Gravitational Collapse of Dust with a Cosmological Constant

The recent analysis of Markovic and Shapiro on the effect of a cosmological constant on the evolution of a spherically symmetric homogeneous dust ball is extended to include the inhomogeneous and degenerate cases. The histories are shown by way of effective potential and Penrose-Carter diagrams.Comment: 2 pages, 2 figures (png), revtex. To appear in Phys. Rev.

Magnetic correlations of the quasi-one-dimensional half-integer spin-chain antiferromagnets SrM2M_2V2_2O8_8 (MM = Co, Mn)

Magnetic correlations of two iso-structural quasi-one-dimensional (1D) antiferromagnetic spin-chain compounds Sr$M_2$V$_2$O$_8$ ($M$ = Co, Mn) have been investigated by magnetization and powder neutron diffraction. Two different collinear antiferromagnetic (AFM) structures, characterized by the propagation vectors, $k$ = (0 0 1) and $k$ = (0 0 0), have been found below $\sim$ 5.2 K and $\sim$ 42.2 K for the Co- and Mn-compounds, respectively. For the Mn-compound, AFM chains (along the $c$ axis) order ferromagnetically within the $ab$ plane, whereas, for the Co-compound, AFM chains order ferro-/antiferromagnetically along the $a/b$ direction. The critical exponent study confirms that the Co- and Mn-compounds belong to the Ising and Heisenberg universality classes, respectively. For both compounds, short-range spin-spin correlations are present over a wide temperature range above $T_N$. The reduced ordered moments at base temperature (1.5 K) indicate the presence of quantum fluctuations in both compounds due to the quasi-1D magnetic interactions.Comment: 14 pages, 10 figures, 9 table

Junctions and thin shells in general relativity using computer algebra I: The Darmois-Israel Formalism

We present the GRjunction package which allows boundary surfaces and thin-shells in general relativity to be studied with a computer algebra system. Implementing the Darmois-Israel thin shell formalism requires a careful selection of definitions and algorithms to ensure that results are generated in a straight-forward way. We have used the package to correctly reproduce a wide variety of examples from the literature. We present several of these verifications as a means of demonstrating the packages capabilities. We then use GRjunction to perform a new calculation - joining two Kerr solutions with differing masses and angular momenta along a thin shell in the slow rotation limit.Comment: Minor LaTeX error corrected. GRjunction for GRTensorII is available from http://astro.queensu.ca/~grtensor/GRjunction.htm

Boundary Effects in Local Inflation and Spectrum of Density Perturbations

We observe that when a local patch in a radiation filled Robertson-Walker universe inflates by some reason, outside perturbations can enter into the inflating region. Generally, the physical wavelengths of these perturbations become larger than the Hubble radius as they cross into the inflating space and their amplitudes freeze out immediately. It turns out that the corresponding power spectrum is not scale invariant. Although these perturbations cannot reach out to a distance inner observer shielded by a de Sitter horizon, they still indicate a curious boundary effect in local inflationary scenarios.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures, revtex4, v4: minor typos corrected, twocolumn versio

Tidal stirring and the origin of dwarf spheroidals in the Local Group

N-Body/SPH simulations are used to study the evolution of dwarf irregular galaxies (dIrrs) entering the dark matter halo of the Milky Way or M31 on plunging orbits. We propose a new dynamical mechanism driving the evolution of gas rich, rotationally supported dIrrs, mostly found at the outskirts of the Local Group (LG), into gas free, pressure supported dwarf spheroidals (dSphs) or dwarf ellipticals (dEs), observed to cluster around the two giant spirals. The initial model galaxies are exponential disks embedded in massive dark matter halos and reproduce nearby dIrrs. Repeated tidal shocks at the pericenter of their orbit partially strip their halo and disk and trigger dynamical instabilities that dramatically reshape their stellar component. After only 2-3 orbits low surface brightness (LSB) dIrrs are transformed into dSphs, while high surface brightness (HSB) dIrrs evolve into dEs. This evolutionary mechanism naturally leads to the morphology-density relation observed for LG dwarfs. Dwarfs surrounded by very dense dark matter halos, like the archetypical dIrr GR8, are turned into Draco or Ursa Minor, the faintest and most dark matter dominated among LG dSphs. If disks include a gaseous component, this is both tidally stripped and consumed in periodic bursts of star formation. The resulting star formation histories are in good qualitative agreement with those derived using HST color-magnitude diagrams for local dSphs.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, to appear on ApJL. Simulation images and movies can be found at the Local Group web page at http://pcblu.uni.mi.astro.it/~lucio/LG/LG.htm

Surface Layers in General Relativity and Their Relation to Surface Tensions

For a thin shell, the intrinsic 3-pressure will be shown to be analogous to -A, where A is the classical surface tension: First, interior and exterior Schwarzschild solutions will be matched together such that the surface layer generated at the common boundary has no gravitational mass; then its intrinsic 3-pressure represents a surface tension fulfilling Kelvin's relation between mean curvature and pressure difference in the Newtonian limit. Second, after a suitable definition of mean curvature, the general relativistic analogue to Kelvin's relation will be proven to be contained in the equation of motion of the surface layer.Comment: 12 pages, LaTeX, no figur

Measuring and predicting graded reader difficulty

This study used many-faceted Rasch measurement to investigate the difficulty of graded readers using a 3-item survey. Book difficulty was compared with Kyoto Level, Yomiyasusa Level, Lexile Level, book length, mean sentence length, and mean word frequency. Word frequency and Kyoto Level were found to be ineffective in predicting students' perceptions of book difficulty. Book length was found to be highly predictive of perceived book difficulty, with the Yomiyasusa Levels predicting 68% of variance, while the Lexile measure of mean sentence length was moderately predictive, with 40% of variance explained. These results show that current headword levelling of graded readers is ineffective and that publishers' book levels do not provide useful guidance in selection of books to read. It is therefore recommended that students use book length as their primary consideration in choosing books and that reading recommendations and purchasing decisions be based on Yomiyasusa Levels rather than publishers' levels

Acceleration of particles by rotating black holes: near-horizon geometry and kinematics

Nowadays, the effect of infinite energy in the centre of mass frame due to near-horizon collisions attracts much attention.We show generality of the effect combining two seemingly completely different approaches based on properties of a particle with respect to its local light cone and calculating its velocity in the locally nonrotaing frame directly. In doing so, we do not assume that particles move along geodesics. Usually, a particle reaches a horizon having the velocity equals that of light. However, there is also case of "critical" particles for which this is not so. It is just the pair of usual and critical particles that leads to the effect under discussion. The similar analysis is carried out for massless particles. Then, critical particles are distinguishable due to the finiteness of local frequency. Thus, both approach based on geometrical and kinematic properties of particles moving near the horizon, reveal the universal character of the effect.Comment: 8 page

Microscopic theory of quantum-transport phenomena in mesoscopic systems: A Monte Carlo approach

A theoretical investigation of quantum-transport phenomena in mesoscopic systems is presented. In particular, a generalization to ``open systems'' of the well-known semiconductor Bloch equations is proposed. The presence of spatial boundary conditions manifest itself through self-energy corrections and additional source terms in the kinetic equations, whose form is suitable for a solution via a generalized Monte Carlo simulation. The proposed approach is applied to the study of quantum-transport phenomena in double-barrier structures as well as in superlattices, showing a strong interplay between phase coherence and relaxation.Comment: to appear in Phys. Rev. Let