+6511, respectively. We also estimate distances for all the CVs in our sample, based mainly on their apparent brightness in the infrared. The space density of the CV population represented by our small sample is  1.1^+2.3_−0.7× 10⁻⁵ pc⁻³  . We can also place upper limits on the space density of any subpopulation of CVs too faint to be included in the NEP survey. In particular, we show that if the overall space density of CVs is as high as  2 × 10⁻⁴ pc⁻³  (as has been predicted theoretically), the vast majority of CVs must be fainter than   L _X≃ 2 × 10²⁹ erg s⁻¹  .  相似文献