Discovery of the first giant double radio relic in a galaxy cluster found in the PLANCK Sunyaev-Zel'dovich cluster survey: PLCK G287.0+32.9

We report the discovery of large scale diffuse non-thermal radio emission in PLCK G287.0+32.9, an exceptionally hot (T ~ 13 keV), massive and luminous galaxy cluster, strongly detected by the PLANCK satellite in a recent, all-sky blind search for new clusters through Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect. Giant Metrewave Radio telescope 150 MHz and Very Large Array 1.4 GHz radio data reveal a pair of giant (>1 Mpc) "arc" shaped peripheral radio-relics (signatures of shock waves) of unprecedented scale (linear separation ~4.4 Mpc at redshift 0.39), located at distances from the cluster center which are about 0.7 and 1.3 of the cluster's virial radius. Another possible giant relic and a radio-halo is detected closer to the cluster center. These relic sources are unique "signposts" of extremely energetic mergers and shocks (both ongoing and past), that are assembling and heating up this very massive galaxy cluster. They are also a probe of the filamentary cosmic-web structure beyond the cluster virial radius. Optical imaging with the IUCAA 2 meter telescope and XMM-Newton X-ray data confirm a very rich galaxy cluster with a morphologically disturbed core region, suggesting a dynamically perturbed merging system.Comment: This version matches with the published version in Astrophysical Journal Letter

Confirmation of the detection of B-modes in the Planck polarization maps

One of the main problems for extracting the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) from submm/mm observations is to correct for the Galactic components, mainly synchrotron, free - free and thermal dust emission with the required accuracy. Through a series of papers, it has been demonstrated that this task can be fulfilled by means of simple neural networks with high confidence. The main purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that the CMB BB power spectrum detected in the Planck 2015 polarization maps is present in the improved Planck 2017 maps with higher signal-to-noise ratio. Two features have been detected in the EB power spectrum in the new data set, both with S/N $\sim$4 . The origin of these features is most likely leakage from E to B with a level of about 1 per cent. This leakage gives no significant contribution to the detected BB power spectrum. The TB power spectrum is consistent with a zero signal. Altogether, the BB power spectrum is not consistent with the 'canonical' tensor-to-scalar models combined with gravitational lensing spectra. These results will give additional strong arguments for support to the proposed polarization satellite projects to follow up on the Planck mission .Comment: accepted for puplication in Astronomical Note

Non-Planck equilibrium radiation in plasma model of early Universe

Consideration of the adiabatic character of radiation expansion in early Universe leads to the conclusion that equilibrium distribution of the primordial radiation in the presence of charged particles could be different from the Planck distribution in some regions of the spectrum. The equilibrium distribution of electromagnetic radiation (the black body radiation) is generalized for the system containing an extremely dense fully ionized plasma. The conditions of the adiabatic expansion of radiation for the model of the early Universe are found.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure

No Pulsar Kicks from Deformed Neutrinospheres

In a supernova core, magnetic fields cause a directional variation of the neutrino refractive index so that resonant flavor oscillations would lead to a deformation of the "neutrinosphere" for, say, tau neutrinos. The associated anisotropic neutrino emission was proposed as a possible origin of the observed pulsar proper motions. We argue that this effect was vastly overestimated because the variation of the temperature over the deformed neutrinosphere is not an adequate measure for the anisotropy of neutrino emission. The neutrino flux is generated inside the neutron star core and is transported through the atmosphere at a constant luminosity, forcing the temperature gradient in the atmosphere to adjust to the inflow of energy from below. Therefore, no emission anisotropy is caused by a deformation of the neutrinosphere to lowest order. An estimate of the higher-order corrections must take into account the modified atmospheric temperature profile in response to the deformation of the neutrinosphere and the corresponding feedback on the core. We go through this exercise in the framework of a simplified model which can be solved analytically.Comment: Final version with minor corrections, to be published in PRD. Includes a "Note Added" in response to astro-ph/981114

