Transition radiation from relativistic intergalactic dust grains

Transition radiation is emitted when a charged particle traverses a boundary separating two media. Such radiation must therefore be emitted as X-rays and ultraviolet radiation, from a medium where cosmic-ray electrons pass through dust grains. Calculation shows that transition radiation emitted in this way might account for soft X-rays emission from relativistic charged dust grains in the intergalactic medium (IGM). This could be a help in understanding the IGM as well as an indirect method of measuring the energies of high energy particles.     

Solar wind and spin of small interplanetary particles

The action of the solar corpuscular radiation on the rotational properties of small interplanetary dust particles is investigated. It is shown that the solar wind increases the angular momentum (spin) of the particle. Analytic solutions are presented for dominant terms in which quantities of the orders (v/u) ⁿ ,n 1, are neglected (v is the orbital velocity of dust particle around the Sun andu is the speed of the solar wind particles).     

Quantum tunneling makes a Reissner–Nordstrom black hole turn into a Kerr–Newman black hole under angular momentum conservation

Hawking radiation can be viewed as a process of particle quantum tunneling near a black hole horizon. When a particle with angular momentum tunnels across the event horizon of a Reissner–Nordstrom black hole, the black hole will change into a Kerr–Newman one. In previous papers, axisymmetric black hole has been studied only when a keeps constant. Changing from Reissner–Nordstrom to Kerr–Newman should be a simple case when a varies. After this, more general radiation including changed a in Kerr or Kerr–Newman spacetimes can be studied in the future. The emission rate of the massless particles with angular momentum is calculated, and the result is consistent with an underlying unitary theory.      

Spontaneous and induced Čerenkov emission in a turbulent medium

It is shown that the presence of spatially random fluctuations in refractive index, about a mean exceeding unity, influences the power output of erenkov waves emitted by a charged particle in several ways.(1) The frequency spectrum of the spontaneous emission is altered by the fluctuations. (2) There is an induced erenkov emission, due to the interaction of the spontaneous field with the random refractive index variations. This induced field can, in certain frequency bands, be as large as the spontaneous field. And it also contains a backscattered component which propagates in theopposite direction to the particle. (3) The conditions for emission of the erenkov waves, be they spontaneous or induced, depend critically on both the mean refractive index, the particle velocity, the intensity and correlation length of the fluctuations. And the dependence is sensitive to the precise functional form of the two-point correlation function.Instruments detect the optical erenkov emission produced by cosmic ray particles penetrating the Earth's atmosphere (below about 5 km). Also gas erenkov counters are triggered by the passage of highly energetic particles through the gas. Since both the Earth's lower atmosphere and the gas counters contain turbulent fluctuations, the present calculation is of some interest in connection with particle energy loss mechanisms in turbulent media and the basic structure of such media.     

The radiation of energy by a current in a plasma

The derivation of the differential power emitted in any given direction by a current J in a linear, homogeneous and non-absorbing plasma is reviewed in detail. The conventional derivation is shown to give the poweremitted; a formalism for the powerreceived is established by evaluating the Poynting vector in terms of the far field. It is pointed out that the two power expressions differ because the same energy dE is emitted in a time dt _e but received over a different time dt _r . Moreover, a careful scrutiny of both the formalism for the power emission and for the power reception exposes implicit assumptions which do not hold if the plasma is anisotropic. The necessary steps for establishing a valid formalism for anisotropic media are briefly sketched.     

Coulomb-trapped particles in the electromagnetic fields of an oblique magnetic rotator

An oblique, rotating magnetized sphere emits electromagnetic waves which, for large magnetization, can quickly accelerate charged particles to very high energies. A central, attractive Coulomb force can trap particles in the region beyond the light cylinder by balancing the accelerating influence of the radiation on the particles. We sample some of the particle orbits possible under these dynamical conditions. A general feature of these orbits is that non-interacting particles started with random initial conditions in the domain of attraction of these orbits will arrange themselves on a curve corotating with the axis of magnetization. Such particle configurations can be a source of pulsed radiation. In the idealized case of no interparticle interactions the spectral index for the radiation emitted by one frequently occurring configuration is found to be –2/3, for emission from radio to -ray frequencies. The dynamical conditions in this simple model closely match those prevalent in outer pulsar magnetospheres, making it possible that part of the radiation from pulsars is emitted by trapped plasma in the region beyond the light cylinder.     

