FORMA and BEFORE: Expanding applications of optical tweezers

We introduce two methods based on statistical inference to calibrate optical tweezers. Both outperform well-established methods and cover a broader application field, including non-conservative force fields and out of equilibrium systems

Ridge Formation and De-Spinning of Iapetus via an Impact-Generated Satellite

We present a scenario for building the equatorial ridge and de-spinning Iapetus through an impact-generated disk and satellite. This impact puts debris into orbit, forming a ring inside the Roche limit and a satellite outside. This satellite rapidly pushes the ring material down to the surface of Iapetus, and then itself tidally evolves outward, thereby helping to de-spin Iapetus. This scenario can de-spin Iapetus an order of magnitude faster than when tides due to Saturn act alone, almost independently of its interior geophysical evolution. Eventually, the satellite is stripped from its orbit by Saturn. The range of satellite and impactor masses required is compatible with the estimated impact history of Iapetus.Comment: 19 pages, 3 figures; Icarus, in pres

A sample return mission to Ceres

The goal of Project GAUSS (Genesis of Asteroids and evolUtion of the Solar System) is to return samples from the dwarf planet Ceres. Ceres is the most accessible candidate of ocean worlds and the largest reservoir of water in the inner Solar System. It shows active volcanism and hydrothermal activities in recent history. Recent evidence for the existence of a subsurface ocean on Ceres and the complex geochemistry suggest past habitability and even the potential for ongoing habitability. GAUSS will return samples from Ceres with the aim of answering the following top-level scientific questions: What is the origin of Ceres and what does this imply for the origin of water and other volatiles in the inner Solar System? What are the physical properties and internal structure of Ceres? What do they tell us about the evolutionary and aqueous alteration history of dwarf planets? What are the astrobiological implications of Ceres? Is it still habitable today? What are the mineralogical connections between Ceres and our current collections of carbonaceous meteorites

Validation of the Women’s Views of Birth Labor Satisfaction Questionnaire (WOMBLSQ4) in the Spanish Population

The satisfaction of women with the birth experience has implications for the health and wellness of the women themselves and also of their newborn baby. The objectives of this study were to determine the factor structure of the Women’s Views of Birth Labor Satisfaction Questionnaire (WOMBLSQ4) questionnaire on satisfaction with the attention received during birth delivery in Spanish women and to compare the level of satisfaction of pregnant women during the birth process with that in other studies that validated this instrument. A cross-sectional study using a self-completed questionnaire of 385 Spanish-speaking puerperal women who gave birth in the Public University Hospitals of Granada (Spain) was conducted. An exploratory factor analysis of the WOMBLSQ4 questionnaire was performed to identify the best fit model. Those items that showed commonalities higher than 0.50 were kept in the questionnaire. Using the principal components method, nine factors with eigenvalues greater than one were extracted after merging pain-related factors into a single item. These factors explain 90% of the global variance, indicating the high internal consistency of the full scale. In the model resulting from the WOMBLSQ4 questionnaire, its nine dimensions measure the levels of satisfaction of puerperal women with childbirth care. Average scores somewhat higher than those of the original questionnaire and close to those achieved in the study carried out in Madrid (Spain) were obtained. In clinical practice, this scale may be relevant for measuring the levels of satisfaction during childbirth of Spanish-speaking women

Localization of gravity on a de Sitter thick braneworld without scalar fields

In this work we present a simple thick braneworld model that is generated by an intriguing interplay between a 5D cosmological constant with a de Sitter metric induced in the 3-brane without the inclusion of scalar fields. We show that 4D gravity is localized on this brane, provide analytic expressions for the massive Kaluza-Klein (KK) fluctuation modes and also show that the spectrum of metric excitations displays a mass gap. We finally present the corrections to Newton's law due to these massive modes. This model has no naked singularities along the fifth dimension despite the existence of a mass gap in the graviton spectrum as it happens in thick branes with 4D Poincare symmetry, providing a simple model with very good features: the curvature is completely smooth along the fifth dimension, it localizes 4D gravity and the spectrum of gravity fluctuations presents a mass gap, a fact that rules out the existence of phenomenologically dangerous ultralight KK excitations in the model. We finally present our solution as a limit of scalar thick branes.Comment: 11 pages in latex, no figures, title and abstract changed, a new section and some references adde

