Astronomy

IC 10 is a dwarf galaxy in Cassiopeia, located at a distance of 660 kpc, and hosts a young stellar population, a large number of Wolf–Rayet stars, and a large number of massive stars in general. Utilizing a series of 11 Chandra observations (spanning 2003–2021, with a total exposure of 235.1 ks), 375 point sources of X-ray emission were detected. Similar studies have been conducted earlier in the central region of IC 10. Here, we consider all regions covered by Chandra-ACIS. By comparing our catalog of X-ray sources with a published optical catalog, we found that 146 sources have optical counterparts. We also created a list of 60 blue supergiant (SG) candidates with X-ray binary (XRB) companions by using an optical color–magnitude selection criterion to isolate the blue SGs. Blue SG-XRBs form a major class of progenitors of double-degenerate binaries. Hence, their numbers are an important factor in modeling the rate of gravitational-wave sources. Identifying the nature of individual sources is necessary as it paves the way toward a comprehensive census of XRBs in IC 10, thus enabling meaningful comparisons with other Local Group galaxies exhibiting starbursts, such as the Magellanic Clouds. Full article

Cosmological scenarios wherein the cumulative number of spontaneously formed, cognitively impaired, disembodied transient observers is vastly larger than the corresponding number of atypical ‘ordinary observers’ (OOs) formed in the conventional way—essentially via cosmic evolution and gravitational instability—are disqualified in modern cosmology on the grounds of Cognitive Instability—the untrustworsiness of one own’s reasoning—let alone the atypicality of OOs like us. According to the concordance ΛCDM cosmological model—when described in the (expanding) ‘cosmic frame’—the cosmological expansion is future-eternal. In this frame we are atypical OOs, which are vastly outnumbered by typical Boltzmann Brains (BBs) that spontaneously form via sheer thermal fluctuations in the future-eternal asymptotic de Sitter spacetime. In the case that dark energy (DE) ultimately decays, the cumulative number of transient ‘Freak Observers’ (FOs) formed and destroyed spontaneously by virtue of the quantum uncertainty principle ultimately overwhelms that of OOs. Either possibility is unacceptable. We argue that these unsettling conclusions are artifacts of employing the (default) cosmic frame description in which space expands. When analyzed in the comoving frame, OOs overwhelmingly outnumber both BBs and FOs. This suggests that the dual comoving description is the cognitively stable preferred framework for describing our evolving Universe. In this frame, space is globally static, masses monotonically increase, and the space describing gravitationally bounded objects monotonically contracts. Full article

We consider constraints on the Hubble parameter $H_0$ and the matter density parameter ${\mathrm{\Omega }}_{\mathrm{M}}$ from the following: (i) the age of the Universe based on old stars and stellar populations in the Galactic disc and halo; (ii) the turnover scale in the matter power spectrum, which tells us the cosmological horizon at the epoch of matter-radiation equality; and (iii) the shape of the expansion history from supernovae (SNe) and baryon acoustic oscillations (BAOs) with no absolute calibration of either, a technique known as uncalibrated cosmic standards (UCS). A narrow region is consistent with all three constraints just outside their $1\sigma$ uncertainties. Although this region is defined by techniques unrelated to the physics of recombination and the sound horizon then, the standard Planck fit to the CMB anisotropies falls precisely in this region. This concordance argues against early-time explanations for the anomalously high local estimate of $H_0$ (the ‘Hubble tension’), which can only be reconciled with the age constraint at an implausibly low ${\mathrm{\Omega }}_{\mathrm{M}}$. We suggest instead that outflow from the local KBC supervoid inflates redshifts in the nearby universe and, thus, the apparent local $H_0$. Given the difficulties with solutions in the early universe, we argue that the most promising alternative to a local void is a modification to the expansion history at late times, perhaps due to a changing dark energy density. Full article

