27837585
Screw Instability and the Blandford-Znajek Mechanism.
When magnetic field lines thread a rotating black hole's horizon and connect with remote astrophysical loads, the rotational energy of the black hole can be extracted through the Blandford-Znajek mechanism. Due to the rotation of the black hole, the magnetic field lines are twisted and toroidal components are generated. Thus, poloidal electric currents are induced and the black hole's rotational energy is transported to the astrophysical loads through Poynting flux. The Blandford-Znajek mechanism has been considered to be a possible process for powering extragalactic jets. In this Letter, we show that because of the screw instability of the magnetic field, the toroidal components of the magnetic field, and thus the poloidal currents, cannot exceed the limits given by the Kruskal-Shafranov criterion. This significantly lowers the power of the Blandford-Znajek mechanism when the loads are far from the black hole. So the Blandford-Znajek mechanism can only work efficiently within the neighborhood of the black hole. The implications of the results for the scenario of extragalactic jets powered by the Blandford-Znajek mechanism are discussed.
11692409
Electromagnetic energy for a charged Kerr black hole in a uniform magnetic field
With the Komar mass formula we calculate the electromagnetic energy for a charged Kerr black hole in a uniform magnetic field. We find that the total electromagnetic energy takes the minimum when the Kerr black hole possesses a nonzero net charge $Q=2\ensuremath{\xi}{B}_{0}{J}_{H}$ where ${B}_{0}$ is the strength of the magnetic field, ${J}_{H}$ is the angular momentum of the black hole, and $\ensuremath{\xi}$ is a dimensionless parameter determined by the spin of the black hole. However, the Wald state with ${Q=2B}_{0}{J}_{H}$ does not minimize the electromagnetic energy.
10326293
New light on time machines: Against the chronology protection conjecture.
I construct a spacetime with closed timelike curves and without closed causal geodesics. There is a noncompactly generated Cauchy horizon separating the region with closed timelike curves from that without closed causal curves. This spacetime might be stable against the vacuum fluctuation of matter fields. Whether such a spacetime is stable against the vacuum fluctuation of a gravitational field is an open question.
11909154
The X‐ray transient 080109 in NGC 2770: an X‐ray flash associated with a normal core‐collapse supernova
Although it is generally thought that long-duration gamma-ray bursts (LGRBs) are associated with core-collapse supernovae (SNe), so far only four pairs of GRBs and SNe with firmly established connection have been found. All the four GRB-SNe belong to special class of Type Ic – called the broad-lined SNe indicative of a large explosion energy, suggesting that only a small fraction of SNe Ibc have GRBs associated with them. This scheme has been refreshed by the discovery of a bright X-ray transient in NGC 2770 on 2008 January 9, which was followed by a rather normal Type Ib SN 2008D. In this paper, I argue that the transient 080109 is an X-ray flash (XRF, the soft version of a GRB) because of the following evidence. (1) The transient cannot be interpreted as a SN shock breakout event. (2) The GRB X-ray flare interpretation is not supported by the high-energy observation. I then show that XRF 080109 satisfies the well-known relation between the isotropic-equivalent energy and the peak spectral energy for LGRBs, which highly strengthens the XRF interpretation. Finally, I point out that the peak spectral energy of XRF 080109 and the maximum bolometric luminosity of SN 2008D agree with the E γ, peak–LSN,max relationship of Li, strengthening the validity of the relationship. I speculate that events like XRF 080109 may occur at a rate comparable to SNe Ibc, and a soft X-ray telescope devoted to surveying for nearby X-ray flares will be very fruitful in discovering them.
118518653
Constraining fast radio burst progenitors with gravitational lensing
Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) are new transient radio sources discovered recently. Because of the angular resolution restriction in radio surveys, no optical counter part has been identified yet so it is hard to determine the progenitor of FRBs. In this paper we propose to use radio lensing survey to constrain FRB progenitors. We show that, different types of progenitors lead to different probabilities for a FRB to be gravitationally lensed by dark matter halos in foreground galaxies, since different type progenitors result in different redshift distributions of FRBs. For example, the redshift distribution of FRBs arising from double stars shifts toward lower redshift than of the FRBs arising from single stars, because double stars and single stars have different evolution timescales. With detailed calculations, we predict that the FRB sample size for producing one lensing event varies significantly for different FRB progenitor models. We argue that this fact can be used to distinguish different FRB models and also discuss the practical possibility of using lensing observation in radio surveys to constrain FRB progenitors.
