6,585 research outputs found
Demonstrating Additional Law of Relativistic Velocities based on Squeezed Light
Special relativity is foundation of many branches of modern physics, of which
theoretical results are far beyond our daily experience and hard to realized in
kinematic experiments. However, its outcomes could be demonstrated by making
use of convenient substitute, i.e. squeezed light in present paper. Squeezed
light is very important in the field of quantum optics and the corresponding
transformation can be regarded as the coherent state of SU(1; 1). In this
paper, the connection between the squeezed operator and Lorentz boost is built
under certain conditions. Furthermore, the additional law of relativistic
velocities and the angle of Wigner rotation are deduced as well
Precise determination of stellar parameters of the ZZ Ceti and DAZ white dwarf GD 133 through asteroseismology
An increasing number of white dwarf stars show atmospheric chemical
composition polluted by heavy elements accreted from debris disk material. The
existence of such debris disks strongly suggests the presence of one or more
planet(s) whose gravitational interaction with rocky planetesimals is
responsible for their disruption by tidal effect. The ZZ Ceti pulsator and
polluted DAZ white dwarf GD 133 is a good candidate for searching for such a
potential planet. We started in 2011 a photometric follow-up of its pulsations.
As a result of this work in progress, we used the data gathered from 2011 to
2015 to make an asteroseismological analysis of GD 133, providing the star
parameters from a best fit model with / = 0.630 0.002,
= 12400 K 70 K, log() = -2.00 0.02,
log() = -4.50 0.02 and determining a rotation period of
7 days.Comment: 10 pages, 13 figures, accepted by MNRA
GPU-based ultra-fast direct aperture optimization for online adaptive radiation therapy
Online adaptive radiation therapy (ART) has great promise to significantly
reduce normal tissue toxicity and/or improve tumor control through real-time
treatment adaptations based on the current patient anatomy. However, the major
technical obstacle for clinical realization of online ART, namely the inability
to achieve real-time efficiency in treatment re-planning, has yet to be solved.
To overcome this challenge, this paper presents our work on the implementation
of an intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) direct aperture optimization
(DAO) algorithm on graphics processing unit (GPU) based on our previous work on
CPU. We formulate the DAO problem as a large-scale convex programming problem,
and use an exact method called column generation approach to deal with its
extremely large dimensionality on GPU. Five 9-field prostate and five 5-field
head-and-neck IMRT clinical cases with 5\times5 mm2 beamlet size and
2.5\times2.5\times2.5 mm3 voxel size were used to evaluate our algorithm on
GPU. It takes only 0.7~2.5 seconds for our implementation to generate optimal
treatment plans using 50 MLC apertures on an NVIDIA Tesla C1060 GPU card. Our
work has therefore solved a major problem in developing ultra-fast
(re-)planning technologies for online ART
X-ray, Optical, and Radio Observations of the Type II Supernovae 1999em and 1998S
Observations of the Type II-P (plateau) Supernova (SN) 1999em and Type IIn
(narrow emission line) SN 1998S have enabled estimation of the profile of the
SN ejecta, the structure of the circumstellar medium (CSM) established by the
pre-SN stellar wind, and the nature of the shock interaction. SN 1999em is the
first Type II-P detected at both X-ray and radio wavelengths. The Chandra X-ray
data indicate non-radiative interaction of SN ejecta with a power-law density
profile (rho \propto r^{-n} with n ~ 7) with a pre-SN wind with a low mass-loss
rate of ~2 \times 10^{-6} M_sun/yr for a wind velocity of 10 km/sec, in
agreement with radio mass-loss rate estimates. The Chandra data show an
unexpected, temporary rise in the 0.4--2.0 keV X-ray flux at ~100 days after
explosion. SN 1998S, at an age of >3 years, is still bright in X-rays and is
increasing in flux density at cm radio wavelengths. Spectral fits to the
Chandra data show that many heavy elements (Ne, Al, Si, S, Ar, and Fe) are
overabundant with respect to solar values. We compare the observed elemental
abundances and abundance ratios to theoretical calculations and find that our
data are consistent with a progenitor mass of approximately 15-20 M_sun if the
heavy element ejecta are radially mixed out to a high velocity. If the X-ray
emission is from the reverse shock wave region, the supernova density profile
