14,284 research outputs found
September 11: Symbolism And Responses To 9/11
Professors Hopkins and Hopkins review the impact of 9/11 as a symbol in American politics. Following the terrorist attacks, 9/11 became a simple reference condensing wide-ranging events and emotions. Various interpretations emerged about what caused 9/11 and enabled the attacks. The authors claim that 9/11 allowed US leaders to pursue certain policy prescriptions that otherwise would have been blocked. Among four possible prescriptions for responding to the attacks, the Bush administration chose a praetorian policy of preventive war, with Iraq as its first example. In the authorsâ view, by pursuing an expansive but highly militarized response, the US has overlooked the need to alleviate the conditions that made 9/11 possible. The authors recommend that the US, as part of a multilateral effort, allocate major resources to expanding global public goods, including measures that strengthen barriers to proliferation, enhance fighting of global crime, and reduce incentives for terrorism, especially ones arising in failing states where distorted education and weak protection of human rights encourage organized terrorism
Galaxy disks do not need to survive in the L-CDM paradigm: the galaxy merger rate out to z~1.5 from morpho-kinematic data
About two-thirds of present-day, large galaxies are spirals such as the Milky
Way or Andromeda, but the way their thin rotating disks formed remains
uncertain. Observations have revealed that half of their progenitors, six
billion years ago, had peculiar morphologies and/or kinematics, which exclude
them from the Hubble sequence. Major mergers, i.e., fusions between galaxies of
similar mass, are found to be the likeliest driver for such strong
peculiarities. However, thin disks are fragile and easily destroyed by such
violent collisions, which creates a critical tension between the observed
fraction of thin disks and their survival within the L-CDM paradigm. Here we
show that the observed high occurrence of mergers amongst their progenitors is
only apparent and is resolved when using morpho-kinematic observations which
are sensitive to all the phases of the merging process. This provides an
original way of narrowing down observational estimates of the galaxy merger
rate and leads to a perfect match with predictions by state-of-the-art L-CDM
semi-empirical models with no particular fine-tuning needed. These results
imply that half of local thin disks do not survive but are actually rebuilt
after a gas-rich major merger occurring in the past nine billion years, i.e.,
two-thirds of the lifetime of the Universe. This emphasizes the need to study
how thin disks can form in halos with a more active merger history than
previously considered, and to investigate what is the origin of the gas
reservoir from which local disks would reform.Comment: 19 pages, 7 figures, 2 tables. Accepted in ApJ. V2 to match proof
corrections and added reference
Evaluation of semiconductor devices for Electric and Hybrid Vehicle (EHV) ac-drive applications, volume 1
The results of evaluation of power semiconductor devices for electric hybrid vehicle ac drive applications are summarized. Three types of power devices are evaluated in the effort: high power bipolar or Darlington transistors, power MOSFETs, and asymmetric silicon control rectifiers (ASCR). The Bipolar transistors, including discrete device and Darlington devices, range from 100 A to 400 A and from 400 V to 900 V. These devices are currently used as key switching elements inverters for ac motor drive applications. Power MOSFETs, on the other hand, are much smaller in current rating. For the 400 V device, the current rating is limited to 25 A. For the main drive of an electric vehicle, device paralleling is normally needed to achieve practical power level. For other electric vehicle (EV) related applications such as battery charger circuit, however, MOSFET is advantageous to other devices because of drive circuit simplicity and high frequency capability. Asymmetrical SCR is basically a SCR device and needs commutation circuit for turn off. However, the device poses several advantages, i.e., low conduction drop and low cost
Numerical Problems in Coupling Photon Momentum (Radiation Pressure) to Gas
Radiation pressure (RP; or photon momentum absorbed by gas) is important in a
tremendous range of astrophysical systems. But we show the usual method for
assigning absorbed photon momentum to gas in numerical radiation-hydrodynamics
simulations (integrating over cell volumes or evaluating at cell centers) can
severely under-estimate the RP force in the immediate vicinity around
un-resolved (point/discrete) sources (and subsequently under-estimate its
effects on bulk gas properties), unless photon mean-free-paths are
highly-resolved in the fluid grid. The existence of this error is independent
of the numerical radiation transfer (RT) method (even in exact
ray-tracing/Monte-Carlo methods), because it depends on how the RT solution is
interpolated back onto fluid elements. Brute-force convergence (resolving
mean-free paths) is impossible in many cases (especially where UV/ionizing
photons are involved). Instead, we show a 'face-integrated' method --
integrating and applying the momentum fluxes at interfaces between fluid
elements -- better approximates the correct solution at all resolution levels.
