No Arabic abstract
Wave dispersion in a pulsar plasma is discussed emphasizing the relevance of different inertial frames, notably the plasma rest frame ${cal K}$ and the pulsar frame ${cal K}$ in which the plasma is streaming with speed $beta_{rm s}$. The effect of a Lorentz transformation on both subluminal, $|z|<1$, and superluminal, $|z|>1$, waves is discussed. It is argued that the preferred choice for a relativistically streaming distribution should be a Lorentz-transformed Juttner distribution; such a distribution is compared with other choices including a relativistically streaming Gaussian distribution. A Lorentz transformation of the dielectric tensor is written down, and used to derive an explicit relation between the relativistic plasma dispersion functions in ${cal K}$ and ${cal K}$. It is shown that the dispersion equation can be written in an invariant form, implying a one-to-one correspondence between wave modes in any two inertial frames. Although there are only three modes in the plasma rest frame, it is possible for backward-propagating or negative-frequency solutions in ${cal K}$ to transform into additional forward-propagating, positive-frequency solutions in ${cal K}$ that may be regarded as additional modes.
The dielectric function for electron gas with parabolic energy bands is derived in a fractional dimensional space. The static response function shows a good dimensional dependance. The plasma frequencies are obtained from the roots of the dielectric functions. The plasma dispersion shows strong dimensional dependence. It is found that the plasma frequencies in the low dimensional systems are strongly dependent on the wave vector. It is weakly dependent in the three dimensional system and has a finite value at zero wave vector.
Particle dynamics are investigated in plasma turbulence, using self-consistent kinetic simulations, in two dimensions. In steady state, the trajectories of single protons and proton-pairs are studied, at different values of plasma beta (ratio between kinetic and magnetic pressure). For single-particle displacements, results are consistent with fluids and magnetic field line dynamics, where particles undergo normal diffusion for very long times, with higher beta being more diffusive. In an intermediate time range, with separations lying in the inertial range, particles experience an explosive dispersion in time, consistent with the Richardson prediction. These results, obtained for the first time with a self-consistent kinetic model, are relevant for astrophysical and laboratory plasmas, where turbulence is crucial for heating, mixing and acceleration processes.
Recent years have seen a burgeoning interest in using pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) as gravitational-wave (GW) detectors. To date, that interest has focused mainly on three particularly promising source types: supermassive--black-hole binaries, cosmic strings, and the stochastic background from early-Universe phase transitions. In this paper, by contrast, our aim is to investigate the PTA potential for discovering unanticipated sources. We derive significant constraints on the available discovery space based solely on energetic and statistical considerations: we show that a PTA detection of GWs at frequencies above ~3.e-5 Hz would either be an extraordinary coincidence or violate cherished beliefs; we show that for PTAs GW memory can be more detectable than direct GWs, and that, as we consider events at ever higher redshift, the memory effect increasingly dominates an events total signal-to-noise ratio. The paper includes also a simple analysis of the effects of pulsar red noise in PTA searches, and a demonstration that the effects of periodic GWs in the 10^-8 -- 10^-4.5 Hz band would not be degenerate with small errors in standard pulsar parameters (except in a few narrow bands).
Pulsar timing is a technique that uses the highly stable spin periods of neutron stars to investigate a wide range of topics in physics and astrophysics. Pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) use sets of extremely well-timed pulsars as a Galaxy-scale detector with arms extending between Earth and each pulsar in the array. These challenging experiments look for correlated deviations in the pulsars timing that are caused by low-frequency gravitational waves (GWs) traversing our Galaxy. PTAs are particularly sensitive to GWs at nanohertz frequencies, which makes them complementary to other space- and ground-based detectors. In this chapter, we will describe the methodology behind pulsar timing; provide an overview of the potential uses of PTAs; and summarise where current PTA-based detection efforts stand. Most predictions expect PTAs to successfully detect a cosmological background of GWs emitted by supermassive black-hole binaries and also potentially detect continuous-wave emission from binary supermassive black holes, within the next several years.
We investigate the extent to which resonances between an oscillating background of ultra-light axion and a binary Keplerian system can affect the motion of the latter. These resonances lead to perturbations in the instantaneous time-of-arrivals, and to secular variations in the period of the binary. While the secular changes at exact resonance have recently been explored, the instantaneous effects have been overlooked. In this paper, we examine the latter using N-body simulations including the external oscillatory forcing induced by the axion background. While the secular effects are restricted to a narrow width near the resonance, the instantaneous changes, albeit strongest close to resonances, are apparent for wide range of configurations. We compute the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) as a function of semi-major axis for a detection of axion oscillations through the R{o} mer delay. The latter can be extracted from the time-of-arrivals of binary pulsars. The SNR broadly increases with increasing binary eccentricity in agreement with the secular expectation. However, we find that it differs significantly from the scaling a^{5/2} around the lowest orders of resonance. Future observations could probe these effects away from resonances and, therefore, constrain a much broader range of axion masses provided that binary pulsar systems are found near the central region of our Galaxy, and that the time-or-arrival measurement accuracy reaches < 10 ns