Related papers: The Axial Anomaly and Large Pulsar Kicks
We study the spin-down of a neutron star atmosphere during the Type I X-ray burst in low mass X-ray binaries. Using polar cap acceleration models, we show that the resulting stellar ``wind'' torque on the burning shell due to the flowing…
Non-equilibrium dynamics of topological defects can be used as a fundamental propulsion mechanism in microscopic active matter. Here, we demonstrate swimming of topological defect-propelled colloidal particles in (passive) nematic fluids…
Several relatively bright, persistent X-ray sources display regular pulses, with periods in the range of 700-10000 s. These sources are identified with massive close binaries in which a neutron star accretes material onto its surface. The…
Enigmatic transitions between spin-up and spin-down have been observed in several X-ray pulsars accreting matter via an accretion disk. In these transitions, the torque changes sign but remains at nearly the same magnitude. It has been…
Tidal disruptions of stars on the equatorial plane orbiting Kerr black holes have been widely studied. However thus far, there have been fewer studies of stars in inclined precessing orbits around a Kerr black hole. In this paper, we use…
Vortons are of interest in high-energy physics as possible dark matter candidates and as probes of Grand Unified Theories. Using the recently derived weak-field metric for a chiral vorton, we study the dynamics of test particles by…
We argue that the enhancement in the spin polarization of anti-hyperons compared to the polarization of the hyperons in noncentral relativistic heavy-ion collisions arises as a result of an interplay between the chiral and helical vortical…
The birth properties of neutron stars yield important information on the still debated physical processes that trigger the explosion and on intrinsic neutron-star physics. These properties include the high space velocities of young neutron…
The centers of most known galaxies host supermassive black holes (SMBHs). In orbit around these black holes are a centrally-concentrated distribution of stars, both in single and in binary systems. Occasionally, these stars are perturbed…
Regularization of quantum field theories introduces a mass scale which breaks axial rotational and scaling invariances. We demonstrate from first principles that axial torsion and torsion trace modes have non-transverse vacuum polarization…
We investigate the motion of free relativistic particles relative to the ambient medium around a gravitationally collapsed system. If the relative speed exceeds a critical value given by c/sqrt(2), the gravitational tidal effects exhibit…
During a tidal disruption event, a star is torn apart by the tidal forces of a supermassive black hole, with about 50% of the star's mass eventually accreted by the black hole. The resulting flare can, in extreme cases of super-Eddington…
In addition to coherent pulsation, many accreting neutron stars exhibit flaring activity and strong aperiodic variability on time scales similar to or shorter than their pulsation period. Such a behavior shows that the accretion flow in the…
A strongly relativistic binary pulsar has been recently discovered with the 64m Parkes telescope (Burgay et al. 2003). Here we use the measured properties of this binary (masses and orbital characteristics as well as age estimates), and we…
Studies based on high-resolution spectroscopic data of rapidly oscillating Ap stars show a surprising diversity of pulsation behavior in the atmospheric layers, pointing, in particular, to the co-existence of running and standing waves. The…
A localized wave packet exhibits under certain conditions zitterbewegung. A similar phenomenon occurs for the chirality of a massive particle. In the case of massive neutrinos, since they are detected via the V-A weak charged currents, this…
In the present paper we demonstrate that there exists a new type of neutron stars in the tensor-multi-scalar theories of gravity. We call this new type of neutron stars topological neutron stars. In addition to the standard characteristics…
The internal rotational dynamics of massive stars are poorly understood. If angular momentum (AM) transport between the core and the envelope is inefficient, the large core AM upon core-collapse will produce rapidly rotating neutron stars…
The radio, optical, X-ray and gamma-ray nebulae that surround many pulsars are thought to arise from synchrotron and inverse Compton emission. The energy powering this emission, as well as the magnetic fields and relativistic particles, are…
Pulsar timing experiments are reaching sufficient sensitivity to detect a postulated stochastic gravitational wave background generated by merging supermassive black hole systems in the cores of galaxies. We describe the techniques behind…