16692832
Evaporation of Compact Young Clusters near the Galactic Center
We investigate the dynamical evolution of compact young clusters (CYCs) near the Galactic center (GC) using Fokker-Planck models. CYCs are very young (<5 Myr), compact (<1 pc), and only a few tens of parsecs away from the GC, while they appear to be as massive as the smallest Galactic globular clusters (~104 M?). A survey of cluster lifetimes for various initial mass functions, cluster masses, and Galactocentric radii is presented. Short relaxation times due to the compactness of CYCs and the strong tidal fields near the GC make clusters evaporate fairly quickly. Depending on cluster parameters, mass segregation may occur on a timescale shorter than the lifetimes of most massive stars, which accelerates the cluster's dynamical evolution even more. When the difference between the upper and lower mass boundaries of the initial mass function is large enough, strongly selective ejection of lighter stars makes massive stars dominate even in the outer regions of the cluster, so the dynamical evolution of those clusters is weakly dependent on the lower mass boundary. The mass bins for Fokker-Planck simulations were carefully chosen to properly account for a relatively small number of the most massive stars. We find that clusters with a mass 2 ? 104 M? evaporate in 10 Myr. Two CYCs observed near the GC?the Arches cluster (G0.121+0.17) and the Quintuplet cluster (AFGL 2004)?are interpreted in terms of the models; their central densities and apparent ages are consistent with the hypothesis that they represent successive stages of cluster evolution along a common track, with both undergoing rapid evaporation. A simple calculation based on the total masses in observed CYCs and the lifetimes obtained here indicates that the massive CYCs make up only a fraction of the star formation rate (SFR) in the inner bulge estimated from Lyman continuum photons and far-IR observations. This is consistent with the observation that many stars in the inner bulge form outside the large clusters.
119456102
Theoretical isochrones with extinction in the K band. II. J - K versus K
ABSTRACT We calculate theoretical isochrones in a consistent way for five filter pairs near the J and K band atmospheric windows ( \documentclass{aastex} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{bm} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{pifont} \usepackage{stmaryrd} \usepackage{textcomp} \usepackage{portland,xspace} \usepackage{amsmath,amsxtra} \usepackage[OT2,OT1]{fontenc} \newcommand\cyr{ \renewcommand\rmdefault{wncyr} \renewcommand\sfdefault{wncyss} \renewcommand\encodingdefault{OT2} \normalfont \selectfont} \DeclareTextFontCommand{\textcyr}{\cyr} \pagestyle{empty} \DeclareMathSizes{10}{9}{7}{6} \begin{document} \landscape $J-K$ \end{document} , \documentclass{aastex} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{bm} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{pifont} \usepackage{stmaryrd} \usepackage{textcomp} \usepackage{portland,xspace} \usepackage{amsmath,amsxtra} \usepackage[OT2,OT1]{fontenc} \newcommand\cyr{ \renewcommand\rmdefault{wncyr} \renewcom...
17473739
Stellar collisions and mergers in the galactic center
Stars are most likely to merge or collide in regions of the highest stellar densities, and our own Galactic Center contains many stars packed into a relatively small volume -- even the ambient stellar number density in the central 50 pc is quite high, ~10^3 stars pc^{-3}. More striking, the three compact young clusters in this region have central densities as high as 10^6 stars pc^{-3}. We discuss these extreme environments and the possibility that stellar mergers and collisions have recently occured there. In particular, we predict that at least one massive star in the Arches cluster has already experienced a stellar merger in its short lifetime. Further, the Pistol Star, in the nearby Quintuplet cluster, might owe its apparent relative youth to a rejuvinating stellar merger. Finally, the apparently young stars in the central arcsecond could be products of either collisions, inducing atmospheric stripping, or mergers.
13909300
The Stream-Stream Collision after the Tidal Disruption of a Star around a Massive Black Hole
A star can be tidally disrupted around a massive black hole. It is known that the debris forms a precessing stream, which may collide with itself. The stream collision is a key process in determining the subsequent evolution of the stellar debris: if the orbital energy is efficiently dissipated, the debris will eventually form a circular disk (or torus). In this paper, we have numerically studied such a stream collision resulting from the encounter between a 106 M☉ black hole and a 1 M☉ normal star with a pericenter radius of 100 R☉. A simple treatment for radiative cooling has been adopted for both optically thick and optically thin regions. We have found that approximately 10% to 15% of the initial kinetic energy of the streams is converted into thermal energy during the collision. The spread in angular momentum of the incoming stream is increased by a factor of 2 to 3, and such an increase, together with the decrease in kinetic energy, significantly helps the circularization process. The initial luminosity burst produced by the collision may reach as high as 1041 ergs s-1 in 104 s, after which the luminosity increases again (but slowly this time) to a steady value of a few 1040 ergs s-1 in a few times 105 s. The radiation from the system is expected to be close to Planckian, with an effective temperature of ~105 K.
