Related papers: Bounding the Photon Mass with Solar Probes
I review attempts made to determine the properties of neutron stars. The focus is on the maximum mass that a neutron star can have, or, conversely, the minimum mass required for the formation of a black hole. There appears to be only one…
General relativity predicts that black hole images ought to display a bright, thin (and as-of-yet-unresolved) ring. This "photon ring" is produced by photons that explore the strong gravity of the black hole, flowing along trajectories that…
The discovery of neutrino oscillations has shown that neutrinos, in contradiction to a prediction of the minimal standard model, have mass. Oscillations do not yield a value for the mass, but do set a lower limit of 0.02 eV on the average…
ESPI has been proposed for direct imaging and spectral analysis of giant planets orbiting solar-type stars. ESPI extends the concept suggested by Nisenson and Papaliolios (2001) for a square aperture apodized telescope that has sufficient…
Searching the literature, we found 25 stars with directly imaged planets and candidates. We gathered photometric and spectral information for all these objects to derive their luminosities in a homogeneous way, taking a bolometric…
Parker Solar Probe (PSP), NASA's latest and closest mission to the Sun, is on a journey to investigate fundamental enigmas of the inner heliosphere. This paper reports initial observations made by the Solar Probe Analyzer for Ions (SPAN-I),…
We predict from a survey of equations of state and observations of X-ray pulsations from SAX J1808.4-3658, that the upper limit of the mass of the compact star is 2.27 solar mass. The corresponding upper limit of the radius comes out to be…
All extra-solar planet masses that have been derived spectroscopically are lower limits since the inclination of the orbit to our line-of-sight is unknown except for transiting systems. It is, however, possible to determine the inclination…
We explore new opportunities for solar physics that could be realized by future missions providing sustained observations from vantage points away from the Sun-Earth line. These include observations from the far side of the Sun, at high…
For the magnetic field in order of the Schwinger critical value or much larger it, the effective mass of a real photon with a preset polarization is investigated in the energy region including two lower creation thresholds of electron and…
Convection in the solar interior is thought to comprise structures on a spectrum of scales. This conclusion emerges from phenomenological studies and numerical simulations, though neither covers the proper range of dynamical parameters of…
We have searched for solar axions or similar particles that couple to two photons by using the CERN Axion Solar Telescope (CAST) setup with improved conditions in all detectors. From the absence of excess X-rays when the magnet was pointing…
Many physically motivated extensions to general relativity (GR) predict significant deviations in the properties of spacetime surrounding massive neutron stars. We report the measurement of a 2.01 +/- 0.04 solar mass pulsar in a 2.46-hr…
The Parker Solar Probe (PSP) primary mission extends seven years and consists of 24 orbits of the Sun with descending perihelia culminating in a closest approach of ($\sim 9.8~R_\odot$). In the course of these orbits PSP will pass through…
The multi-wavelength study of old (>100 Myr) radio pulsars holds the key to understanding the long-term evolution of neutron stars, including the advanced stages of neutron star cooling and the evolution of the magnetosphere. Optical/UV…
Photons preferentially Compton scatter perpendicular to the plane of polarisation. This property can be exploited to design instruments to measure the linear polarisation of hard X-rays ($\sim$10 - 100 keV). Photons may undergo two…
We report on nine years of timing observations of PSR J2019+2425, a millisecond pulsar in a wide 76.5 day orbit with a white dwarf. We measure a significant change over time of the projected semi-major axis of the orbit,…
The closest perihelion pass of Parker Solar Probe (PSP), so far, occurred between 16 and 26 of November 2021 and reached ~13.29 Rsun from Sun center. This pass resulted in very unique observations of the solar corona by the Wide-field…
We demonstrate the calculation of solar wind electron bulk parameters from recent observations by Solar Wind Analyser Electron Analyser System on board Solar Orbiter. We use our methods to derive the electron bulk parameters in a time…
With high spatial resolution, polarimetric imaging of a supermassive black hole, like M87$^\star$ or Sgr A$^\star$, by the Event Horizon Telescope can be used to probe the existence of ultralight bosonic particles, such as axions. Such…