Search

We construct an approximate metric that represents the spacetime of spinning binary black holes (BBH) approaching merger. We build the metric as an analytical superposition of two Kerr metrics in harmonic coordinates, where we transform each black hole term with time-dependent boosts describing an inspiral trajectory. The velocities and trajectories of the boost are obtained by solving the post-Newtonian (PN) equations of motion at 3.5 PN order. We analyze the spacetime scalars of the new metric and we show that it is an accurate approximation of Einstein's field equations in vacuum for a BBH system in the inspiral regime. Furthermore, to prove the effectiveness of our approach, we test the metric in the context of a 3D general relativistic magneto-hydrodynamical (GRMHD) simulation of accreting mini-disks around the black holes. We compare our results with a previous well-tested spacetime construction based on the asymptotic matching method. We conclude that our new spacetime is well-suited for long-term GRMHD simulations of spinning binary black holes on their way to the merger., Comment: Accepted for publication in Physical Review D

We give the strong asymptotic of Cauchy biorthogonal polynomials under the assumption that the defining measures are supported on non intersecting intervals of the real line and satisfy Szeg\H{o}'s condition. The biorthogonal polynomials are connected with certain mixed type Hermite-Pad\'e polynomials, which verify full orthogonality relations with respect to some varying measures. Thus, the strong asymptotic of orthogonal polynomials with respect to varying measures plays a key role in the study., Comment: 31 pages

Supermassive black hole binaries are likely to accrete interstellar gas through a circumbinary disk. Shortly before merger, the inner portions of this circumbinary disk are subject to general relativistic effects. To study this regime, we approximate the spacetime metric of close orbiting black holes by superimposing two boosted Kerr-Schild terms. After demonstrating the quality of this approximation, we carry out very long-term general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic simulations of the circumbinary disk. We consider black holes with spin dimensionless parameters of magnitude 0.9, in one simulation parallel to the orbital angular momentum of the binary, but in another anti-parallel. These are contrasted with spinless simulations. We find that, for a fixed surface mass density in the inner circumbinary disk, aligned spins of this magnitude approximately reduce the mass accretion rate by 14% and counter-aligned spins increase it by 45%, leaving many other disk properties unchanged., Comment: 23 pages, 15 figures, Submitted to ApJ

The anomalies recently reported in lepton pair transitions of $^8$Be$^*$ and $^4$He nuclei may be attributed to the existence of a feebly interacting light vector boson $X17$. We study the effects of this hypothetical particle in the semileptonic $H^* \to H e^+e^-$ decays ($H$ a $Q\bar{q}$ meson) in the framework of the HQET+VMD model. Using current bounds and the universality assumption of the $X17$ boson to quarks, we find that decays of $D^{*+}$ and $D_s^{*+}$ mesons can be importantly enhanced relative to the dominant photon-mediated contributions. Dedicated experimental searches at current heavy meson factories may confirm the existence of this light boson or set stronger bounds of their couplings to ordinary matter., Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures. V3: We have extended the manuscript by several clarifications, the discussion and interpretations of our results have been improved. References added. Matches with version accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. D

We study the $\tau^- \to \nu_{\tau} \pi^{-}\pi^{0}\ell^{+}\ell^{-}$ ($\ell=e,\,\mu$) decays, which are $O(\alpha^2)$-suppressed with respect to the dominant di-pion tau decay channel. Both the inner-bremsstrahlung and the structure- (and model-)dependent contributions are considered. In the $\ell=e$ case, structure-dependent effects are $\mathcal{O}(1\%)$ in the decay rate, yielding a clean prediction of its branching ratio, $2.3\times10^{-5}$, measurable with BaBar or Belle(-II) data. For $\ell=\mu$, both contributions have similar magnitude and we get a branching fraction of $(1.6\pm0.3)\times10^{-7}$, reachable by the end of Belle-II operation. These decays allow to study the dynamics of strong interactions with simultaneous weak and electromagnetic probes; their knowledge will contribute to reducing backgrounds in lepton flavor/number violating searches.