119489565
Core-Collapse Times of Two-Component Clusters
We examine the corecollapse times of isolated, two-mass-component star clusters using Fokker-Planck models. With initial condition of Plummer models, we find that the corecollapse times of clusters with M_1/M_2 >> 1 are well correlated with (N_1/N_2)^{1/2}(m_1/m_2)^{2} t_{rh}, where M_1/M_2 and m_1/m_2 are the light to heavy component total and individual mass ratios, respectively, N_1/N_2 is the number ratio, and t_{rh} is the initial half-mass relaxation time scale. We also find two-component cluster parameters that best match multi-component (thus more realistic) clusters with power-law mass functions.
118942465
The Arches Cluster Mass Function
We have analyzed H- and Ks-band images of the Arches cluster obtained using the NIRC2 instrument on Keck with the laser guide star adaptive optics (LGS AO) system. With the help of the LGS AO system, we were able to obtain the deepest ever photometry for this cluster and its neighborhood and derive the background-subtracted present-day mass function down to 1.3 M☉ for the 5''-9'' annulus of the cluster. We find that the previously reported turnover at 6 M☉ is simply due to a local bump in the mass function (MF), and that the MF continues to increase down to our 50% completeness limit (1.3 M☉) with a power-law exponent of Γ = -0.91 for the mass range of 1.3 < M/M☉ < 50. Our numerical calculations for the evolution of the Arches cluster show that the Γ-values for our annulus increase by 0.1-0.2 during the lifetime of the cluster and thus suggest that the Arches cluster initially had Γ of -1.0 to 1.1, which is only slightly shallower than the Salpeter value.
17211178
N-flation: Non-Gaussianity in the horizon-crossing approximation
We analyze the cosmic nongaussianity produced in inflation models with multiple uncoupled fields with monomial potentials, such as Nflation. Using the horizon-crossing approximation to compute the nongaussianity, we show that when each field has the same form of potential, the prediction is independent the number of fields, their initial conditions, and the spectrum of masses/couplings. It depends only on the number of $e$-foldings after the horizon crossing of observable perturbations. We also provide a further generalization to the case where the fields can have monomial potentials with different powers. Unless the horizon-crossing approximation is substantially violated, the predicted nongaussianity is too small to ever be observed.
119231020
Maximally supersymmetric Yang-Mills in five dimensions in light-cone superspace
We formulate maximally supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory in five dimensions in light-cone superspace. The light-cone Hamiltonian is of the quadratic form and the theory can be understood as an oxidation of the $ \mathcal{N} = 4 $ Super Yang-Mills Theory in four dimensions. We specifically study three-point counterterms and show how these counterterms vanish on-shell. This study is a preliminary to set up the technique in order to study possible four-point counterterms.
17174387
N-flation: Observable predictions from the random matrix mass spectrum
We carry out numerical investigations of the perturbations in N-flation models where the mass spectrum is generated by random matrix theory. The tensor-to-scalar ratio and non-Gaussianity are already known to take the single-field values, and so the density perturbation spectral index is the main parameter of interest. We study several types of random field initial conditions and compute the spectral index as a function of mass spectrum parameters. Comparison with microwave anisotropy data from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe shows that the model is currently viable in the majority of its parameter space.
17082200
N-flation: Multifield inflationary dynamics and perturbations
We carry out numerical investigations of the dynamics and perturbations in the Nflation model of Dimopoulos et al. (2005). This model features large numbers of scalar fields with different masses, which can cooperate to drive inflation according to the assisted inflation mechanism. We extend previous work to include random initial conditions for the scalar fields, and explore the predictions for density perturbations and the tensor-to-scalar ratio. The tensor-to-scalar ratio depends only on the number of e-foldings and is independent of the number of fields, their masses, and their initial conditions. It therefore always has the same value as for a single massive field. By contrast, the scalar spectral index has significant dependence on model parameters. While normally multi-field inflation models make predictions for observable quantities which depend also on the unknown field initial conditions, we find evidence of a ‘thermodynamic’ regime whereby the predicted spectral index becomes independent of initial conditions if there are enough fields. Only in parts of parameter space where the mass spectrum of the fields is extremely densely packed is the model capable of satisfying the tight observational constraints from WMAP3 observations.
33056442
Observation of reactor electron antineutrinos disappearance in the RENO experiment.
The RENO experiment has observed the disappearance of reactor electron antineutrinos, consistent with neutrino oscillations, with a significance of 4.9 standard deviations. Antineutrinos from six 2.8  GW(th) reactors at the Yonggwang Nuclear Power Plant in Korea, are detected by two identical detectors located at 294 and 1383 m, respectively, from the reactor array center. In the 229 d data-taking period between 11 August 2011 and 26 March 2012, the far (near) detector observed 17102 (154088) electron antineutrino candidate events with a background fraction of 5.5% (2.7%). The ratio of observed to expected numbers of antineutrinos in the far detector is 0.920±0.009(stat)±0.014(syst). From this deficit, we determine sin(2)2θ(13)=0.113±0.013(stat)±0.019(syst) based on a rate-only analysis.