3,680 research outputs found
Impact of Electron-Phonon Coupling on Near-Field Optical Spectra
The finite momentum transfer () longitudinal optical response
of graphene has a peak at an energy
. This corresponds directly to a quasiparticle peak in the
spectral density at momentum relative to the Fermi momentum . Inclusion
of coupling to a phonon mode at results, for , in
a constant electron-phonon renormalization of the bare bands by a mass
enhancement factor and this is followed by a phonon kink at
where additional broadening begins. Here we study the corresponding
changes in the optical quasiparticle peaks which we find to continue to
directly track the renormalized quasiparticle energies until is large
enough that the optical transitions begin to sample the phonon kink region of
the dispersion curves where linearity in momentum is lost in the renormalized
Dirac Fermion dispersion curves and the correspondence to a single
quasiparticle energy is lost. Nevertheless there remains in
features analogous to the phonon kinks of the
dispersion curves which are observable through variation of and .Comment: 6 pages, 5 figure
Reclaiming human machine nature
Extending and modifying his domain of life by artifact production is one of
the main characteristics of humankind. From the first hominid, who used a wood
stick or a stone for extending his upper limbs and augmenting his gesture
strength, to current systems engineers who used technologies for augmenting
human cognition, perception and action, extending human body capabilities
remains a big issue. From more than fifty years cybernetics, computer and
cognitive sciences have imposed only one reductionist model of human machine
systems: cognitive systems. Inspired by philosophy, behaviorist psychology and
the information treatment metaphor, the cognitive system paradigm requires a
function view and a functional analysis in human systems design process.
According that design approach, human have been reduced to his metaphysical and
functional properties in a new dualism. Human body requirements have been left
to physical ergonomics or "physiology". With multidisciplinary convergence, the
issues of "human-machine" systems and "human artifacts" evolve. The loss of
biological and social boundaries between human organisms and interactive and
informational physical artifact questions the current engineering methods and
ergonomic design of cognitive systems. New developpment of human machine
systems for intensive care, human space activities or bio-engineering sytems
requires grounding human systems design on a renewed epistemological framework
for future human systems model and evidence based "bio-engineering". In that
context, reclaiming human factors, augmented human and human machine nature is
a necessityComment: Published in HCI International 2014, Heraklion : Greece (2014
An analytical and experimental assessment of flexible road ironwork support structures
This paper describes work undertaken to investigate the mechanical performance of road ironwork installations in highways, concentrating on the chamber construction. The principal aim was to provide the background research which would allow improved designs to be developed to reduce the incidence of failures through improvements to the structural continuity between the installation and the surrounding pavement. In doing this, recycled polymeric construction materials (Jig Brix) were studied with a view to including them in future designs and specifications. This paper concentrates on the Finite Element (FE) analysis of traditional (masonry) and flexible road ironwork structures incorporating Jig Brix. The global and local buckling capacity of the Jig Brix elements was investigated and results compared well with laboratory measurements. FE models have also been developed for full-scale traditional (masonry) and flexible installations in a surrounding flexible (asphalt) pavement structure. Predictions of response to wheel loading were compared with full-scale laboratory measurements. Good agreement was achieved with the traditional (masonry) construction but poorer agreement for the flexible construction. Predictions from the FE model indicated that the use of flexible elements significantly reduces the tensile horizontal strain on the surface of the surrounding asphaltic material which is likely to reduce the incidence of surface cracking
Mid-infrared Identification of 6 cm Radio Source Counterparts in the Extended Groth Strip
A new 6-cm survey of almost 0.6 square degrees to a limit of 0.55-mJy/beam
(10-sigma) finds 37 isolated radio sources and 7 radio source pairs (not
necessarily physical companions). IRAC counterparts are identified for at least
92% of the radio sources within the area of deep IRAC coverage, which includes
31 isolated sources and 6 pairs. This contrasts with an identification rate of
<74% to R<23.95 in visible light. Eight of the IRAC galaxies have power law
spectral energy distributions, implying that the mid-infrared emission comes
from a powerful AGN. The remaining 26 IRAC galaxies show stellar emission in
the mid-infrared, probably in most of these galaxies because the stellar
emission is bright enough to outshine an underlying AGN. The infrared colors
suggest that the majority of these galaxies are bulge-dominated and have
redshifts between approximately 0.5 and 1.0. Visible spectra from the DEEP2
redshift survey, available for 11 galaxies, are consistent with this
suggestion. The IRAC galaxies fall into two distinct groups in a
color-magnitude diagram, one group (the "stripe") includes all the AGN. The
other group (the "blue clump") has blue 3.6 to 8 micron colors and a small