Solar flares are among the most powerful and dynamic events in the solar system, resulting from the sudden release of magnetic energy stored in the Sun’s atmosphere. These energetic bursts of electromagnetic radiation can release up to ${10}^{32}$ erg of energy, impacting space weather and posing risks to technological infrastructure and therefore require accurate forecasting of solar flare occurrences and intensities. This study evaluates the predictive performance of three machine learning algorithms—Random Forest (RF), k-Nearest Neighbors (kNN), and Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost)—for classifying solar flares into four categories (B, C, M, X). Using 13 parameters of the SHARP dataset, the effectiveness of the models was evaluated in binary and multiclass classification tasks. The analysis utilized 8 principal components (PCs), capturing 95% of data variance, and 100 PCs, capturing 97.5% of variance. Our approach uniquely combines binary and multiclass classification with different levels of dimensionality reduction, an innovative methodology not previously explored in the context of solar flare prediction. Employing a 10-fold stratified cross-validation and grid search for hyperparameter tuning ensured robust model evaluation. Our findings indicate that RF and XGBoost consistently demonstrate strong performance across all metrics, benefiting significantly from increased dimensionality. The insights of this study enhance future research by optimizing dimensionality reduction techniques and informing model selection for astrophysical tasks. By integrating this newly acquired knowledge into future research, more accurate space weather forecasting systems can be developed, along with a deeper understanding of solar physics. Full article

This work aims to maximize the Hawking emission temperature arising in the optical analog model of the event horizon of an astrophysical black hole. A weak probe wave interacts with an intense ultrashort optical pulse via the Kerr effect in a photonic crystal fiber. This interaction causes the probe wave to experience an effective spacetime geometry characterized by the presence of an optical event horizon, where the analogous Hawking radiation effect arises. Here we refer to the simulated or classical version of the analog of Hawking radiation. This study considers four distinct types of photonic crystal fibers with anomalous dispersion curves that allow for maximizing the effect. Our first three numerical simulations indicate that a Hawking emission temperature of up to 361 K can be achieved with a photonic crystal fiber with two zero-dispersion wavelengths, while the emission temperature values in the original investigation are lower than 244 K. And in the fourth, we can see that we have a configuration in which the temperature can be improved up to 1027 K. Moreover, these results also emphasize the feasibility of using analog models to test the quantum effects of gravity, such as Hawking radiation produced by typical black holes, whose magnitude is far below the temperature of the cosmic microwave background (2.7 K). Full article

We investigate the effect of general relativity on the Sitnikov problem. The Sitnikov problem is one of the simplest three-body problems, in which the two primary bodies (a binary system) have equal mass m and orbit their barycenter, while the third body is treated as a test particle under Newtonian gravity. The trajectory of the test particle is perpendicular to the orbital plane of the binary (along z-axis) and passes through the barycenter of the two primaries. To study the general relativistic contributions, we first derive the equations of motion for both the binary and the test particle based on the first post-Newtonian Einstein–Infeld–Hoffmann equation, and integrate these equations numerically. We examine the behavior of the test particle (third body) as a function of the orbital eccentricity of the central binary e, the dimensionless gravitational radius $\lambda$, which characterizes the strength of general relativistic effect, and the initial position of the test particle ${\overline{z}}_0$. Our numerical calculations reveal the following; as general relativistic effects $\lambda$ increase and the eccentricity e of the binary orbit grows, the distance $\overline{r}$ between the test particle and the primary star undergoes complicated oscillations over time. Consequently, the gravitational force acting on the test particle also varies in a complex manner. This leads to a resonance state between the position $\overline{z}$ of the test particle and the distance $\overline{r}$, causing the energy E of the test particle to become $E\ge 0$. This triggers the effective ejection of the test particle due to the gravitational slingshot effect. In this paper, we shall refer to this ejection mechanism of test particle as the “Sitnikov mechanism.” As a concrete phenomenon that becomes noticeable, the increase in general relativistic effects and the eccentricity of the binary orbit leads to the following: (a) ejection of test particles from the system in a shorter time, and (b) increasing escape velocity of the test particle from the system. As an astrophysical application, we point out that the high-velocity ejection of test particles induced by the Sitnikov mechanism could contribute to elucidating the formation processes of astrophysical jets and hyper-velocity stars. Full article

