Study of a navigation and traffic control technique employing satellites. Volume 3 - User hardware Interim report

User hardware configurations and requirements for navigation and air traffic control technique using satellite

Relic Radiation from an Evaporating Black Hole

We present a non-string-theoretic calculation of the microcanonical entropy of relic integer-spin Hawking radiation -- at fixed total energy $E$. The only conserved macroscopic quantity is the total energy $E$ (the total energy of the relic radiation). Data for a boundary-value approach, with massless, integer-spin perturbations, are set on initial and final space-like hypersurfaces. In the resulting 1-dimensional statistical-mechanics problem, the real part of the (complex) time separation at spatial infinity, $T = {\mid}T{\mid}\exp(-i\delta), \delta >0$, is the variable conjugate to the total energy. We count the number of weak-field configurations on the final space-like hypersurface with energy $E$. One recovers the Cardy formula and the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy, if Re(T) is of the order of the black-hole life- time, leading to a statistical interpretation of black-hole entropy. The microcanonical entropy includes a logarithmic correction to the black-hole area law, which is {\it universal} (independent of black-hole parameters). Here, the discreteness of the energy levels is crucial. This approach is compared with that of string theory for the transition to the fundamental-string r\'egime in the final stages of evaporation. The squared coupling, $g^2$, regulating the transition to a highly-excited string state and {\it vice versa}, can be related to the angle, $\delta$, of complex-time rotation above. The strong-coupling r\'egime corresponds to a Euclidean black hole, while the physical limit of a Lorentzian space-time (as $\delta \to 0_+$) corresponds to the weak-coupling r\'egime. This resembles the transition to a highly-excited string-like state which subsequently decays into massless particles, thereby avoiding the naked singularity.Comment: To appear in International Journal of Modern Physics

Medical information prior to invasive medical procedures in otorhinolaryngology–head and neck surgery in France

SummaryBased on a review of the medical literature (PubMed database, keywords: medical information, informed consent), the authors analyse the main medicolegal aspects concerning the patient information that must be provided in France prior to any invasive diagnostic or therapeutic medical procedures in otorhinolaryngology head and neck surgery, as well as the patient's perception and recall of the information provided, the quality of the information provided and problems encountered in providing this information. In the light of this review, several solutions are recommended to improve this essential phase prior to obtaining the patient's informed consent

Two-Dimensional Hydrodynamic Simulations of Convection in Radiation-Dominated Accretion Disks

The standard equilibrium for radiation-dominated accretion disks has long been known to be viscously, thermally, and convectively unstable, but the nonlinear development of these instabilities---hence the actual state of such disks---has not yet been identified. By performing local two-dimensional hydrodynamic simulations of disks, we demonstrate that convective motions can release heat sufficiently rapidly as to substantially alter the vertical structure of the disk. If the dissipation rate within a vertical column is proportional to its mass, the disk settles into a new configuration thinner by a factor of two than the standard radiation-supported equilibrium. If, on the other hand, the vertically-integrated dissipation rate is proportional to the vertically-integrated total pressure, the disk is subject to the well-known thermal instability. Convection, however, biases the development of this instability toward collapse. The end result of such a collapse is a gas pressure-dominated equilibrium at the original column density.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ. Please send comments to [email protected]

Liouville field theory with heavy charges. II. The conformal boundary case

We develop a general technique for computing functional integrals with fixed area and boundary length constraints. The correct quantum dimensions for the vertex functions are recovered by properly regularizing the Green function. Explicit computation is given for the one point function providing the first one loop check of the bootstrap formula.Comment: LaTeX 26 page

