Multicritical Points And Reentrant Phenomenon In The BEG Model

The Blume - Emery - Griffiths model is investigated by use of the cluster variation method in the pair approximation. We determine the regions of the phase space where reentrant phenomenon takes place. Two regions are found, depending on the sign of the reduced quadrupole - quadrupole coupling strength $\xi$. For negative $\xi$ we find Para-Ferro-Para and Ferro-Para-Ferro-Para transition sequences; for positive $\xi$, a Para$_-$-Ferro-Para$_+$ sequence. Order parameters, correlation functions and specific heat are given in some typical cases. By-products of this work are the equations for the critical and tricritical lines.Comment: 14 pages, figures available upon reques

Towards a fully consistent Milky Way disc model - II. The local disc model and SDSS data of the NGP region

We have used the self-consistent vertical disc models of the solar neighbourhood presented in Just & Jahreiss (2010), which are based on different star formation histories (SFR) and fit the local kinematics of main sequence stars equally well, to predict star counts towards the North Galactic Pole (NGP). We combined these four different models with the local main sequence in the filter system of the SDSS and predicted the star counts in the NGP field with b>80deg. All models fit the Hess diagrams in the F-K dwarf regime better than 20 percent and the star number densities in the solar neighbourhood are consistent with the observed values. The chi^2 analysis shows that model A is clearly preferred with systematic deviations of a few percent only. The SFR of model A is characterised by a maximum at an age of 10Gyr and a decline by a factor of four to the present day value of 1.4Msun/pc^2/Gyr. The thick disc can be modelled very well by an old isothermal simple stellar population. The density profile can be approximated by a sech^(alpha_t) function. We found a power law index alpha_t=1.16 and a scale height of 800pc corresponding to a vertical velocity dispersion of 45.3km/s. About 6 percent of the stars in the solar neighbourhood are thick disc stars.Comment: 11 pages, 12 figures, accepted by MNRAS. The qualtity of figures 10 and 12 are much better in the .ps version than the .pdf versio

Mid-J CO Emission From NGC 891: Microturbulent Molecular Shocks in Normal Star Forming Galaxies

We have detected the CO(6-5), CO(7-6), and [CI] 370 micron lines from the nuclear region of NGC 891 with our submillimeter grating spectrometer ZEUS on the CSO. These lines provide constraints on photodissociation region (PDR) and shock models that have been invoked to explain the H_2 S(0), S(1), and S(2) lines observed with Spitzer. We analyze our data together with the H_2 lines, CO(3-2), and IR continuum from the literature using a combined PDR/shock model. We find that the mid-J CO originates almost entirely from shock-excited warm molecular gas; contributions from PDRs are negligible. Also, almost all the H_2 S(2) and half of the S(1) line is predicted to emerge from shocks. Shocks with a pre-shock density of 2x10^4 cm^-3 and velocities of 10 km/s and 20 km/s for C-shocks and J-shocks, respectively, provide the best fit. In contrast, the [CI] line emission arises exclusively from the PDR component, which is best parameterized by a density of 3.2x10^3 cm^-3 and a FUV field of G_o = 100 for both PDR/shock-type combinations. Our mid-J CO observations show that turbulence is a very important heating source in molecular clouds, even in normal quiescent galaxies. The most likely energy sources for the shocks are supernovae or outflows from YSOs. The energetics of these shock sources favor C-shock excitation of the lines.Comment: 18 pages, 2 figures, 6 tables, accepted by Ap

The SEGUE Stellar Parameter Pipeline. II. Validation with Galactic Globular and Open Clusters