The 'fix' is simple and we provide example implementations for ray-tracing,
Monte-Carlo, and moments RT methods in both grid and mesh-free fluid schemes.
We consider an example of star formation in a molecular cloud with UV/ionizing
RP. At state-of-the-art resolution, cell-integrated methods under-estimate the
net effects of RP by an order of magnitude, leading (incorrectly) to the
conclusion that RP is unimportant, while face-integrated methods predict strong
self-regulation of star formation and cloud destruction via RP.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures. Updated to match accepted MNRAS versio
The Shape, Multiplicity, and Evolution of Superclusters in LambdaCDM Cosmology
We determine the shape, multiplicity, size, and radial structure of
superclusters in the LambdaCDM concordance cosmology from z = 0 to z = 2.
Superclusters are defined as clusters of clusters in our large-scale
cosmological simulation. We find that superclusters are triaxial in shape; many
have flattened since early times to become nearly two-dimensional structures at
present, with a small fraction of filamentary systems. The size and
multiplicity functions are presented at different redshifts. Supercluster sizes
extend to scales of ~ 100 - 200 Mpc/h. The supercluster multiplicity (richness)
increases linearly with supercluster size. The density profile in superclusters
is approximately isothermal (~ R^{-2}) and steepens on larger scales. These
results can be used as a new test of the current cosmology when compared with
upcoming observations of large-scale surveys.Comment: 33 pages, 15 figures, accepted to ApJ; minor content changes, some
figures removed to shorten pape
A Cosmological Framework for the Co-Evolution of Quasars, Supermassive Black Holes, and Elliptical Galaxies: II. Formation of Red Ellipticals
(Abridged) We develop and test a model for the cosmological role of mergers
in the formation and quenching of red, early-type galaxies. Making the ansatz
that star formation is quenched after a gas-rich, spheroid-forming major
merger, we demonstrate that this naturally predicts the turnover in the
efficiency of star formation at ~L_star, as well as the observed mass
functions/density of red galaxies as a function of redshift, the formation
times of spheroids as a function of mass, and the fraction of quenched galaxies
as a function of galaxy and halo mass, environment, and redshift. Comparing to
a variety of semi-analytic models in which quenching is primarily driven by
halo mass considerations or secular/disk instabilities, we demonstrate that our
model and different broad classes of models make unique and robust qualitative
predictions for a number of observables, including the red fraction as a
function of galaxy and halo mass, the density of passive galaxies and evolution
of the color-morphology-density relations at high z, and the fraction of
disky/boxy spheroids as a function of mass. In each case, the observations
favor a model in which galaxies quench after a major merger builds a massive
spheroid, and disfavor quenching via secular or pure halo processes. We discuss
a variety of physical possibilities for this quenching, and propose a mixed
scenario in which traditional quenching in hot, massive halos is supplemented
by the feedback associated with star formation and quasar activity in a major
merger, which temporarily suppress cooling and establish the conditions of a
dynamically hot halo in the central regions of the host, even in low mass
halos.Comment: 29 pages, 21 figures, submitted to ApJ. Replacement fixes comparison
of models in Figures 6 &
Design and implementation of an electro-optical backplane with pluggable in-plane connectors
The design, implementation and characterisation of an electro-optical
backplane and an active pluggable in-plane optical connector technology
is presented. The connection architecture adopted allows line cards to
be mated to and unmated from a passive electro-optical backplane with
embedded polymeric waveguides. The active connectors incorporate a
photonics interface operating at 850 nm and a mechanism to passively
align the interface to the optical waveguides embedded in the backplane.
