11,456 research outputs found
A Catalogue of Field Horizontal Branch Stars Aligned with High Velocity Clouds
We present a catalogue of 430 Field Horizontal Branch (FHB) stars, selected
from the Hamburg/ESO Survey (HES), which fortuitously align with high column
density neutral hydrogen (HI) High-Velocity Cloud (HVC) gas. These stars are
ideal candidates for absorption-line studies of HVCs, attempts at which have
been made for almost 40 years with little success. A parent sample of 8321 HES
FHB stars was used to extract HI spectra along each line-of-sight, using the HI
Parkes All-Sky Survey. All lines-of-sight aligned with high velocity HI
emission with peak brightness temperatures greater than 120mK were examined.
The HI spectra of these 430 probes were visually screened and cross-referenced
with several HVC catalogues. In a forthcoming paper, we report on the results
of high-resolution spectroscopic observations of a sample of stars drawn from
this catalogue.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures. ApJS accepted. Full catalogue and all online-only
images available at
http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/staff/cthom/catalogue/index.htm
The Emerging QCD Frontier: The Electron Ion Collider
The self-interactions of gluons determine all the unique features of QCD and
lead to a dominant abundance of gluons inside matter already at moderate .
Despite their dominant role, the properties of gluons remain largely
unexplored. Tantalizing hints of saturated gluon densities have been found in
+p collisions at HERA, and in d+Au and Au+Au collisions at RHIC. Saturation
physics will have a profound influence on heavy-ion collisions at the LHC. But
unveiling the collective behavior of dense assemblies of gluons under
conditions where their self-interactions dominate will require an Electron-Ion
Collider (EIC): a new facility with capabilities well beyond those In this
paper I outline the compelling physics case for +A collisions at an EIC and
discuss briefly the status of machine design concepts. of any existing
accelerator.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figures, prepared for 20th International Conference on
Ultra-Relativistic Nucleus-Nucleus Collisions: Quark Matter 2008 (QM2008),
Jaipur, India, 4-10 Feb. 200
Optical, near-IR and sub-mm IFU Observations of the nearby dual AGN Mrk 463
We present optical and near-IR Integral Field Unit (IFU) and ALMA band 6
observations of the nearby dual Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) Mrk 463. At a
distance of 210 Mpc, and a nuclear separation of 4 kpc, Mrk 463 is an
excellent laboratory to study the gas dynamics, star formation processes and
supermassive black hole (SMBH) accretion in a late-stage gas-rich major galaxy
merger. The IFU observations reveal a complex morphology, including tidal
tails, star-forming clumps, and emission line regions. The optical data, which
map the full extent of the merger, show evidence for a biconical outflow and
material outflowing at 600 km s, both associated with the Mrk 463E
nucleus, together with large scale gradients likely related to the ongoing
galaxy merger. We further find an emission line region 11 kpc south of
Mrk 463E that is consistent with being photoionized by an AGN. Compared to the
current AGN luminosity, the energy budget of the cloud implies a luminosity
drop in Mrk 463E by a factor 3-20 over the last 40,000 years. The ALMA
observations of CO(2-1) and adjacent 1mm continuum reveal the presence
of 10M in molecular gas in the system. The molecular gas
shows velocity gradients of 800 km/s and 400 km/s around the Mrk
463E and 463W nuclei, respectively. We conclude that in this system the infall
of 100s /yr of molecular gas is in rough balance with the
removal of ionized gas by a biconical outflow being fueled by a relatively
small, 0.01% of accretion onto each SMBH.Comment: Accepted by The Astrophysical Journal, 23 pages, 19 figure
Radion Stabilization in Compact Hyperbolic Extra Dimensions
We consider radion stabilization in hyperbolic brane-world scenarios. We
demonstrate that in the context of Einstein gravity, matter fields which
stabilize the extra dimensions must violate the null energy condition. This
result is shown to hold even allowing for FRW-like expansion on the brane. In
particular, we explicitly demonstrate how one putative source of stabilizing
matter fails to work, and how others violate the above condition. We speculate
on a number of ways in which we may bypass this result, including the effect of
Casimir energy in these spaces. A brief discussion of supersymmetry in these
backgrounds is also given.Comment: 16 pages, 1 figur
Collapse Dynamics of a Star of Dark Matter and Dark Energy
