79 research outputs found
Searching for Gravitational Waves from the Inspiral of Precessing Binary Systems: New Hierarchical Scheme using "Spiky" Templates
In a recent investigation of the effects of precession on the anticipated
detection of gravitational-wave inspiral signals from compact object binaries
with moderate total masses, we found that (i) if precession is ignored, the
inspiral detection rate can decrease by almost a factor of 10, and (ii)
previously proposed ``mimic'' templates cannot improve the detection rate
significantly (by more than a factor of 2). In this paper we propose a new
family of templates that can improve the detection rate by factors of 5--6 in
cases where precession is most important. Our proposed method for these new
``mimic'' templates involves a hierarchical scheme of efficient, two-parameter
template searches that can account for a sequence of spikes that appear in the
residual inspiral phase, after one corrects for the any oscillatory
modification in the phase. We present our results for two cases of compact
object masses (10 and 1.4 solar masses and 7 and 3 solar masses) as a function
of spin properties. Although further work is needed to fully assess the
computational efficiency of this newly proposed template family, we conclude
that these ``spiky templates'' are good candidates for a family of precession
templates used in realistic searches, that can improve detection rates of
inspiral events.Comment: 17 pages, 22 figures, version accepted by PRD. Minor revision
Searching for Gravitational Waves from the Inspiral of Precessing Binary Systems: Astrophysical Expectations and Detection Efficiency of "Spiky'' Templates
Relativistic spin-orbit and spin-spin couplings has been shown to modify the
gravitational waveforms expected from inspiraling binaries with a black hole
and a neutron star. As a result inspiral signals may be missed due to
significant losses in signal-to-noise ratio, if precession effects are ignored
in gravitational-wave searches. We examine the sensitivity of the anticipated
loss of signal-to-noise ratio on two factors: the accuracy of the precessing
waveforms adopted as the true signals and the expected distributions of
spin-orbit tilt angles, given the current understanding of their physical
origin. We find that the results obtained using signals generated by
approximate techniques are in good agreement with the ones obtained by
integrating the 2PN equations. This shows that a complete account of all
high-order post-Newtonian effects is usually not necessary for the
determination of detection efficiencies. Based on our current astrophysical
expectations, large tilt angles are not favored and as a result the decrease in
detection rate varies rather slowly with respect to the black hole spin
magnitude and is within 20--30% of the maximum possible values.Comment: 7 fig., accepted by Phys. Rev. D Minor modification
Adaptations of Natural Killer Cells to Self-MHC Class I.
Natural Killer (NK) cells use germ line encoded receptors to detect diseased host cells. Despite the invariant recognition structures, NK cells have a significant ability to adapt to their surroundings, such as the presence or absence of MHC class I molecules. It has been assumed that this adaptation occurs during NK cell development, but recent findings show that mature NK cells can also adapt to the presence or absence of MHC class I molecules. Here, we summarize how NK cells adjust to changes in the expression of MHC class I molecules. We propose an extension of existing models, in which MHC class I recognition during NK cell development sequentially instructs and maintains NK cell function. The elucidation of the molecular basis of the two effects may identify ways to improve the fitness of NK cells and to prevent the loss of NK cell function due to persistent alterations in their environment
Activation by SLAM Family Receptors Contributes to NK Cell Mediated "Missing-Self" Recognition.
Natural Killer (NK) cells attack normal hematopoietic cells that do not express inhibitory MHC class I (MHC-I) molecules, but the ligands that activate NK cells remain incompletely defined. Here we show that the expression of the Signaling Lymphocyte Activation Molecule (SLAM) family members CD48 and Ly9 (CD229) by MHC-I-deficient tumor cells significantly contributes to NK cell activation. When NK cells develop in the presence of T cells or B cells that lack inhibitory MHC-I but express activating CD48 and Ly9 ligands, the NK cells' ability to respond to MHC-I-deficient tumor cells is severely compromised. In this situation, NK cells express normal levels of the corresponding activation receptors 2B4 (CD244) and Ly9 but these receptors are non-functional. This provides a partial explanation for the tolerance of NK cells to MHC-I-deficient cells in vivo. Activating signaling via 2B4 is restored when MHC-I-deficient T cells are removed, indicating that interactions with MHC-I-deficient T cells dominantly, but not permanently, impair the function of the 2B4 NK cell activation receptor. These data identify an important role of SLAM family receptors for NK cell mediated "missing-self" reactivity and suggest that NK cell tolerance in MHC-I mosaic mice is in part explained by an acquired dysfunction of SLAM family receptors
Binary black holes in circular orbits. II. Numerical methods and first results
We present the first results from a new method for computing spacetimes
representing corotating binary black holes in circular orbits. The method is
based on the assumption of exact equilibrium. It uses the standard 3+1
decomposition of Einstein equations and conformal flatness approximation for
the 3-metric. Contrary to previous numerical approaches to this problem, we do
not solve only the constraint equations but rather a set of five equations for
the lapse function, the conformal factor and the shift vector. The orbital
velocity is unambiguously determined by imposing that, at infinity, the metric
behaves like the Schwarzschild one, a requirement which is equivalent to the
virial theorem. The numerical scheme has been implemented using multi-domain
spectral methods and passed numerous tests. A sequence of corotating black
holes of equal mass is calculated. Defining the sequence by requiring that the
ADM mass decrease is equal to the angular momentum decrease multiplied by the
orbital angular velocity, it is found that the area of the apparent horizons is
constant along the sequence. We also find a turning point in the ADM mass and
angular momentum curves, which may be interpreted as an innermost stable
circular orbit (ISCO). The values of the global quantities at the ISCO,
especially the orbital velocity, are in much better agreement with those from
third post-Newtonian calculations than with those resulting from previous
numerical approaches.Comment: 27 pages, 20 PostScript figures, improved presentation of the
regularization procedure for the shift vector, new section devoted to the
check of the momentum constraint, references added + minor corrections,
accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.