39373169
Can the universe create itself
The question of first-cause has troubled philosophers and cosmologists alike. Now that it is apparent that our universe began in a Big Bang explosion, the question of what happened before the Big Bang arises. Inflation seems like a very promising answer, but as Borde and Vilenkin have shown, the inflationary state preceding the Big Bang must have had a beginning also. Ultimately, the difficult question seems to be how to make something out of nothing. This paper explores the idea that this is the wrong question --- that that is not how the Universe got here. Instead, we explore the idea of whether there is anything in the laws of physics that would prevent the Universe from creating itself. Because spacetimes can be curved and multiply connected, general relativity allows for the possibility of closed timelike curves (CTCs). Thus, tracing backwards in time through the original inflationary state we may eventually encounter a region of CTCs giving no first-cause. This region of CTCs, may well be over by now (being bounded toward the future by a Cauchy horizon). We illustrate that such models --- with CTCs --- are not necessarily inconsistent by demonstrating self-consistent vacuums for Misner space and a multiply connected de Sitter space in which the renormalized energy-momentum tensor does not diverge as one approaches the Cauchy horizon and solves Einstein's equations. We show such a Universe can be classically stable and self-consistent if and only if the potentials are retarded, giving a natural explanation of the arrow of time. Some specific scenarios (out of many possible ones) for this type of model are described. For example: an inflationary universe gives rise to baby universes, one of which turns out to be itself. Interestingly, the laws of physics may allow the Universe to be its own mother.
18117055
Threshold pion photoproduction of nucleons in the chiral quark model.
In this paper, we show that the low energy theorem (LET) of threshold pion photoproduction can be fully recovered in the quark model. An essential result of this investigation is that the quark-pion operators are obtained from the effective chiral Lagrangian, and the low energy theorem does not require constraints on the internal structures of the nucleon. Changing from pseudovector to pseudoscalar quark-pion couplings generates an additional term at order [mu]=[ital m][sub [pi]]/[ital M] only in the isospin amplitude [ital A][sup ([minus])]. The role of the transitions between the nucleon and the resonance [ital P][sub 33](1232) or [ital P]-wave baryons is also discussed; we find that the leading contributions to the isospin amplitudes at [ital O]([mu][sup 2]) are from the transition between the [ital P]-wave baryons and the nucleon, and from the charge radius of the nucleon. The leading contribution from the [ital P]-wave baryons only affects neutral pion production, and improves the agreement with data significantly. The transition between the resonance [ital P][sub 33](1232) and the nucleon only gives an order [mu][sup 3] correction to [ital A][sup ([minus])].
45165928
Self-consistent solutions for vacuum currents around a magnetic flux string.
We consider the feedback effects of the vacuum currents induced by a magnetic flux string in 2+1 dimensions. Self-consistent induced charge and current densities that satisfy both the Dirac and Maxwell equations are given for the dimensionless coupling constant [ital g]==[ital e][sup 2]/[ital m][r arrow]0 and [ital g][r arrow][infinity]. These quantities for arbitrary [ital g] are inferred from the results of the two limiting cases, and also studied numerically.
12610818
eta photoproduction of nucleons and the structure of the resonance S11(1535) in the quark model.
In this paper, we present our study on {eta} photoproduction based on the chiral quark model. We find that the quark model provides a very good description of {eta} production with far fewer parameters, and the threshold region is not a reliable source to determine the {eta}{ital NN} coupling constant due to its strong dependence on the properties of the resonance {ital S}{sub 11}(1535). We suggest that the systematic data in {ital E}{sub lab}=1.2--1.4 GeV region may help us to determine the {eta}{ital NN} coupling constant more precisely. The structure of the resonance {ital S}{sub 11}(1535) is discussed; we find that the recent data from Mainz group bring the helicity amplitude much closer to the quark model prediction. However, more studies need to be done to understand the large {eta}{ital N} branching ratio of the resonance {ital S}{sub 11}(1535). Our results show that the quark model is a very good approach to studying the underlying structure of baryon resonances from the meson photoproduction data.
17940028
Perturbative QCD analysis of B meson decays.
The resummation of large QCD radiative corrections, including leading and next-to-leading logarithms, in the pion electromagnetic form factor is reviewed. A similar formalism is applied to exclusive processes involving heavy mesons, and leads to Sudakov suppression for the semileptonic decay {ital B}{r_arrow}{pi}{ital l}{nu}. It is found that, with the inclusion of Sudakov effects, a perturbative QCD analysis of this decay is reliable for the energy fraction of the pion above 0.4. Combining predictions from soft pion theorems we estimate that the upper limit of the matrix element {parallel}{ital V}{sub {ital ub}}{parallel} is 2.8{endash}4.8{times}10{sup {minus}3} from different models of the {ital B} meson wave function. {copyright} {ital 1996 The American Physical Society.}
1739845
Do we have three S11 resonances in the second resonance region?
We review the status of the S11 N ∗ resonances in light of some recent theoretical and phenomenological results. Whereas the quark model predicts two such resonances around 1.6 GeV, there is considerable evidence for a third S11 resonance in this energy range. This suggests that a KΣ or KΛ quasi-bound state may indeed exist below the kaon production threshold. We show that kaon production experiments, in particular K0 photoproduction off nucleons, would be very sensitive to the existence of the third S11 resonance. PACS Numbers: 11.80.Et, 12.39.Fe, 13.60.Le, 13.75.Gx