119270585
Multi-site campaign for transit timing variations of WASP-12 b: possible detection of a long-period signal of planetary origin
Aims. The transiting planet WASP-12 b was identified as a potential target for transit-timing studies because a departure from a linear ephemeris has been reported in the literature. Such deviations could be caused by an additional planet in the system. We attempt to confirm the claimed variations in transit timing and interpret their origin. Methods. We organised a multi-site campaign to observe transits by WASP-12 b in three observing seasons, using 0.5–2.6-metre telescopes. Results. We obtained 61 transit light curves, many of them with sub-millimagnitude precision. The simultaneous analysis of the best-quality datasets allowed us to obtain refined system parameters, which agree with values reported in previous studies. The residuals versus a linear ephemeris reveal a possible periodic signal that may be approximated by a sinusoid with an amplitude of 0.00068 ± 0.00013 d and period of 500 ± 20 orbital periods of WASP-12 b. The joint analysis of timing data and published radial velocity measurements results in a two-planet model that explains observations better than do single-planet scenarios. We hypothesise that WASP-12 b might not be the only planet in the system, and there might be the additional 0.1 MJup body on a 3.6-d eccentric orbit. A dynamical analysis indicates that the proposed two-planet system is stable on long timescales.
118704582
Dark energy from forgetting
We suggest that dark energy has a quantum informational origin. Landauer's principle associated with the erasure of quantum information at a cosmic horizon implies the non-zero vacuum energy having effective negative pressure. Assuming the holographic principle, the minimum free energy condition, and the Gibbons-Hawking temperature for the cosmic event horizon we obtain the holographic dark energy with the parameter $d\simeq 1$, which is consistent with the current observational data. It is also shown that both the entanglement energy and the horizon energy can be related to Landauer's principle.
118674685
Zero cosmological constant and nonzero dark energy from the holographic principle
The first law of thermodynamics and the holographic principle applied to an arbitrary large cosmic causal horizon are shown to naturally demand a zero cosmological constant and a non-zero dynamical dark energy in the form of the holographic dark energy. A semiclassical analysis shows that the holographic dark energy has a parameter d = 1 and an equation of state comparable to current observational data if the entropy of the horizon saturates the Bekenstein-Hawking bound. This result indicates that quantum field theory should be modified on a large scale to explain the dark energy. The relations among the dark energy, the quantum vacuum energy and the entropic gravity are also discussed.
118903338
Radiation Damping at a Bubble Wall
The first order phase transition proceeds via nucleation and growth of true vacuum bubbles. When charged particles collide with the bubble they could radiate electromagnetic wave. We show that, due to an energy loss of the particles by the radiation, the damping pressure acting on the bubble wall depends on the velocity of the wall even in a thermal equilibrium state.
119213988
Quantum entanglement from the holographic principle
It is suggested that quantum entanglement emerges from the holographic principle stating that all of the information of a region (bulk bits) can be described by the bits on its boundary surface. There are redundancy and information loss in the bulk bits that lead to the nonlocal correlation among the bulk bits. Quantum field theory overestimates the independent degrees of freedom in the bulk. The maximum entanglement in the universe increases as the size of the cosmic horizon and this could be related with the arrow of time and dark energy.
17111859
Black Hole as an Information Eraser
We discuss the identity of black hole entropy and show that the first law of black hole thermodynamics, in the case of a Schwarzschild black hole, can be derived from Landauer's principle by assuming that the black hole is one of the most efficient information erasers. The term "most efficient" implies that maximal information will be erased for a given amount of work. We calculate the discrete mass spectra and the entropy of a Schwarzschild black hole assuming that the black hole processes information in unit of bits. The black hole entropy acquires a subleading contribution proportional to the logarithm of its mass-squared in addition to the usual mass-squared term without an artificial cutoff. We also argue that the minimum of the black hole mass is $\sqrt{\log 2/(8\pi)}M_{\rm P}$.
7274949
A Chemical Abundance Study of One Red Giant Star in NGC 5694: A Globular Cluster with a Dwarf Spheroidal Chemical Signature?
