7,113 research outputs found
A New Species of \u3ci\u3eGordius\u3c/i\u3e (Phylum Nematomorpha) from Terrestrial Habitats in North America
Freshwater hairworms (class Gordiida) are members of the phylum Nematomorpha that use terrestrial arthropods as definitive hosts but reside as free-living adult worms in rivers, lakes, or streams. The genus Gordius consists of 90 described species, of which three species were described from freshwater habitats in North America. In this paper we describe a new species of Gordius from terrestrial habitats in Oklahoma, Texas, and Louisiana, United States. Oddly, each year hundreds of adult free-living worms appear after bouts of heavy rain on streets, sidewalks, and lawns during the winter season, when terrestrial arthropod hosts are not active. The new species is described based on morphological characters of adults and nonadult stages including the egg strings, eggs, larvae, and cysts. Adult males have a unique row of bristles on the ventral inner side of each tail lobe and a circular pattern of bristles on the terminal end of each lobe, which distinguishes them from all other described North American species of Gordius. The egg string, larval, and cyst morphology of this new species conform to previous descriptions of non-adult hairworm stages for the genus Gordius. However, the eggs of this new species of hairworm are unique, as they contain an outer shell separated by distinct space from a thick inner membrane. The consistent occurrence of this gordiid in terrestrial habitats, along with its distinct egg morphology, suggests that this new species of hairworm has a terrestrial life cycle
Correlating Threshold Power with Free-Space Bandwidth for Low-Directivity Antennas
This paper develops a threshold power rationale that can be used to demonstrate inherent compliance for portable wireless devices with specific absorption rate (SAR) limits over the 300-6000-MHz frequency range. This is achieved first by understanding the relationship between basic antenna parameters (bandwidth, operating frequency, and distance to the body) and SAR. From this, an upper limit is determined for the power transmitted by a portable wireless device such that the SAR will not exceed the compliance limit. Based on the presented computational and measured data, an empirical formula is developed for the threshold power as a function of the aforementioned parameters. It is demonstrated that the derived threshold power is conservative for all of the low-directivity antennas studied. Computed results are also compared against practical device data (mobile telephone data collected from the manufacturers) to show that the predicted threshold power data using the proposed formula are conservative. The limitations of the proposed formula are also discussed
Crowding of Polymer Coils and Demixing in Nanoparticle-Polymer Mixtures
The Asakura-Oosawa-Vrij (AOV) model of colloid-polymer mixtures idealizes
nonadsorbing polymers as effective spheres that are fixed in size and
impenetrable to hard particles. Real polymer coils, however, are intrinsically
polydisperse in size (radius of gyration) and may be penetrated by smaller
particles. Crowding by nanoparticles can affect the size distribution of
polymer coils, thereby modifying effective depletion interactions and
thermodynamic stability. To analyse the influence of crowding on polymer
conformations and demixing phase behaviour, we adapt the AOV model to mixtures
of nanoparticles and ideal, penetrable polymer coils that can vary in size. We
perform Gibbs ensemble Monte Carlo simulations, including trial
nanoparticle-polymer overlaps and variations in radius of gyration. Results are
compared with predictions of free-volume theory. Simulation and theory
consistently predict that ideal polymers are compressed by nanoparticles and
that compressibility and penetrability stabilise nanoparticle-polymer mixtures.Comment: 18 pages, 4 figure
Tests of the Accelerating Universe with Near-Infrared Observations of a High-Redshift Type Ia Supernova
We have measured the rest-frame B,V, and I-band light curves of a
high-redshift type Ia supernova (SN Ia), SN 1999Q (z=0.46), using HST and
ground-based near-infrared detectors.
A goal of this study is the measurement of the color excess, E_{B-I}, which
is a sensitive indicator of interstellar or intergalactic dust which could
affect recent cosmological measurements from high-redshift SNe Ia. Our
observations disfavor a 30% opacity of SN Ia visual light by dust as an
alternative to an accelerating Universe. This statement applies to both
Galactic-type dust
(rejected at the 3.4 sigma confidence level) and greyer dust (grain size >
0.1 microns; rejected at the 2.3 to 2.6 sigma confidence level) as proposed by
Aguirre (1999). The rest-frame -band light cur ve shows the secondary
maximum a month after B maximum typical of nearby SNe Ia of normal luminosi ty,
providing no indication of evolution as a function of redshift out to z~0.5. A
n expanded set of similar observations could improve the constraints on any
contribution of extragalactic dust to the dimming of high-redshift SNe Ia.Comment: Accepted to the Astrophysical Journal, 12 pages, 2 figure
Ordering ambiguity revisited via position dependent mass pseudo-momentum operators
Ordering ambiguity associated with the von Roos position dependent mass (PDM)
Hamiltonian is considered. An affine locally scaled first order differential
introduced, in Eq.(9), as a PDM-pseudo-momentum operator. Upon intertwining our
Hamiltonian, which is the sum of the square of this operator and the potential
function, with the von Roos d-dimensional PDM-Hamiltonian, we observed that the
so-called von Roos ambiguity parameters are strictly determined, but not
necessarily unique. Our new ambiguity parameters' setting is subjected to
Dutra's and Almeida's [11] reliability test and classified as good ordering.Comment: 10 pages, no figures, revised/expanded, mathematical presentations in
section 2 (Especially, the typological Errors in Eqs.(9)-(12))are now
corrected. To appear in the Int. J. Theor. Phy
Dark Matter Direct Detection with Non-Maxwellian Velocity Structure
The velocity distribution function of dark matter particles is expected to
show significant departures from a Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution. This can
have profound effects on the predicted dark matter - nucleon scattering rates
in direct detection experiments, especially for dark matter models in which the
scattering is sensitive to the high velocity tail of the distribution, such as
inelastic dark matter (iDM) or light (few GeV) dark matter (LDM), and for
experiments that require high energy recoil events, such as many directionally
sensitive experiments. Here we determine the velocity distribution functions
from two of the highest resolution numerical simulations of Galactic dark
matter structure (Via Lactea II and GHALO), and study the effects for these
scenarios. For directional detection, we find that the observed departures from
Maxwell-Boltzmann increase the contrast of the signal and change the typical
direction of incoming DM particles. For iDM, the expected signals at direct
detection experiments are changed dramatically: the annual modulation can be
enhanced by more than a factor two, and the relative rates of DAMA compared to
CDMS can change by an order of magnitude, while those compared to CRESST can
change by a factor of two. The spectrum of the signal can also change
dramatically, with many features arising due to substructure. For LDM the
spectral effects are smaller, but changes do arise that improve the
compatibility with existing experiments. We find that the phase of the
modulation can depend upon energy, which would help discriminate against
background should it be found.Comment: 34 pages, 16 figures, submitted to JCAP. Tables of g(v_min), the
integral of f(v)/v from v_min to infinity, derived from our simulations, are
available for download at http://astro.berkeley.edu/~mqk/dmdd
Ionization degree of the electron-hole plasma in semiconductor quantum wells
The degree of ionization of a nondegenerate two-dimensional electron-hole
plasma is calculated using the modified law of mass action, which takes into
account all bound and unbound states in a screened Coulomb potential.
