Transient resonances in the inspirals of point particles into black holes

We show that transient resonances occur in the two body problem in general relativity, in the highly relativistic, extreme mass-ratio regime for spinning black holes. These resonances occur when the ratio of polar and radial orbital frequencies, which is slowly evolving under the influence of gravitational radiation reaction, passes through a low order rational number. At such points, the adiabatic approximation to the orbital evolution breaks down, and there is a brief but order unity correction to the inspiral rate. Corrections to the gravitational wave signal's phase due to resonance effects scale as the square root of the inverse of mass of the small body, and thus become large in the extreme-mass-ratio limit, dominating over all other post-adiabatic effects. The resonances make orbits more sensitive to changes in initial data (though not quite chaotic), and are genuine non-perturbative effects that are not seen at any order in a standard post-Newtonian expansion. Our results apply to an important potential source of gravitational waves, the gradual inspiral of white dwarfs, neutron stars, or black holes into much more massive black holes. It is hoped to exploit observations of these sources to map the spacetime geometry of black holes. However, such mapping will require accurate models of binary dynamics, which is a computational challenge whose difficulty is significantly increased by resonance effects. We estimate that the resonance phase shifts will be of order a few tens of cycles for mass ratios $\sim 10^{-6}$, by numerically evolving fully relativistic orbital dynamics supplemented with an approximate, post-Newtonian self-force.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, minor correction

Adiabatic instability in coupled dark energy-dark matter models

We consider theories in which there exists a nontrivial coupling between the dark matter sector and the sector responsible for the acceleration of the universe. Such theories can possess an adiabatic regime in which the quintessence field always sits at the minimum of its effective potential, which is set by the local dark matter density. We show that if the coupling strength is much larger than gravitational, then the adiabatic regime is always subject to an instability. The instability, which can also be thought of as a type of Jeans instability, is characterized by a negative sound speed squared of an effective coupled dark matter/dark energy fluid, and results in the exponential growth of small scale modes. We discuss the role of the instability in specific coupled CDM and Mass Varying Neutrino (MaVaN) models of dark energy, and clarify for these theories the regimes in which the instability can be evaded due to non-adiabaticity or weak coupling.Comment: 20 pages, 2 figures; final published versio

Ionization Structure and the Reverse Shock in E0102-72

The young oxygen-rich supernova remnant E0102-72 in the Small Magellanic Cloud has been observed with the High Energy Transmission Grating Spectrometer of Chandra. The high resolution X-ray spectrum reveals images of the remnant in the light of individual emission lines of oxygen, neon, magnesium and silicon. The peak emission region for hydrogen-like ions lies at larger radial distance from the SNR center than the corresponding helium-like ions, suggesting passage of the ejecta through the "reverse shock". We examine models which test this interpretation, and we discuss the implications.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figures; To appear in "Young Supernova Remnants" (11th Annual Astrophysics Conference in Maryland), S. S. Holt & U. Hwang (eds), AIP, New York (2001

M-grid: Using Ubiquitous Web Technologies to create a Computational Grid

There are many potential users and uses for grid computing. However, the concept of sharing computing resources excites security concerns and, whilst being powerful and flexible, at least for novices, existing systems are complex to install and use. Together these represent a significant barrier to potential users who are interested to see what grid computing can do. This paper describes m-grid, a system for building a computational grid which can accept tasks from any user with access to a web browser and distribute them to almost any machine with access to the internet and manages to do this without the installation of additional software or interfering with existing security arrangements

An Accurate Metabolic Simulator for Indirect Calorimetry System Validation

A metabolic simulator capable of simulation of respiratory oxygen consumption (VO2) and carbon dioxide production (VCO2) for validation of indirect calorimetry systems is described. The metabolic simulator adds/removes respiratory gases by way of mass flow controllers to/from a physiologically realistic lung simulator (Michigan Instruments Inc. Training/Test Lung). The metabolic simulator and Michigan Instruments Training/Test Lung in combination are capable of simulating a wide range of metabolic and physiologic lung conditions. Simulation of VCO2 is achieved by adding controlled amounts of carbon dioxide to the Training/Test Lung every (mechanical ventilator delivered) breath cycle. VO2 simulation consists of adding controlled amounts of nitrogen and removing controlled amounts of inspiratory gas from the Training/Test Lung every breath. Real time monitoring of ventilation parameters is obtained from a Novametrix Cosmo+ respiratory profile monitor and control of gas flow through the simulator is achieved by way of a programmed IBM personal computer

SmartTrack: Efficient Predictive Race Detection

Widely used data race detectors, including the state-of-the-art FastTrack algorithm, incur performance costs that are acceptable for regular in-house testing, but miss races detectable from the analyzed execution. Predictive analyses detect more data races in an analyzed execution than FastTrack detects, but at significantly higher performance cost. This paper presents SmartTrack, an algorithm that optimizes predictive race detection analyses, including two analyses from prior work and a new analysis introduced in this paper. SmartTrack's algorithm incorporates two main optimizations: (1) epoch and ownership optimizations from prior work, applied to predictive analysis for the first time; and (2) novel conflicting critical section optimizations introduced by this paper. Our evaluation shows that SmartTrack achieves performance competitive with FastTrack-a qualitative improvement in the state of the art for data race detection.Comment: Extended arXiv version of PLDI 2020 paper (adds Appendices A-E) #228 SmartTrack: Efficient Predictive Race Detectio

Spectral Line Imaging Observations of 1E0102.2-7219

E0102-72 is the second brightest X-ray source in the Small Magellanic Cloud and the brightest supernova remnant in the SMC. We observed this SNR for ~140 ksec with the High Energy Transmission Gratings (HETG) aboard the Chandra X-ray Observatory. The small angular size and high surface brightness make this an excellent target for HETG and we resolve the remnant into individual lines. We observe fluxes from several lines which include O VIII Ly$\alpha$, Ly$\beta$, and O VII along with several lines from Ne X, Ne IX and Mg XII. These line ratios provide powerful constraints on the electron temperature and the ionization age of the remnant.Comment: To appear in "Young Supernova Remnants" (11th Annual Astrophysics Conference in Maryland), S. S. Holt & U. Hwang (eds), AIP, New York (2001

Radion Potential and Brane Dynamics

We examine the cosmology of the Randall-Sundrum model in a dynamic setting where scalar fields are present in the bulk as well as the branes. This generates a mechanism similar to that of Goldberger-Wise for radion stabilization and the recovery of late-cosmology features in the branes. Due to the induced radion dynamics, the inflating branes roll towards the minimum of the radion potential, thereby exiting inflation and reheating the Universe. In the slow roll part of the potential, the 'TeV' branes have maximum inflation rate and energy as their coupling to the radion and bulk modes have minimum suppresion. Hence, when rolling down the steep end of the potential towards the stable point, the radion field (which appears as the inflaton of the effective 4D theory in the branes) decays very fast, reheats the Universe .This process results decayin a decrease of brane's canonical vacuum energy $\Lambda_4$. However, at the minimum of the potential $\Lambda_4$ is small but not neccessarily zero and the fine-tuning issue remains .Density perturbation constraints introduce an upper bound when the radion stabilizies. Due to the large radion mass and strong suppression to the bulk modes, moduli problems and bulk reheating do not occur. The reheat temperature and a sufficient number of e-folding constraints for the brane-universe are also satisfied. The model therefore recovers the radiation dominated FRW universe.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figures,extraneous sentences removed, 2 footnotes added, some typos correcte