High energy cosmic ray self-confinement close to extragalactic sources

The ultra-high energy cosmic rays observed at the Earth are most likely accelerated in extra-galactic sources. For the typical luminosities invoked for such sources, the electric current associated to the flux of cosmic rays that leave them is large. The associated plasma instabilities create magnetic fluctuations that can efficiently scatter particles. We argue that this phenomenon forces cosmic rays to be self-confined in the source proximity for energies $E<E_{\rm cut}$, where $E_{\rm cut}\approx 10^{7} L_{44}^{2/3}$ GeV for low background magnetic fields ($B_{0}\ll nG$). For larger values of $B_{0}$, cosmic rays are confined close to their sources for energies $E<E_{\rm cut}\approx 2\times 10^{8} \lambda_{10} L_{44}^{1/4} B_{-10}^{1/2}$ GeV, where $B_{-10}$ is the field in units of $0.1$ nG, $\lambda_{10}$ is its coherence lengths in units of 10 Mpc and $L_{44}$ is the source luminosity in units of $10^{44}$ erg/s.Comment: To Appear in Physical Review Letter

Contribution to diffuse gamma-ray emission coming from self-confined CRs around their Galactic sources

Recent observations of the diffuse Galactic gamma-ray emission by the Fermi-LAT satellite have shown significant deviations from models which assume the same diffusion properties for cosmic rays (CR) throughout the Galaxy. We explore the possibility that a fraction of this diffuse Galactic emission could be due to hadronic interactions of CRs self-confined in the region around their sources. In fact, freshly accelerated CRs that diffuse away from the acceleration region can trigger the streaming instability able to amplify magnetic disturbance and to reduce the particle diffusion. When this happen, CRs are trapped in the near source region for a time longer than expected and an extended gamma-ray halo is produces around each source. Here we calculate the contribution to the diffuse gamma-ray background due to the overlap along lines of sight of several of these extended halos. We find that if the density of neutrals is low, the halos can account for a substantial fraction of the diffuse emission observed by Fermi-LAT, depending on the orientation of the line of sight with respect to the direction of the galactic center.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figs. Proceeding the 35th International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC2017), Bexco, Busan, Kore

From mobile workers to fellow citizens and back again? The future status of EU citizens in the UK

Growing concerns and hostility towards continuing large-scale flows of immigrants following the two rounds of EU enlargement and high levels of net migration played a major part in the Brexit referendum result for the UK to leave the EU. So too had welfare chauvinism, or the belief that welfare benefits should be restricted to citizens, come to the fore in negative attitudes to EU immigration, reflecting a rejection of EU migrants as fellow citizens. As the article shows, proposals as of summer 2017 for the status of current EU citizens in the UK indicate a desire by the UK government to incorporate current EU citizens within the far more restrictive British immigration rules, thereby curtailing some of their basic free movement rights, especially in relation to future family members. Leaked proposals for future EU citizens post-Brexit are to bring them within a single overall immigration system covering EU and non-EU migrants and applying differential rights of residence to skilled and less skilled, thereby stratifying EU migrants according to educational level and labour market sector. This would represent a return to the status of mobile workers with conditional rights of residence and social entitlements similar to those faced by non-EU migrants

National frame for the integration of newcomers in the United Kingdom

While integration policies as such are not new, and in some countries date back to the 1980s and beyond, there have been important shifts in the debates on integration and in related re-configurations of integration policymaking in the past decade or so. One of the main recent trends is the linkage of integration policy with admission policy and the related focus on recent immigrants. A second trend is the increasing use of obligatory integration measures and integration conditions in admission policy, and third, integration policymaking is increasingly influenced by European developments, both through vertical (more or less binding regulations, directives etc.) and through horizontal processes (policy learning between states) of policy convergence. An increasing number of EU Member States have, in fact, adopted integration related measures as part of their admission policy, while the impact of such measures on integration processes of immigrants is far less clear. In addition, Member States' policies follow different, partly contradictory logics, in integration policy shifts by conceptualising (1) integration as rights based inclusion, (2) as a prerequisite for admission residence rights, with rights interpreted as conditional, and (3) integration as commitment to values and certain cultural traits of the host society. The objective of PROSINT is to evaluate the impact of admission related integration policies on the integration of newcomers, to analyse the different logics underlying integration policymaking and to investigate the main target groups of compulsory and voluntary integration measures. The project investigated different aspects of these questions along five distinct workpackages,. These analysed (1) the European policy framework on migrant integration (WP1), (2) the different national policy frameworks for the integration of newcomers in the 9 countries covered by the research (WP2), the admission-integration nexus at the local level in studied in 13 localities across the 9 countries covered by the research (WP3), the perception and impacts of mandatory pre-arrival measures in four of the nine countries covered (WP4) and a methodologically oriented study of the impact of admission related integration measures (WP5). The countries covered by the project were Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Apart from individual cases project reports generally cover the period until end of 2010. For more information about the project visit http://research.icmpd.org/1429.htm

Local integration policies for newcomers in the United Kingdom

While integration policies as such are not new, and in some countries date back to the 1980s and beyond, there have been important shifts in the debates on integration and in related re-configurations of integration policymaking in the past decade or so. One of the main recent trends is the linkage of integration policy with admission policy and the related focus on recent immigrants. A second trend is the increasing use of obligatory integration measures and integration conditions in admission policy, and third, integration policymaking is increasingly influenced by European developments, both through vertical (more or less binding regulations, directives etc.) and through horizontal processes (policy learning between states) of policy convergence. An increasing number of EU Member States have, in fact, adopted integration related measures as part of their admission policy, while the impact of such measures on integration processes of immigrants is far less clear. In addition, Member States' policies follow different, partly contradictory logics, in integration policy shifts by conceptualising (1) integration as rights based inclusion, (2) as a prerequisite for admission residence rights, with rights interpreted as conditional, and (3) integration as commitment to values and certain cultural traits of the host society. The objective of PROSINT is to evaluate the impact of admission related integration policies on the integration of newcomers, to analyse the different logics underlying integration policymaking and to investigate the main target groups of compulsory and voluntary integration measures. The project investigated different aspects of these questions along five distinct workpackages,. These analysed (1) the European policy framework on migrant integration (WP1), (2) the different national policy frameworks for the integration of newcomers in the 9 countries covered by the research (WP2), the admission-integration nexus at the local level in studied in 13 localities across the 9 countries covered by the research (WP3), the perception and impacts of mandatory pre-arrival measures in four of the nine countries covered (WP4) and a methodologically oriented study of the impact of admission related integration measures (WP5). The countries covered by the project were Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Apart from individual cases project reports generally cover the period until end of 2010. For more information about the project visit http://research.icmpd.org/1429.html

Closed-loop approach to thermodynamics

We present the closed loop approach to linear nonequilibrium thermodynamics considering a generic heat engine dissipatively connected to two temperature baths. The system is usually quite generally characterized by two parameters: the output power $P$ and the conversion efficiency $\eta$, to which we add a third one, the working frequency $\omega$. We establish that a detailed understanding of the effects of the dissipative coupling on the energy conversion process, necessitates the knowledge of only two quantities: the system's feedback factor $\beta$ and its open-loop gain $A_{0}$, the product of which, $A_{0}\beta$, characterizes the interplay between the efficiency, the output power and the operating rate of the system. By placing thermodynamics analysis on a higher level of abstraction, the feedback loop approach provides a versatile and economical, hence a very efficient, tool for the study of \emph{any} conversion engine operation for which a feedback factor may be defined