12,477 research outputs found
Physics Reach of High-Energy and High-Statistics IceCube Atmospheric Neutrino Data
This paper investigates the physics reach of the IceCube neutrino detector
when it will have collected a data set of order one million atmospheric
neutrinos with energies in the 0.1 \sim 10^4 TeV range. The paper consists of
three parts. We first demonstrate how to simulate the detector performance
using relatively simple analytic methods. Because of the high energies of the
neutrinos, their oscillations, propagation in the Earth and regeneration due to
\tau decay must be treated in a coherent way. We set up the formalism to do
this and discuss the implications. In a final section we apply the methods
developed to evaluate the potential of IceCube to study new physics beyond
neutrino oscillations. Not surprisingly, because of the increased energy and
statistics over present experiments, existing bounds on violations of the
equivalence principle and of Lorentz invariance can be improved by over two
orders of magnitude. The methods developed can be readily applied to other
non-conventional physics associated with neutrinos.Comment: 21 pages, 7 figures, Revtex
The Origin of B-Type Runaway Stars: Non-LTE Abundances as a Diagnostic
There are two accepted mechanisms to explain the origin of runaway OB-type
stars: the Binary Supernova Scenario (BSS), and the Cluster Ejection Scenario
(CES). In the former, a supernova explosion within a close binary ejects the
secondary star, while in the latter close multi-body interactions in a dense
cluster cause one or more of the stars to be ejected from the region at high
velocity. Both mechanisms have the potential to affect the surface composition
of the runaway star. TLUSTY non-LTE model atmosphere calculations have been
used to determine atmospheric parameters and carbon, nitrogen, magnesium and
silicon abundances for a sample of B-type runaways. These same analytical tools
were used by Hunter et al. (2009) for their analysis of 50 B-type open cluster
Galactic stars (i.e. non-runaways). Effective temperatures were deduced using
the silicon-ionization balance technique, surface gravities from Balmer line
profiles and microturbulent velocities derived using the Si spectrum. The
runaways show no obvious abundance anomalies when compared with stars in the
open clusters. The runaways do show a spread in composition which almost
certainly reflects the Galactic abundance gradient and a range in the
birthplaces of the runaways in the Galactic disk. Since the observed Galactic
abundance gradients of C, N, Mg and Si are of a similar magnitude, the
abundance ratios (e.g., N/Mg) are, as obtained, essentially uniform across the
sample
High matter density peaks from UVES observations of QSO pairs: correlation properties and chemical abundances
We study the transverse clustering properties of high matter density peaks as
traced by high column density absorption systems (either Lyman limit systems
characterized by N(HI)> 2 x 10^{17} cm^{-2} or CIV systems with W_{r}> 0.5 A)
at redshifts between 2 and 3 with UVES spectra of two QSO pairs (UM680/UM681 at
56 arcsec angular separation and Q2344+1228/Q2343+1232 at 5 arcmin angular
separation) and a QSO triplet (Q2139-4433/Q2139-4434/Q2138-4427 at 1, 7 and 8
arcmin angular separation). We find 3 damped Ly-alpha systems (N(HI)> 2 x
10^{20} cm^{-2}): 2 coinciding with strong metal systems in the nearby line of
sight and 1 matching the emission redshift of the paired QSO; plus 7 Lyman
limit systems: 4 forming two matching couples and 3 without a corresponding
metal system within ~3000 km/s in the coupled line of sight. In summary, we
detect five out of ten matching systems within 1000 km/s, indicating a highly
significant overdensity of strong absorption systems over separation lengths
from ~1 to 8 h^{-1} Mpc. The observed coincidences could arise in gas due to
starburst-driven superwinds associated with a quasar or a galaxy, or gas
belonging to large scale structures like filaments or sheets. We also determine
chemical abundance ratios for three damped Ly-alpha systems. In particular, for
the damped system at z ~ 2.53788 in the spectrum of Q2344+1228, new estimates
of the ratios O/Fe, C/Fe are obtained: [C/Fe]<0.06, [O/Fe]<0.2. They indicate
that O and C are not over-solar in this system.Comment: 14 pages, 15 figures, accepted for publication in A&
IMplicit-EXplicit Formulations for Discontinuous Galerkin Non-Hydrostatic Atmospheric Models
This work presents IMplicit-EXplicit (IMEX) formulations for discontinuous
Galerkin (DG) discretizations of the compressible Euler equations governing
non-hydrostatic atmospheric flows. In particular, we show two different IMEX
formulations that not only treat the stiffness due to the governing dynamics
but also the domain discretization. We present these formulations for two
different equation sets typically employed in atmospheric modeling. For both
equation sets, efficient Schur complements are derived and the challenges and
remedies for deriving them are discussed. The performance of these IMEX
formulations of different orders are investigated on both 2D (box) and 3D
(sphere) test problems and shown to achieve their theoretical rates of
convergence and their efficiency with respect to both mesoscale and global
applications are presented
XHIP-II: Clusters and associations
Context. In the absence of complete kinematic data it has not previously been
possible to furnish accurate lists of member stars for all moving groups. There
has been an unresolved dispute concerning the apparent inconsistency of the
Hipparcos parallax distance to the Pleiades.