We report an abundance analysis of one red giant branch star in the metal-poor outer halo globular cluster NGC 5694. We obtain [Fe/H] = -1.93 based on the ionized lines, and our metallicity measurement is in good agreement with previous estimates. We find that [Ca+Ti/2Fe] and [Cu/Fe] in NGC 5694 are about 0.3-0.4 dex lower than other globular clusters with similar metallicities, but similar to some LMC clusters and stars in some dwarf spheroidal galaxies. Differences persist, however, in the abundances of neutron-capture elements. The unique chemical abundance pattern and the large Galactocentric distance (30 kpc) and radial velocity (-138.6 ± 1.0 km s-1) indicate that NGC 5694 had an extragalactic origin.
119173891
The pulsating sdB+M eclipsing system NY Virginis and its circumbinary planets
We searched for circumbinary planets orbiting NY Vir in historical eclipse times including our long-term CCD data. Sixty-eight times of minimum light with accuracies better than 10 s were used for the ephemeris computations. The best fit to those timings indicated that the orbital period of NY Vir has varied due to a combination of two sinusoids with periods of P3=8.2 yr and P4=27.0 yr and semi-amplitudes of K3=6.9 s and K4=27.3 s, respectively. The periodic variations most likely arise from a pair of light-time effects due to the presence of third and fourth bodies that are gravitationally bound to the eclipsing pair. We have derived the orbital parameters and the minimum masses, M3 sini3 = 2.8 MJup and M4 sini4 = 4.5 MJup, of both objects. A dynamical analysis suggests that the outer companion is less likely to orbit the binary on a circular orbit. Instead we show that future timing data might push its eccentricity to moderate values for which the system exhibits long-term stability. The results demonstrate that NY Vir is probably a star-planet system, which consists of a very close binary star and two giant planets. The period ratio P3/P4 suggests that a long-term gravitational interaction between them would result in capture into a nearly 3:10 mean motion resonance. When the presence of the circumbinary planets is verified and understood more comprehensively, the formation and evolution of this planetary system should be advanced greatly.
118699742
Lattice calculation for unitary fermions in a finite box
A fundamental constant in systems of unitary fermions is the so-called Bertsch parameter, the ratio of the ground state energy for spin paired unitary fermions to that for free fermions at the same density. I discuss how we computed this parameter as well as the pairing gap using a recently developed lattice construction for unitary fermions, by measuring correlation functions for up to 38 fermions in a finite box. Our calculation illustrates interesting issues facing the study of many-body states on the lattice, which may eventually be confronted in QCD calculations as well.
118845335
Physical Properties of the Transiting Planetary System TrES-3
We present four new transits of the planetary system TrES-3 observed between 2009 May and 2010 June. Among these, the third transit by itself indicates possible evidence for brightness disturbance, which might be a result of the planet blocking a cool starspot on the stellar surface. A total of 109 transit times, including our measurements, were used to determine the improved ephemeris with a transit epoch of 2454185.910944 ˙ 0.000072 HJED and an orbital period of 1.30618700 ˙ 0.00000015d. We analyzed the transit light curves using the JKTEBOP code and adopting the quadratic limb-darkening law. In order to derive the physical properties of the TrES-3 system, the transit parameters were combined with the empirical relations from eclipsing binary stars and stellar evolutionary
119457374
Exclusive Double-Charmonium Production from e^+ e^- Annihilation into a Virtual Photon
We calculate the exclusive cross sections for e^+ e^- annihilation into two charmonium states through a virtual photon. Purely electromagnetic contributions are surprisingly large, changing the cross sections by as much as 21%. The predicted cross section for J/psi + eta_c is about an order of magnitude smaller than a recent measurement by the BELLE Collaboration, although part of the discrepancy can be attributed to large relativistic corrections. The cross sections for S-wave + P-wave, P-wave + P-wave, and S-wave + D-wave charmonium states are also calculated. It may be possible to discover the D-wave state eta_{c2}(1D) at the B factories through the mode J/psi+\eta_{c2}, whose cross section is predicted to be about a factor of 10 smaller than J/psi + eta_c.