30,511 research outputs found
A quantitative model for describing snowunes in the central Andes mountains
The modern snowline elevation of the central Andes can be described numerically from available data in terms of regional variations in climate and topography. Multiple regression analysis of modern climatic and snowline data for locations in the Andes between 10º and 30º south latitude produces an equation which relates snowline elevation to mean annual temperature, precipitaton, and the elevation of the annual 0ºC isotherm. The coefficient of correlation (R = 0.83) for this model is considered to be significant because most of the remaining error can be attributed to the variability of the reported snowline observations which have not yet been evaluated for errors. An inversion of the model should ultimately allow, for the first time, a quantitative reconstruction of Andean paleoclimates from Pleistocene snowline data. The ultimate goal is to determine the differences between glacial and modern climates, not only for the Andes but for other major mountain belts of the world
High accuracy measure of atomic polarizability in an optical lattice clock
Despite being a canonical example of quantum mechanical perturbation theory,
as well as one of the earliest observed spectroscopic shifts, the Stark effect
contributes the largest source of uncertainty in a modern optical atomic clock
through blackbody radiation. By employing an ultracold, trapped atomic ensemble
and high stability optical clock, we characterize the quadratic Stark effect
with unprecedented precision. We report the ytterbium optical clock's
sensitivity to electric fields (such as blackbody radiation) as the
differential static polarizability of the ground and excited clock levels:
36.2612(7) kHz (kV/cm)^{-2}. The clock's fractional uncertainty due to room
temperature blackbody radiation is reduced an order of magnitude to 3 \times
10^{-17}.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, 2 table
A note on the minimum distance of quantum LDPC codes
We provide a new lower bound on the minimum distance of a family of quantum
LDPC codes based on Cayley graphs proposed by MacKay, Mitchison and
Shokrollahi. Our bound is exponential, improving on the quadratic bound of
Couvreur, Delfosse and Z\'emor. This result is obtained by examining a family
of subsets of the hypercube which locally satisfy some parity conditions
A Generative-Discriminative Basis Learning Framework to Predict Clinical Severity from Resting State Functional MRI Data
We propose a matrix factorization technique that decomposes the resting state
fMRI (rs-fMRI) correlation matrices for a patient population into a sparse set
of representative subnetworks, as modeled by rank one outer products. The
subnetworks are combined using patient specific non-negative coefficients;
these coefficients are also used to model, and subsequently predict the
clinical severity of a given patient via a linear regression. Our
generative-discriminative framework is able to exploit the structure of rs-fMRI
correlation matrices to capture group level effects, while simultaneously
accounting for patient variability. We employ ten fold cross validation to
demonstrate the predictive power of our model on a cohort of fifty eight
patients diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Our method outperforms
classical semi-supervised frameworks, which perform dimensionality reduction on
the correlation features followed by non-linear regression to predict the
clinical scores
Structure of Pion Photoproduction Amplitudes
We derive and apply the finite energy sum rules to pion photoproduction. We
evaluate the low energy part of the sum rules using several state-of-the-art
models. We show how the differences in the low energy side of the sum rules
might originate from different quantum number assignments of baryon resonances.
We interpret the observed features in the low energy side of the sum rules with
the expectation from Regge theory. Finally, we present a model, in terms of a
Regge-pole expansion, that matches the sum rules and the high-energy
observables.Comment: 19 pages, 15 figures and 4 table
High-resolution absorption spectroscopy of the circumgalactic medium of the Milky Way
In this article we discuss the importance of high-resolution absorption
spectroscopy for our understanding of the distribution and physical nature of
the gaseous circumgalactic medium (CGM) that surrounds the Milky Way.
Observational and theoretical studies indicate a high complexity of the gas
kinematics and an extreme multi-phase nature of the CGM in low-redshift
galaxies. High-precision absorption-line measurements of the Milky Way's gas
environment thus are essential to explore fundamental parameters of
circumgalactic gas in the local Universe, such as mass, chemical composition,
and spatial distribution. We shortly review important characteristics of the
Milky Way's CGM and discuss recent results from our multi-wavelength
observations of the Magellanic Stream. Finally, we discuss the potential of
studying the warm-hot phase of the Milky Way's CGM by searching for extremely
weak [FeX] l6374.5 and [FeIVX] l5302.9 absorption in optical QSO spectra.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures; accepted for publication in Astronomical Notes
(paper version of a talk presented at the 10th Thinkshop, Potsdam, 2013
A Survey of O VI, C III, and H I in Highly Ionized High-Velocity Clouds
(ABRIDGED) We present a Far-Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer survey of
highly ionized high-velocity clouds (HVCs) in 66 extragalactic sight lines. We
find a total of 63 high-velocity O VI absorbers, 16 with 21 cm-emitting H I
counterparts and 47 ``highly ionized'' absorbers without 21 cm emission. 11 of
these high-velocity O VI absorbers are positive-velocity wings (broad O VI
features extending asymmetrically to velocities of up to 300 km/s). The highly
ionized HVC population is characterized by =38+/-10 km/s and <log
N_a(O VI)>=13.83+/-0.36. We find that 81% (30/37) of high-velocity O VI
absorbers have clear accompanying C III absorption, and 76% (29/38) have
accompanying H I absorption in the Lyman series. The lower average width of the
high-velocity H I absorbers implies the H I lines arise in a separate, lower
temperature phase than the O VI. We find that the shape of the wing profiles is
well reproduced by a radiatively cooling, vertical outflow. However, the
outflow has to be patchy and out of ionization equilibrium. An alternative
model, consistent with the observations, is one where the highly ionized HVCs
represent the low N(H I) tail of the HVC population, with the O VI formed at
the interfaces around the embedded H I cores. Though we cannot rule out a Local
Group explanation, we favor a Galactic origin. This is based on the recent
evidence that both H I HVCs and the million-degree gas detected in X-ray
absorption are Galactic phenomena. Since the highly ionized HVCs appear to
trace the interface between these two Galactic phases, it follows that highly
ionized HVCs are Galactic themselves. However, the non-detection of
high-velocity O VI in halo star spectra implies that any Galactic high-velocity
O VI exists at z-distances beyond a few kpc.Comment: 36 pages, 14 figures (3 in color), accepted to ApJS. Some figures
downgraded to limit file siz
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