26,359 research outputs found
The Role of Fermions in Bubble Nucleation
We present a study of the role of fermions in the decay of metastable states
of a scalar field via bubble nucleation. We analyze both one and
three-dimensional systems by using a gradient expansion for the calculation of
the fermionic determinant. The results of the one-dimensional case are compared
to the exact results of previous work.Comment: 15 pages, revtex, 9 figure
A Tolman Surface Brightness Test for Universal Expansion, and the Evolution of Elliptical Galaxies in Distant Clusters
We use the intercept of the elliptical galaxy radius--surface brightness (SB)
relation at a fixed metric radius as the standard condition for the Tolman SB
test of the universal expansion. We use surface photometry in the optical and
near-IR of elliptical galaxies in Abell~2390 () and Abell~851
(), and compare them to the Coma cluster at . The
photometric data for each cluster are well-described by the Kormendy relation
, where in the optical and in the
near-IR. The scatter about this near-IR relation is only in
at the highest redshift, which is much smaller than at low redshifts,
suggesting a remarkable homogeneity of the cluster elliptical population at
. We use the intercept of these fixed-slope correlations at ~kpc (assuming ~km~s~Mpc, , and
, where the results are only weakly dependent on the cosmology) to
construct the Tolman SB test for these three clusters. The data are fully
consistent with universal expansion if we assume simple models of passive
evolution for elliptical galaxies, but are inconsistent with a non-expanding
geometry (the tired light cosmology) at the confidence level at
. These results suggest luminosity evolution in the restframe -band
of ~mag from to the present, and are consistent with
the ellipticals having formed at high redshift. The SB intercept in elliptical
galaxy correlations is thus a powerful tool for investigating models of their
evolution for significant lookback times.Comment: to appear in The Astrophysical Journal (Letters); 13 pages, including
3 Postscript figures and 1 table; uuencoded, compressed format; the paper is
also available in various formats from
http://astro.caltech.edu/~map/map.bibliography.refereed.htm
SPIDER X - Environmental effects in central and satellite early-type galaxies through the stellar fossil record
A detailed analysis of how environment affects the star formation history of
early-type galaxies (ETGs) is undertaken via high signal to noise ratio stacked
spectra obtained from a sample of 20,977 ETGs (morphologically selected) from
the SDSS-based SPIDER survey. Two major parameters are considered for the
study: the central velocity dispersion (sigma), which relates to local drivers
of star formation, and the mass of the host halo, which relates to
environment-related effects. In addition, we separate the sample between
centrals (the most massive galaxy in a halo) and satellites. We derive trends
of age, metallicity, and [alpha/Fe] enhancement, with sigma. We confirm that
the major driver of stellar population properties in ETGs is velocity
dispersion, with a second-order effect associated to the central/satellite
nature of the galaxy. No environmental dependence is detected for satellite
ETGs, except at low sigma - where satellites in groups or in the outskirts of
clusters tend to be younger than those in the central regions of clusters. In
contrast, the trends for centrals show a significant dependence on halo mass.
Central ETGs in groups (i.e. with a halo mass >10^12.5 M_Sun) have younger
ages, lower [alpha/Fe], and higher internal reddening, than "isolated" systems
(i.e. centrals residing in low-mass, <10^12.5 M_Sun, halos). Our findings imply
that central ETGs in groups formed their stellar component over longer time
scales than "isolated" centrals, mainly because of gas-rich interactions with
their companion galaxies.Comment: 22 pages, 19 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA
Improved semiclassical density matrix: taming caustics
We present a simple method to deal with caustics in the semiclassical
approximation to the thermal density matrix of a particle moving on the line.
For simplicity, only its diagonal elements are considered. The only ingredient
we require is the knowledge of the extrema of the Euclidean action. The
procedure makes use of complex trajectories, and is applied to the quartic
double-well potential.Comment: 20 pages, 7 figures. Revised version, accepted for publication in
Phys. Rev.
Análise quantitativa das bactérias fixadoras de nitrogênio presentes em inoculantes comerciais para soja.
A Fixação biológica de nitrogênio (FBN) é um processo de grande importância para a cultura da soja, uma vez que a simbiose com bactérias específicas consegue suprir o nitrogênio necessário para um bom desenvolvimento da planta e, consequentemente, para um aumento na produtividade e na produção. O Brasil investe na FBN que, atualmente, é um processo amplamente adotado por agricultores, sendo os inoculantes um dos responsáveis pelo Brasil ocupar o segundo lugar na produção mundial de soja. Assim, a legislação brasileira precisa manter rigoroso controle da qualidade desses insumos. Portanto, visto a importância dos inoculantes para a soja, o presente trabalho analisou a concentração de células viáveis/g ou mL de alguns desses produtos vendidos comercialmente, a fim de verificar qual a situação atual dos produtos que chegam aos agricultores. Os inoculantes foram analisados pelo método de espalhamento e contagem em placas de Petri. Doze produtos foram testados e apresentaram uma concentração acima da exigida por lei, que é 1x109 células viáveis/g ou mL, bem como ausência de contaminantes na diluição 105. Existe a percepção, portanto, de que os fabricantes estão atentos em manter a qualidade dos produtos, levando segurança para agricultor
Thermal evolution of hybrid stars within the framework of a nonlocal Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model
We study the thermal evolution of neutron stars containing deconfined quark
matter in their core. Such objects are generally referred to as quark-hybrid
stars. The confined hadronic matter in their core is described in the framework
of non-linear relativistic nuclear field theory. For the quark phase we use a
non-local extension of the SU(3) Nambu Jona-Lasinio model with vector
interactions. The Gibbs condition is used to model phase equilibrium between
confined hadronic matter and deconfined quark matter. Our study indicates that
high-mass neutron stars may contain between 35 and 40 % deconfined quark-hybrid
matter in their cores. Neutron stars with canonical masses of around would not contain deconfined quark matter. The central proton
fractions of the stars are found to be high, enabling them to cool rapidly.
Very good agreement with the temperature evolution established for the neutron
star in Cassiopeia A (Cas A) is obtained for one of our models (based on the
popular NL3 nuclear parametrization), if the protons in the core of our stellar
models are strongly paired, the repulsion among the quarks is mildly repulsive,
and the mass of Cas A has a canonical value of .Comment: 10 pages, 7 figure
Distribution of epicenters in the Olami-Feder-Christensen model
We show that the well established Olami-Feder-Christensen (OFC) model for the
dynamics of earthquakes is able to reproduce a new striking property of real
earthquake data. Recently, it has been pointed out by Abe and Suzuki that the
epicenters of earthquakes could be connected in order to generate a graph, with
properties of a scale-free network of the Barabasi-Albert type. However, only
the non conservative version of the Olami-Feder-Christensen model is able to
reproduce this behavior. The conservative version, instead, behaves like a
random graph. Besides indicating the robustness of the model to describe
earthquake dynamics, those findings reinforce that conservative and non
conservative versions of the OFC model are qualitatively different. Also, we
propose a completely new dynamical mechanism that, even without an explicit
rule of preferential attachment, generates a free scale network. The
preferential attachment is in this case a ``by-product'' of the long term
correlations associated with the self-organized critical state. The detailed
study of the properties of this network can reveal new aspects of the dynamics
of the OFC model, contributing to the understanding of self-organized
criticality in non conserving models.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figure
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