The rate of period change in DAV stars

Grids of DAV star models are evolved by \texttt{WDEC}, taking the element diffusion effect into account. The grid parameters are hydrogen mass log($M_{H}/M_{*}$), helium mass log($M_{He}/M_{*}$), stellar mass $M_{\rm *}$, and effective temperature $T_{\rm eff}$ for DAV stars. The core compositions are from white dwarf models evolved by \texttt{MESA}. Therefore, those DAV star models evolved by \texttt{WDEC} have historically viable core compositions. Based on those DAV star models, we studied the rate of period change ($\dot{P}(k)$) for different values of H, He, $M_{\rm *}$, and $T_{\rm eff}$. The results are consistent with previous work. Two DAV stars G117-B15A and R548 have been observed around forty years. The rates of period change of two large-amplitude modes were obtained through O-C method. We did asteroseismological study on the two DAV stars and then obtained a best-fitting model for each star. Based on the two best-fitting models, the mode identifications ($l$, $k$) of the observed modes for G117-B15A and R548 are consistent with previous work. Both the observed modes and the observed $\dot{P}$s can be fitted by calculated ones. The results indicate that our method of evolving DAV star models is feasible.Comment: 20pages, 12 figures, 6 tables, accepted by RAA on 3/18, 201

Finite-size effect of antiferromagnetic transition and electronic structure in LiFePO4

The finite-size effect on the antiferromagnetic (AF) transition and electronic configuration of iron has been observed in LiFePO4. Determination of the scaling behavior of the AF transition temperature (TN) versus the particle-size dimension (L) in the critical regime 1-TN(L)/TN(XTL)\simL^-1 reveals that the activation nature of the AF ordering strongly depends on the surface energy. In addition, the effective magnetic moment that reflects the electronic configuration of iron in LiFePO4 is found to be sensitive to the particle size. An alternative structural view based on the polyatomic ion groups of (PO4)3- is proposed.Comment: To be published in Phys. Rev. B - Rapid Communicatio

Tidal Barrier and the Asymptotic Mass of Proto Gas-Giant Planets

Extrasolar planets found with radial velocity surveys have masses ranging from several Earth to several Jupiter masses. While mass accretion onto protoplanetary cores in weak-line T-Tauri disks may eventually be quenched by a global depletion of gas, such a mechanism is unlikely to have stalled the growth of some known planetary systems which contain relatively low-mass and close-in planets along with more massive and longer period companions. Here, we suggest a potential solution for this conundrum. In general, supersonic infall of surrounding gas onto a protoplanet is only possible interior to both of its Bondi and Roche radii. At a critical mass, a protoplanet's Bondi and Roche radii are equal to the disk thickness. Above this mass, the protoplanets' tidal perturbation induces the formation of a gap. Although the disk gas may continue to diffuse into the gap, the azimuthal flux across the protoplanets' Roche lobe is quenched. Using two different schemes, we present the results of numerical simulations and analysis to show that the accretion rate increases rapidly with the ratio of the protoplanet's Roche to Bondi radii or equivalently to the disk thickness. In regions with low geometric aspect ratios, gas accretion is quenched with relatively low protoplanetary masses. This effect is important for determining the gas-giant planets' mass function, the distribution of their masses within multiple planet systems around solar type stars, and for suppressing the emergence of gas-giants around low mass stars

High Order Finite Difference Methods with Subcell Resolution for 2D Detonation Waves

In simulating hyperbolic conservation laws in conjunction with an inhomogeneous stiff source term, if the solution is discontinuous, spurious numerical results may be produced due to different time scales of the transport part and the source term. This numerical issue often arises in combustion and high speed chemical reacting flows

General covariant Horava-Lifshitz gravity without projectability condition and its applications to cosmology