The pre-main-sequence evolution of the chemically peculiar (CP) stars on the upper main sequence is still a vast mystery and not well understood. Our analysis of young associations and open clusters aims to find (very) young CP stars to try to put a lower boundary on the age of such objects. Using three catalogues of open clusters and associations, we determined membership probabilities using HDBSCAN. The hot stars from this selection were submitted to synthetic $\Delta a$ photometry, spectral, and light curve classification to determine which ones are CP stars and candidates. Subsequently, we used spectral energy distribution fitting and emission line analysis to check for possible PMS CP stars. The results were compared to the literature. We detected 971 CP stars and candidates in 217 clusters and associations. A relatively large fraction, ∼10% of those, show characteristics of PMS CP stars. This significantly expands the known list of candidate PMS CP stars, bringing us closer to solving the mystery of their origin. Full article

Contemporary surveys in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) typically make one-off “spot scans” across the sky to search planetary systems for narrow-band radio signals that would indicate the presence of intelligent life. Spot scans may span a duration of seconds to minutes in order to observe a large number of targets with limited resources, but such a strategy does not necessarily consider the timing of exactly when to listen for extraterrestrial signals. Several ideas for possible time markers were suggested in the first few decades of SETI, such as the use of recurrent supernovae, gamma ray bursts, or pulsars as a way of establishing directionality and attracting attention toward an extraterrestrial beacon. Civilizations in binary systems might even choose the points of periastron and apastron in its host system to send transmissions to other single-star civilizations. However, all of these timing considerations were developed prior to the age of exoplanets, which enables a more detailed assessment of targets suitable for SETI. This paper suggests SETI strategies for circumbinary and circumprimary planets based upon the timing of orbital events in such systems. Events such as orbital extremes could represent a logical time marker for extraterrestrial civilizations to transmit, if they desire to be detected. Likewise, a transiting binary pair with inhabited planets around each star could yield maximum detectability of leakage radiation when both stars eclipse within our field of view. As planets in binary systems continue to be discovered, limited-duration SETI surveys should selectively target such systems based upon the occurrence of reasonable time markers. Full article

This paper considers non-singular black holes. It discusses the observation of particles falling onto ordinary and non-singular black holes from the perspective of a distant observer. It is demonstrated that, during a stage in the evolution of non-singular black holes, powerful energy fluxes can be emitted. Distant observers may interpret these fluxes as white holes. Full article

The subject of boosted fluxes of dark matter or cosmic relic neutrinos via scattering on cosmic rays has received considerable attention recently. This article investigates the boosted neutrino flux from the scattering of cosmic rays and the so-far undetected diffuse supernova neutrino background, taking into account both galactic and extragalactic cosmic rays. The calculated flux is many orders of magnitude smaller than either the galactic diffuse neutrino emission, the extragalactic astrophysical flux measured by IceCube, or the cosmogenic neutrino flux expected at the highest energies. Full article

We extend the Quantum Memory Matrix (QMM) framework—previously shown to unify gauge interactions and reproduce cold dark matter phenomenology—to account for the observed late-time cosmic acceleration. In QMM, each Planck-scale cell carries a finite-dimensional Hilbert space of quantum imprints. We show that (1) once local unitary evolution saturates the available micro-states, a uniform residual “vacuum-imprint energy” remains; its stress–energy tensor is of pure cosmological-constant form, with magnitude suppressed by the cell capacity, naturally yielding ${\rho }_{\mathrm{\Lambda }}\simeq {(2\times {10}^{-3}\mathrm{eV})}^4$; and (2) if imprint writes continue but are overdamped by cosmic expansion, the coarse-grained entropy field $S\left(t\right)$ undergoes slow-roll evolution, generating an effective equation of state $w\left(z\right)\approx -1+\mathcal{O}\left({10}^{-2}\right)$ that is testable by DESI, Euclid, and Roman. We derive the modified Friedmann equations, linear perturbations, and joint constraints from Planck 2018, BAO, and Pantheon +, finding that the QMM imprint model reproduces the observed TT, TE, and EE spectra without introducing additional free parameters and alleviates the $H_0$ tension while remaining consistent with the large-scale structure. In this picture, dark matter and dark energy arise as gradient-dominated and potential-dominated limits of the same underlying information field, completing the QMM cosmological sector with predictive power and internal consistency. Full article