Curvature radiation of relativistic particles in the magnetosphere of pulsars

The curvature radiation of charged relativistic particles in a dipole magnetic field is considered, taking into account the possibility that the emitted particles may reabsorb radiation. The calculations were carried out for emanating particles with both monoenergetic and power energy spectra. The dependence of the curvature radiation flow on both the frequency and angle between the magnetic axis and the line of sight is determined. The calculated results will be used in the second part of the paper to interprete the observable data on pulsars.     

Low-energy charged particle ring around equator in the altitude range 400–1100 km

Measurements of charged particle fluxes at energies >-13 MeV (if protons), by means of a detector system of high geometrical factor (950 cm² sr), flown on OGO-6 satellite, reveals a ring of low energy charged particles around equator with fluxes of the order of 50–70 particles (m^–2 s^–1 sr^–1), in the altitude range of 400–1100 km. The ring of charged particles exists below the inner radiation belt and is restricted to ±4° of the geomagnetic equator. Distribution of the maximum flux with geomagnetic latitude andL is presented. Comparison of the observed fluxes with earlier measurements of low energy particles, reveals a differential energy spectrum of the type KE^– with the exponent nearly equal to 2.4 to 3.     

Wave Transformation and Scattering on Stationary Charged Particles in a Magnetoactive Plasma. II

The transformation of upper-hybrid, lower-hybrid, and magnetosonic waves on a heavy charged particle lying at the plane boundary of a magnetoactive plasma is considered. The angular distribution of the radiation resulting from wave transformation is investigated. The transformation of a low-frequency magnetosonic wave is suggested as a possible mechanism for pulsar radio emission.     

Charged particle motion on and off the equatorial plane of a magnetic star in Rosen's bimetric gravity

In this paper we have studied in detail (numerically) the trajectories of charged particles in a magnetic field (dipolar at infinity) associated with a static star in the framework of Rosen's bimetric theory of gravity. It was found that there do exist potential wells that allow possible trapping of particles in stable orbits both on and off the equatorial plane. A particularly interesting feature that has shown up is the fact that the characteristics of the effective potential wellV _eff depend on the ratio of the magnetic field strength parameter λ, and the angular momentumL of the charged particle. For values lower than a critical (λ/L) _c the potential well lies within the regionr≤2m.     

The Crab Nebula: Interpretation of Chandra observations

We interpret the observed X-ray morphology of the central part of the Crab Nebula (torus + jets) in terms of the standard theory by Kennel and Coroniti (1984). The only new element is the inclusion of anisotropy in the energy flux from the pulsar in the theory. In the standard theory of relativistic winds, the Lorentz factor of the particles in front of the shock that terminates the pulsar relativistic wind depends on the polar angle as γ = γ₀ + γ _m sin² θ, where γ₀∼200 and γ_m∼4.5×10⁶. The plasma flow in the wind is isotropic. After the passage of the pulsar wind through the shock, the flow becomes subsonic with a roughly constant (over the plerion volume) pressure P=1/3;n∈ where n is the plasma particle density and ∈ is the mean particle energy. Since ∈∼γmc ², a low-density region filled with the most energetic electrons is formed near the equator. A bright torus of synchrotron radiation develops here. Jet-like regions are formed along the pulsar rotation axis, where the particle density is almost four orders of magnitude higher than that in the equatorial plane, because the particle energy there is four orders of magnitude lower. The energy of these particles is too low to produce detectable synchrotron radiation. However, these quasijets become comparable in brightness to the torus if additional particle acceleration takes place in the plerion. We also present the results of our study of the hydrodynamic interaction between an anisotropic wind and the interstellar medium. We compare the calculated and observed distributions of the volume emissivity of X-ray radiation.     