Where are the Earth's streams flowing right now? Inland surface waters expand with floods and contract with droughts, so there is no one map of our streams. Current satellite approaches are limited to monthly observations that map only the widest streams. These are fed by smaller tributaries that make up much of the dendritic surface network but whose flow is unobserved. A complete map of our daily waters can give us an early warning for where droughts are born: the receding tips of the flowing network. Mapping them over years can give us a map of impermanence of our waters, showing where to expect water, and where not to. To that end, we feed the latest high-res sensor data to multiple deep learning models in order to map these flowing networks every day, stacking the times series maps over many years. Specifically, i) we enhance water segmentation to $50$ cm/pixel resolution, a 60$\times$ improvement over previous state-of-the-art results. Our U-Net trained on 30-40cm WorldView3 images can detect streams as narrow as 1-3m (30-60$\times$ over SOTA). Our multi-sensor, multi-res variant, WasserNetz, fuses a multi-day window of 3m PlanetScope imagery with 1m LiDAR data, to detect streams 5-7m wide. Both U-Nets produce a water probability map at the pixel-level. ii) We integrate this water map over a DEM-derived synthetic valley network map to produce a snapshot of flow at the stream level. iii) We apply this pipeline, which we call Pix2Streams, to a 2-year daily PlanetScope time-series of three watersheds in the US to produce the first high-fidelity dynamic map of stream flow frequency. The end result is a new map that, if applied at the national scale, could fundamentally improve how we manage our water resources around the world., Comment: Work completed during the 2020 Frontier Development Lab research accelerator, a private-public partnership with NASA in the US, and ESA in Europe. Accepted as a spotlight/long oral talk at AI for Earth Sciences Workshop at NeurIPS 2020

Mars 2020 Perseverance rover is currently exploring Jezero crater, which contains an ancient lake-delta system with a high potential for past habitability. One of Perseverance’s primary science goals is to collect a set of scientifically return-worthy samples for return to Earth (Mars Sample Return; MSR). Between February 2021 and December 2023, Perseverance has sealed 23 tubes containing 20 rock cores, 2 regolith samples and one atmosphere sample. All rock and regolith samples are accompanied by a set of observations (Sample Threshold Observation Protocol, the STOP List) performed on abrasion patches or regolith near each sample collection site. These observations are documented in the Initial Reports and the Sample Dossier (https://pds-geosciences.wustl.edu/missions/mars2020/returned_sample_science.htm). Here we provide an overview of the samples collected during the Margin campaign. The Margin unit is situated interior and adjacent to the western crater rim and exhibits a strong carbonate signal from orbital reflectance spectroscopy. Stratigraphically the unit lies beneath the previously explored curvilinear and blocky units of the fan top and is therefore older than those units. Based on its position near the crater rim and the strong carbonate detections it has been proposed to be a shoreline deposit with possible lacustrine carbonates. Alternative hypotheses include pyroclastic, fluviolacustrine and aeolian deposits. Based on rover observations a lacustrine shoreline deposit seems most likely. The planning of the Margin campaign took place during the summer of 2023, and 3-5 samples were baselined to be collected. Exploration of the Margin unit began in September 2023 and so far, two samples have been collected: the Pelican Point core at the Hans Amundsen Memorial Workspace in the Mandu Wall region, and the Lefroy Bay core at Lake Newell in the Turquoise Bay region (Fig. 1). The associated abrasion patches are Amherst Point (Pelican Point) and Bills Bay (Lefroy Bay). Mandu Wall is interpreted to be stratigraphically lower than Turquoise Bay based on topography.

Since February 2021, the Perseverance rover has explored Jezero Crater in the Nili Fossae region of Mars which hosts large outcrops of a regional olivine-carbonate unit. In the crater floor, Perseverance investigated two igneous formations: Máaz, composed of basaltic lava and/or pyroclastic flows, and Séítah, an olivine-rich cumulate] below Máaz. Then, Perseverance explored the western fan composed by diverse sedimentary rocks of variable composition, but often containing olivine On the upper fan and margin unit, Perseverance encountered number of centimetric to metric boulder rocks. Two main types of boulders were identified based on texture and composition: the olivine-rich and pyroxene-bearing boulders. Here, we use SuperCam data to describe the texture, geochemistry and mineralogy of the olivine-rich boulders. Then, we discuss their possible petrological origin and some possible implications for the regional Nili Fossae olivine-carbonate unit.

