Narrow Results

High energy transients make up a diverse and exotic class of objects, from terrestrial lightning to γ-ray bursts at cosmological distances. In this review, we provide a detailed look at some of the more exciting transients observed over the last few years by Swift and other high energy missions.

We present cluster counts and cosmological constraints corresponding to the full Planck mission data set. Our catalogue consists of 439 clusters detected through their Sunyaev-Zel’dovich (SZ) effect and selected with a signal-to-noise cut of 6. Under some modeling assumptions that will be described, we constrain cosmological parameters with a two-dimensional likelihood from the distribution of counts in redshift and signal-to-noise. Cluster model relies on the mass measurement, represented by a mass bias parameter 1 − b. We use priors on 1 − b with mass estimates obtained from gravitational lensing of background galaxies by Planck clusters, and by CMB temperature lensing. We find varying degrees of tension on the present-day amplitude of matter fluctuations with respect to Planck analysis of CMB temperature fluctuations. We also combine CMB and SZ likelihoods to examine constraints on extensions to the base flat ∧CDM model.

We report on the results of two successful, simultaneous observations of Sagittarius A* at the center of the Milky Way. The observations were carried out in 2004 and 2008 using telescopes operating from the mm-radio domain to the X-ray domain, and detected strong flux density variations in all wavelength bands. Modeling suggests that a combination of a synchrotron self Compton process and an adiabatic expansion of source components are at work. The luminous flare emission of Sagittarius A* also supports the presence of an accreting super massive black hole at that position. We also discuss the potential of NIR interferometry for further detailed investigations of the accretion process in SgrA*.

Pulsars are very stable clocks in space which have many applications to problems in physics and astrophysics. Observations of double-neutron-star binary systems have given the first observational evidence for the existence of gravitational waves (GWs) and shown that Einstein’s general theory of relativity is an accurate description of gravitational interactions in the regime of strong gravity. Observations of a large sample of pulsars spread across the celestial sphere forming a “Pulsar Timing Array” (PTA), can in principle enable a positive detection of the GW background in the Galaxy. The Parkes Pulsar Timing Array (PPTA) is making precise timing measurements of 20 millisecond pulsars at three radio frequencies and is approaching the level of timing precision and data spans which are needed for GW detection. These observations will also allow us to establish a “Pulsar Timescale” and to detect or limit errors in the Solar System ephemerides used in pulsar timing analyses. Combination of PPTA data with that of other groups to form an International Pulsar Timing Array (IPTA) will enhance the sensitivity to GWs and facilitate reaching other PTA goals. The principal source of GWs at the nanoHertz frequencies to which PTAs are sensitive is believed to be super-massive binary black holes in the cores of distant galaxies. Current results do not signficantly limit models for formation of such black-hole binary systems, but in a few years we expect that PTAs will either detect GWs or seriously constrain current ideas about black-hole formation and galaxy mergers. Future instruments such as the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) should not only detect GWs from astrophysical sources but also enable detailed studies of the sources and the gravitational theories used to account for the GW emission.

The dark matter paradigm and cold dark matter (CDM) cosmology are widely accepted theories on which much of our understanding of the properties and evolution of the Universe is based. Yet these paradigms face a number of serious problems. A heuristic alternative to dark matter is the theory of modified Newtonian dynamics (MOND) and its relativistic formulation TeVeS. It has been shown that MOND fits the rotation curves of galaxies remarkably well, so additional tests are desirable in order to understand if the dynamics of the Universe on large scales is dominated by dark matter or MOND/TeVeS. Here, we report first results from a new test of MOND by measuring internal velocity dispersions and stellar mass functions of globular clusters in the outer halo of the Milky Way.

The Chandrasekhar limit is of key importance for the evolution of white dwarfs in binary systems and for the formation of neutron stars and black holes in binaries. Mass transfer can drive a white dwarf in a binary over the Chandrasekhar limit, which may lead to a Type Ia supernova (in case of a CO white dwarf) or an Accretion-Induced Collapse (AIC, in the case of an O-Ne-Mg white dwarf; and possibly also in some CO white dwarfs) which produces a neutron star. The direct formation of neutron stars or black holes out of degenerate stellar cores that exceed the Chandrasekhar limit, occurs in binaries with components that started out with masses ≥ 8 M_⊙.