Application of the variable phase method to this potential allows us to treat
scattering and bound states on the same footing. Inclusion of the scattering
states leads to a strong deviation from the standard law of mass action. A
qualitative difference between mid- and wide-gap semiconductors is
demonstrated. For wide-gap semiconductors at room temperature, when the bare
exciton binding energy is of the order of T, the equilibrium consists of an
almost equal mixture of correlated electron-hole pairs and uncorrelated free
carriers.Comment: 22 pages, 6 figure
Chandra ACIS Survey of M33 (ChASeM33): The enigmatic X-ray emission from IC131
We present the first X-ray analysis of the diffuse hot ionized gas and the
point sources in IC131, after NGC604 the second most X-ray luminous giant HII
region in M33. The X-ray emission is detected only in the south eastern part of
IC131 (named IC131-se) and is limited to an elliptical region of ~200pc in
extent. This region appears to be confined towards the west by a hemispherical
shell of warm ionized gas and only fills about half that volume. Although the
corresponding X-ray spectrum has 1215 counts, it cannot conclusively be told
whether the extended X-ray emission is thermal, non-thermal, or a combination
of both. A thermal plasma model of kT_e=4.3keV or a single power law of
Gamma=2.1 fit the spectrum equally well. If the spectrum is purely thermal
(non-thermal), the total unabsorbed X-ray luminosity in the 0.35-8keV energy
band amounts to L_X = 6.8(8.7)x10^35erg/s. Among other known HII regions
IC131-se seems to be extreme regarding the combination of its large extent of
the X-ray plasma, the lack of massive O stars, its unusually high electron
temperature (if thermal), and the large fraction of L_X emitted above 2keV
(~40-53%). A thermal plasma of ~4keV poses serious challenges to theoretical
models, as it is not clear how high electron temperatures can be produced in
HII regions in view of mass-proportional and collisionless heating. If the gas
is non-thermal or has non-thermal contributions, synchrotron emission would
clearly dominate over inverse Compton emission. It is not clear if the same
mechanisms which create non-thermal X-rays or accelerate CRs in SNRs can be
applied to much larger scales of 200pc. In both cases the existing theoretical
models for giant HII regions and superbubbles do not explain the hardness and
extent of the X-ray emission in IC131-se.Comment: 28 pages, 7 figures and 2 tables. Accepted for publication in ApJ.
For a high resolution version of the paper see
http://hea-www.harvard.edu/vlp_m33_public/publications.htm
Multielectron effects in strong-field dissociative ionization of molecules
We study triple-ionization-induced, spatially asymmetric dissociation of N[subscript 2] using angular streaking in an elliptically polarized laser pulse in conjunction with few-cycle pump-probe experiments. The kinetic-energy-release dependent directional asymmetry in the ion sum-momentum distribution reflects the internuclear distance dependence of the fragmentation mechanism. Our results show that for 5–35-fs near-infrared laser pulses with intensities reaching 10[superscript 15] W/cm², charge exchange between nuclei plays a minor role in the triple ionization of N[subscript 2]. We demonstrate that angular streaking provides a powerful tool for probing multielectron effects in strong-field dissociative ionization of small molecules
Three-dimensional quantization of the electromagnetic field in dispersive and absorbing inhomogeneous dielectrics
A quantization scheme for the phenomenological Maxwell theory of the full
electromagnetic field in an inhomogeneous three-dimensional, dispersive and
absorbing dielectric medium is developed. The classical Maxwell equations with
spatially varying and Kramers-Kronig consistent permittivity are regarded as
operator-valued field equations, introducing additional current- and
charge-density operator fields in order to take into account the noise
associated with the dissipation in the medium. It is shown that the equal-time
commutation relations between the fundamental electromagnetic fields
and and the potentials and in the Coulomb gauge
can be expressed in terms of the Green tensor of the classical problem. From
the Green tensors for bulk material and an inhomogeneous medium consisting of
two bulk dielectrics with a common planar interface it is explicitly proven
that the well-known equal-time commutation relations of QED are preserved
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