LXRα phosphorylation in cardiometabolic disease: insight from mouse models

Posttranslational modifications, such as phosphorylation, are a powerful means by which the activity and function of nuclear receptors such as LXRα can be altered. However, despite the established importance of nuclear receptors in maintaining metabolic homeostasis, our understanding of how phosphorylation affects metabolic diseases is limited. The physiological consequences of LXRα phosphorylation have, until recently, been studied only in vitro or nonspecifically in animal models by pharmacologically or genetically altering the enzymes enhancing or inhibiting these modifications. Here we review recent reports on the physiological consequences of modifying LXRα phosphorylation at serine 196 (S196) in cardiometabolic disease, including nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, atherosclerosis, and obesity. A unifying theme from these studies is that LXRα S196 phosphorylation rewires the LXR-modulated transcriptome, which in turn alters physiological response to environmental signals, and that this is largely distinct from the LXR-ligand–dependent action

Laplacian Growth, Elliptic Growth, and Singularities of the Schwarz Potential

The Schwarz function has played an elegant role in understanding and in generating new examples of exact solutions to the Laplacian growth (or "Hele- Shaw") problem in the plane. The guiding principle in this connection is the fact that "non-physical" singularities in the "oil domain" of the Schwarz function are stationary, and the "physical" singularities obey simple dynamics. We give an elementary proof that the same holds in any number of dimensions for the Schwarz potential, introduced by D. Khavinson and H. S. Shapiro [17] (1989). A generalization is also given for the so-called "elliptic growth" problem by defining a generalized Schwarz potential. New exact solutions are constructed, and we solve inverse problems of describing the driving singularities of a given flow. We demonstrate, by example, how \mathbb{C}^n - techniques can be used to locate the singularity set of the Schwarz potential. One of our methods is to prolong available local extension theorems by constructing "globalizing families". We make three conjectures in potential theory relating to our investigation

Metric fluctuations of an evaporating black hole from back reaction of stress tensor fluctuations

This paper delineates the first steps in a systematic quantitative study of the spacetime fluctuations induced by quantum fields in an evaporating black hole under the stochastic gravity program. The central object of interest is the noise kernel, which is the symmetrized two-point quantum correlation function of the stress tensor operator. As a concrete example we apply it to the study of the spherically-symmetric sector of metric perturbations around an evaporating black hole background geometry. For macroscopic black holes we find that those fluctuations grow and eventually become important when considering sufficiently long periods of time (of the order of the evaporation time), but well before the Planckian regime is reached. In addition, the assumption of a simple correlation between the fluctuations of the energy flux crossing the horizon and far from it, which was made in earlier work on spherically-symmetric induced fluctuations, is carefully scrutinized and found to be invalid. Our analysis suggests the existence of an infinite amplitude for the fluctuations when trying to localize the horizon as a three-dimensional hypersurface, as in the classical case, and, as a consequence, a more accurate picture of the horizon as possessing a finite effective width due to quantum fluctuations. This is supported by a systematic analysis of the noise kernel in curved spacetime smeared with different functions under different conditions, the details are collected in the appendices. This case study shows a pathway for probing quantum metric fluctuations near the horizon and understanding their physical meaning.Comment: 21 pages, REVTe

Effective Viscosity of Dilute Bacterial Suspensions: A Two-Dimensional Model

Suspensions of self-propelled particles are studied in the framework of two-dimensional (2D) Stokesean hydrodynamics. A formula is obtained for the effective viscosity of such suspensions in the limit of small concentrations. This formula includes the two terms that are found in the 2D version of Einstein's classical result for passive suspensions. To this, the main result of the paper is added, an additional term due to self-propulsion which depends on the physical and geometric properties of the active suspension. This term explains the experimental observation of a decrease in effective viscosity in active suspensions.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures, submitted to Physical Biolog

Vacuum Spacetimes with Future Trapped Surfaces

In this article we show that one can construct initial data for the Einstein equations which satisfy the vacuum constraints. This initial data is defined on a manifold with topology $R^3$ with a regular center and is asymptotically flat. Further, this initial data will contain an annular region which is foliated by two-surfaces of topology $S^2$. These two-surfaces are future trapped in the language of Penrose. The Penrose singularity theorem guarantees that the vacuum spacetime which evolves from this initial data is future null incomplete.Comment: 19 page