The Argentine Institute of Radio astronomy (IAR) is equipped with two single-dish 30-m radio antennas capable of performing daily observations of pulsars and radio transients in the southern hemisphere at 1.4 GHz. We aim to contribute to pulsar timing studies related to short time-scale interstellar scintillation and searches for sources of continuous gravitational waves. We performed high-cadence (almost daily) and long-duration observations of the bright millisecond pulsar J0437$-$4715 for over a year, gathering more than 700 hours of good-quality data with timing precision better than 1~$\mu$s. We characterize the white and red timing noise in IAR's observations of J0437$-$4715. We quantify the effects of scintillation in this data set and perform single pulsar searches of continuous gravitational waves, setting constraints in the nHz--$\mu$Hz frequency range. We demonstrate IAR's potential for performing pulsar monitoring in the 1.4 GHz radio band for long periods of time with a daily cadence. In particular, we conclude that the ongoing observational campaign of the millisecond pulsar J0437$-$4715 can contribute to increase the sensitivity of the existing pulsar timing arrays., Comment: 16 pages, 13 figures, 5 tables. version to appear in The Astrophysical Journal

Fork algebras are an extension of relation algebras obtained by extending the set of logical symbols with a binary operator called fork. This class of algebras was introduced by Haeberer and Veloso in the early 90's aiming at enriching relation algebra, an already successful language for program specification, with the capability of expressing some form of parallel computation. The further study of this class of algebras led to many meaningful results linked to interesting properties of relation algebras such as representability and finite axiomatizability, among others. Also in the 90's, Veloso introduced a subclass of relation algebras that are expansible to fork algebras, admitting a large number of non-isomorphic expansions, referred to as explosive relation algebras. In this work we discuss some general techniques for constructing algebras of this type.

We present SphericalNR, a new framework for the publicly available Einstein Toolkit that numerically solves the Einstein field equations coupled to the equations of general relativistic magnetohydrodynamics (GRMHD) in a 3+1 split of spacetime in spherical coordinates without symmetry assumptions. The spacetime evolution is performed using reference-metric versions of either the Baumgarte-Shapiro-Shibata-Nakamura equations or the fully covariant and conformal Z4 system with constraint damping. We have developed a reference-metric version of the Valencia formulation of GRMHD with a vector potential method, guaranteeing the absence of magnetic monopoles during the evolution. In our framework, every dynamical field (both spacetime and matter) is evolved using its components in an orthonormal basis with respect to the spherical reference-metric. Furthermore, all geometric information about the spherical coordinate system is encoded in source terms appearing in the evolution equations. This allows for the straightforward extension of Cartesian high-resolution shock-capturing finite volume codes to use spherical coordinates with our framework. To this end, we have adapted GRHydro, a Cartesian finite volume GRMHD code already available in the Einstein Toolkit, to use spherical coordinates. We present the full evolution equations of the framework, as well as details of its implementation in the Einstein Toolkit. We validate SphericalNR by demonstrating it passes a variety of challenging code tests in static and dynamical spacetimes., Comment: 29 pages, 13 figures, published in Physical Review D

We study the logarihtnmic asymptotic of multiple orthogonal polynomials arising in a mixed type Hermite-Pad\'e approximation problem associated with the rational perturbation of a Nikishin system of functions. The formulas obtained allow to give exact estimates of the rate of convergence of the corresponding Hermite-Pad\'e approximants., Comment: 17 pages. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1904.00126

The present paper deals with the convergence properties of multi-level Hermite-Pad\'e approximants for a class of meromorphic functions given by rational perturbations with real coefficients of a Nikishin system of functions, and study the zero location of the corresponding multiple orthogonal polynomials., Comment: 18 pages

