741 research outputs found
Power Laws and the Cosmic Ray Energy Spectrum
Two separate statistical tests are applied to the AGASA and preliminary Auger
Cosmic Ray Energy spectra in an attempt to find deviation from a pure
power-law. The first test is constructed from the probability distribution for
the maximum event of a sample drawn from a power-law. The second employs the
TP-statistic, a function defined to deviate from zero when the sample deviates
from the power-law form, regardless of the value of the power index. The AGASA
data show no significant deviation from a power-law when subjected to both
tests. Applying these tests to the Auger spectrum suggests deviation from a
power-law. However, potentially large systematics on the relative energy scale
prevent us from drawing definite conclusions at this time.Comment: 21 pages, 18 figures, submitted to Astro. Part. Phy
Spin-Dependent Macroscopic Forces from New Particle Exchange
Long-range forces between macroscopic objects are mediated by light particles
that interact with the electrons or nucleons, and include spin-dependent static
components as well as spin- and velocity-dependent components. We parametrize
the long-range potential between two fermions assuming rotational invariance,
and find 16 different components. Applying this result to electrically neutral
objects, we show that the macroscopic potential depends on 72 measurable
parameters. We then derive the potential induced by the exchange of a new gauge
boson or spinless particle, and compare the limits set by measurements of
macroscopic forces to the astrophysical limits on the couplings of these
particles.Comment: 37 page
Volume-Enclosing Surface Extraction
In this paper we present a new method, which allows for the construction of
triangular isosurfaces from three-dimensional data sets, such as 3D image data
and/or numerical simulation data that are based on regularly shaped, cubic
lattices. This novel volume-enclosing surface extraction technique, which has
been named VESTA, can produce up to six different results due to the nature of
the discretized 3D space under consideration. VESTA is neither template-based
nor it is necessarily required to operate on 2x2x2 voxel cell neighborhoods
only. The surface tiles are determined with a very fast and robust construction
technique while potential ambiguities are detected and resolved. Here, we
provide an in-depth comparison between VESTA and various versions of the
well-known and very popular Marching Cubes algorithm for the very first time.
In an application section, we demonstrate the extraction of VESTA isosurfaces
for various data sets ranging from computer tomographic scan data to simulation
data of relativistic hydrodynamic fireball expansions.Comment: 24 pages, 33 figures, 4 tables, final versio
Unravelling the size distribution of social groups with information theory on complex networks
The minimization of Fisher's information (MFI) approach of Frieden et al.
[Phys. Rev. E {\bf 60} 48 (1999)] is applied to the study of size distributions
in social groups on the basis of a recently established analogy between scale
invariant systems and classical gases [arXiv:0908.0504]. Going beyond the ideal
gas scenario is seen to be tantamount to simulating the interactions taking
place in a network's competitive cluster growth process. We find a scaling rule
that allows to classify the final cluster-size distributions using only one
parameter that we call the competitiveness. Empirical city-size distributions
and electoral results can be thus reproduced and classified according to this
competitiveness, which also allows to correctly predict well-established
assessments such as the "six-degrees of separation", which is shown here to be
a direct consequence of the maximum number of stable social relationships that
one person can maintain, known as Dunbar's number. Finally, we show that scaled
city-size distributions of large countries follow the same universal
distribution
Variational Principle underlying Scale Invariant Social Systems
MaxEnt's variational principle, in conjunction with Shannon's logarithmic
information measure, yields only exponential functional forms in
straightforward fashion. In this communication we show how to overcome this
limitation via the incorporation, into the variational process, of suitable
dynamical information. As a consequence, we are able to formulate a somewhat
generalized Shannonian Maximum Entropy approach which provides a unifying
"thermodynamic-like" explanation for the scale-invariant phenomena observed in
social contexts, as city-population distributions. We confirm the MaxEnt
predictions by means of numerical experiments with random walkers, and compare
them with some empirical data
Topology of the World Trade Web
Economy, and consequently trade, is a fundamental part of human social
organization which, until now, has not been studied within the network