This paper first discusses possible models for Type Ia supernovae, and then focusses on the formation of neutron stars in binary systems, by direct core collapse and by the AIC of O-Ne-Mg white dwarfs in binaries. Observational evidence is reviewed for the existence of two different direct neutron-star formation mechanisms in binaries: (i) by electron-capture collapse of the degenerate O-Ne-Mg core in stars with initial masses in the range of 8 to about 12 M_⊙, and (ii) by iron-core collapse in stars with inital masses above this range. Observations of neutron stars in binaries are consistent with a picture in which neutron stars produced by e-capture collapse have relatively low masses, ˜1.25M_⊙, and received hardly any velocity kick at birth, whereas neutron stars produced by iron-core collapses are more massive and received large velocity kicks at birth. Many of the globular cluster neutron stars and also some of the neutron stars in low-mass binaries in the Galactic disk are likely to have been produced by AIC of O-Ne-Mg white dwarfs in binaries. AIC is expected to produce normal strongly magnetized neutron stars, which in binaries can evolve into millisecond pulsars through the usual recycling scenario.

The discovery of dynamical friction was Chandrasekhar’s best known contribution to the theory of stellar dynamics, but his work ranged from the fewbody problem to the limit of large N (in effect, galaxies). Much of this work was summarised in the text “Principles of Stellar Dynamics“ (Chandrasekhar 1942, 1960), which ranges from a precise calculation of the time of relaxation, through a long analysis of galaxy models, to the behaviour of star clusters in tidal fields. The later edition also includes the work on dynamical friction and related issues. In this review we focus on progress in the collisional aspects of these problems, i.e. those where few-body interactions play a dominant role, and so we omit further discussion of galaxy dynamics. But we try to link Chandrasekhar’s fundamental discoveries in collisional problems with the progress that has been made in the 50 years since the publication of the enlarged edition.

I outline methods for calculating the solution of Monte Carlo Radiative Transfer (MCRT) in scattering, absorption and emission processes of dust and gas, including polarization. I provide a bibliography of relevant papers on methods with astrophysical applications.

Strongly Lensed systems, and in particular gravitational arcs, are useful tools for a variety of astrophysical applications. Finding arcs in wide-field surveys such as the Dark Energy Survey (DES) requires automated algorithms to select arc candidates due to the large amount of data. In this contribution we present a new arcfinding method that uses the Mediatrix filamentation method coupled to a neural network to select arc candidates. We carry out a systematic comparison between this method and three other arcfinders available in the literature — Lenzen et al. (2004), Horesh et al. (2005), and More et al. (2012) — on a sample of arc simulated with the PaintArcs method.

Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), which have been observed up to redshifts z ≈ 9.5 can be good probes of the early universe and have the potential of testing cosmological models. The analysis by Dainotti of GRB Swift afterglow lightcurves with known redshifts and definite X-ray plateau shows an anti-correlation between the rest frame time when the plateau ends (the plateau end time) and the calculated luminosity at that time (or approximately an anti-correlation between plateau duration and luminosity). We present here an update of this correlation with a larger data sample of 101 GRBs with good lightcurves. Since some of this correlation could result from the redshift dependences of these intrinsic parameters, namely their cosmological evolution we use the Efron-Petrosian method to reveal the intrinsic nature of this correlation. We find that a substantial part of the correlation is intrinsic and describe how we recover it and how this can be used to constrain physical models of the plateau emission, whose origin is still unknown. The present result could help clarifing the debated issue about the nature of the plateau emission. This result is very important also for cosmological implications, because in literature so far GRB correlations are not corrected for redshift evolution and selection biases. Therefore we are not aware of their intrinsic slopes and consequently how far the use of the observed correlations can influence the derived ‘best’ cosmological settings. Therefore, we conclude that any approach that involves cosmology should take into consideration only intrinsic correlations not the observed ones.

As suggested by optical observations, the globular cluster NGC 6388 may harbor a central intermediate-mass black hole with mass of about 5.7 × 10³ M_⊙. We review the past X-ray and radio observations conducted towards NGC 6388 with particular attention to IGRJ17361-4441, i.e. a high energy transient recently discovered by using the INTEGRAL satellite. The transient was located at the globular cluster center thus leaving the intriguing possibility that it may be associated to the central black hole activity.

There are two new observational facts: the mass spectrum of neutron stars and black hole candidates (or collapsars) shows an evident absence of compact objects with masses within the interval from 2 M⊙ (with a peak for neutron stars about 1.4 M⊙) to about 6 M⊙, and in close binary stellar systems with a low-massive (about 0.6 M⊙) optical companion the most probable mass value (the peak in the masses distribution of black hole candidates) is close to 7 M⊙. The problem of the compact objects discrete mass spectra demands some solution both in the context of the supernovae and gamma-ray bursts relation, and in connection with the core-collapse supernovae explosion mechanism itself. In the totally non-metric scalar-tensor model of gravitational interaction (in a modified or extended Feynman field approach to gravitation) the total mass of a compact relativistic object with extremely strong gravitational field (an analog of black holes in General Relativity) is approximately equal to 6.7 M⊙ with radius of a region filled with a matter (quark-gluon plasma) ≈ 10 km. Polarized emission of long gamma-ray bursts, a black-body component in their spectrum and other observed properties could be explained by the direct manifestation of a surface of these collapsars.