ACCRETION PROCESSES in ASTROPHYSICS Xxist RENCONTRE DE MORIOND MORIOND ASTROPHYSICS MEETING Les Arcs - Savoie - France, March 9-16, 1986
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ACCRETION PROCESSES IN ASTROPHYSICS XXIst RENCONTRE DE MORIOND MORIOND ASTROPHYSICS MEETING Les Arcs - Savoie - France, March 9-16, 1986 ACCRETION PROCESSES ASTROPHYSICS IN ISBN 2-86332-043-2 EDITIONS FRONTIERES B. P. 44 91190 GIF SUR YVETTE - France Printed in Singapore by Kim Hup Lee Printing Co. Pte. Ltd. PROCEEDINGS OF TIIE TWEN TY-FIRS1W CONTRE DE MORIOND ASTRO i1"SICSMEETING Les Arcs - Savoie - France, March 9-16, 1986 N\; I "-··I , l �) . ., ACCRETION PROCESSES IN ASTROPHYSICS Edited by J. AUDOUZE J. TRAN THANH VAN EDITIONS FRONTIERES ,. ! .. The Astrophysics Meeting of the XXIst Rencontre de Moriond : "ACCRETION PROCESSES INASTROPHYSICS" was organized by J. Audouze J. Tran Thanh Van with the active collaboration of C. Cesarsky P. Crane T. Gaisser D. Hegyi C. Norman and J. Truran Copyright 1986 by Editions Frontieres All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be produced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission from the Publisher. v AVANT-PROPO S La sixieme Rencontre de Moriond en Astrophysique s'est deroulee aux Arcs du 9 au 16 Mars 1986 et a porte sur les processus d'accretion en Astrophysique. Ces processus constituent indeniablement l'une des sources d'energie les plus puissantes puisqu'ils doivent etre a l'origine de phenomenes energetiques aussi differents que la forte luminosite des quasars, !'emission des sources X, !'explosion des novae et des supernovae de type I, les sursauts X et gamma.... Ces manifestations energetiques sont etudiees dans ce livre d'un point de vue theorique et observationnel. On lira en particulier les nouveaux developpements du detecteur gamma "oeil de mouche" ainsi que la remise en cause de la detection de Cygnus X 3. Cette sixieme rencontre a connu le succes des sessions precedentes grace a l'organisation irrempla�able de J. Tran Thanh Van, les conseils judicieux du comite d'organisation scientifique en particulier de C. J. Cesarsky et de T. Gaisser. Je tiens a exprimer ma reconnaissance a Mesdames Monique Furgolle et Marie-Claude Pantalacci qui ont assure la preparation materielle (MCP) et l'organisation sur place de cette rencontre (MF). Jean AUDOUZE lnstitut d'Astrophysique de Paris (CNRS) et Laboratoire Rene Bernas - France vii FOREWORD The sixth Moriond Rencontre in Astrophysics has taken place at Les Arcs from 9 to 16 March 1986 and has been devoted to the accretion processus in Astrophysics. These processes are indeeoi one fo the most powerful energy sources since they trigger different energetic phenomena like the huge luminosity of QSOs, the X ray source emissivity, the nova and the type I supernova explosions, the gamma and X ray outbursts.... The energetic processes are studied in this book both theoretically and observationnally. The reader will consult in particular the papers dealing with the recent developments of the "fly's eye" detector such as the discussion of the relevance of the observational data concerning Cygnus X 3. This sixth Moriond Astrophysics Rencontre has been most successfull as the previous meetings of that sort thanks especially to the superb organization led by J. Tran Thanh Van, the wisdom of the scientific organization committee especially that of C. J. Cesarsky and T. Gaisser. Finally, I would like to express my recognition to Mrs Monique Furgolle and Marie-Claude Pantalacci who undertook the material preparation of this meeting (MCP) and the local organization of it (MF). Jean AUOOUZE Institut d'Astrophysiquede Paris (CNRS) et Laboratoire Rene Bernas- France ix CONTENTS ELBERT J. W. "Ultra-high-energy gamma rays observed by the fly's eye" 1 SVOBODA R. "Recent results from the IMB detector and prospectus for the future" 17 EICHLER D. "Theoretical implications of reported ultrahigh energy detections of binary X-ray sources" 27 WEEKES T. C. "Cygnus-X-3: source of very high energy gamma rays" 37 WEEKEST. C. "Very high energy gamma-ray observations" 57 CHARDING. "Cygnus X-3 at high energies : a critical review" 63 GAISSER T. K. "High energy neutrinos in close binary stars" 77 DERMER Ch D. "Neutron and antineutron production in &RAMATY R. accretion onto compact objects" 85 x FRIEDJUNG M. "Effects of a supercritical wind on nova observations" 99 CANAL R. "Mass-accretion effects on white dwarf interiors" 109 HILLEBRANDT W. "Nucleosynthesis in he-flashes on accreting white dwarfs" 125 NOMOTO K. I. "Collapse of accreting carbon-oxygen white dwarfs induced by carbon deflagration at high density" 137 