18,171 research outputs found
VHE gamma ray absorption by galactic interstellar radiation field
Adopting a recent calculation of the Galactic interstellar radiation field,
we calculate the attenuation of the very high energy gamma rays from the
Galactic sources. The infra-red radiation background near the Galactic Center
is very intense due to the new calculation and our result shows that a cutoff
of high energy gamma ray spectrum begins at about 20 TeV and reaches about 10%
for 50 TeV gamma rays.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure, figure is changed, conclusion not change
Recommended from our members
Assessing plantar sensation in the foot using the FOot Roughness Discrimination Test (FoRDT™): a reliability and validity study in stroke
BACKGROUND: The foot sole represents a sensory dynamometric map and is essential for balance and gait control. Sensory impairments are common, yet often difficult to quantify in neurological conditions, particularly stroke. A functionally oriented and quantifiable assessment, the Foot Roughness Discrimination Test (FoRDT™), was developed to address these shortcomings. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate inter- and intra-rater reliability, convergent and discriminant validity of the Foot Roughness Discrimination Test (FoRDT™). DESIGN: Test-retest design. SETTING: Hospital Outpatient. PARTICIPANTS: Thirty-two people with stroke (mean age 70) at least 3 months after stroke, and 32 healthy, age-matched controls (mean age 70). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Roughness discrimination thresholds were quantified utilising acrylic foot plates, laser-cut to produce graded spatial gratings. Stroke participants were tested on three occasions, and by two different raters. Inter- and intra-rater reliability and agreement were evaluated with Intraclass Correlation Coefficients and Bland-Altman plots. Convergent validity was evaluated through Spearman rank correlation coefficients (rho) between the FoRDT™ and the Erasmus modified Nottingham Sensory Assessment (EmNSA). RESULTS: Intra- and inter rater reliability and agreement were excellent (ICC =.86 (95% CI .72-.92) and .90 (95% CI .76 -.96)). Discriminant validity was demonstrated through significant differences in FoRDT™ between stroke and control participants (p.05). CONCLUSIONS: This simple and functionally oriented test of plantar sensation is reliable, valid and clinically feasible for use in an ambulatory, chronic stroke and elderly population. It offers clinicians and researchers a sensitive and robust sensory measure and may further support the evaluation of rehabilitation targeting foot sensation. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved
Comments on photonic shells
We investigate in detail the special case of an infinitely thin static
cylindrical shell composed of counter-rotating photons on circular geodetical
paths separating two distinct parts of Minkowski spacetimes--one inside and the
other outside the shell--and compare it to a static disk shell formed by null
particles counter-rotating on circular geodesics within the shell located
between two sections of flat spacetime. One might ask whether the two cases are
not, in fact, merely one
Exact Relativistic Static Charged Dust Disks and Non-axisymmetric Structures
The well-known ``displace, cut and reflect'' method used to generate disks
from given solutions of Einstein field equations is applied to the
superposition of twoextreme Reissner-Nordstrom black holes to construct disks
made of charged dust and alsonon-axisymmetric planar distributions of charged
dust on the z=0 plane. They are symmetric with respect to twoor one coordinate
axes, depending whether the black holes have equal or unequal masses,
respectively.For these non-axisymmetric distributions of matter we also study
the effective potential for geodesic motion of neutral test particles.Comment: Classical and Quantum Gravity (in press). 15 pages, LaTex, 8 .eps
fig
Ultraviolet Line Emission from Metals in the Low-Redshift Intergalactic Medium
We use a high-resolution cosmological simulation that includes hydrodynamics,
multiphase star formation, and galactic winds to predict the distribution of
metal line emission at z~0 from the intergalactic medium (IGM). We focus on two
ultraviolet doublet transitions, OVI 1032,1038 and CIV 1548,1551. Emission from
filaments with moderate overdensities is orders of magnitude smaller than the
background, but isolated emission from enriched, dense regions with
T~10^5-10^5.5 K and characteristic sizes of 50-100 kpc can be detected above
the background. We show that the emission from these regions is substantially
greater when we use the metallicities predicted by the simulation (which
includes enrichment through galactic winds) than when we assume a uniform IGM
metallicity. Luminous regions correspond to volumes that have recently been
influenced by galactic winds. We also show that the line emission is clustered
on scales ~1 h^-1 Mpc. We argue that although these transitions are not
effective tracers of the warm-hot intergalactic medium, they do provide a route
to study the chemical enrichment of the IGM and the physics of galactic winds.Comment: replaced by version to appear in ApJ (conclusions unchanged, one new
figure), 16 pages (emulateapj), 11 figures, version with higher resolution
figures available at
http://www.tapir.caltech.edu/~sfurlane/metals/coverpage.htm
Line versus Flux Statistics -- Considerations for the Low Redshift Lyman-alpha Forest
The flux/transmission power spectrum has become a popular statistical tool in
studies of the high redshift () Lyman-alpha forest. At low redshifts,
where the forest has thinned out into a series of well-isolated absorption
lines, the motivation for flux statistics is less obvious. Here, we study the
relative merits of flux versus line correlations, and derive a simple condition
under which one is favored over the other on purely statistical grounds.
Systematic errors probably play an important role in this discussion, and they
are outlined as well.Comment: 6 pages, to appear in "The IGM/Galaxy Connection: The Distribution of
Baryons at z=0", eds. J. L. Rosenberg and M. E. Putma
The Line-of-Sight Proximity Effect and the Mass of Quasar Host Halos
We show that the Lyman-alpha optical depth statistics in the proximity
regions of quasar spectra depend on the mass of the dark matter halos hosting
the quasars. This is owing to both the overdensity around the quasars and the
associated infall of gas toward them. For a fiducial quasar host halo mass of
(3.0+/-1.6) h^-1 x 10^12 Msun, as inferred by Croom et al. from clustering in
the 2dF QSO Redshift Survey, we show that estimates of the ionizing background
(Gamma^bkg) from proximity effect measurements could be biased high by a factor
of ~2.5 at z=3 owing to neglecting these effects alone. The clustering of
galaxies and other active galactic nuclei around the proximity effect quasars
enhances the local background, but is not expected to skew measurements by more
than a few percent. Assuming the measurements of Gamma^bkg based on the mean
flux decrement in the Ly-alpha forest to be free of bias, we demonstrate how
the proximity effect analysis can be inverted to measure the mass of the dark
matter halos hosting quasars. In ideal conditions, such a measurement could be
made with a precision comparable to the best clustering constraints to date
from a modest sample of only about 100 spectra. We discuss observational
difficulties, including continuum flux estimation, quasar systematic redshift
determination, and quasar variability, which make accurate proximity effect
measurements challenging in practice. These are also likely to contribute to
the discrepancies between existing proximity effect and flux decrement
measurements of Gamma^bkg.Comment: 25 pages, including 14 figures, accepted by Ap
- …