3,816 research outputs found
Magnetic Field Uniformity Across the GF 9-2 YSO, L1082C Dense Core, and GF 9 Filamentary Dark Cloud
The orientation of the magnetic field (B-field) in the filamentary dark cloud
GF 9 was traced from the periphery of the cloud into the L1082C dense core that
contains the low-mass, low-luminosity Class 0 young stellar object (YSO) GF 9-2
(IRAS 20503+6006). This was done using SOFIA HAWC+ dust thermal emission
polarimetry (TEP) at 216 um in combination with Mimir near-infrared background
starlight polarimetry (BSP) conducted at H-band (1.6 um) and K-band (2.2 um).
These observations were augmented with published I-band (0.77 um) BSP and
Planck 850 um TEP to probe B-field orientations with offset from the YSO in a
range spanning 6000 AU to 3 pc. No strong B-field orientation change with
offset was found, indicating remarkable uniformity of the B-field from the
cloud edge to the YSO environs. This finding disagrees with weak-field models
of cloud core and YSO formation. The continuity of inferred B-field
orientations for both TEP and BSP probes is strong evidence that both are
sampling a common B-field that uniformly threads the cloud, core, and YSO
region. Bayesian analysis of Gaia DR2 stars matched to the Mimir BSP stars
finds a distance to GF 9 of 270 +/- 10 pc. No strong wavelength dependence of
B-field orientation angle was found, contrary to previous claims.Comment: 18 pages, 6 figures ApJ, accepte
Long-term results of a multicenter SAKK trial on high-dose ifosfamide and doxorubicin in advanced or metastatic gynecologic sarcomas
Background: Dose intensive chemotherapy has not been tested prospectively for the treatment of gynecologic sarcomas. We investigated the antitumor activity and toxicity of high-dose ifosfamide and doxorubicin, in the context of a multidisciplinary strategy for the treatment of advanced and metastatic, not pretreated, gynecologic sarcomas. Patients and methods: Thirty-nine patients were enrolled onto a phase I-II multicenter trial of ifosfamide, 10 g/m2 as a continuous infusion over 5 days, plus doxorubicin intravenously, 25 mg/m2/day for 3 days with Mesna and granulocyte-colony-stimulating factor every 21 days. Salvage therapy was allowed after chemotherapy. Results: Among the 37 evaluable patients, the tumor was locally advanced (n = 11), with concomitant distant metastases (n = 5) or with distant metastases only (n = 21). After a median of three (range 1-7) chemotherapy cycles, six patients experienced a complete response and 12 a partial response for an overall response rate of 49% (95% CI 32% to 66%). The response rate was higher in poorly differentiated tumors (62%) compared with moderately well differentiated ones (18%), but was not different according to histology subtypes. Eleven patients had salvage therapy, either immediately following chemotherapy (n = 7) or at time of progression (n = 4). With a median follow-up time of 5 years, the median overall survival was 30.5 months. Hematological toxicity was as expected neutropenia, thrombopenia and anemia ≥grade 3 at 50%, 34% and 33% of cycles respectively. No toxic death occurred. Conclusions: High-dose ifosfamide plus doxorubicin is an active regimen for all subtypes of gynecological sarcomas. Its toxicity was manageable in a multicentric setting. The prolonged survival might be due to the multidisciplinary strategy that was possible in one-third of the patient
Extremal Optimization of Graph Partitioning at the Percolation Threshold
The benefits of a recently proposed method to approximate hard optimization
problems are demonstrated on the graph partitioning problem. The performance of
this new method, called Extremal Optimization, is compared to Simulated
Annealing in extensive numerical simulations. While generally a complex
(NP-hard) problem, the optimization of the graph partitions is particularly
difficult for sparse graphs with average connectivities near the percolation
threshold. At this threshold, the relative error of Simulated Annealing for
large graphs is found to diverge relative to Extremal Optimization at equalized
runtime. On the other hand, Extremal Optimization, based on the extremal
dynamics of self-organized critical systems, reproduces known results about
optimal partitions at this critical point quite well.Comment: 7 pages, RevTex, 9 ps-figures included, as to appear in Journal of
Physics
Search for the QCD critical point in nuclear collisions at the CERN SPS
Pion production in nuclear collisions at the SPS is investigated with the aim
to search, in a restricted domain of the phase diagram, for power-laws in the
behavior of correlations which are compatible with critical QCD. We have
analyzed interactions of nuclei of different size (p+p, C+C, Si+Si, Pb+Pb) at
158 GeV adopting, as appropriate observables, scaled factorial moments in a