The observation of lepton flavor violating processes at colliders could be a clear signal of a non-minimal neutrino sector. We define a 5-parameter model with a pair of TeV fermion singlets and arbitrary mixings with the three active neutrino flavors. Then we analyze several flavor violating transitions ($\ell\to \ell^{\prime}\gamma,\,\ell^{\prime}\ell^{\prime\prime}\bar{\ell}^{\prime\prime\prime}$ or $\mu-e$ conversions in nuclei) and $Z\to\bar{\ell}\,\ell^{\prime}$ decays induced by the presence of heavy neutrinos. In particular, we calculate all the one-loop contributions to these processes and present their analytic expressions. We focus on the genuine effects of the heavy Majorana masses, comparing the results in that case with the ones obtained when the two heavy neutrinos define a Dirac field. Finally, we use our results to update the bounds on the heavy-light mixings in the neutrino sector., Comment: Accepted for publication in PRD, discussions and references added; 13 pages, 7 figures

We present a brief introduction to the theory of multiple orthogonal polynomials on the basis of known results for an important class of measures known as Nikishin systems. For type I and type II multiple orthogonal polynomials with respect to such systems of measures, we describe some of their most relevant properties regarding location and distribution of zeros as well as their weak and ratio asymptotic behavior., Comment: 22 pages. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1001.0554

The Argentine Institute of Radio astronomy (IAR) is equipped with two single-dish 30mts radio antennas capable of performing daily observations of pulsars and radio transients in the southern hemisphere at 1.4 GHz. We aim to introduce to the international community the upgrades performed and to show that IAR observatory has become suitable for investigations in numerous areas of pulsar radio astronomy, such as pulsar timing arrays, targeted searches of continuous gravitational waves sources, monitoring of magnetars and glitching pulsars, and studies of short time scale interstellar scintillation. We refurbished the two antennas at IAR to achieve high-quality timing observations. We gathered more than $1\,000$ hours of observations with both antennas to study the timing precision and sensitivity they can achieve. We introduce the new developments for both radio telescopes at IAR. We present observations of the millisecond pulsar J0437$-$4715 with timing precision better than 1~$\mu$s. We also present a follow-up of the reactivation of the magnetar XTE J1810--197 and the measurement and monitoring of the latest (Feb. 1st. 2019) glitch of the Vela pulsar (J0835--4510). We show that IAR is capable of performing pulsar monitoring in the 1.4 GHz radio band for long periods of time with a daily cadence. This opens the possibility of pursuing several goals in pulsar science, including coordinated multi-wavelength observations with other observatories. In particular, observations of the millisecond pulsar J0437$-$4715 will increase the gravitational wave sensitivity of the NANOGrav array in their current blind spot. We also show IAR's great potential for studying targets of opportunity and transient phenomena such as magnetars, glitches, and fast-radio-burst sources., Comment: 13 pages, 12 figures, some important revisions included

We consider sequences of biorthogonal polynomials with respect to a Cauchy type convolution kernel and give the weak and ratio asymptotic of the corresponding sequences of biorthogonal polynomials. The construction is intimately related with a mixed type Hermite-Pad\'e approximation problem whose asymptotic properties is also revealed., Comment: 27 pages

Originally thought as clean processes to study the hadronization of the weak currents, semileptonic tau lepton decays can be useful to set constraints on non-standard (NS) weak interactions. In this talk we summarize our recent studies on the effects of NS interactions in $\tau^- \to (\pi^-\pi^0,\pi^-\eta)\nu_{\tau}$ decays. We find that experimental data on these decays provide strong constraints on NS scalar and tensor interactions, respectively. Further improved measurements at Belle II and a better knowledge of necessary tensor and scalar form factors will allow to set limits on these NS interactions that are similar or better to contraints obtained from other low-energy processes., Comment: 11 pages. Procs. 15th Int. Workshop on Tau Lepton Physics, Amsterdam, 24-28 september 2018

Given a system of functions f = (f1, . . . , fd) analytic on a neighborhood of some compact subset E of the complex plane, we give necessary and sufficient conditions for the convergence with geometric rate of the common denominators of multipoint Hermite-Pade approximants. The exact rate of convergence of these denominators and of the approximants themselves is given in terms of the analytic properties of the system of functions. These results allow to detect the location of the poles of the system of functions which are in some sense closest to E., Comment: 18 pages. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1606.07920, arXiv:1801.03004, arXiv:1203.4947