In this work, we study the collapse dynamics of an inhomogeneous spherically
symmetric star made of dark matter (DM) and dark energy (DE). The dark matter
is taken in the form of a dust cloud while anisotropic fluid is chosen as the
candidate for dark energy. It is investigated how dark energy modifies the
collapsing process and is examined whether dark energy has any effect on the
Cosmic Censorship Conjecture. The collapsing star is assumed to be of finite
radius and the space time is divided into three distinct regions and
, where represents the boundary of the star and
denotes the interior (exterior) of the star. The junction
conditions for matching over are specified. Role of Dark
energy in the formation of apparent horizon is studied and central singularity
is analyzed.Comment: 13 page
Connective neck evolution and conductance steps in hot point contacts
Dynamic evolution of the connective neck in Al and Pb mechanically
controllable break junctions was studied during continuous approach of
electrodes at bias voltages V_b up to a few hundred mV. A high level of power
dissipation (10^-4 - 10^-3 W) and high current density (j > 10^10 A/cm^2) in
the constriction lead to overheating of the contact area, electromigration and
current-enhanced diffusion of atoms out of the "hot spot". At a low electrode
approach rate (10 - 50 pm/s) the transverse dimension of the neck and the
conductance of the junction depend on V_b and remain nearly constant over the
approach distance of 10 - 30 nm. For V_b > 300 mV the connective neck consists
of a few atoms only and the quantum nature of conductance manifests itself in
abrupt steps and reversible jumps between two or more levels. These features
are related to an ever changing number of individual conductance channels due
to the continuous rearrangement in atomic configuration of the neck, the
recurring motion of atoms between metastable states, the formation and breaking
of isolated one-atom contacts and the switching between energetically
preferable neck geometries.Comment: 21 pages 10 figure
The impact of lepton-flavor violating Z' bosons on muon g-2 and other muon observables
A lepton-flavor violating (LFV) Z' boson may mimic some of the phenomena
usually attributed to supersymmetric theories. Using a conservative model of
LFV Z' bosons, the recent BNL E821 muon g-2 deviation allows for a LFV Z'
interpretation with a boson mass up to 4.8 TeV while staying within limits set
by muon conversion, mu -> e gamma, and mu -> eee. This model is immediately
testable as one to twenty e^+e^- -> mu tau events are predicted for an analysis
of the LEP II data. Future muon conversion experiments, MECO and PRIME, are
demonstrated to have potential to probe very high boson masses with very small
charges, such as a 10 TeV boson with an e-mu charge of 10^-5. Furthermore, the
next linear collider is shown to be highly complementary with muon conversion
experiments, which are shown to provide the strictest and most relevant bounds
on LFV phenomena.Comment: 17 pages, 6 figures, uses feynMF, edited references (v2), corrected
MEGA experimental limit (v3), accepted to Phys. Rev.
High-throughput field phenotyping reveals genetic variation in photosynthetic traits in durum wheat under drought
Chlorophyll fluorescence (ChlF) is a powerful non-invasive technique for probing photosynthesis. Although proposed as a method for drought tolerance screening, ChlF has not yet been fully adopted in physiological breeding, mainly due to limitations in high-throughput field phenotyping capabilities. The light-induced fluorescence transient (LIFT) sensor has recently been shown to reliably provide active ChlF data for rapid and remote characterisation of plant photosynthetic performance. We used the LIFT sensor to quantify photosynthesis traits across time in a large panel of durum wheat genotypes subjected to a progressive drought in replicated field trials over two growing seasons. The photosynthetic performance was measured at the canopy level by means of the operating efficiency of Photosystem II ((Formula presented.)) and the kinetics of electron transport measured by reoxidation rates ((Formula presented.) and (Formula presented.)). Short- and long-term changes in ChlF traits were found in response to soil water availability and due to interactions with weather fluctuations. In mild drought, (Formula presented.) and (Formula presented.) were little affected, while (Formula presented.) was consistently accelerated in water-limited compared to well-watered plants, increasingly so with rising vapour pressure deficit. This high-throughput approach allowed assessment of the native genetic diversity in ChlF traits while considering the diurnal dynamics of photosynthesis
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