48,715 research outputs found
Are Stars with Planets Polluted?
We compare the metallicities of stars with radial velocity planets to the
metallicity of a sample of field dwarfs. We confirm recent work indicating that
the stars-with-planet sample as a whole is iron rich. However, the lowest mass
stars tend to be iron poor, with several having [Fe/H]<-0.2, demonstrating that
high metallicity is not required for the formation of short period Jupiter-mass
planets. We show that the average [Fe/H] increases with increasing stellar mass
(for masses below 1.25 solar masses) in both samples, but that the increase is
much more rapid in the stars-with-planet sample. The variation of metallicity
with stellar age also differs between the two samples. We examine possible
selection effects related to variations in the sensitivity of radial velocity
surveys with stellar mass and metallicity, and identify a color cutoff
(B-V>0.48) that contributes to but does not explain the mass-metallicity trend
in the stars-with-planets sample. We use Monte Carlo models to show that adding
an average of 6.5 Earth masses of iron to each star can explain both the
mass-metallicity and the age-metallicity relations of the stars-with-planets
sample. However, for at least one star, HD 38529, there is good evidence that
the bulk metallicity is high. We conclude that the observed metallicities and
metallicity trends are the result of the interaction of three effects;
accretion of about 6 Earth masses of iron rich material, selection effects, and
in some cases, high intrinsic metallicity.Comment: 19 pages 11 figure
Neutrinoless double-beta decay. A brief review
In this brief review we discuss the generation of Majorana neutrino masses
through the see-saw mechanism, the theory of neutrinoless double-beta decay,
the implications of neutrino oscillation data for the effective Majorana mass,
taking into account the recent Daya Bay measurement of theta_13, and the
interpretation of the results of neutrinoless double-beta decay experiments.Comment: 22 page
CP violation with a dynamical Higgs
We determine the complete set of independent gauge and gauge-Higgs CP-odd
effective operators for the generic case of a dynamical Higgs, up to four
derivatives in the chiral expansion. The relation with the linear basis of
dimension six CP-odd operators is clarified. Phenomenological applications
include bounds inferred from electric dipole moment limits, and from present
and future collider data on triple gauge coupling measurements and Higgs
signals.Comment: 41 pages, 3 figures; V2: citations added, typos corrected, version
published on JHE
Rational quantum integrable systems of D_N type with polarized spin reversal operators
We study the spin Calogero model of D_N type with polarized spin reversal
operators, as well as its associated spin chain of Haldane-Shastry type, both
in the antiferromagnetic and ferromagnetic cases. We compute the spectrum and
the partition function of the former model in closed form, from which we derive
an exact formula for the chain's partition function in terms of products of
partition functions of Polychronakos-Frahm spin chains of type A. Using a
recursion relation for the latter partition functions that we derive in the
paper, we are able to numerically evaluate the partition function, and thus the
spectrum, of the D_N-type spin chain for relatively high values of the number
of spins N. We analyze several global properties of the chain's spectrum, such
as the asymptotic level density, the distribution of consecutive spacings of
the unfolded spectrum, and the average degeneracy. In particular, our results
suggest that this chain is invariant under a suitable Yangian group, and that
its spectrum coincides with that of a Yangian-invariant vertex model with
linear energy function and dispersion relation.Comment: 26 pages, 5 figures, typeset in LaTe
A linear filter to reconstruct the ISW effect from CMB and LSS observations
The extraction of a signal from some observational data sets that contain
different contaminant emissions, often at a greater level than the signal
itself, is a common problem in Astrophysics and Cosmology. The signal can be
recovered, for instance, using a simple Wiener filter. However, in certain
cases, additional information may also be available, such as a second
observation which correlates to a certain level with the sought signal. In
order to improve the quality of the reconstruction, it would be useful to
include as well this additional information. Under these circumstances, we have
constructed a linear filter, the linear covariance-based filter, that extracts
the signal from the data but takes also into account the correlation with the
second observation. To illustrate the performance of the method, we present a
simple application to reconstruct the so-called Integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect
from simulated observations of the Cosmic Microwave Background and of
catalogues of galaxies.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in the IEEE Journal of
Selected Topics in Signal Processin
EVALUATION OF THE ANTIOXIDANT ACTIVITY OF THE FLAVONOIDS ISOLATED FROM HELIOTROPIUM SINUATUM RESIN USING ORACFL, DPPH AND ESR METHODOLOGIES
Indexación: Web of Science; Scielo.The antioxidant capacity has been determined for a number of flavonoid compounds from Heliotropium sinuatum, a plant that grows in arid areas in the north of Chile. The methodologies used were: ORAC(FL) (oxygen radical absorbance capacity - fluorescein), DPPH (2,2-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl) bleaching and electron spin resonance (ESR). These compounds were studied in homogeneous and heterogeneous media. The results showed that the 7-o-methyleriodictiol and 3-o-methylisorhamnetin are those with the highest antioxidant capacity.http://ref.scielo.org/m82cz
Water quality monitoring: a ‘toolbox’ in response to the EU’s Water Framework Directive requirements
Curtailing the Dark Side in Non-Standard Neutrino Interactions
In presence of non-standard neutrino interactions the neutrino flavor
evolution equation is affected by a degeneracy which leads to the so-called
LMA-Dark solution. It requires a solar mixing angle in the second octant and
implies an ambiguity in the neutrino mass ordering. Non-oscillation experiments
are required to break this degeneracy. We perform a combined analysis of data
from oscillation experiments with the neutrino scattering experiments CHARM and
NuTeV. We find that the degeneracy can be lifted if the non-standard neutrino
interactions take place with down quarks, but it remains for up quarks.
However, CHARM and NuTeV constraints apply only if the new interactions take
place through mediators not much lighter than the electroweak scale. For light
mediators we consider the possibility to resolve the degeneracy by using data
from future coherent neutrino-nucleus scattering experiments. We find that, for
an experiment using a stopped-pion neutrino source, the LMA-Dark degeneracy
will either be resolved, or the presence of new interactions in the neutrino
sector will be established with high significance.Comment: 33 pages, 9 figures. Minor modifications. Version accepted for
publication in JHE
The properties of attractors of canalyzing random Boolean networks
We study critical random Boolean networks with two inputs per node that
contain only canalyzing functions. We present a phenomenological theory that
explains how a frozen core of nodes that are frozen on all attractors arises.
This theory leads to an intuitive understanding of the system's dynamics as it
demonstrates the analogy between standard random Boolean networks and networks
with canalyzing functions only. It reproduces correctly the scaling of the
number of nonfrozen nodes with system size. We then investigate numerically
attractor lengths and numbers, and explain the findings in terms of the
properties of relevant components. In particular we show that canalyzing
networks can contain very long attractors, albeit they occur less often than in
standard networks.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figure
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