Anomalies in several short-baseline neutrino oscillation experiments suggest the possible existence of sterile neutrinos at about eV scale having appreciable mixing with the already known three neutrinos. We find that if such a light sterile neutrino exists, through a combined study of the leptonic decays of $\mu^-$, $\tau^-$, $\pi^-$ and $K^-$, some semi-leptonic decays of $\tau^-$ and the invisible decay width of the $Z$ boson, it is possible to constrain the relevant mixing matrix elements. Furthermore, we compare the constraints, derived by using the method presented here, with the experimental results obtained from short-baseline neutrino oscillation experiments. We find that a single light sterile neutrino cannot satisfy the existing short-baseline neutrino oscillation constraints and explain the anomalies mentioned above. Along the way we provide a number of experimentally clean observables which can be used to directly study the light sterile neutrino independently of the neutrino oscillation experiments., Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures, 2 tables, accepted for publication in Physical Review D

We present the physics program of the Belle II experiment, located on the intensity frontier SuperKEKB $e^+e^-$ collider. Belle II collected its first collisions in 2018, and is expected to operate for the next decade. It is anticipated to collect 50/ab of collision data over its lifetime. This book is the outcome of a joint effort of Belle II collaborators and theorists through the Belle II theory interface platform (B2TiP), an effort that commenced in 2014. The aim of B2TiP was to elucidate the potential impacts of the Belle II program, which includes a wide scope of physics topics: B physics, charm, tau, quarkonium, electroweak precision measurements and dark sector searches. It is composed of nine working groups (WGs), which are coordinated by teams of theorist and experimentalists conveners: Semileptonic and leptonic B decays, Radiative and Electroweak penguins, phi_1 and phi_2 (time-dependent CP violation) measurements, phi_3 measurements, Charmless hadronic B decay, Charm, Quarkonium(like), tau and low-multiplicity processes, new physics and global fit analyses. This book highlights "golden- and silver-channels", i.e. those that would have the highest potential impact in the field. Theorists scrutinised the role of those measurements and estimated the respective theoretical uncertainties, achievable now as well as prospects for the future. Experimentalists investigated the expected improvements with the large dataset expected from Belle II, taking into account improved performance from the upgraded detector., Comment: 689 pages

We have revisited the computations of the flavor violating leptonic decays of the $\tau$ and $\mu$ leptons into three lighter charged leptons in the Standard Model with non-vanishing neutrino masses. We were driven by a claimed unnaturally large branching ratio predicted for the $\tau^-\to \mu^- \ell^+ \ell^-$ ($\ell=\mu, e$) decays \cite{Pham:1998fq}, which was at odds with the corresponding predictions for the $\mu^-\to e^- e^-e^+$ processes \cite{Petcov:1976ff}. In contrast with the prediction in \cite{Pham:1998fq}, our results are strongly suppressed and in good agreement with the approximation done in ref.~\cite{Petcov:1976ff}, where masses and momenta of the external particles were neglected in order to deal with the loop integrals. However, as a result of keeping external momenta and masses in the computation of the dominant penguin and box diagrams- we even find slightly smaller branching fractions. Therefore, we confirm that any future observation of such processes would be an unambiguous manifestation of new physics beyond the Standard Model, Comment: 24 pages, 3 Figures, a new evaluation of the Branching fractions and new appendix added, main conclusion remains unchanged, some typos corrected

In this work we present new results on the convergence of diagonal sequences of certain mixed type Hermite-Pad\'e approximants of a Nikishin system. The study is motivated by a mixed Hermite-Pad\'e approximation scheme used in the construction of solutions of a Degasperis-Procesi peakon problem and germane to the analysis of the inverse spectral problem for the discrete cubic string., Comment: 22 pages