Numerical Evolution of axisymmetric vacuum spacetimes: a code based on the Galerkin method
We present the first numerical code based on the Galerkin and Collocation
methods to integrate the field equations of the Bondi problem. The Galerkin
method like all spectral methods provide high accuracy with moderate
computational effort. Several numerical tests were performed to verify the
issues of convergence, stability and accuracy with promising results. This code
opens up several possibilities of applications in more general scenarios for
studying the evolution of spacetimes with gravitational waves.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures. To appear in Classical and Quantum Gravit
Detecting gravitational waves from precessing binaries of spinning compact objects: Adiabatic limit
Black-hole (BH) binaries with single-BH masses m=5--20 Msun, moving on
quasicircular orbits, are among the most promising sources for first-generation
ground-based gravitational-wave (GW) detectors. Until now, the development of
data-analysis techniques to detect GWs from these sources has been focused
mostly on nonspinning BHs. The data-analysis problem for the spinning case is
complicated by the necessity to model the precession-induced modulations of the
GW signal, and by the large number of parameters needed to characterize the
system, including the initial directions of the spins, and the position and
orientation of the binary with respect to the GW detector. In this paper we
consider binaries of maximally spinning BHs, and we work in the
adiabatic-inspiral regime to build families of modulated detection templates
that (i) are functions of very few physical and phenomenological parameters,
(ii) model remarkably well the dynamical and precessional effects on the GW
signal, with fitting factors on average >~ 0.97, but (iii) might require
increasing the detection thresholds, offsetting at least partially the gains in
the fitting factors. Our detection-template families are quite promising also
for the case of neutron-star--black-hole binaries, with fitting factors on
average ~ 0.93. For these binaries we also suggest (but do not test) a further
template family, which would produce essentially exact waveforms written
directly in terms of the physical spin parameters.Comment: 38 pages, 16 figures, RevTeX4. Final PRD version. Lingering typos
corrected. Small corrections to GW flux terms as per Blanchet et al., PRD 71,
129902(E)-129904(E) (2005
Can a combination of the conformal thin-sandwich and puncture methods yield binary black hole solutions in quasi-equilibrium?
We consider combining two important methods for constructing
quasi-equilibrium initial data for binary black holes: the conformal
thin-sandwich formalism and the puncture method. The former seeks to enforce
stationarity in the conformal three-metric and the latter attempts to avoid
internal boundaries, like minimal surfaces or apparent horizons. We show that
these two methods make partially conflicting requirements on the boundary
conditions that determine the time slices. In particular, it does not seem
possible to construct slices that are quasi-stationary and avoid physical
singularities and simultaneously are connected by an everywhere positive lapse
function, a condition which must obtain if internal boundaries are to be
avoided. Some relaxation of these conflicting requirements may yield a soluble
system, but some of the advantages that were sought in combining these
approaches will be lost.Comment: 8 pages, LaTeX2e, 2 postscript figure
Corotating and irrotational binary black holes in quasi-circular orbits
A complete formalism for constructing initial data representing black-hole
binaries in quasi-equilibrium is developed. Radiation reaction prohibits, in
general, true equilibrium binary configurations. However, when the timescale
for orbital decay is much longer than the orbital period, a binary can be
considered to be in quasi-equilibrium. If each black hole is assumed to be in
quasi-equilibrium, then a complete set of boundary conditions for all initial
data variables can be developed. These boundary conditions are applied on the
apparent horizon of each black hole, and in fact force a specified surface to
be an apparent horizon. A global assumption of quasi-equilibrium is also used
to fix some of the freely specifiable pieces of the initial data and to
uniquely fix the asymptotic boundary conditions. This formalism should allow
for the construction of completely general quasi-equilibrium black hole binary
initial data.Comment: 13 pages, no figures, revtex4; Content changed slightly to reflect
fact that regularized shift solutions do satisfy the isometry boundary
condition
Comparing initial-data sets for binary black holes
We compare the results of constructing binary black hole initial data with
three different decompositions of the constraint equations of general
relativity. For each decomposition we compute the initial data using a
superposition of two Kerr-Schild black holes to fix the freely specifiable
data. We find that these initial-data sets differ significantly, with the ADM
energy varying by as much as 5% of the total mass. We find that all
initial-data sets currently used for evolutions might contain unphysical
gravitational radiation of the order of several percent of the total mass. This
is comparable to the amount of gravitational-wave energy observed during the
evolved collision. More astrophysically realistic initial data will require
more careful choices of the freely specifiable data and boundary conditions for
both the metric and extrinsic curvature. However, we find that the choice of
extrinsic curvature affects the resulting data sets more strongly than the
choice of conformal metric.Comment: 18 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.
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