modelling framework. Networks are mathematical tools used in the modelling of a
wide variety of systems in social and natural science. Examples of these
networks range from metabolic and cell networks to technological webs. Here we
present the first empirical characterization of the world trade web, that is,
the network built upon the trade relationships between different countries in
the world. This network displays the typical properties of complex networks,
namely, scale-free degree distribution, the {\it small world} property, a high
clustering coefficient and, in addition, degree-degree correlation between
different vertices. All these properties make the world trade web a complex
network, which is far from being well-described through a classical random
network description
Jim Starnes' Contributions to Residual Strength Analysis Methods for Metallic Structures
A summary of advances in residual strength analyses methods for metallic structures that were realized under the leadership of Dr. James H. Starnes, Jr., is presented. The majority of research led by Dr. Starnes in this area was conducted in the 1990's under the NASA Airframe Structural Integrity Program (NASIP). Dr. Starnes, respectfully referred to herein as Jim, had a passion for studying complex response phenomena and dedicated a significant amount of research effort toward advancing damage tolerance and residual strength analysis methods for metallic structures. Jim's efforts were focused on understanding damage propagation in built-up fuselage structure with widespread fatigue damage, with the goal of ensuring safety in the aging international commercial transport fleet. Jim's major contributions in this research area were in identifying the effects of combined internal pressure and mechanical loads, and geometric nonlinearity, on the response of built-up structures with damage. Analytical and experimental technical results are presented to demonstrate the breadth and rigor of the research conducted in this technical area. Technical results presented herein are drawn exclusively from papers where Jim was a co-author
Higher dimensional dust collapse with a cosmological constant
The general solution of the Einstein equation for higher dimensional (HD)
spherically symmetric collapse of inhomogeneous dust in presence of a
cosmological term, i.e., exact interior solutions of the Einstein field
equations is presented for the HD Tolman-Bondi metrics imbedded in a de Sitter
background. The solution is then matched to exterior HD Scwarschild-de Sitter.
A brief discussion on the causal structure singularities and horizons is
provided. It turns out that the collapse proceed in the same way as in the
Minkowski background, i.e., the strong curvature naked singularities form and
that the higher dimensions seem to favor black holes rather than naked
singularities.Comment: 7 Pages, no figure
Anisotropy studies around the galactic centre at EeV energies with the Auger Observatory
Data from the Pierre Auger Observatory are analyzed to search for
anisotropies near the direction of the Galactic Centre at EeV energies. The
exposure of the surface array in this part of the sky is already significantly
larger than that of the fore-runner experiments. Our results do not support
previous findings of localized excesses in the AGASA and SUGAR data. We set an
upper bound on a point-like flux of cosmic rays arriving from the Galactic
Centre which excludes several scenarios predicting sources of EeV neutrons from
Sagittarius . Also the events detected simultaneously by the surface and
fluorescence detectors (the `hybrid' data set), which have better pointing
accuracy but are less numerous than those of the surface array alone, do not
show any significant localized excess from this direction.Comment: Matches published versio
Search for Doubly-Charged Higgs Boson Production at HERA
A search for the single production of doubly-charged Higgs bosons H^{\pm \pm}
in ep collisions is presented. The signal is searched for via the Higgs decays
into a high mass pair of same charge leptons, one of them being an electron.
The analysis uses up to 118 pb^{-1} of ep data collected by the H1 experiment
at HERA. No evidence for doubly-charged Higgs production is observed and mass
dependent upper limits are derived on the Yukawa couplings h_{el} of the Higgs
boson to an electron-lepton pair. Assuming that the doubly-charged Higgs only
decays into an electron and a muon via a coupling of electromagnetic strength
h_{e \mu} = \sqrt{4 \pi \alpha_{em}} = 0.3, a lower limit of 141 GeV on the
H^{\pm\pm} mass is obtained at the 95% confidence level. For a doubly-charged
Higgs decaying only into an electron and a tau and a coupling h_{e\tau} = 0.3,
masses below 112 GeV are ruled out.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures, 1 tabl
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