search for intermittent fluctuations in transverse dimensions. The analysis is
performed for pairs with invariant mass very close to the two-pion
threshold. In this sector one may capture critical fluctuations of the sigma
component in a hadronic medium, even if the -meson has no well defined
vacuum state. It turns out that for the Pb+Pb system the proposed analysis
technique cannot be applied without entering the invariant mass region with
strong Coulomb correlations. As a result the treatment becomes inconclusive in
this case. Our results for the other systems indicate the presence of power-law
fluctuations in the freeze-out state of Si+Si approaching in size the
prediction of critical QCD.Comment: 31 pages, 11 figure
Quantum heuristic algorithm for traveling salesman problem
We propose a quantum heuristic algorithm to solve a traveling salesman
problem by generalizing Grover search. Sufficient conditions are derived to
greatly enhance the probability of finding the tours with extremal costs,
reaching almost to unity and they are shown characterized by statistical
properties of tour costs. In particular for a Gaussian distribution of the
tours along the cost we show that the quantum algorithm exhibits the quadratic
speedup of its classical counterpart, similarly to Grover search.Comment: Published versio
Statistical mechanics of a single particle in a multiscale random potential: Parisi landscapes in finite dimensional Euclidean spaces
We construct a N-dimensional Gaussian landscape with multiscale, translation
invariant, logarithmic correlations and investigate the statistical mechanics
of a single particle in this environment. In the limit of high dimension N>>1
the free energy of the system and overlap function are calculated exactly using
the replica trick and Parisi's hierarchical ansatz. In the thermodynamic limit,
we recover the most general version of the Derrida's Generalized Random Energy
Model (GREM). The low-temperature behaviour depends essentially on the spectrum
of length scales involved in the construction of the landscape. If the latter
consists of K discrete values, the system is characterized by a K-step Replica
Symmetry Breaking solution. We argue that our construction is in fact valid in
any finite spatial dimensions . We discuss implications of our results
for the singularity spectrum describing multifractality of the associated
Boltzmann-Gibbs measure. Finally we discuss several generalisations and open
problems, the dynamics in such a landscape and the construction of a
Generalized Multifractal Random Walk.Comment: 25 pages, published version with a few misprints correcte
Upper Limit of D0 Production in Central Pb-Pb Collisions at 158A GeV
Results are presented from a search for the decays D0 -> Kmin piplus and
D0bar -> Kplus pimin in a sample of 3.8x10^6 central Pb-Pb events collected
with a beam energy of 158A GeV by NA49 at the CERN SPS. No signal is observed.
An upper limit on D0 production is derived and compared to predictions from
several models.Comment: REVTEX 5 pages, 4 figure
Observation of an Exotic S = -2, Q = -2 Baryon Resonance in Proton-Proton Collisions at the CERN SPS
Results of resonance searches in the Xi- pi-, Xi- pi+, antiXi+ pi- and
antiXi+ pi+ invariant mass spectra in proton-proton collisions at sqrt{s}=17.2
GeV are presented. Evidence is shown for the existence of a narrow Xi- pi-
baryon resonance with mass of 1.862+/-0.002 GeV/c^2 and width below the
detector resolution of about 0.018 GeV/c^2. The significance is estimated to be
4.0 sigma. This state is a candidate for the hypothetical exotic Xi_(3/2)^--
baryon with S = -2, I = 3/2 and a quark content of (d s d s ubar). At the same
mass a peak is observed in the Xi- pi+ spectrum which is a candidate for the
Xi_(3/2)^0 member of this isospin quartet with a quark content of (d s u s
dbar). The corresponding antibaryon spectra also show enhancements at the same
invariant mass.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure
Transverse Momentum Fluctuations in Nuclear Collisions at 158 AGeV
Results are presented on event-by-event fluctuations in transverse momentum
of charged particles, produced at forward rapidities in p+p, C+C, Si+Si and
Pb+Pb collisions at 158 AGeV. Three different characteristics are discussed:
the average transverse momentum of the event, the Phi_pT fluctuation measure
and two-particle transverse momentum correlations. In the kinematic region
explored, the dynamical fluctuations are found to be small. However, a
significant system size dependence of Phi_pT is observed, with the largest
value measured in peripheral Pb+Pb interactions. The data are compared with
predictions of several models.Comment: will be submitted to Phys. Rev.
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