Homological symbols and the Quillen conjecture

We formulate a "correct" version of the Quillen conjecture on linear group homology for certain arithmetic rings and provide evidence for the new conjecture. In this way we predict that the linear group homology has a direct summand looking like an unstable form of Milnor K-theory and we call this new theory "homological symbols algebra". As a byproduct we prove the Quillen conjecture in homological degree two for the rank two and the prime 5

Open-cluster density profiles derived using a kernel estimator

Surface and spatial radial density profiles in open clusters are derived using a kernel estimator method. Formulae are obtained for the contribution of every star into the spatial density profile. The evaluation of spatial density profiles is tested against open-cluster models from N-body experiments with N = 500. Surface density profiles are derived for seven open clusters (NGC 1502, 1960, 2287, 2516, 2682, 6819 and 6939) using Two-Micron All-Sky Survey data and for different limiting magnitudes. The selection of an optimal kernel half-width is discussed. It is shown that open-cluster radius estimates hardly depend on the kernel half-width. Hints of stellar mass segregation and structural features indicating cluster non-stationarity in the regular force field are found. A comparison with other investigations shows that the data on open-cluster sizes are often underestimated. The existence of an extended corona around the open cluster NGC 6939 was confirmed. A combined function composed of the King density profile for the cluster core and the uniform sphere for the cluster corona is shown to be a better approximation of the surface radial density profile.The King function alone does not reproduce surface density profiles of sample clusters properly. The number of stars, the cluster masses and the tidal radii in the Galactic gravitational field for the sample clusters are estimated. It is shown that NGC 6819 and 6939 are extended beyond their tidal surfaces.Comment: 17 pages, 15 figure

BPS domain walls in N=4 supergravity and dual flows

We establish the conditions for supersymmetric domain wall solutions to N=4 gauged supergravity in five dimensions. These read as BPS first-order equations for the warp factor and the scalar fields, driven by a superpotential and supplemented by a set of constraints that we specify in detail. Then we apply our results to certain consistent truncations of IIB supergravity, thus exploring their dual field theory renormalization group flows. We find a universal flow deforming superconformal theories on D3-branes at Calabi-Yau cones. Moreover, we obtain a superpotential for the solution corresponding to the baryonic branch of the Klebanov-Strassler theory, as well as the superpotential for the flow describing D3 and wrapped D5-branes on the resolved conifold.Comment: 42 pages, 1 figure. v2: minor changes, matches published versio

Three-dimensional super Yang-Mills with unquenched flavor

We construct analytically the gravity duals of three-dimensional, super Yang-Mills-type theories with $\mathcal N=1$ supersymmetry coupled to $N_f$ quark flavors. The backreaction of the quarks on the color degrees of freedom is included, and corresponds on the gravity side to the backreaction of $N_f$ D6-branes on the background of $N$ D2-branes. The D6-branes are smeared over the compact part of the geometry, which must be a six-dimensional nearly K\"ahler manifold in order to preserve supersymmetry. For massless quarks, the solutions flow in the IR to an $AdS_4$ fixed point dual to a Chern-Simons-matter theory. For light quarks the theories exhibit quasi-conformal dynamics (walking) at energy scales $m_q \ll E \ll \lambda N_f / N$, with $\lambda = g_{\text{YM}}^2 N$ the 't Hooft coupling.Comment: 21 pages, 1 figure. v2 Minor editing, refs. added. Tallies with published versio

Compressed Sensing Applied to Weather Radar

We propose an innovative meteorological radar, which uses reduced number of spatiotemporal samples without compromising the accuracy of target information. Our approach extends recent research on compressed sensing (CS) for radar remote sensing of hard point scatterers to volumetric targets. The previously published CS-based radar techniques are not applicable for sampling weather since the precipitation echoes lack sparsity in both range-time and Doppler domains. We propose an alternative approach by adopting the latest advances in matrix completion algorithms to demonstrate the sparse sensing of weather echoes. We use Iowa X-band Polarimetric (XPOL) radar data to test and illustrate our algorithms.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figrue

Supersymmetric Lifshitz-like backgrounds from N=4 SYM with heavy quark density

We examine a class of gravity backgrounds obtained by considering the backreaction of a spatially uniform density of mutually BPS Wilson lines or heavy quarks in N=4 SUSY Yang-Mills theory. The configurations preserve eight supercharges and an SO(5) subgroup of the SO(6) R-symmetry. They are obtained by considering the 1/4-BPS geometries associated to smeared string/D3-brane (F1-D3) intersections. We argue that for the (partially) localized intersection, the geometry exhibits a flow from AdS_5 x S^5 in the UV to a novel IR scaling solution displaying anisotropic Lifshitz-like scaling with dynamical critical exponent z=7, hyperscaling violation and a logarithmic running dilaton. We also obtain a two-parameter family of smeared 1/4-BPS solutions on the Coulomb branch of N=4 SYM exhibiting Lifshitz scaling and hyperscaling violation. For a certain parametric range these yield IR geometries which are conformal to AdS_2 x R^3, and which have been argued to be relevant for fermionic physics.Comment: 24 pages, 2 figures, references added, version published in JHEP, Feb. 201

Calcium isotopic composition of high-latitude proxy carrier Neogloboquadrina pachyderma (sin.)

The accurate reconstruction of sea surface temperature (SST) history in climate-sensitive regions (e.g. tropical and polar oceans) became a challenging task in palaeoceanographic research. Biogenic shell carbonate SST proxies successfully developed for tropical regions often fail in cool water environments. Their major regional shortcomings and the cryptic diversity now found within the major high latitude proxy carrier Neogloboquadrina pachyderma (sin.) highlight an urgent need to explore complementary SST proxies for these cool-water regions. Here we incorporate the genetic component into a calibration study of a new SST proxy for the high latitudes. We found that the calcium isotopic composition (δ44/40Ca) of calcite from genotyped net catches and core-top samples of the planktonic foraminifera Neogloboquadrina pachyderma (sin.) is related to temperature and unaffected by genetic variations. The temperature sensitivity has been found to be 0.17 (±0.02)‰ per 1°C, highlighting its potential for downcore applications in open marine cool-water environments. Our results further indicate that in extreme polar environments, below a critical threshold temperature of 2.0 (±0.5)°C associated with salinities below 33.0 (±0.5)‰, a prominent shift in biomineralization affects the δ44/40Ca of genotyped and core-top N. pachyderma (sin.), becoming insensitive to temperature. These findings highlight the need of more systematic calibration studies on single planktonic foraminiferal species in order to unravel species-specific factors influencing the temperature sensitivity of Ca isotope fractionation and to validate the proxies' applicability