We validate the performance and accuracy of the current SEGUE (Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and Exploration) Stellar Parameter Pipeline (SSPP), which determines stellar atmospheric parameters (effective temperature, surface gravity, and metallicity) by comparing derived overall metallicities and radial velocities from selected likely members of three globular clusters (M 13, M 15, and M 2) and two open clusters (NGC 2420 and M 67) to the literature values. Spectroscopic and photometric data obtained during the course of the original Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-I) and its first extension (SDSS-II/SEGUE) are used to determine stellar radial velocities and atmospheric parameter estimates for stars in these clusters. Based on the scatter in the metallicities derived for the members of each cluster, we quantify the typical uncertainty of the SSPP values, sigma([Fe/H]) = 0.13 dex for stars in the range of 4500 K < Teff < 7500 K and 2.0 < log g < 5.0, at least over the metallicity interval spanned by the clusters studied (-2.3 < [Fe/H] < 0). The surface gravities and effective temperatures derived by the SSPP are also compared with those estimated from the comparison of the color-magnitude diagrams with stellar evolution models; we find satisfactory agreement. At present, the SSPP underestimates [Fe/H] for near-solar-metallicity stars, represented by members of M 67 in this study, by about 0.3 dex.Comment: 56 pages, 8 Tables, 15 figures, submitted to the Astronomical Journa

Long Lived Fourth Generation and the Higgs

A chiral fourth generation is a simple and well motivated extension of the standard model, and has important consequences for Higgs phenomenology. Here we consider a scenario where the fourth generation neutrinos are long lived and have both a Dirac and Majorana mass term. Such neutrinos can be as light as 40 GeV and can be the dominant decay mode of the Higgs boson for Higgs masses below the W-boson threshold. We study the effect of the Majorana mass term on the Higgs branching fractions and reevaluate the Tevatron constraints on the Higgs mass. We discuss the prospects for the LHC to detect the semi-invisible Higgs decays into fourth generation neutrino pairs. Under the assumption that the lightest fourth generation neutrino is stable, it's thermal relic density can be up to 20% of the observed dark matter density in the universe. This is in agreement with current constraints on the spin dependent neutrino-neutron cross section, but can be probed by the next generation of dark matter direct detection experiments.Comment: v1: 19 pages, 5 figures; v2: References added; v3: version to appear in JHE

Search for Extratidal Features Around 17 Globular Clusters in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

The dynamical evolution of a single globular cluster and also of the entire Galactic globular cluster system has been studied theoretically in detail. In particular, simulations show how the 'lost' stars are distributed in tidal tails emerging from the clusters. We investigate the distribution of Galactic globular cluster stars on the sky to identify such features like tidal tails. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey provides consistent photometry of a large part of the sky to study the projected two dimensional structure of the 17 globular clusters in its survey area. We use a color-magnitude weighted counting algorithm to map (potential) cluster member stars on the sky. We recover the already known tidal tails of Pal 5 and NGC 5466. For NGC 4147 we have found a two arm morphology. Possible indications of tidal tails are also seen around NGC 5053 and NGC 7078, supporting earlier suggestions. Moreover, we find potential tails around NGC 5904 and Pal 14. Especially for the Palomar clusters than Pal 5, deeper data are needed in order to confirm or to rule out the existence of tails. For many of the remaining clusters in our sample we observe a pronounced extratidal halo, which is particularly large for NGC 7006 and Pal 1. In some cases, the extratidal halos may be associated with the stream of the Sagittarius dwarf spheroidal galaxy (e.g.,NGC 4147, NGC 5024, NGC 5053).Comment: Accepted by A&A, 24 pages, 24 figure

Asymmetric Inelastic Inert Doublet Dark Matter from Triplet Scalar Leptogenesis

The nature of dark matter (DM) particles and the mechanism that provides their measured relic abundance are currently unknown. In this paper we investigate inert scalar and vector like fermion doublet DM candidates with a charge asymmetry in the dark sector, which is generated by the same mechanism that provides the baryon asymmetry, namely baryogenesis-via-leptogenesis induced by decays of scalar triplets. At the same time the model gives rise to neutrino masses in the ballpark of oscillation experiments via type II seesaw. We discuss possible sources of depletion of asymmetry in the DM and visible sectors and solve the relevant Boltzmann equations for quasi-equilibrium decay of triplet scalars. A Monte-Carlo-Markov-Chain analysis is performed for the whole parameter space. The survival of the asymmetry in the dark sector leads to inelastic scattering off nuclei. We then apply bayesian statistic to infer the model parameters favoured by the current experimental data, in particular the DAMA annual modulation and Xenon100 exclusion limit. The latter strongly disfavours asymmetric scalar doublet DM of mass \mathcal{O}(\TeV) as required by DM-$\bar{\rm DM}$ oscillations, while an asymmetric vector like fermion doublet DM with mass around 100 GeV is a good candidate for DAMA annual modulation yet satisfying the constraints from Xenon100 data.Comment: 35 pages and 15 figures, references adde