range of 8 micron magnitudes. This separation should be useful in classifying
galaxies found in other radio surveys.Comment: Accepted by A
The AGN Luminosity Fraction in Merging Galaxies
Galaxy mergers are key events in galaxy evolution, often causing massive
starbursts and fueling active galactic nuclei (AGN). In these highly dynamic
systems, it is not yet precisely known how much starbursts and AGN respectively
contribute to the total luminosity, at what interaction stages they occur, and
how long they persist. Here we estimate the fraction of the bolometric infrared
(IR) luminosity that can be attributed to AGN by measuring and modeling the
full ultraviolet to far-infrared spectral energy distributions (SEDs) in up to
33 broad bands for 24 merging galaxies with the Code for Investigating Galaxy
Emission. In addition to a sample of 12 confirmed AGN in late-stage mergers,
found in the Revised Bright Galaxy Sample or
Faint Source Catalog, our sample includes a comparison sample of 12 galaxy
mergers from the Interacting Galaxies Survey, mostly early-stage. We
perform identical SED modeling of simulated mergers to validate our methods,
and we supplement the SED data with mid-IR spectra of diagnostic lines obtained
with InfraRed Spectrograph. The estimated AGN contributions to the IR
luminosities vary from system to system from 0% up to 91% but are significantly
greater in the later-stage, more luminous mergers, consistent with what is
known about galaxy evolution and AGN triggering.Comment: 26 pages, 10 figure
Quantifying Self-Organization with Optimal Predictors
Despite broad interest in self-organizing systems, there are few
quantitative, experimentally-applicable criteria for self-organization. The
existing criteria all give counter-intuitive results for important cases. In
this Letter, we propose a new criterion, namely an internally-generated
increase in the statistical complexity, the amount of information required for
optimal prediction of the system's dynamics. We precisely define this
complexity for spatially-extended dynamical systems, using the probabilistic
ideas of mutual information and minimal sufficient statistics. This leads to a
general method for predicting such systems, and a simple algorithm for
estimating statistical complexity. The results of applying this algorithm to a
class of models of excitable media (cyclic cellular automata) strongly support
our proposal.Comment: Four pages, two color figure
Dynamic ductile to brittle transition in a one-dimensional model of viscoplasticity
We study two closely related, nonlinear models of a viscoplastic solid. These
models capture essential features of plasticity over a wide range of strain
rates and applied stresses. They exhibit inelastic strain relaxation and steady
flow above a well defined yield stress. In this paper, we describe a first step
in exploring the implications of these models for theories of fracture and
related phenomena. We consider a one dimensional problem of decohesion from a
substrate of a membrane that obeys the viscoplastic constitutive equations that
we have constructed. We find that, quite generally, when the yield stress
becomes smaller than some threshold value, the energy required for steady
decohesion becomes a non-monotonic function of the decohesion speed. As a
consequence, steady state decohesion at certain speeds becomes unstable. We
believe that these results are relevant to understanding the ductile to brittle
transition as well as fracture stability.Comment: 10 pages, REVTeX, 12 postscript figure
Star formation in z>1 3CR host galaxies as seen by Herschel
We present Herschel (PACS and SPIRE) far-infrared (FIR) photometry of a
complete sample of z>1 3CR sources, from the Herschel GT project The Herschel
Legacy of distant radio-loud AGN (PI: Barthel). Combining these with existing
Spitzer photometric data, we perform an infrared (IR) spectral energy
distribution (SED) analysis of these landmark objects in extragalactic research
to study the star formation in the hosts of some of the brightest active
galactic nuclei (AGN) known at any epoch. Accounting for the contribution from
an AGN-powered warm dust component to the IR SED, about 40% of our objects
undergo episodes of prodigious, ULIRG-strength star formation, with rates of
hundreds of solar masses per year, coeval with the growth of the central
supermassive black hole. Median SEDs imply that the quasar and radio galaxy
hosts have similar FIR properties, in agreement with the orientation-based
unification for radio-loud AGN. The star-forming properties of the AGN hosts
are similar to those of the general population of equally massive non-AGN
galaxies at comparable redshifts, thus there is no strong evidence of universal
quenching of star formation (negative feedback) within this sample. Massive
galaxies at high redshift may be forming stars prodigiously, regardless of
whether their supermassive black holes are accreting or not.Comment: 30 pages, 13 figures, 4 tables. Accepted for publication in A&
Weighing the Milky Way
We describe an experiment to measure the mass of the Milky Way galaxy. The
experiment is based on calculated light travel times along orthogonal
directions in the Schwarzschild metric of the Galactic center. We show that the
difference is proportional to the Galactic mass. We apply the result to light
travel times in a 10cm Michelson type interferometer located on Earth. The mass
of the Galactic center is shown to contribute 10^-6 to the flat space component
of the metric. An experiment is proposed to measure the effect.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figur
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