Numerical solution of the radiative transfer equation: X-ray spectral formation from cylindrical accretion onto a magnetized neutron star

Predicting the emerging X-ray spectra in several astrophysical objects is of great importance, in particular when the observational data are compared with theoretical models. To this aim, we have developed an algorithm solving the radiative transfer equation in the Fokker-Planck approximation when both thermal and bulk Comptonization take place. The algorithm is essentially a relaxation method, where stable solutions are obtained when the system has reached its steady-state equilibrium. We obtained the solution of the radiative transfer equation in the two-dimensional domain defined by the photon energy E and optical depth of the system tau using finite-differences for the partial derivatives, and imposing specific boundary conditions for the solutions. We treated the case of cylindrical accretion onto a magnetized neutron star. We considered a blackbody seed spectrum of photons with exponential distribution across the accretion column and for an accretion where the velocity reaches its maximum at the stellar surface and at the top of the accretion column, respectively. In both cases higher values of the electron temperature and of the optical depth tau produce flatter and harder spectra. Other parameters contributing to the spectral formation are the steepness of the vertical velocity profile, the albedo at the star surface, and the radius of the accretion column. The latter parameter modifies the emerging spectra in a specular way for the two assumed accretion profiles. The algorithm has been implemented in the XSPEC package for X-ray spectral fitting and is specifically dedicated to the physical framework of accretion at the polar cap of a neutron star with a high magnetic field (> 10^{12} G), which is expected to be typical of accreting systems such as X-ray pulsars and supergiant fast X-ray transients.Comment: 13 pages, 20 figures, accepted for publication in A&

Harmonic Sections of Dirac Bundles

We study the clustering of the lowest non negative eigenvalue of the Dirac operator on a general Dirac bundle when the metric structure is varied. In the classical case we show that any closed spin manifold of dimension greater than or equal to four has a Riemannian metric admitting non trivial harmonic spinors

Four Dimensional Quantum Yang-Mills Theory and Mass Gap

A quantization procedure for the Yang-Mills equations for the Minkowski space $\mathbf{R}^{1,3}$ is carried out in such a way that field maps satisfying Wightman axioms of Constructive Quantum Field Theory can be obtained. Moreover, by removing the ultra violet cut off, the spectrum of the corresponding QCD Hamilton operator is proven to be positive and bounded away from zero, except for the case of the vacuum state, which has vanishing energy level. The whole construction is gauge invariant. The particles corresponding to all solution fields are bosons. As expected from QED, if the coupling constant converges to zero, then so does the mass gap. The results are proved first for the model with the bare coupling constant, and then for a model with a running coupling constant by means of renormalization.Comment: With respect to the preceding version of this paper, the gauge invariance of the construction has been proved and the construction of the probability measure making the Hamiltonian QCD selfadjoint has been rewritten with more clarit

Dealing with elements of medical encounters: An approach based on ontological realism

Electronic health records (EHRs) serve as repositories of documented data collected in a health care encounter. An EHR records information about who receives, who provides the health care and about the place where the encounter happens. We also observe additional elements relating to social relations in which the healthcare consumer is involved. To provide a consensus representation of common data and to enhance interoperability between different EHR repositories we have created a solution grounded in formal ontology. Here, we present how an ontology for the obstetric and neonatal domain deals with these general elements documented in health care encounters. Our goal is to promote the interoperability of information among EHRs created in different specialties. To develop our ontology, we used two main approaches: one based on ontological realism, the other based on the principles of the OBO Foundry, including reuse of reference ontologies