Given a vector function ${\bf F}=(F_1,\ldots,F_d),$ analytic on a neighborhood of some compact subset $E$ of the complex plane with simply connected complement, we define a sequence of vector rational functions with common denominator in terms of the expansions of the components $F_k, k=1,\ldots,d,$ with respect to the sequence of Faber polynomials associated with $E$. Such sequences of vector rational functions are analogous to row sequences of type II Hermite-Pad\'e approximation. We give necessary and sufficient conditions for the convergence with geometric rate of the common denominators of the sequence of vector rational functions so constructed. The exact rate of convergence of these denominators is provided and the rate of convergence of the approximants is estimated. It is shown that the common denominators of the approximants detect the poles of the system of functions "closest" to $E$ and their order., Comment: 24 pages. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1606.07920

We obtain extensions of the Poincar\'e and Perron theorems for higher order recurrence relations and apply them to obtain an inverse type theorem for row sequences of (type II) Hermite-Pad\'e approximation of a vector of formal power series., Comment: 14 pages

Aims. To better understand the radiation environment in low Earth orbit (LEO), the analysis of in-situ observations of a variety of particles, at different atmospheric heights, and in a wide range of energies, is needed. Methods. We present an analysis of energetic particles, indirectly detected by the Large Yield RAdiometer (LYRA) instrument on board ESA's Project for On-board Autonomy 2 (PROBA2) satellite as background signal. Combining Energetic Particle Telescope (EPT) observations with LYRA data for an overlapping period of time, we identified these particles as electrons with an energy range of 2 to 8 MeV. Results. The observed events are strongly correlated to geo-magnetic activity and appear even during modest disturbances. They are also well confined geographically within the L=4-6 McIlwain zone, which makes it possible to identify their source. Conclusions. Although highly energetic particles are commonly perturbing data acquisition of space instruments, we show in this work that ultra-relativistic electrons with energies in the range of 2-8 MeV are detected only at high latitudes, while not present in the South Atlantic Anomaly region., Comment: Topical Issue: Flares, CMEs and SEPs and their space weather impacts; 20 pages; 7 figures; Presented during 13th European Space Weather Week, 2016

We consider extremal polynomials with respect to a Sobolev-type $p$-norm, with $1

Séítah is the stratigraphically lowest formation visited by Perseverance in the Jezero crater floor. We present the data obtained by SuperCam: texture by imagery, chemistry by Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy, and mineralogy by Supercam Visible and Infrared reflectance and Raman spectroscopy. The Séítah formation consists of igneous, weakly altered rocks dominated by millimeter-sized grains of olivine with the presence of low-Ca and high-Ca pyroxenes, and other primary minerals (e.g., plagioclase, Cr-Fe-Ti oxides, phosphates). Along a ∼140 m long section in Séítah, SuperCam analyses showed evidence of geochemical and mineralogical variations, from the contact with the overlying Máaz formation, going deeper in the formation. Bulk rock and olivine Mg#, grain size, olivine content increase gradually further from the contact. Along the section, olivine Mg# is not in equilibrium with the bulk rock Mg#, indicating local olivine accumulation. These observations are consistent with Séítah being the deep ultramafic member of a cumulate series derived from the fractional crystallization and slow cooling of the parent magma at depth. Possible magmatic processes and exhumation mechanisms of Séítah are discussed. Séítah rocks show some affinity with some rocks at Gusev crater, and with some Martian meteorites suggesting that such rocks are not rare on the surface of Mars. Séítah is part of the Nili Fossae regional olivine-carbonate unit observed from orbit. Future exploration of Perseverance on the rim and outside of the crater will help determine if the observations from the crater floor can be extrapolated to the whole unit or if this unit is composed of distinct sub-units with various origins.

The rare $\tau^- \to \eta^{(\prime)} \pi^- \nu_\tau$ decays, which are suppressed by $G$-parity in the Standard Model (SM), can be sensitive to the effects of new interactions. We study the sensitivity of different observables of these decays in the framework of an effective field theory that includes the most general interactions between SM fields up to dimension six, assuming massless neutrinos. Owing to the strong suppression of the SM isospin breaking amplitudes, we find that the different observables would allow to set constraints on scalar interactions that are stronger than those coming from other low-energy observables., Comment: 23 pages, 8 multiple figures and one table. Extended discussion of the hadronization of the tensor current and improved presentation of the plots. Accepted for publication in JHEP