CHAKRABARTI S. "Nucleosynthesis in the neighborhood of a black hole" 155 HEGYI D. J. "Black holes and disk dark matter" 169 ATTEIA J. -L. "Cosmic gamma-ray burst observations" 177 HAMEURY J.M. "A model for soft X-ray transients" 195 ULTRA-HIGH-ENERGY GAMMA RAYS OBSERVED BY THE FLY'S EYE J.W. Elbert, R.M. Baltrusaitis, J. Boone, R. Cady, G.L. Cassiday, R. Cooper, B. Dawson, B.E. Fick, P.R. Gerhardy, K.D. Green, C.P. Lingle, E.G. Loh, Y. Mizumoto, P. Sokolsky, P. Sommers, D. Steck, and S. Wasserbaech. Physics Department, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT ABSTRACT Besides observing tracks of distant 1017 to l020ev air showers, the Fly's Eye can observe Cherenkov flashes from nearby 1013 to 1016eV showers. These have been used to search for ultra-high-energy point sources. Weak evidence of a signal has been observed from the vicinity of the Crab pulsar. Signals from Cygnus X-3 and Hercules X-1 have been detected by observing periodicity in the data. In the case of Cygnus X-3, spectral information has also been obtained. Evidence was obtained for sporadic emission from Cygnus X-3 including emission near phase 0 of the hour period. Hercules X-1 was observed at a time when the X-ray beam 4.8was inferred to be absorbed by obscuring matter. The Hercules X-1 signal requires the acceleration to occur near the pulsar in the binary system. The production of such energetic �-rays from Hercules X-1 is a challenge for acceleration models. 2 I. INTRODUCTION The observations to be described below involve primarily Cherenkov light produced by cosmic ray air showers. This light is intense, but produced only at small angles with respect to the direction of motion of the shower. Consequently, the showers observed by Cherenkov light are relatively near the detector, but are also near the lower end of the energy scale of the Fly's Eye. In contrast, scintillation light is emitted less intensely, but isotropically.Very large showers can be seen at large impact parameters, R p, from the detector by means of scintillation light. The Fly's Eye has been described previously in l] the published Moriond proceedings , so only a brief description of it will be given here. The concept of a Fly's Eye detector was originally 2l developed by Greisen's group at Corne11 . The ' Utah Fly's Eye consists of two units, Fly's Eye I \ and Fly's Eye II. Fly's Eye II is not involved in the observations reported here and will not be discussed further. Fly's Eye I (simply called called the Fly's Eye in the following) consists of mirror units located on 67 top of a small mountain at Dugway, Utah, U.S.A. Each mirror unit has a 1.5 m diameter f/l. mirror reflecting light onto a cluster of 12 or 14 photo multiplier tubes (PMT's). The PMT's have hexagonal light collectors, with an aperture of almost degrees. Each mirror faces a separate part of the sky 6 and the assemblage of 870 PMT's images nearly the entire sky. If one imagines a planetarium showing the field of view of all the mirror units, the display would be like that shown in the drawing. The view is shown in the direction of the north celestial pole. A dashed line shows the horizon. The dotted line shows the trajectory of Cygnus X-3 through the apparatus. For the 1-ray studies reported here, the trigger for storing data was one or more PMT's passing over an amplitude threshold. Triggering coincidence requirements ranged from 1 to PMT's. When an event triggered the apparatus, 6 the identities of all PMT's which passed over threshold were recorded, along with the relative times (SO ns accuracy) and the values of the amplified PMT pulse integral. Until 1983, the mode of operation in which data were taken from small showers for �-ray studies was inconsistent with the normal operation of the Fly's Eye in which tracks from distant air showers were recorded. Before 1984, only small periods of time were devoted to the collection of Cherenkov flash data. After August 1984, a PMT trigger for Cherenkov flashes was used 6 3 routinely with the normal operation of the Fly's Eye until the summer of 1985. (See Table 1.) During a period of modification of the Fly's Eye in the summer Table 1 Summary of Fly's Eye 1-Ray Observations Month Year Hours Trigger Signals Dec. 1980 7.9 3 tubes Crab, maybe Feb. 1981 26. 7 2 tubes No Crab signal July 1983 25.3 6 tubes Her X-1, Cyg X-3 (both periodic) Aug. 1984 20. 1 6 tubes Cyg X-3 not seen Sept. 1984 42. 4 6 tubes Cyg X-3 not seen Oct. 1984 44.7 6 tubes Mostly unanalyzed Nov. 1984 16.5 6 tubes Dec. 1984 31. 8 6 tubes Jan. 1985 58.0 6 tubes Feb. 1985 42. 4 6 tubes March 1985 56. 0 6 tubes April 1985 16.3 6 tubes May 1985 tubes 6 June 1985 56.