must be moderately flat at a velocity ~10^4 km/sec, the shock front is
non-radiative at the time of the observations, and the mass-loss rate is 1-2
\times 10^{-4} M_sun/yr for a pre-supernova wind velocity of 10 km/sec. This
result is also supported by modeling of the radio emission which implies that
SN 1998S is surrounded by a clumpy or filamentary CSM established by a high
mass-loss rate, ~2 \times 10^{-4} M_sun/yr, from the pre-supernova star.Comment: 14 pages, 10 figures, accepted by ApJ, includes new data (one new
obs. each of SN 1999em and SN 1998S), expanded discussion of spectral fit
B \to K(K^*) missing energy in Unparticle physics
In the present work we study the effects of an unparticle \unpart as the
possible source of missing energy in the decay . We find that the dependence of the differential branching ratio on
the ()-meson's energy in the presence of the vector unparticle
operators is very distinctive from that of the SM. Moreover, in using the
existing upper bound on decays, we have
been able to put more stringent constraints on the parameters of unparticle
stuff.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figure
Highly Sensitive Blocker Displacement Amplification and Droplet Digital PCR Reveal Low-Level Parental FOXF1 Somatic Mosaicism in Families with Alveolar Capillary Dysplasia with Misalignment of Pulmonary Veins.
Detection of low-level somatic mosaicism [alternate allele fraction (AAF) ≤ 10%] in parents of affected individuals with the apparent de novo pathogenic variants enables more accurate estimate of recurrence risk. To date, only a few systematic analyses of low-level parental somatic mosaicism have been performed. Herein, highly sensitive blocker displacement amplification, droplet digital PCR, quantitative PCR, long-range PCR, and array comparative genomic hybridization were applied in families with alveolar capillary dysplasia with misalignment of pulmonary veins. We screened 18 unrelated families with the FOXF1 variant previously determined to be apparent de novo (n = 14), of unknown parental origin (n = 1), or inherited from a parent suspected to be somatic and/or germline mosaic (n = 3). We identified four (22%) families with FOXF1 parental somatic mosaic single-nucleotide variants (n = 3) and copy number variant deletion (n = 1) detected in parental blood samples and an AAF ranging between 0.03% and 19%. In one family, mosaic allele ratio in tissues originating from three germ layers ranged betwee
A contemporaneous infrared flash from a long gamma-ray burst: an echo from the central engine
The explosion that results in a cosmic gamma-ray burst (GRB) is thought to
produce emission from two physical processes -- the activity of the central
engine gives rise to the high-energy emission of the burst through internal
shocking and the subsequent interaction of the flow with the external
environment produces long-wavelength afterglow. While afterglow observations
continue to refine our understanding of GRB progenitors and relativistic
shocks, gamma-ray observations alone have not yielded a clear picture of the
origin of the prompt emission nor details of the central engine. Only one
concurrent visible-light transient has been found and was associated with
emission from an external shock. Here we report the discovery of infrared (IR)
emission contemporaneous with a GRB, beginning 7.2 minutes after the onset of
GRB 041219a. Our robotic telescope acquired 21 images during the active phase
of the burst, yielding the earliest multi-colour observations of any
long-wavelength emission associated with a GRB. Analysis of an initial IR pulse
suggests an origin consistent with internal shocks. This opens a new
possibility to study the central engine of GRBs with ground-based observations
at long wavelengths.Comment: Accepted to Nature on March 1, 2005. 9 pages, 4 figures, nature12.cls
and nature1.cls files included. This paper is under press embargo until print
publicatio
Evidence for distinct polymer chain orientations in KC60 and RbC60
The KC60 and RbC60 polymer phases exhibit contrasting electronic properties
while powder diffraction studies have revealed no definite structural
difference. We have performed single crystal X-ray diffraction and diffuse
scattering studies of these compounds. It is found that KC60 and RbC60 possess
different chain orientations about their axes, which are described by distinct
space groups Pmnn and I2/m, respectively. Such a structural difference will be
of great importance to a complete understanding of the physical properties.Comment: To be published in Phys. Rev. Let
- …