SMYD3 contributes to a more aggressive phenotype of prostate cancer and targets Cyclin D2 through H4K20me3

Prostate cancer (PCa) is one of the most incident cancers worldwide but clinical and pathological parameters have limited ability to discriminate between clinically significant and indolent PCa. Altered expression of histone methyltransferases and histone methylation patterns are involved in prostate carcinogenesis. SMYD3 transcript levels have prognostic value and discriminate among PCa with different clinical aggressiveness, so we decided to investigate its putative oncogenic role on PCa.We silenced SMYD3 and assess its impact through in vitro (cell viability, cell cycle, apoptosis, migration, invasion assays) and in vivo (tumor formation, angiogenesis). We evaluated SET domain's impact in PCa cells' phenotype. Histone marks deposition on SMYD3 putative target genes was assessed by ChIP analysis.Knockdown of SMYD3 attenuated malignant phenotype of LNCaP and PC3 cell lines. Deletions affecting the SET domain showed phenotypic impact similar to SMYD3 silencing, suggesting that tumorigenic effect is mediated through its histone methyltransferase activity. Moreover, CCND2 was identified as a putative target gene for SMYD3 transcriptional regulation, through trimethylation of H4K20.Our results support a proto-oncogenic role for SMYD3 in prostate carcinogenesis, mainly due to its methyltransferase enzymatic activity. Thus, SMYD3 overexpression is a potential biomarker for clinically aggressive disease and an attractive therapeutic target in PCa.Liga Portuguesa Contra o Cancro – Núcleo Regional do Norte , Research Center of Portuguese Oncology Institute – Porto (CI-IPOP 4-2012) and European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme – Grant number FP7-HEALTH-F5-2009-241783. FQV and SS-S are supported by FCT-Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia grants (SFRH/BD/70564/2010 and PTDC/ SAU-MET/113415/2009), IG is a Posdoc fellow from FCT (PEst-OE/SAU/UI0776/2014)

Unifying darko-lepto-genesis with scalar triplet inflation

We present a scalar triplet extension of the standard model to unify the origin of inflation with neutrino mass, asymmetric dark matter and leptogenesis. In presence of non-minimal couplings to gravity the scalar triplet, mixed with the standard model Higgs, plays the role of inflaton in the early Universe, while its decay to SM Higgs, lepton and dark matter simultaneously generate an asymmetry in the visible and dark matter sectors. On the other hand, in the low energy effective theory the induced vacuum expectation value of the triplet gives sub-eV Majorana masses to active neutrinos. We investigate the model parameter space leading to successful inflation as well as the observed dark matter to baryon abundance. Assuming the standard model like Higgs mass to be at 125-126 GeV, we found that the mass scale of the scalar triplet to be ~ O(10^9) GeV and its trilinear coupling to doublet Higgs is ~ 0.09 so that it not only evades the possibility of having a metastable vacuum in the standard model, but also lead to a rich phenomenological consequences as stated above. Moreover, we found that the scalar triplet inflation strongly constrains the quartic couplings, while allowing for a wide range of Yukawa couplings which generate the CP asymmetries in the visible and dark matter sectors.Comment: (v1) 29 pages, 11 figures; (v2) 30 pages, 1 figure added and discussions expanded, to appear in Nuclear Physics

Directional Dependence and Diurnal Modulation in Dark Matter Detectors

In this paper we study the effect of the channeling of ions recoiling from collisions with weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) in single crystal detectors. In particular we investigate the possibility that channeling may give rise to diurnal modulations of the counting rate as the Earth rotates relative to the direction of the WIMP wind, and the effect that channeling has on the "quenching factor" of a detector