q-Form fields on p-branes

In this paper, we give one general method for localizing any form (q-form) field on p-branes with one extra dimension, and apply it to some typical p-brane models. It is found that, for the thin and thick Minkowski branes with an infinite extra dimension, the zero mode of the q-form fields with q<(p-1)/2 can be localized on the branes. For the thick Minkowski p-branes with one finite extra dimension, the localizable q-form fields are those with q<p/2, and there are also some massive bound Kaluza-Klein modes for these q-form fields on the branes. For the same q-form field, the number of the bound Kaluza-Klein modes (but except the scalar field (q=0)) increases with the dimension of the p-branes. Moreover, on the same p-brane, the q-form fields with higher q have less number of massive bound KK modes. While for a family of pure geometrical thick p-branes with a compact extra dimension, the q-form fields with q<p/2 always have a localized zero mode. For a special pure geometrical thick p-brane, there also exist some massive bound KK modes of the q-form fields with q<p/2, whose number increases with the dimension of the p-brane.Comment: 14 pages, 2 figures, published versio

GAUSS - genesis of asteroids and evolution of the solar system

The goal of Project GAUSS (Genesis of Asteroids and evolUtion of the Solar System) is to return samples from the dwarf planet Ceres. Ceres is the most accessible candidate of ocean worlds and the largest reservoir of water in the inner Solar System. It shows active volcanism and hydrothermal activities in recent history. Recent evidence for the existence of a subsurface ocean on Ceres and the complex geochemistry suggest past habitability and even the potential for ongoing habitability. GAUSS will return samples from Ceres with the aim of answering the following top-level scientific questions: What is the origin of Ceres and what does this imply for the origin of water and other volatiles in the inner Solar System? What are the physical properties and internal structure of Ceres? What do they tell us about the evolutionary and aqueous alteration history of dwarf planets? What are the astrobiological implications of Ceres? Is it still habitable today? What are the mineralogical connections between Ceres and our current collections of carbonaceous meteorites

Observation of associated near-side and away-side long-range correlations in √sNN=5.02 TeV proton-lead collisions with the ATLAS detector

Two-particle correlations in relative azimuthal angle (Δϕ) and pseudorapidity (Δη) are measured in √sNN=5.02  TeV p+Pb collisions using the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The measurements are performed using approximately 1  μb-1 of data as a function of transverse momentum (pT) and the transverse energy (ΣETPb) summed over 3.1<η<4.9 in the direction of the Pb beam. The correlation function, constructed from charged particles, exhibits a long-range (2<|Δη|<5) “near-side” (Δϕ∼0) correlation that grows rapidly with increasing ΣETPb. A long-range “away-side” (Δϕ∼π) correlation, obtained by subtracting the expected contributions from recoiling dijets and other sources estimated using events with small ΣETPb, is found to match the near-side correlation in magnitude, shape (in Δη and Δϕ) and ΣETPb dependence. The resultant Δϕ correlation is approximately symmetric about π/2, and is consistent with a dominant cos⁡2Δϕ modulation for all ΣETPb ranges and particle pT

Measurement of the inclusive and dijet cross-sections of b-jets in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector

The inclusive and dijet production cross-sections have been measured for jets containing b-hadrons (b-jets) in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of sqrt(s) = 7 TeV, using the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The measurements use data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 34 pb^-1. The b-jets are identified using either a lifetime-based method, where secondary decay vertices of b-hadrons in jets are reconstructed using information from the tracking detectors, or a muon-based method where the presence of a muon is used to identify semileptonic decays of b-hadrons inside jets. The inclusive b-jet cross-section is measured as a function of transverse momentum in the range 20 < pT < 400 GeV and rapidity in the range |y| < 2.1. The bbbar-dijet cross-section is measured as a function of the dijet invariant mass in the range 110 < m_jj < 760 GeV, the azimuthal angle difference between the two jets and the angular variable chi in two dijet mass regions. The results are compared with next-to-leading-order QCD predictions. Good agreement is observed between the measured cross-sections and the predictions obtained using POWHEG + Pythia. MC@NLO + Herwig shows good agreement with the measured bbbar-dijet cross-section. However, it does not reproduce the measured inclusive cross-section well, particularly for central b-jets with large transverse momenta.Comment: 10 pages plus author list (21 pages total), 8 figures, 1 table, final version published in European Physical Journal