Search results for " Astronomia"

Coronal Loops: Observations and Modeling of Confined Plasma

2010

Coronal loops are the building blocks of the X-ray bright solar corona. They owe their brightness to the dense confined plasma, and this review focuses on loops mostly as structures confining plasma. After a brief historical overview, the review is divided into two separate but not independent sections: the first illustrates the observational framework, the second reviews the theoretical knowledge. Quiescent loops and their confined plasma are considered, and therefore topics such as loop oscillations and flaring loops (except for non-solar ones which provide information on stellar loops) are not specifically addressed here. The observational section discusses loop classification and popula…

Laboratory disruption of scaled astrophysical outflows by a misaligned magnetic field

2021

The shaping of astrophysical outflows into bright, dense, and collimated jets due to magnetic pressure is here investigated using laboratory experiments. Here we look at the impact on jet collimation of a misalignment between the outflow, as it stems from the source, and the magnetic field. For small misalignments, a magnetic nozzle forms and redirects the outflow in a collimated jet. For growing misalignments, this nozzle becomes increasingly asymmetric, disrupting jet formation. Our results thus suggest outflow/magnetic field misalignment to be a plausible key process regulating jet collimation in a variety of objects from our Sun’s outflows to extragalatic jets. Furthermore, they provide…

A TEST of the NATURE of the FE K LINE in the NEUTRON STAR LOW-MASS X-RAY BINARY SERPENS X-1

2015

Broad Fe K emission lines have been widely observed in the X-ray spectra of black hole systems, and in neutron star systems as well. The intrinsically narrow Fe K fluorescent line is generally believed to be part of the reflection spectrum originating in an illuminated accretion disk, and broadened by strong relativistic effects. However, the nature of the lines in neutron star LMXBs has been under debate. We therefore obtained the longest, high-resolution X-ray spectrum of a neutron star LMXB to date with a 300 ks Chandra HETGS observation of Serpens X-1. The observation was taken under the "continuous clocking" mode and thus free of photon pile-up effects. We carry out a systematic analys…

Time Resolved X-Ray Spectral Analysis of Class II YSOs in NGC 2264 During Optical Dips and Bursts

2016

Pre-Main Sequence stars are variable sources. The main mechanisms responsible for their variability are variable extinction, unsteady accretion, and rotational modulation of both hot and dark photospheric spots and X-ray active regions. In stars with disks this variability is thus related to the morphology of the inner circumstellar region (<0.1 AU) and that of photosphere and corona, all impossible to be spatially resolved with present day techniques. This has been the main motivations of the Coordinated Synoptic Investigation of NGC2264, a set of simultaneous observations of NGC2264 with 15 different telescopes. We analyze the X-ray spectral properties of stars with disks extracted du…

Development of the UV/ion shields for the Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility high-resolution camera (AXAF HRC)

1994

The Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility (AXAF) is a major NASA space observatory (launch 1998). One of its two focal plane detectors is the High Resolution Camera (HRC) assembly consisting of two microchannel plate (MCP) based detectors. Key components of the two HRC detectors are UV/Ion shields consisting of metalized sub-micron plastic membranes, designed to prevent UV light and low energy charged particles from reaching the detectors' sensitive surfaces. We discuss the design issues and present results of recent measurements and tests. Soft X-ray/UV transmission measurements have been conducted at the Space Science Laboratory (SSL), University of California at Berkeley, and at the Osser…

Fine structure and dynamic heating from temporal and spatial analysis of a solar active region observed with Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO)

An outstanding issue in current solar and astrophysical research is that of the heating of the solar corona. How is the corona heated to temperatures of greater than 1 MK when the photosphere below is only 6000 K? One observational approach to addressing this important question is to focus on particular areas in the corona such as active regions (ARs). In a scenario that heating is impulsive and the cross-field spatial scale of the heating is so small, under the resolution of the current instruments, we attempted to narrow the question further to discrete bright magnetic flux tubes, the coronal loops, inside active regions. We investigate the emission variability, heating and substructure o…

The magnetosphere of the close accreting PMS binary V4046 Sgr AB

2013

We present a preliminary 3D potential field extrapolation model of the joint magnetosphere of the close accreting PMS binary V4046 Sgr. The model is derived from magnetic maps obtained as part of a coordinated optical and X-ray observing program.

Multi-wavelength observing of a forming solar-like star

2009

V2129 Oph is a 1.35 solar mass classical T Tauri star, known to possess a strong and complex magnetic field. By extrapolating from an observationally derived magnetic surface map, obtained through Zeeman-Doppler imaging, models of V2129 Oph's corona have been constructed, and used to make predictions regarding the global X-ray emission measure, the amount of modulation of X-ray emission, and the density of accretion shocks. In late June 2009 we will under take an ambitious multi-wavelength, multi-observing site, and near contemporaneous campaign, combining spectroscopic optical, nIR, UV, X-ray, spectropolarimetric and photometric monitoring. This will allow the validity of the 3D field topo…

Timing and Spectral properties of Low Mass X-ray Binary Systems hosting Neutron Stars

Orbital Evolution of an Accreting Millisecond Pulsar: Witnessing the Banquet of a Hidden Black Widow?

2007

We have performed a timing analysis of all the four X-ray outbursts from the accreting millisecond pulsar SAX J1808.4-3658 observed so far by the PCA on board RXTE. For each of the outbursts we derived the best-fit value of the time of ascending node passage. We find that these times follow a parabolic trend, which gives an orbital period derivative $\dot P_{\rm orb} = (3.40 \pm 0.18) \times 10^{-12}$ s/s, and a refined estimate of the orbital period, $P_{\rm orb} = 7249.156499 \pm 1.8 \times 10^{-5}$ s (reference epoch $T_0 = 50914.8099$ MJD). This derivative is positive, suggesting a degenerate or fully convective companion star, but is more than one order of magnitude higher than what is…