Restricted N+1-Body Problem: Existence and Stability Of Relative Equilibria

We consider n bodies (with equal mass m) disposed at the vertices of a regular n-gon and rotating rigidly around an additional mass m ₀(at its center) with a constant angular velocity (relative equilibrium). In the present paper, we prove results on the existence and on the linear stability of equilibrium positions for a zero-mass particle submitted to the gravitational field generated by the previous system. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

On some new aspects of the photo-gravitational Copenhagen problem

We deal with some new aspects of the photo-gravitational Copenhagen case of the restricted three-body problem; more particularly, the distribution and the attracting domains of the stationary solutions of small particles that move in the neighborhood of two major bodies with equal masses when one or both primaries are radiation sources with constant luminosity. Under these conditions, each particle is subjected not only to gravitational forces but to the radiation emitted from the primaries as well.     

Tunneling of massive and charged particles from noncommutative Reissner-Nordström black hole

Massive charged and uncharged particles tunneling from commutative Reissner-Nordström black hole horizon has been studied with details in literature. Here, by adopting the coherent state picture of spacetime noncommutativity, we study tunneling of massive and charged particles from a noncommutative inspired Reissner-Nordström black hole horizon. We show that Hawking radiation in this case is not purely thermal and there are correlations between emitted modes. These correlations may provide a solution to the information loss problem. We also study thermodynamics of noncommutative horizon in this setup.     

Temperature of interstellar warm ionized medium

This investigation on the temperature of the interstellar warm ionized medium (WIM) is characterized by the number and energy balance of the constituents of the WIM complex plasma viz. H plasma (electrons/ions/neutral atoms) and graphite dust, having a size distribution, characterized by the MRN (Mathis, Rumpl and Nordsieck) power law. Ionization of neutral atoms, electron–ion recombination, photoemission of electrons from and accretion on the dust and cooling through electron collisional excitation, followed by radiative decay of atoms has been included in the analysis. An appropriate expression for the rate of emission and mean energy of photoelectrons emitted from the surface of positively charged dust particles has been used which takes into account the dependence of absorption efficiency on wavelength of the radiation, radius of the particle and spectral irradiance distribution. The results of the parametric analysis have been displayed graphically. It is seen that the consensus values of temperature, surface potential on the dust particles and electron/ion/neutral atom densities, characteristic of interstellar warm ionized medium can be explained on the basis of plausible combinations of the dust particle density n _d and the parameter f _ex α _ex , where f _ex is the fraction of the energy of the neutral gas atoms which gets irradiated, α _ex n _e n _n is the number of the neutral atoms, which get excited per unit volume per unit time and n _e (n _n ) correspond to the density of electrons (neutral atoms).     

Numerical investigation of non-resonant and resonant scattering of charged particles with a spatially varying magnetic field

By integrating many charged particle trajectories in a magnetic field model consisting of a series of equally spaced field discontinuities with equal angular displacements, constant ¦B¦ and successive displacements oppositely directed, a parallel diffusion coefficient K _∥ is obtained. The particle gyroradius was kept sufficiently small for the interaction to be non-resonant. The diffusion coefficient is found to be in good agreement with that predicted by the known reflection properties for charged particles of individual discontinuities. However an attempt to reproduce the diffusion coefficient using the results of a recent study by Klimas and Sandri of a non-local diffusion equation applying to the non-resonant case lead to too low a value of K _∥. The computational approach was also applied to the case where the particle motion was in resonance with the wavelength of the train of discontinuities and a lower limit to K _∥ obtained. This lower limit exceeded the quasi-linear approximation value for K _∥ under resonant scattering conditions.     

Quantum radiation of a charged particle in a Schwarzschild field

Within the framework of quantum mechanics in a curved space-time the transitions between energy levels of a charged particle (elementary particle, atomic nucleus) being in a Schwarzschild field are considered. The DeWitt conservative self-force acting on the charge is taken into account. Energy and intensity of the electric dipole radiation are calculated for charged particles in the field of miniholes with masses ranging from 10¹⁴ to 10⁻⁵ g.     