Calibrating the ages, masses, and radii of stars on the upper main sequence depends heavily on accurate measurements of the effective temperature ($T_{\mathrm{eff}}$) and surface gravity ($logg$). These parameters are difficult to obtain meticulously due to the nature of hot stars, which exhibit features such as rapid rotation, atomic diffusion, pulsation, and stellar winds. We compare the $T_{\mathrm{eff}}$ and $logg$ values of apparent normal B-F stars in four recent catalogues that employ different methods and pipelines to obtain these parameters. We derived various statistical parameters to compare the differences between the catalogues and discussed the astrophysical implications of these differences. Our results show that the huge differences in $T_{\mathrm{eff}}$ (up to ${10}^4$ K) and $logg$ (up to 2 dex) between the catalogues have serious implications on the determination of ages, masses, and radii of the stars in question. We conclude that there appears to be no homogeneous set of stellar parameters on the upper main sequence, and one must be cautious when interpreting results obtained from using only one of the catalogues. The homogenisation of said parameters is an essential task for the future and will have a significant impact on astrophysical research dealing with stars on the upper main sequence. Full article

We investigate BZT shocks and the QCD phase transition in the dense core of a cold quark star in beta equilibrium subject to the multicomponent van der Waals (MvdW) equation of state (EoS) as a model of internal structure. When this system is expressed in terms of multiple components, it can be used to explore the impact of a phase transition from a hadronic state to a quark plasma state with a complex clustering structure. The clustering can take the form of colored diquarks or triquarks and bound colorless meson, baryon, or hyperon states at the phase transition boundary. The resulting multicomponent EoS system is nonconvex, which can give rise to Bethe–Zel’dovich–Thompson (BZT) phase-changing shock waves. Using the BZT shock wave condition, we find constraints on the quark density and examine how this changes the tidal deformability of the compact core. These results are then combined with the TOV equations to find the resulting mass and radius relationship. These states are compared to recent astrophysical high-mass neutron star systems, which may provide evidence for a core that has undergone a quark gluon phase transition such as PSR 0943+10 or GW 190814. Full article

We present a conditional variational autoencoder (CVAE) that generates stellar spectra covering 4000 ≤ $T_{\mathrm{eff}}$ ≤ 11,000 K, $2.0\le logg\le 5.0$ dex, $-1.5\le [\mathrm{M}/\mathrm{H}]\le +1.5$ dex, $vsini\le 300$ km/s, ${\xi }_t$ between 0 and 4 km/s, and for any instrumental resolving powers less than 115,000. The spectra can be calculated in the wavelength range 4450–5400 Å. Trained on a grid of SYNSPEC spectra, the network synthesizes a spectrum in around two orders of magnitude faster than line-by-line radiative transfer. We validate the CVAE on ${10}^4$ test spectra unseen during training. Pixel-wise statistics yield a median absolute residual of <$1.8\times {10}^{-3}$ flux units with no wavelength-dependent bias. A residual error map across the parameters plane shows $⟨|\Delta F|⟩<2\times {10}^{-3}$ everywhere, and marginal diagnostics versus $T_{\mathrm{eff}}$, $logg$, $v_{e}sini$, ${\xi }_t$, and $[M/H]$ reveal no relevant trends. These results demonstrate that the CVAE can serve as a drop-in, physics-aware surrogate for radiative transfer codes, enabling real-time forward modeling in stellar parameter inference and offering promising tools for spectra synthesis for large astrophysical data analysis. Full article

Extremely powerful flares releasing energy well above ${10}^{32}$ erg are rare compared to the typical manifestations of solar activity, which are already being routinely monitored by the existing Space Weather network—with some level of predictability. However, much less is known about the mechanisms behind such rare events (like the well-documented Carrington event of 1859) or about hypothetical superflares that could exceed current energy estimates by several orders of magnitude. We propose a model based on the nonlinear suppression of turbulent diffusion with increasing magnetic field, which ultimately leads to the random occurrence of regions with a magnetic field amplitude significantly exceeding the magnetic field amplitude in a regular cycle. This is similar to the mechanism of a local “explosion of an overheated boiler”. Such regions can be correlated with flares. In our model, flares have different powers. Full article