A demonstration platform has been constructed to assess the viability of
embedded electro-optical backplane technology in dense data storage
systems. The demonstration platform includes four switch cards, which
connect both optically and electronically to the electro-optical backplane
in a chassis. These switch cards are controlled by a single board
computer across a Compact PCI bus on the backplane. The electrooptical
backplane is comprised of copper layers for power and low speed
bus communication and one polymeric optical layer, wherein waveguides
have been patterned by a direct laser writing scheme. The optical
waveguide design includes densely arrayed multimode waveguides with
a centre to centre pitch of 250ÎŒm between adjacent channels, multiple
cascaded waveguide bends, non-orthogonal crossovers and in-plane
connector interfaces. In addition, a novel passive alignment method
has been employed to simplify high precision assembly of the optical
receptacles on the backplane. The in-plane connector interface is based
on a two lens free space coupling solution, which reduces susceptibility
to contamination. Successful transfer of 10.3 Gb/s data along multiple
waveguides in the electro-optical backplane has been demonstrated and
characterised
Spatially Resolved Galaxy Star Formation and its Environmental Dependence I
We use the photometric information contained in individual pixels of 44,964
(0.019<z<0.125 and -23.5<M_r<-20.5) galaxies in the Fourth Data Release (DR4)
of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey to investigate the effects of environment on
galaxy star formation (SF). We use the pixel-z technique, which combines
stellar population synthesis models with photometric redshift template fitting
on the scale of individual pixels in galaxy images. Spectral energy
distributions are constructed, sampling a wide range of properties such as age,
star formation rate (SFR), dust obscuration and metallicity. By summing the
SFRs in the pixels, we demonstrate that the distribution of total galaxy SFR
shifts to lower values as the local density of surrounding galaxies increases,
as found in other studies. The effect is most prominent in the galaxies with
the highest star formation, and we see the break in the SFR-density relation at
a local galaxy density of (Mpc/h). Since our method
allows us to spatially resolve the SF distribution within galaxies, we can
calculate the mean SFR of each galaxy as a function of radius. We find that on
average the mean SFR is dominated by SF in the central regions of galaxies, and
that the trend for suppression of SFR in high density environments is driven by
a reduction in this nuclear SF. We also find that the mean SFR in the outskirts
is largely independent of environmental effects. This trend in the mean SFR is
shared by galaxies which are highly star forming, while those which are weakly
star forming show no statistically significant correlation between their
environment and the mean SFR at any radius.Comment: 37 pages, 11 figures. Referee's comments included and matches version
accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal. For high resolution
figures, see http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~welikala/pixelz/paper1
A Theoretical Interpretation of the Black Hole Fundamental Plane
We examine the origin and evolution of correlations between properties of
supermassive black holes (BHs) and their host galaxies using simulations of
major galaxy mergers, including the effects of gas dissipation, cooling, star
formation, and BH accretion and feedback. We demonstrate that the simulations
predict the existence of a BH 'fundamental plane' (BHFP), of the form M_BH
sigma^(3.0+-0.3)*R_e^(0.43+-0.19) or M_BH
M_bulge^(0.54+-0.17)*sigma^(2.2+-0.5), similar to relations found
observationally. The simulations indicate that the BHFP can be understood
roughly as a tilted intrinsic correlation between BH mass and spheroid binding
energy, or the condition for feedback coupling to power a pressure-driven
outflow. While changes in halo circular velocity, merger orbital parameters,
progenitor disk redshifts and gas fractions, ISM gas pressurization, and other
parameters can drive changes in e.g. sigma at fixed M_bulge, and therefore
changes in the M_BH-sigma or M_BH-M_bulge relations, the BHFP is robust. Given
the empirical trend of decreasing R_e for a given M_bulge at high redshift, the
BHFP predicts that BHs will be more massive at fixed M_bulge, in good agreement
with recent observations. This evolution in the structural properties of merger
remnants, to smaller R_e and larger sigma (and therefore larger M_BH,
conserving the BHFP) at a given M_bulge, is driven by the fact that bulge
progenitors have characteristically larger gas fractions at high redshifts.
Adopting the observed evolution of disk gas fractions with redshift, our
simulations predict the observed trends in both R_e(M_bulge) and M_BH(M_bulge).Comment: 22 pages, 19 figures, replaced with version accepted to ApJ.
Companion paper to arXiv:0707.400
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