1,944 research outputs found
Complexity and hierarchical game of life
Hierarchical structure is an essential part of complexity, important notion
relevant for a wide range of applications ranging from biological population
dynamics through robotics to social sciences. In this paper we propose a simple
cellular-automata tool for study of hierarchical population dynamics
Evidence for the PSL(22) Wess-Zumino-Novikov-Witten model as a model for the plateau transition in Quantum Hall effect: Evaluation of numerical simulations
In this paper I revise arguments in favour of the PSL(22)
Wess-Zumino-Novikov-Witten (WZNW) model as a theory of the plateau transition
in Integer Quantum Hall effect. I show that all available numerical data
(including the correlation length exponent ) are consistent with the
predictions of such WZNW model with the level .Comment: 11 pages, no figure
Evidence for 1122 Hz X-Ray Burst Oscillations from the Neutron-Star X-Ray Transient XTE J1739-285
We report on millisecond variability from the X-ray transient XTE J1739-285.
We detected six X-ray type I bursts and found evidence for oscillations at 1122
+/- 0.3 Hz in the brightest X-ray burst. Taking into consideration the power in
the oscillations and the number of trials in the search, the detection is
significant at the 99.96% confidence level. If the oscillations are confirmed,
the oscillation frequency would suggest that XTE J1739-285 contains the fastest
rotating neutron star yet found. We also found millisecond quasiperiodic
oscillations in the persistent emission with frequencies ranging from 757 Hz to
862 Hz. Using the brightest burst, we derive an upper limit on the source
distance of about 10.6 kpc.Comment: To appear in ApJL, 4 page
Symmetries and Triplet Dispersion in a Modified Shastry-Sutherland Model for SrCu_2(BO_3)_2
We investigate the one-triplet dispersion in a modified Shastry-Sutherland
Model for SrCu_2(BO_3)_2 by means of a series expansion about the limit of
strong dimerization. Our perturbative method is based on a continuous unitary
transformation that maps the original Hamiltonian to an effective, energy
quanta conserving block diagonal Hamiltonian H_{eff}. The dispersion splits
into two branches which are nearly degenerated. We analyse the symmetries of
the model and show that space group operations are necessary to explain the
degeneracy of the dispersion at k=0 and at the border of the magnetic Brillouin
zone. Moreover, we investigate the behaviour of the dispersion for small |k|
and compare our results to INS data.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures accepted by J. Phys.: Condens. Matte
Unveiling Soft Gamma-Ray Repeaters with INTEGRAL
Thanks to INTEGRAL's long exposures of the Galactic Plane, the two brightest
Soft Gamma-Ray Repeaters, SGR 1806-20 and SGR 1900+14, have been monitored and
studied in detail for the first time at hard-X/soft gamma rays.
This has produced a wealth of new scientific results, which we will review
here. Since SGR 1806-20 was particularly active during the last two years, more
than 300 short bursts have been observed with INTEGRAL. and their
characteristics have been studied with unprecedented sensitivity in the 15-200
keV range. A hardness-intensity anticorrelation within the bursts has been
discovered and the overall Number-Intensity distribution of the bursts has been
determined. In addition, a particularly active state, during which ~100 bursts
were emitted in ~10 minutes, has been observed on October 5 2004, indicating
that the source activity was rapidly increasing. This eventually led to the
Giant Flare of December 27th 2004, for which a possible soft gamma-ray (>80
keV) early afterglow has been detected.
The deep observations allowed us to discover the persistent emission in hard
X-rays (20-150 keV) from 1806-20 and 1900+14, the latter being in a quiescent
state, and to directly compare the spectral characteristics of all Magnetars
(two SGRs and three Anomalous X-ray Pulsars) detected with INTEGRAL.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figures, Presented at the conference "Isolated Neutron
Stars: from the Surface to the Interior", London, UK, 24-28 April 200
New light on gamma-ray burst host galaxies with Herschel
Until recently, dust emission has been detected in very few host galaxies of
gamma-ray bursts (GRBHs). With Herschel, we have now observed 17 GRBHs up to
redshift z~3 and detected seven of them at infrared (IR) wavelengths. This
relatively high detection rate (41%) may be due to the composition of our
sample which at a median redshift of 1.1 is dominated by the hosts of dark
GRBs. Although the numbers are small, statistics suggest that dark GRBs are
more likely to be detected in the IR than their optically-bright counterparts.
Combining our IR data with optical, near-infrared, and radio data from our own
datasets and from the literature, we have constructed spectral energy
distributions (SEDs) which span up to 6 orders of magnitude in wavelength. By
fitting the SEDs, we have obtained stellar masses, dust masses, star-formation
rate (SFR), and extinctions for our sample galaxies. We find that GRBHs are
galaxies that tend to have a high specfic SFR (sSFR), and like other
star-forming galaxies, their ratios of dust-to-stellar mass are well correlated
with sSFR. We incorporate our Herschel sample into a larger compilation of
GRBHs, and compare this combined sample to SFR-weighted median stellar masses
of the widest, deepest galaxy survey to date. This is done in order to
establish whether or not GRBs can be used as an unbiased tracer of cosmic
comoving SFR density (SFRD) in the universe. In contrast with previous results,
this comparison shows that GRBHs are medium-sized galaxies with relatively high
sSFRs; stellar masses and sSFRs of GRBHs as a function of redshift are similar
to what is expected for star-forming galaxy populations at similar redshifts.
We conclude that there is no strong evidence that GRBs are biased tracers of
SFRD; thus they should be able to reliably probe the SFRD to early epochs.Comment: 18 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in A&A. Revised to
include Fig. 6, mistakenly omitted in origina
The INTEGRAL view of the Soft Gamma-ray Repeater SGR 1806-20
We present the results obtained by INTEGRAL on the Soft-Gamma Ray Repeater
SGR 1806-20. In particular we report on the temporal and spectral properties of
the bursts detected during a moderately active period of the source in
September and October 2003 and on the search for quiescent emission.Comment: To appear in the proceedings (ESA-SP) of the 5th INTEGRAL Workshop,
"The INTEGRAL UNIVERSE", Munich, 16-20 February 200
- âŠ