We revisit 77 relaxed (extra)solar multibody (sub)systems containing 2–9 bodies orbiting about gravitationally dominant central bodies. The listings are complete down to (sub)systems with 5 orbiting bodies and additionally contain 33 smaller systems with 2–4 orbiting bodies. Most of the multiplanet systems (68) have been observed outside of our solar system, and very few of them (5) exhibit classical Laplace resonances (LRs). The remaining 9 subsystems have been found in our solar system; they include 7 well-known satellite groups in addition to the four gaseous giant planets and the four terrestrial planets, and they exhibit only one classical Laplace resonant chain, the famous Galilean LR. The orbiting bodies (planets, dwarfs, or satellites) appear to be locked in/near global mean-motion resonances (MMRs), as these are determined in reference to the orbital period of the most massive (most inert) body in each (sub)system. We present a library of these 77 multibody subsystems for future use and reference. The library listings of dynamical properties also include regular spacings of the orbital semimajor axes. Regularities in the spatial configurations of the bodies were determined from patterns that had existed in the mean tidal field that drove multibody migrations toward MMRs, well before the tidal field was erased by the process of `gravitational Landau damping’ which concluded its work when all major bodies had finally settled in/near the global MMRs presently observed. Finally, detailed comparisons of results help us discern the longest commonly-occurring MMR chains, distinguish the most important groups of triple MMRs, and identify a new criterion for the absence of librations in triple MMRs. Full article

A core–corona decomposition of compact (neutron) star models was compared with the current mass–radius data of the outlier XTE J1814-338. The corona (which may also be dubbed the envelope, halo or outer crust) is assumed to be of Standard Model matter, with an equation of state that is supposed to be faithfully known and accommodates nearly all other neutron star data. The core, solely parameterized by its mass, radius and transition pressure, presents a challenge regarding its composition. We derived a range of core parameters needed to describe the current data of XTE J1814-338. Full article

In 2019, the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) released the first image of a black hole, sparking huge interest in the study of black-hole images. We present analytical solutions to the null geodesic equations for Kerr–Newman–de Sitter black holes derived using Jacobi elliptic functions. Using these solutions, we have performed an analytic ray-tracing simulation to model direct images, lensing rings, and photon rings, considering standard observers and zero angular momentum observers (ZAMOs). Additionally, we have derived analytic expressions for the critical parameters governing the structure of the photon ring and analyzed them in detail. From the foregoing, an increase in charge leads to a decrease in both time delay and Lyapunov exponent, while the change in azimuthal angle is insignificant. These findings improve our understanding of the effects of charge on black-hole photon rings and provide a foundation for future studies. Full article

We propose that the observed value of the cosmological constant may be explained by a fundamental uncertainty in the spacetime metric, which arises when combining the principle that mass and energy curve spacetime with the quantum uncertainty associated with particle localization. Since the position of a quantum particle cannot be sharply defined, the gravitational influence of such particles leads to intrinsic ambiguity in the formation of spacetime geometry. Recent experimental studies suggest that gravitational effects persist down to length scales of approximately ${10}^{-5}$ m, while quantum coherence and macroscopic quantum phenomena such as Bose–Einstein condensation and superfluidity also manifest at similar scales. Motivated by these findings, we identify a length scale of spacetime uncertainty, $L_Z\sim 2.2\times {10}^{-5}$ m, which corresponds to the geometric mean of the Planck length and the radius of the observable universe. We argue that this intermediate scale may act as an effective cutoff in vacuum energy calculations. Furthermore, we explore the interpretation of dark energy as a Bose–Einstein distribution with a characteristic reduced wavelength matching this uncertainty scale. This approach provides a potential bridge between cosmological and quantum regimes and offers a phenomenologically motivated perspective on the cosmological constant problem. Full article