Origin of Jovian decameter wave emissions— Conversion from the electron cylotron plasma wave to the ordinary mode electromagnetic wave

Energy conversion rates from the extraordinary mode to the ordinary mode ofthe electromagnetic waves in the Jovian plasmasphere has been calculated for a model of the sharp boundary that is given in the vicinity of the position where ω = ω_p, for an angular frequency ω and the angular plasma frequency ω_p. The extraordinary mode electromagnetic wave that is obtained as a result of the transformation of a longitudinal propa- gating through an inhomogenous plasma is here considered. The results give conversion rates of 1–50 per cent, at the most, when a wave normal direction of an is nearly parallel to the boundary normal direction and when the Jovian magnetic field vector is close to the boundary normal direction within an angle range from 10° to 15°. The electric field intensity, in range from 7 to 70 mV/m, of the original electrostatic electron cyclotron plasma waves can give the power flux in a range from 10^-22 to 10^-20W/m² Hz for the Jovian decameter waves observed at the Earth's surface. Efficient energy conversion is possible only when the ray direction of the emitted wave is in nearly perpendicular direction with respect to the magnetic field; this is the origin of the sharp beam emission of the Jovian decameter wave burst.     

Parametric conversion and amplification of light in moving media

We present calculations which should be of interest in connection with the problem of radiative transport through the magnetospheres of pulsars and the envelopes of quasars, where not only are particle speeds of the order of the speed of light expected, but also variations of refractive index with frequency and position. The calculations show that by shining monochromatic light normally onto an interface between two media of different refractive indices it is relatively easy for the transmitted radiation to be spread out in frequency and of higher total intensity than the incident radiation. In asserting this we are assuming that the boundary between the two media is moving non-uniformly in time. The two idealized examples which have been worked through to illustrate this parametric conversion and amplification mechanism are:

1. monochromatic light passing normally through a slab of material which is bounded by two fixed transparent plates and which is accelerating parallel to the plates. The intensity of the transmitted light exceeds the intensity of the incident light by a factorO(γ) where γ is the usual Lorentz factor.
2. monochromatic light, of frequency ω, passing normally through a plane interface between vacuum and a medium of constant refractive index,n ₁, where the interface is oscillating around some fixed equilibrium position with a maximum speedO(c). In this case the transmitted intensity exceeds that which would be transmitted through an identical interface at rest by a factor 1+(γ_max?1)(n ₁?1)². For fixed refractive index and large γ this factor can be considerably in excess of unity. The frequency distribution of the transmitted radiation varies as ω^?2/3 for frequencies in the range ????γ³?.

Altogether, the calculations reported in this paper indicate that the production of broad-band, high-intensity radiation from relatively weak monochromatic light is a process which is likely to occur in most astrophysical objects where it is believed, or suspected, that rapid motions and spatial variations occur.     

Ohm’s law for plasma in general relativity and Cowling’s theorem

The general-relativistic Ohm’s law for a two-component plasma which includes the gravitomagnetic force terms even in the case of quasi-neutrality has been derived. The equations that describe the electromagnetic processes in a plasma surrounding a neutron star are obtained by using the general relativistic form of Maxwell equations in a geometry of slow rotating gravitational object. In addition to the general-relativistic effect first discussed by Khanna and Camenzind (Astron. Astrophys. 307:665, 1996) we predict a mechanism of the generation of azimuthal current under the general relativistic effect of dragging of inertial frames on radial current in a plasma around neutron star. The azimuthal current being proportional to the angular velocity ω of the dragging of inertial frames can give valuable contribution on the evolution of the stellar magnetic field if ω exceeds 2.7×10¹⁷(n/σ) s⁻¹ (n is the number density of the charged particles, σ is the conductivity of plasma). Thus in general relativity a rotating neutron star, embedded in plasma, can in principle generate axial-symmetric magnetic fields even in axisymmetry. However, classical Cowling’s antidynamo theorem, according to which a stationary axial-symmetric magnetic field can not be sustained against ohmic diffusion, has to be hold in the general-relativistic case for the typical plasma being responsible for the rotating neutron star.