We consider an extended theory of Horava-Lifshitz gravity with the detailed balance condition softly breaking, but without the projectability condition. With the former, the number of independent coupling constants is significantly reduced. With the latter and by extending the original foliation-preserving diffeomorphism symmetry ${{Diff}}(M, {\cal{F}})$ to include a local U(1) symmetry, the spin-0 gravitons are eliminated. Thus, all the problems related to them disappear, including the instability, strong coupling, and different speeds in the gravitational sector. When the theory couples to a scalar field, we find that the scalar field is not only stable in both the ultraviolet (UV) and infrared (IR), but also free of the strong coupling problem, because of the presence of high-order spatial derivative terms of the scalar field. Furthermore, applying the theory to cosmology, we find that due to the additional U(1) symmetry, the Friedmann-Robertson-Walker (FRW) universe is necessarily flat. We also investigate the scalar, vector, and tensor perturbations of the flat FRW universe, and derive the general linearized field equations for each kind of the perturbations.Comment: 19 pages, comments are welcome!!

A high order compact scheme for hypersonic aerothermodynamics

A novel high order compact scheme for solving the compressible Navier-Stokes equations has been developed. The scheme is an extension of a method originally proposed for solving the Euler equations, and combines several techniques for the solution of compressible flowfields, such as upwinding, limiting and flux vector splitting, with the excellent properties of high order compact schemes. Extending the method to the Navier-Stokes equations is achieved via a Kinetic Flux Vector Splitting technique, which represents an unusual and attractive way to include viscous effects. This approach offers a more accurate and less computationally expensive technique than discretizations based on more conventional operator splitting. The Euler solver has been validated against several inviscid test cases, and results for several viscous test cases are also presented. The results confirm that the method is stable, accurate and has excellent shock-capturing capabilities for both viscous and inviscid flows

Quantized vortices in a rotating Bose-Einstein condensate with spatiotemporally modulated interaction

We present theoretical analysis and numerical studies of the quantized vortices in a rotating Bose-Einstein condensate with spatiotemporally modulated interaction in harmonic and anharmonic potentials, respectively. The exact quantized vortex and giant vortex solutions are constructed explicitly by similarity transformation. Their stability behavior has been examined by numerical simulation, which shows that a new series of stable vortex states (defined by radial and angular quantum numbers) can be supported by the spatiotemporally modulated interaction in this system. We find that there exist stable quantized vortices with large topological charges in repulsive condensates with spatiotemporally modulated interaction. We also give an experimental protocol to observe these vortex states in future experiments

Construction of a polarization insensitive lens from a quasi-isotropic metamaterial slab

We propose to employ the quasiisotropic metamaterial (QIMM) slab to construct a polarization insensitive lens, in which both E- and H-polarized waves exhibit the same refocusing effect. For shallow incident angles, the QIMM slab will provide some degree of refocusing in the same manner as an isotropic negative index material. The refocusing effect allows us to introduce the ideas of paraxial beam focusing and phase compensation by the QIMM slab. On the basis of angular spectrum representation, a formalism describing paraxial beams propagating through a QIMM slab is presented. Because of the negative phase velocity in the QIMM slab, the inverse Gouy phase shift and the negative Rayleigh length of paraxial Gaussian beam are proposed. We find that the phase difference caused by the Gouy phase shift in vacuum can be compensated by that caused by the inverse Gouy phase shift in the QIMM slab. If certain matching conditions are satisfied, the intensity and phase distributions at object plane can be completely reconstructed at image plane. Our simulation results show that the superlensing effect with subwavelength image resolution could be achieved in the form of a QIMM slab.Comment: 25 pages, 8 figure

Galaxy Morphology - Halo Gas Connections

We studied a sample of 38 intermediate redshift MgII absorption-selected galaxies using (1) Keck/HIRES and VLT/UVES quasar spectra to measure the halo gas kinematics from MgII absorption profiles and (2) HST/WFPC-2 images to study the absorbing galaxy morphologies. We have searched for correlations between quantified gas absorption properties, and host galaxy impact parameters, inclinations, position angles, and quantified morphological parameters. We report a 3.2-sigma correlation between asymmetric perturbations in the host galaxy morphology and the MgII absorption equivalent width. We suggest that this correlation may indicate a connection between past merging and/or interaction events in MgII absorption-selected galaxies and the velocity dispersion and quantity of gas surrounding these galaxies.Comment: 6 pages; 3 figures; contributed talk for IAU 199: Probing Galaxies through Quasar Absorption Line