474 research outputs found
Diffuse gamma-ray emission from galactic pulsars
Millisecond Pulsars are second most abundant source population discovered by
the Fermi-LAT. They might contribute non-negligibly to the diffuse emission
measured at high latitudes by Fermi-LAT, the IDGRB. Gamma-ray sources also
contribute to the anisotropy of the IDGRB measured on small scales by
Fermi-LAT. We aim to assess the contribution of the unresolved counterpart of
the detected MSPs population to the IDGRB and the maximal fraction of the
measured anisotropy produced by this source class. We model the MSPs spatial
distribution in the Galaxy and the gamma-ray emission parameters by considering
radio and gamma-ray observational constraints. By simulating a large number of
MSPs populations, we compute the average diffuse emission and the anisotropy
1-sigma upper limit. The emission from unresolved MSPs at 2 GeV, where the peak
of the spectrum is located, is at most 0.9% of the measured IDGRB above 10
degrees in latitude. The 1-sigma upper limit on the angular power for
unresolved MSP sources turns out to be about a factor of 60 smaller than
Fermi-LAT measurements above 30 degrees. Our results indicate that this
galactic source class represents a negligible contributor to the high-latitude
gamma-ray sky and confirm that most of the intensity and geometrical properties
of the measured diffuse emission are imputable to other extragalactic source
classes. Nevertheless, given the MSP distribution, we expect them to contribute
significantly to the gamma-ray diffuse emission at low latitudes. Since, along
the galactic disk, the population of young Pulsars overcomes in number the one
of MSPs, we compute the gamma-ray emission from the whole population of
unresolved Pulsars in two low-latitude regions: the inner Galaxy and the
galactic center.Comment: 19 pages, 26 figures. It matches the published version, minor changes
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Energy-efficiency evaluation of Intel KNL for HPC workloads
Energy consumption is increasingly becoming a limiting factor to the design
of faster large-scale parallel systems, and development of energy-efficient and
energy-aware applications is today a relevant issue for HPC code-developer
communities. In this work we focus on energy performance of the Knights Landing
(KNL) Xeon Phi, the latest many-core architecture processor introduced by Intel
into the HPC market. We take into account the 64-core Xeon Phi 7230, and
analyze its energy performance using both the on-chip MCDRAM and the regular
DDR4 system memory as main storage for the application data-domain. As a
benchmark application we use a Lattice Boltzmann code heavily optimized for
this architecture and implemented using different memory data layouts to store
its lattice. We assessthen the energy consumption using different memory
data-layouts, kind of memory (DDR4 or MCDRAM) and number of threads per core
FER: A Benchmark for the Roofline Analysis of FPGA Based HPC Accelerators
Nowadays, the use of hardware accelerators to boost the performance of HPC applications is a consolidated practice, and among others, GPUs are by far the most widespread. More recently, some data centers have successfully deployed also FPGA accelerated systems, especially to boost machine learning inference algorithms. Given the growing use of machine learning methods in various computational fields, and the increasing interest towards reconfigurable architectures, we may expect that in the near future FPGA based accelerators will be more common in HPC systems, and that they could be exploited also to accelerate general purpose HPC workloads. In view of this, tools able to benchmark FPGAs in the context of HPC are necessary for code developers to estimate the performance of applications, as well as for computer architects to model that of systems at scale. To fulfill these needs, we have developed FER (FPGA Empirical Roofline), a benchmarking tool able to empirically measure the computing performance of FPGA based accelerators, as well as the bandwidth of their on-chip and off-chip memories. FER measurements enable to draw Roofline plots for FPGAs, allowing for performance comparisons with other processors, such as CPUs and GPUs, and to estimate at the same time the performance upper-bounds that applications could achieve on a target device. In this paper we describe the theoretical model on which FER relies, its implementation details, and the results measured on Xilinx Alveo accelerator cards
Conservative upper limits on WIMP annihilation cross section from Fermi-LAT -rays
The spectrum of an isotropic extragalactic -ray background (EGB) has
been measured by the Fermi-LAT telescope at high latitudes. Two new models for
the EGB are derived from the subtraction of unresolved point sources and
extragalactic diffuse processes, which could explain from 30% to 70% of the
Fermi-LAT EGB. Within the hypothesis that the two residual EGBs are entirely
due to the annihilation of dark matter (DM) particles in the Galactic halo, we
obtain upper limits on their annihilation cross section \sigmav.
