3,789 research outputs found
Neutrino processes in partially degenerate neutron matter
We investigate neutrino processes for conditions reached in simulations of
core-collapse supernovae. Where neutrino-matter interactions play an important
role, matter is partially degenerate, and we extend earlier work that addressed
the degenerate regime. We derive expressions for the spin structure factor in
neutron matter, which is a key quantity required for evaluating rates of
neutrino processes. We show that, for essentially all conditions encountered in
the post-bounce phase of core-collapse supernovae, it is a very good
approximation to calculate the spin relaxation rates in the nondegenerate
limit. We calculate spin relaxation rates based on chiral effective field
theory interactions and find that they are typically a factor of two smaller
than those obtained using the standard one-pion-exchange interaction alone.Comment: 41 pages, 9 figures, NORDITA-2011-116; added comparison figures and
fit function for use in simulations, to appear in Astrophys.
Cohesive crack approach to debonding analysis
Debonding of coatings from substrate due to coating compression occurs in many engineering applications. A
simplified analytical approach for the estimation of the ultimate coating compression leading to debonding is
developed in this paper, assuming an assigned out-of-plane defect of the coating. The formulation is based on the
solution of a beam on a Pasternak (two parameters) elastic foundation, and on the assumption of a Mode I
cohesive failure of the coating-substrate interface. The resulting formulas are simple and require the knowledge
of a limited number of parameters
Pushing 1D CCSNe to explosions: model and SN 1987A
We report on a method, PUSH, for triggering core-collapse supernova
explosions of massive stars in spherical symmetry. We explore basic explosion
properties and calibrate PUSH such that the observables of SN1987A are
reproduced. Our simulations are based on the general relativistic hydrodynamics
code AGILE combined with the detailed neutrino transport scheme IDSA for
electron neutrinos and ALS for the muon and tau neutrinos. To trigger
explosions in the otherwise non-exploding simulations, we rely on the
neutrino-driven mechanism. The PUSH method locally increases the energy
deposition in the gain region through energy deposition by the heavy neutrino
flavors. Our setup allows us to model the explosion for several seconds after
core bounce. We explore the progenitor range 18-21M. Our studies
reveal a distinction between high compactness (HC) and low compactness (LC)
progenitor models, where LC models tend to explore earlier, with a lower
explosion energy, and with a lower remnant mass. HC models are needed to obtain
explosion energies around 1 Bethe, as observed for SN1987A. However, all the
models with sufficiently high explosion energy overproduce Ni. We
conclude that fallback is needed to reproduce the observed nucleosynthesis
yields. The nucleosynthesis yields of Ni depend sensitively on the
electron fraction and on the location of the mass cut with respect to the
initial shell structure of the progenitor star. We identify a progenitor and a
suitable set of PUSH parameters that fit the explosion properties of SN1987A
when assuming 0.1M of fallback. We predict a neutron star with a
gravitational mass of 1.50M. We find correlations between explosion
properties and the compactness of the progenitor model in the explored
progenitors. However, a more complete analysis will require the exploration of
a larger set of progenitors with PUSH.Comment: revised version as accepted by ApJ (results unchanged, text modified
for clarification, a few references added); 26 pages, 20 figure
GAM Forest Explanation
Most accurate machine learning models unfortunately produce black-box predictions, for which it is impossible to grasp the internal logic that leads to a specific decision. Unfolding the logic of such black-box models is of increasing importance, especially when they are used in sensitive decision-making processes. In this work we focus on forests of decision trees, which may include hundreds to thousands of decision trees to produce accurate predictions. Such complexity raises the need of developing explanations for the predictions generated by large forests. We propose a post hoc explanation method of large forests, named GAM-based Explanation of Forests (GEF), which builds a Generalized Additive Model (GAM) able to explain, both locally and globally, the impact on the predictions of a limited set of features and feature interactions. We evaluate GEF over both synthetic and real-world datasets and show that GEF can create a GAM model with high fidelity by analyzing the given forest only and without using any further information, not even the initial training dataset
Validating the regional estimates of changes in soil organic carbon by using the data from paired-sites: the case study of Mediterranean arable lands
BACKGROUND: Legacy data are unique occasions for estimating soil organic carbon (SOC) concentration changes and spatial variability, but their use showed limitations due to the sampling schemes adopted and improvements may be needed in the analysis methodologies. When SOC changes is estimated with legacy data, the use of soil samples collected in different plots (i.e., non-paired data) may lead to biased results. In the present work, N = 302 georeferenced soil samples were selected from a regional (Sicily, south of Italy) soil database. An operational sampling approach was developed to spot SOC concentration changes from 1994 to 2017 in the same plots at the 0-30 cm soil depth and tested. RESULTS: The measurements were conducted after computing the minimum number of samples needed to have a reliable estimate of SOC variation after 23 years. By applying an effect size based methodology, 30 out of 302 sites were resampled in 2017 to achieve a power of 80%, and an α = 0.05. A Wilcoxon test applied to the variation of SOC from 1994 to 2017 suggested that there was not a statistical difference in SOC concentration after 23 years (Z = - 0.556; 2-tailed asymptotic significance = 0.578). In particular, only 40% of resampled sites showed a higher SOC concentration than in 2017. CONCLUSIONS: This finding contrasts with a previous SOC concentration increase that was found in 2008 (75.8% increase when estimated as differences of 2 models built with non-paired data), when compared to 1994 observed data (Z = - 9.119; 2-tailed asymptotic significance < 0.001). This suggests that the use of legacy data to estimate SOC concentration dynamics requires soil resampling in the same locations to overcome the stochastic model errors. Further experiment is needed to identify the percentage of the sites to resample in order to align two legacy datasets in the same area
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