Einstein's fluctuation formula. A historical overview

A historical overview is given on the basic results which appeared by the year 1926 concerning Einstein's fluctuation formula of black-body radiation, in the context of light-quanta and wave-particle duality. On the basis of the original publications (from Planck's derivation of the black-body spectrum and Einstein's introduction of the photons up to the results of Born, Heisenberg and Jordan on the quantization of a continuum) a comparative study is presented on the first line of thoughts that led to the concept of quanta. The nature of the particle-like fluctuations and the wave-like fluctuations are analysed by using several approaches. With the help of the classical probability theory, it is shown that the infinite divisibility of the Bose distribution leads to the new concept of classical poissonian photo-multiplets or to the binary photo-multiplets of fermionic character. As an application, Einstein's fluctuation formula is derived as a sum of fermion type fluctuations of the binary photo-multiplets.Comment: 34 page

Mass estimation in the outer regions of galaxy clusters

We present a technique for estimating the mass in the outskirts of galaxy clusters where the usual assumption of dynamical equilibrium is not valid. The method assumes that clusters form through hierarchical clustering and requires only galaxy redshifts and positions on the sky. We apply the method to dissipationless cosmological N-body simulations where galaxies form and evolve according to semi-analytic modelling. The method recovers the actual cluster mass profile within a factor of two to several megaparsecs from the cluster centre. This error originates from projection effects, sparse sampling, and contamination by foreground and background galaxies. In the absence of velocity biases, this method can provide an estimate of the mass-to-light ratio on scales ~1-10 Mpc/h where this quantity is still poorly known.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figures, MN LaTeX style, MNRAS, in pres

Far-Infrared to Millimeter Astrophysical Dust Emission. II: Comparison of the Two-Level Systems (TLS) model with Astronomical Data

In a previous paper we proposed a new model for the emission by amorphous astronomical dust grains, based on solid-state physics. The model uses a description of the Disordered Charge Distribution (DCD) combined with the presence of Two-Level Systems (TLS) defects in the amorphous solid composing the grains. The goal of this paper is to confront this new model to astronomical observations of different Galactic environments in the FIR/submm, in order to derive a set of canonical model parameters to be used as a Galactic reference to be compared to in future Galactic and extragalactic studies. We confront the TLS model with existing astronomical data. We consider the average emission spectrum at high latitudes in our Galaxy as measured with FIRAS and WMAP, as well as the emission from Galactic compact sources observed with Archeops, for which an inverse relationship between the dust temperature and the emissivity spectral index has been evidenced. We show that, unlike models previously proposed which often invoke two dust components at different temperatures, the TLS model successfully reproduces both the shape of the Galactic SED and its evolution with temperature as observed in the Archeops data. The best TLS model parameters indicate a charge coherence length of \simeq 13 nm and other model parameters in broad agreement with expectations from laboratory studies of dust analogs. We conclude that the millimeter excess emission, which is often attributed to the presence of very cold dust in the diffuse ISM, is likely caused solely by TLS emission in disordered amorphous dust grains. We discuss the implications of the new model, in terms of mass determinations from millimeter continuum observations and the expected variations of the emissivity spectral index with wavelength and dust temperature. The implications for the analysis of the Herschel and Planck satellite data are discussed.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A (16 pages, 9 figures, 6 tables

A quantum violation of the second law?

An apparent violation of the second law of thermodynamics occurs when an atom coupled to a zero-temperature bath, being necessarily in an excited state, is used to extract work from the bath. Here the fallacy is that it takes work to couple the atom to the bath and this work must exceed that obtained from the atom. For the example of an oscillator coupled to a bath described by the single relaxation time model, the mean oscillator energy and the minimum work required to couple the oscillator to the bath are both calculated explicitly and in closed form. It is shown that the minimum work always exceeds the mean oscillator energy, so there is no violation of the second law

A Note on Polarization Vectors in Quantum Electrodynamics

A photon of momentum k can have only two polarization states, not three. Equivalently, one can say that the magnetic vector potential A must be divergence free in the Coulomb gauge. These facts are normally taken into account in QED by introducing two polarization vectors epsilon_\lambda(k) with lambda in {1,2}, which are orthogonal to the wave-vector k. These vectors must be very discontinuous functions of k and, consequently, their Fourier transforms have bad decay properties. Since these vectors have no physical significance there must be a way to eliminate them and their bad decay properties from the theory. We propose such a way here.Comment: 6 pages late