Severe bounds on a possible Sommerfeld enhancement of the annihilation cross
section are set as well. Finally, would {\sigmav} be inversely proportional to
the WIMP velocity, very severe limits are derived for the velocity-independent
part of the annihilation cross section.Comment: Proceedings of XII Taup Conference, Munich, September 201
Diffuse -ray emission from misaligned active galactic nuclei
Active galactic nuclei (AGN) with jets seen at small viewing angles are the
most luminous and abundant objects in the -ray sky. AGN with jets
misaligned along the line-of-sight appear fainter in the sky, but are more
numerous than the brighter blazars. We calculate the diffuse -ray
emission due to the population of misaligned AGN (MAGN) unresolved by the Large
Area Telescope (LAT) on the {\it Fermi} Gamma-ray Space Telescope ({\it
Fermi}). A correlation between the -ray luminosity and the radio-core
luminosity is established and demonstrated to be physical by statistical tests,
as well as compatible with upper limits based on {\it Fermi}-LAT data for a
large sample of radio-loud MAGN. We constrain the derived -ray
luminosity function by means of the source count distribution of the radio
galaxies (RGs) detected by the {\it Fermi}-LAT. We finally calculate the
diffuse -ray flux due to the whole MAGN population. Our results
demonstrate that the MAGN can contribute from 10% up to nearly the entire
measured Isotropic Gamma-Ray Background (IGRB). We evaluate a theoretical
uncertainty on the flux of almost an order of magnitude.Comment: Accepted for publication in Ap
Global analysis of the pMSSM in light of the Fermi GeV excess: prospects for the LHC Run-II and astroparticle experiments
We present a new global fit of the 19-dimensional phenomenological Minimal
Supersymmetric Standard Model (pMSSM-19) that comply with all the latest
experimental results from dark matter indirect, direct and accelerator dark
matter searches. We show that the model provides a satisfactory explanation of
the excess of gamma-rays from the Galactic centre observed by the Fermi~Large
Area Telescope, assuming that it is produced by the annihilation of neutralinos
in the Milky Way halo. We identify two regions that pass all the constraints:
the first corresponds to neutralinos with a mass ~80-100 GeV annihilating into
WW with a branching ratio of 95% ; the second to heavier neutralinos, with mass
~180-200 GeV annihilating into t tbar with a branching ratio of 87%. We show
that neutralinos compatible with the Galactic centre GeV excess will soon be
within the reach of LHC run-II -- notably through searches for charginos and
neutralinos, squarks and light smuons -- and of Xenon1T, thanks to its
unprecedented sensitivity to spin-dependent cross-section off neutrons.Comment: Minor changes following referee reports. Main conclusions unchanged.
Matches version published in JCA
Quality of Life and psychopathology in adults who underwent Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation (HSCT) in childhood: a qualitative and quantitative analysis.
Background: Patients who undergo pediatric Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation (HSCT) may experience long-term psychological sequelae and poor Quality of Life (QoL) in adulthood. This study aimed to investigate subjective illness experience, QoL, and psychopathology in young adults who have survived pediatric HSCT.
Method: The study involved patients treated with HSCT in the Hematology-Oncology Department between 1984 and 2007. Psychopathology and QoL were investigated using the SCL-90-R and SF-36. Socio-demographic and medical information was also collected. Finally, participants were asked to write a brief composition about their experiences of illness and care. Qualitative analysis of the texts was performed using T-LAB, an instrument for text analysis that allows the user to highlight the occurrences and co-occurrences of lemma. Quantitative analyses were performed using non-parametric tests (Spearman correlations, Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney tests).
Results: Twenty-one patients (9 males) participated in the study. No significant distress was found on the SCL-90 Global Severity Index, but it was found on specific scales. On the SF-36, lower scores were reported on scales referring to bodily pain, general health, and physical and social functioning. All the measures were significantly (p < 0.05) associated with specific socio-demographic and medical variables (gender, type of pathology, type of HSCT, time elapsed between communication of the need to transplant and effective transplantation, and days of hospitalization). With regard to the narrative analyses, males focused on expressions related to the body and medical therapies, while females focused on people they met during treatment, family members, and donors. Low general health and treatment with autologous HSCT were associated with memories about chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and the body parts involved, while high general health was associated with expressions focused on gratitude (V-Test \ub1 1.96).
Conclusion: Pediatric HSCT survivors are more likely to experience psychological distress and low QoL in adulthood compared with the general population. These aspects, along with survivors' subjective illness experience, show differences according to specific medical and socio-demographic variables. Studies are needed in order to improve the care and long-term follow-up of these families
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