Aims. To find improved candidate lists for clusters and associations
represented among Hipparcos stars, to establish distances, and to cast light on
the Pleiades distance anomaly.
Methods. We use a six dimensional fitting procedure to identify candidates,
and plot CMDs for 20 of the nearest groups. We calculate the mean parallax
distance for all groups.
Results. We identify lists of candidates and calculated parallax distances
for 42 clusters and 45 associations represented within the Hipparcos catalogue.
We find agreement between parallax distance and photometric distances for the
most important clusters. For single stars in the Pleiades we find mean parallax
distance 125.6 \pm 4.2 pc and photometric distance 132 \pm 3 pc calibrated to
nearby groups of similar in age and composition. This gives no reason to doubt
either the Hipparcos database or stellar evolutionary theory.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astronomy Letters, 10 pages, 2 fig
Merging and fragmentation in the Burgers dynamics
We explore the noiseless Burgers dynamics in the inviscid limit, the
so-called ``adhesion model'' in cosmology, in a regime where (almost) all the
fluid particles are embedded within point-like massive halos. Following
previous works, we focus our investigations on a ``geometrical'' model, where
the matter evolution within the shock manifold is defined from a geometrical
construction. This hypothesis is at variance with the assumption that the usual
continuity equation holds but, in the inviscid limit, both models agree in the
regular regions. Taking advantage of the formulation of the dynamics of this
``geometrical model'' in terms of Legendre transforms and convex hulls, we
study the evolution with time of the distribution of matter and the associated
partitions of the Lagrangian and Eulerian spaces. We describe how the halo mass
distribution derives from a triangulation in Lagrangian space, while the dual
Voronoi-like tessellation in Eulerian space gives the boundaries of empty
regions with shock nodes at their vertices. We then emphasize that this
dynamics actually leads to halo fragmentations for space dimensions greater or
equal to 2 (for the inviscid limit studied in this article). This is most
easily seen from the properties of the Lagrangian-space triangulation and we
illustrate this process in the two-dimensional (2D) case. In particular, we
explain how point-like halos only merge through three-body collisions while
two-body collisions always give rise to two new massive shock nodes (in 2D).
This generalizes to higher dimensions and we briefly illustrate the
three-dimensional (3D) case. This leads to a specific picture for the
continuous formation of massive halos through successive halo fragmentations
and mergings.Comment: 21 pages, final version published in Phys.Rev.
Vortex Impeller-Based Aeration of Groundwater
Iron oxidation and removal from groundwater is a necessary and costly process in drinking water production. In most cases, iron removal is done via aeration, succeeded by precipitation. Most systems for aeration are based on increasing the interfacial area via injecting air in the system or spraying. Both methods have disadvantages, like clogging and formation of aerosols. In this study, a new vortex-based flow-through reactor consisting of a cylindrical tank with an impeller located at the bottom was studied regarding its aeration and iron oxidation capabilities in groundwater. During the aeration experiments, the flow rate, impeller rotation and aerated volume were varied. A nondimensional constant α was proposed to relate the system’s physical characteristics and its aeration capabilities, expressed in dissolved oxygen and system volumetric mass transfer coefficient (KLa). Three distinct operational regimes were defined: formation, complete and bubble regime. These regimes showed very specific characteristics regarding the air–water interface structure and the area to volume ratio, resulting in different aeration capabilities and iron oxidation efficiency values. The system presented KLa values similar to commercially available aeration systems, especially inside the bubble regime. By using dimensionless coefficients, the presented analysis provided the basis for the design of continuous impeller aeration and oxidation systems of arbitrary size
Structure of HrcQ(B)-C, a conserved component of the bacterial type III secretion systems
Type III secretion systems enable plant and animal bacterial pathogens to deliver virulence proteins into the cytosol of eukaryotic host cells, causing a broad spectrum of diseases including bacteremia, septicemia, typhoid fever, and bubonic plague in mammals, and localized lesions, systemic wilting, and blights in plants. In
addition, type III secretion systems are also required for biogenesis of the bacterial flagellum. The HrcQ(B) protein, a component of the secretion apparatus of Pseudomonas syringae with homologues in all type III systems, has a variable N-terminal and a conserved C-terminal domain (HrcQ(B)-C). Here, we report the crystal structure
of HrcQ(B)-C and show that this domain retains the ability of the full-length protein to interact with other type III components. A 3D analysis of sequence conservation patterns reveals two clusters of residues potentially involved in protein–protein interactions. Based on the analogies between HrcQ(B) and its flagellum homologues,
we propose that HrcQ(B)-C participates in the formation of
a C-ring-like assembly
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