8,602 research outputs found
Neutrinos in Cosmology and Astrophysics
We briefly review the recent developments in neutrino physics and
astrophysics which have import for frontline research in nuclear physics. These
developments, we argue, tie nuclear physics to exciting developments in
observational cosmology and astrophysics in new ways. Moreover, the behavior of
neutrinos in dense matter is itself a fundamental problem in many-body quantum
mechanics, in some ways akin to well-known issues in nuclear matter and nuclei,
and in some ways radically different, especially because of nonlinearity and
quantum de-coherence. The self-interacting neutrino gas is the only many body
system driven by the weak interactions.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figur
Majorana Neutrino Magnetic Moment and Neutrino Decoupling in Big Bang Nucleosynthesis
We examine the physics of the early universe when Majorana neutrinos
(electron neutrino, muon neutrino, tau neutrino) possess transition magnetic
moments. These extra couplings beyond the usual weak interaction couplings
alter the way neutrinos decouple from the plasma of electrons/positrons and
photons. We calculate how transition magnetic moment couplings modify neutrino
decoupling temperatures, and then use a full weak, strong, and electromagnetic
reaction network to compute corresponding changes in Big Bang Nucleosynthesis
abundance yields. We find that light element abundances and other cosmological
parameters are sensitive to magnetic couplings on the order of 10^{-10} Bohr
magnetons. Given the recent analysis of sub-MeV Borexino data which constrains
Majorana moments to the order of 10^{-11} Bohr magnetons or less, we find that
changes in cosmological parameters from magnetic contributions to neutrino
decoupling temperatures are below the level of upcoming precision observations.Comment: 19 pages, 9 figure
An Active-Sterile Neutrino Transformation Solution for r-Process Nucleosynthesis
We discuss how matter-enhanced active-sterile neutrino transformation in both
neutrino and antineutrino channels could enable the production of the rapid
neutron capture (r-process) nuclei in neutrino-heated supernova ejecta. In this
scheme the lightest sterile neutrino would be heavier than the electron
neutrino and split from it by a vacuum mass-squared difference roughly between
3 and 70 eV and vacuum mixing angle given by .Comment: 27 pages plus twelve figures. Submitted to Phys. Rev.
Presupernova collapse models with improved weak-interaction rates
Improved values for stellar weak interaction rates have been recently
calculated based upon a large shell model diagonalization. Using these new
rates (for both beta decay and electron capture), we have examined the
presupernova evolution of massive stars in the range 15-40 Msun. Comparing our
new models with a standard set of presupernova models by Woosley and Weaver, we
find significantly larger values for the electron-to-baryon ratio Ye at the
onset of collapse and iron core masses reduced by approximately 0.1 Msun. The
inclusion of beta-decay accounts for roughly half of the revisions, while the
other half is a consequence of the improved nuclear physics. These changes will
have important consequences for nucleosynthesis and the supernova explosion
mechanism.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure
ALMA observations of 99 GHz free-free and H40 line emission from star formation in the centre of NGC 253
We present Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array observations of 99.02
GHz free-free and H40 emission from the centre of the nearby starburst
galaxy NGC 253. We calculate electron temperatures of 3700-4500 K for the
photoionized gas, which agrees with previous measurements. We measure a
photoionizing photon production rate of s and
a star formation rate of M yr within the central
2010 arcsec, which fall within the broad range of measurements from
previous millimetre and radio observations but which are better constrained. We
also demonstrate that the dust opacities are ~3 dex higher than inferred from
previous near-infrared data, which illustrates the benefits of using millimetre
star formation tracers in very dusty sources.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS Letter
MSW-like Enhancements without Matter
We study the effects of a scalar field, coupled only to neutrinos, on
oscillations among weak interaction current eigenstates. The effect of a real
scalar field appears as effective masses for the neutrino mass eigenstates, the
same for \nbar as for \n. Under some conditions, this can lead to a
vanishing of , giving rise to MSW-like effects. We discuss some
examples and show that it is possible to resolve the apparent discrepancy in
spectra required by r-process nucleosynthesis in the mantles of supernovae and
by Solar neutrino solutions.Comment: 9 pages, latex, 1 figur
Comment on "Elasticity Model of a Supercoiled DNA Molecule"
We perform simulations to numerically study the writhe distribution of a
stiff polymer. We compare with analytic results of Bouchiat and Mezard (PRL 80
1556- (1998); cond-mat/9706050).Comment: 1 page, 1 figure revtex
Neutrino-Neutrino Scattering and Matter-Enhanced Neutrino Flavor Transformation in Supernovae
We examine matter-enhanced neutrino flavor transformation
() in the region above the neutrino
sphere in Type II supernovae. Our treatment explicitly includes contributions
to the neutrino-propagation Hamiltonian from neutrino-neutrino forward
scattering. A proper inclusion of these contributions shows that they have a
completely negligible effect on the range of - vacuum
mass-squared difference, , and vacuum mixing angle, , or
equivalently , required for enhanced supernova shock re-heating.
When neutrino background effects are included, we find that -process
nucleosynthesis from neutrino-heated supernova ejecta remains a sensitive probe
of the mixing between a light and a with a
cosmologically significant mass. Neutrino-neutrino scattering contributions are
found to have a generally small effect on the
parameter region probed by -process nucleosynthesis. We point out that the
nonlinear effects of the neutrino background extend the range of sensitivity of
-process nucleosynthesis to smaller values of .Comment: 38 pages, tex, DOE/ER/40561-150-INT94-00-6
Countryside Survey 1990: mapping the land cover of Great Britain: a demonstration project in remote sensing. First interim report
Sustaining entrepreneurial business: a complexity perspective on processes that produce emergent practice
This article examines the management practices in an entrepreneurial small firm which sustain the business. Using a longitudinal qualitative case study, four general processes are identified (experimentation, reflexivity, organising and sensing), that together provide a mechanism to sustain the enterprise. The analysis draws on concepts from entrepreneurship and complexity science. We suggest that an entrepreneurâs awareness of the role of these parallel processes will facilitate their approaches to sustaining and developing enterprises. We also suggest that these processes operate in parallel at multiple levels, including the self, the business and inter-firm networks. This finding contributes to a general theory of entrepreneurship. A number of areas for further research are discussed arising from this result
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