Related papers: Thermal metastabilities in the solar core
Modern studies of the early solar system routinely invoke the possibility of an orbital instability among the giant planets triggered by gravitational interactions between the planets and a massive exterior disk of planetesimals. Previous…
Disks of bodies orbiting a much more massive central object are extremely common in astrophysics. When the orbits comprising such disks are eccentric, we show they are susceptible to a new dynamical instability. Gravitational forces between…
Clusters of galaxies are embedded in halos of optically thin, gravitationally stratified, weakly magnetized plasma at the system's virial temperature. Due to radiative cooling and anisotropic heat conduction, such intracluster medium (ICM)…
Star clusters in isothermal spheres are studied from a thermodynamic point of view. New density profiles are presented, that describe the collapsed phase at low temperatures. At the transition a set of binaries is formed that carries 13 %…
The atmospheres of hot Jupiters and other strongly-forced exoplanets are susceptible to a thermal instability in the presence of ohmic dissipation, weak magnetic drag and strong winds. The instability occurs in radiatively-dominated…
Black Saturns have multiple horizons and so offer a testing ground for the ideas of black hole thermodynamics. In this note, we numerically scan for phases that are in equilibrium by extremizing total entropy in the 2-dimensional moduli…
Solar flares are energetic events taking place in the Sun's atmosphere, and their effects can greatly impact the environment of the surrounding planets. In particular, eruptive flares, as opposed to confined flares, launch coronal mass…
We test the hypothesis that the starless cores may be gravitationally bound clouds supported largely by thermal pressure by comparing observed molecular line spectra to theoretical spectra produced by a simulation that includes…
The onset of convection in a rapidly rotating layer in which a thermal wind is present is studied. Diffusive effects are included. The main motivation is from convection in planetary interiors, where thermal winds are expected due to…
Turbulence, magnetic reconnection, and shocks can be present in explosively unstable plasmas, forming a new electromagnetic environment, which we call here turbulent reconnection, and where spontaneous formation of current sheets takes…
The properties of star cluster winds in the supercritical, catastrophic cooling regime are discussed. We demonstrate that strong radiative cooling may inhibit superwinds and, after a rapid phase of accumulation of the ejected material…
About half of all known stellar systems with Sun-like stars consist of two or more stars, significantly affecting the orbital stability of any planet in these systems. This observational evidence has prompted a large array of theoretical…
Instabilities and strong dynamical interactions between several giant planets have been proposed as a possible explanation for the surprising orbital properties of extrasolar planetary systems. In particular, dynamical instabilities would…
The X-ray emission from the Sun reveals a very dynamic hot atmosphere, the corona, which is characterized by a complex morphology and broad range of timescales of variability and spatial structuring. The solar magnetic fields play a…
The richness and very high accuracy of the observed frequencies of solar oscillations provide tight constraints on the structure of the solar interior and hence on the assumptions underlying the calculation of solar models. This permits the…
We initiate a systematic study of the state space of non-extremal, stationary black hole bound states in four-dimensional N = 2 supergravity. Specifically, we show that an exponential multitude of classically stable "halo" bound states can…
Intermittent magnetohydrodynamical turbulence is most likely at work in the magnetized solar atmosphere. As a result, an array of scaling and multi-scaling image-processing techniques can be used to measure the expected self-organization of…
We investigate the uncertainties affecting the temperature profiles of dense cores of interstellar clouds. In regions shielded from external ultraviolet radiation, the problem is reduced to the balance between cosmic ray heating, line…
Since the first discovery of an extrasolar planetary system more than a decade ago, hundreds more have been discovered. Surprisingly, many of these systems harbor Jupiter-class gas giants located close to the central star, at distances of…
We discuss the stability of galactic disks in which the energy of interstellar clouds is gained in encounters with expanding supernova remnants and lost in inelastic collisions. Energy gain and loss processes introduce a phase difference…