Variables influencing survival in four generations of captive-born muskoxen

Since 1967, four generations of muskoxen have been born in captivity in Alaska (399 live births, 18 abortions and 47 stillbirths), all derived from 20 females and 8 males captured on Nunivak Island. Analysis of juvenile survival was accomplished by dividing individuals into 7 classes (not born live, born live but not surviving 48 hours, survived 48 hours but < 1 week, survived 1 week but < 1 month, survived 1 month but < 6 months, survived 6 months but < 2 years, survived 2 years). Males were more frequent among live born calves (219:178, P=0.05), but greater numbers of females survived to 2 years (62:86, P<0.01). Birthweight (X=9.75 kg, N=155) did not differ between sexes nor did it significantly influence survival. Of 463 individuals, 131 showed some inbreeding but no coefficients of inbreeding exceeded 0.25 and most were less than 0.13. Analysis of variance (Kruskal-Wallis) showed a significant (P<0.05) difference between survival of inbred and non-inbred individuals. Chi-squared tests showed a greater proportion of non-inbred calves surviving to 2 years (P<0.05) but no significant differences in perinatal mortality. Offspring of the Nunivak Island cows survived significantly (P<.01) longer than those whose mothers were born in captivity, even when only non-inbred calves were compared

Stress variations near surfaces in diamond-like amorphous carbon

Using Monte Carlo simulations within the empirical potential approach, we examine the effect produced by the surface environment on the atomic level stresses in tetrahedral amorphous carbon. Both the distribution of stresses and the distributions of sp^2 and sp^3 atoms as a function of depth from the surface are highly inhomogeneous. They show the same close relationship between local stress and bonding hybridization found previously in the bulk of the material. Compressive local stress favors the formation of sp^3 sites, while tensile stress favors the formation of sp^2 sites.Comment: 7pages, 4 figure

Conserving and Gapless Approximations for an Inhomogeneous Bose Gas at Finite Temperatures

We derive and discuss the equations of motion for the condensate and its fluctuations for a dilute, weakly interacting Bose gas in an external potential within the self--consistent Hartree--Fock--Bogoliubov (HFB) approximation. Account is taken of the depletion of the condensate and the anomalous Bose correlations, which are important at finite temperatures. We give a critical analysis of the self-consistent HFB approximation in terms of the Hohenberg--Martin classification of approximations (conserving vs gapless) and point out that the Popov approximation to the full HFB gives a gapless single-particle spectrum at all temperatures. The Beliaev second-order approximation is discussed as the spectrum generated by functional differentiation of the HFB single--particle Green's function. We emphasize that the problem of determining the excitation spectrum of a Bose-condensed gas (homogeneous or inhomogeneous) is difficult because of the need to satisfy several different constraints.Comment: plain tex, 19 page

Electromagnetic radiation from collisions at almost the speed of light: an extremely relativistic charged particle falling into a Schwarzschild black hole

We investigate the electromagnetic radiation released during the high energy collision of a charged point particle with a four-dimensional Schwarzschild black hole. We show that the spectra is flat, and well described by a classical calculation. We also compare the total electromagnetic and gravitational energies emitted, and find that the former is supressed in relation to the latter for very high energies. These results could apply to the astrophysical world in the case charged stars and small charged black holes are out there colliding into large black holes, and to a very high energy collision experiment in a four-dimensional world. In this latter scenario the calculation is to be used for the moments just after the black hole formation, when the collision of charged debris with the newly formed black hole is certainly expected. Since the calculation is four-dimensional, it does not directly apply to Tev-scale gravity black holes, as these inhabit a world of six to eleven dimensions, although our results should qualitatively hold when extrapolated with some care to higher dimensions.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figure

Testing quantum correlations in a confined atomic cloud by scattering fast atoms

We suggest measuring one-particle density matrix of a trapped ultracold atomic cloud by scattering fast atoms in a pure momentum state off the cloud. The lowest-order probability of the inelastic process, resulting in a pair of outcoming fast atoms for each incoming one, turns out to be given by a Fourier transform of the density matrix. Accordingly, important information about quantum correlations can be deduced directly from the differential scattering cross-section. A possible design of the atomic detector is also discussed.Comment: 5 RevTex pages, no figures, submitted to PR

Mobility of thorium ions in liquid xenon

We present a measurement of the $^{226}$Th ion mobility in LXe at 163.0 K and 0.9 bar. The result obtained, 0.240$\pm$0.011 (stat) $\pm$0.011 (syst) cm$^{2}$/(kV-s), is compared with a popular model of ion transport.Comment: 6.5 pages,

The Scale of Cosmic Isotropy

The most fundamental premise to the standard model of the universe, the Cosmological Principle (CP), states that the large-scale properties of the universe are the same in all directions and at all comoving positions. Demonstrating this theoretical hypothesis has proven to be a formidable challenge. The cross-over scale R_{iso} above which the galaxy distribution becomes statistically isotropic is vaguely defined and poorly (if not at all) quantified. Here we report on a formalism that allows us to provide an unambiguous operational definition and an estimate of R_{iso}. We apply the method to galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 7, finding that R_{iso}\sim 150h^{-1} Mpc. Besides providing a consistency test of the Copernican principle, this result is in agreement with predictions based on numerical simulations of the spatial distribution of galaxies in cold dark matter dominated cosmological models.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures, accepted by JCAP. The text matches the published versio

Dilute Bose gas in two dimensions: Density expansions and the Gross-Pitaevskii equation

A dilute two-dimensional (2D) Bose gas at zero temperature is studied by the method developed earlier by the authors. Low density expansions are derived for the chemical potential, ground state energy, kinetic and interaction energies. The expansion parameter is found to be a dimensionless in-medium scattering amplitude u obeying the equation 1/u+\ln u=-\ln(na^2\pi)-2\gamma, where na^2 and \gamma are the gas parameter and the Euler constant, respectively. It is shown that the ground state energy is mostly kinetic in the low density limit; this result does not depend on a specific form of the pairwise interaction potential, contrary to 3D case. A new form of 2D Gross-Pitaevskii equation is proposed within our scheme.Comment: 4 pages, REVTeX, no figure

Low-Prandtl-number B\'enard-Marangoni convection in a vertical magnetic field

The effect of a homogeneous magnetic field on surface-tension-driven B\'{e}nard convection is studied by means of direct numerical simulations. The flow is computed in a rectangular domain with periodic horizontal boundary conditions and the free-slip condition on the bottom wall using a pseudospectral Fourier-Chebyshev discretization. Deformations of the free surface are neglected. Two- and three-dimensional flows are computed for either vanishing or small Prandtl number, which are typical of liquid metals. The main focus of the paper is on a qualitative comparison of the flow states with the non-magnetic case, and on the effects associated with the possible near-cancellation of the nonlinear and pressure terms in the momentum equations for two-dimensional rolls. In the three-dimensional case, the transition from a stationary hexagonal pattern at the onset of convection to three-dimensional time-dependent convection is explored by a series of simulations at zero Prandtl number.Comment: 26 pages, 9 figure

Lagrangian evolution of global strings

We establish a method to trace the Lagrangian evolution of extended objects consisting of a multicomponent scalar field in terms of a numerical calculation of field equations in three dimensional Eulerian meshes. We apply our method to the cosmological evolution of global strings and evaluate the energy density, peculiar velocity, Lorentz factor, formation rate of loops, and emission rate of Nambu-Goldstone (NG) bosons. We confirm the scaling behavior with a number of long strings per horizon volume smaller than the case of local strings by a factor of $\sim$ 10. The strategy and the method established here are applicable to a variety of fields in physics.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure