The surface and inner temperatures of magnetars

Assuming that the timescale of the magnetic field decay is approximately equal to that of the stellar cooling via neutrino emission, we obtain a one-to-one relationship between the effective surface thermal temperature and the inner temperature. The ratio of the effective neutrino luminosity to the effective X-ray luminosity decreases with decaying magnetic field.Comment: 3 Pages, 3 Figures, Published in IAU Symposium, 2013, V.291 p.386-388. 2013IAU Symposiu

Angle-resolved photoemission evidence of s-wave superconducting gap in KxFe2-ySe2 superconductor

Although nodeless superconducting gap has been observed on the large Fermi pockets around the zone corner in KxFe2-ySe2, whether its pairing symmetry is s-wave or nodeless d-wave is still under intense debate. Here we report an isotropic superconducting gap distribution on the small electron Fermi pocket around the Z point in KxFe2-ySe2, which favors the s-wave pairing symmetry.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Photon Momentum Transfer in Single-Photon Double Ionization of Helium

We theoretically and experimentally investigate the photon momentum transfer in single-photon double ionization of helium at various large photon energies. We find that the forward shifts of the momenta along the light propagation of the two photoelectrons are roughly proportional to their fraction of the excess energy. The mean value of the forward momentum is about 8/5 of the electron energy divided by the speed of light. This holds for fast and slow electrons despite the fact that the energy sharing is highly asymmetric and the slow electron is known to be ejected by secondary processes of shake off and knockout rather than directly taking its energy from the photon. The biggest deviations from this rule are found for the region of equal energy sharing where the quasifree mechanism dominates double ionization

A Convenient Solution to Geometric Distortion and Its Application to Phoebe's Observations

International audienceA simple but effective approach is proposed for measuring the geometric distortion of a CCD field of view of a ground-based telescope. For three open clusters (M35, M67, and NGC 2324), 425 CCD frames taken by a 1 m telescope at the Yunnan Observatory are used to test this approach. It is found that the geometric distortion pattern depends strongly on the corresponding filter used. The geometric distortion is then used to correct the pixel positions for Phoebe, the ninth satellite of Saturn, and its reference stars imaged in 220 CCD frames taken by the same telescope. The standard deviation of the (O - C; observed minus computed) residuals of Phoebe is significantly improved after correcting the geometric distortions