Interacting dark sector with variable vacuum energy

We examine a cosmological scenario where dark matter is coupled to a variable vacuum energy while baryons and photons are two decoupled components for a spatially flat Friedmann-Robertson-Walker spacetime. We apply the $\chi^{2}$ method to the updated observational Hubble data for constraining the cosmological parameters and analyze the amount of dark energy in the radiation era. We show that our model fulfills the severe bound of $\Omega_{x}(z\simeq 1100)<0.009$ at the $2\sigma$ level, so it is consistent with the recent analysis that includes cosmic microwave background anisotropy measurements from the Planck survey, the Atacama Cosmology Telescope, and the South Pole Telescope along with the future constraints achievable by the Euclid and CMBPol experiments, and fulfills the stringent bound $\Omega_{x}(z\simeq 10^{10})<0.04$ at the $2\sigma$ level in the big-bang nucleosynthesis epoch.Comment: 5 pages,3 figures, 2 tables. (http://prd.aps.org/abstract/PRD/v88/i8/e087301

Loss of redundant gene expression after polyploidization in plants

Based on chromosomal location data of genes encoding 28 biochemical systems in allohexaploid wheat,Triticum aestivum L. (genomes AABBDD), it is concluded that the proportions of systems controlled by triplicate, duplicate, and single loci are 57%, 25%, and 18% respectively

A Catalogue of Be Stars in the Direction of the Galactic Bulge

Detailed studies of Be stars in environments with different metallicities like the Magellanic Clouds or the Galactic bulge are necessary to understand the formation and evolution mechanisms of the circumstellar disks. However, a detailed study of Be stars in the direction of the bulge of our own galaxy has not been performed until now. We report the first systematic search for Be star candidates in the direction of the Galactic Bulge. We present the catalogue, give a brief description of the stellar variability seen, and show some light curve examples. We searched for stars matching specific criteria of magnitude, color and variability in the I band. Our search was conducted on the 48 OGLE II fields of the Galactic Bulge.This search has resulted in 29053 Be star candidates, 198 of them showing periodic light variations. Nearly 1500 stars in this final sample are almost certainly Be stars, providing an ideal sample for spectroscopic multiobject follow-up studies.Comment: Accepted for publication in A &

Microwave Photon Detector in Circuit QED

Quantum optical photodetection has occupied a central role in understanding radiation-matter interactions. It has also contributed to the development of atomic physics and quantum optics, including applications to metrology, spectroscopy, and quantum information processing. The quantum microwave regime, originally explored using cavities and atoms, is seeing a novel boost with the generation of nonclassical propagating fields in circuit quantum electrodynamics (QED). This promising field, involving potential developments in quantum information with microwave photons, suffers from the absence of photodetectors. Here, we design a metamaterial composed of discrete superconducting elements that implements a high-efficiency microwave photon detector. Our design consists of a microwave guide coupled to an array of metastable quantum circuits, whose internal states are irreversibly changed due to the absorption of photons. This proposal can be widely applied to different physical systems and can be generalized to implement a microwave photon counter.Comment: accepted in Phys. Rev. Let

Revisiting the luminosity function of single halo white dwarfs

White dwarfs are the fossils left by the evolution of low-and intermediate-mass stars, and have very long evolutionary timescales. This allows us to use them to explore the properties of old populations, like the Galactic halo. We present a population synthesis study of the luminosity function of halo white dwarfs, aimed at investigating which information can be derived from the currently available observed data. We employ an up-to-date population synthesis code based on Monte Carlo techniques, that incorporates the most recent and reliable cooling sequences for metal poor progenitors as well as an accurate modeling of the observational biases. We find that because the observed sample of halo white dwarfs is restricted to the brightest stars only the hot branch of the white dwarf luminosity function can be used for such purposes, and that its shape function is almost insensitive to the most relevant inputs, like the adopted cooling sequences, the initial mass function, the density profile of the stellar spheroid, or the adopted fraction of unresolved binaries. Moreover, since the cut-off of the observed luminosity has not been yet determined only lower limits to the age of the halo population can be placed. We conclude that the current observed sample of the halo white dwarf population is still too small to obtain definite conclusions about the properties of the stellar halo, and the recently computed white dwarf cooling sequences which incorporate residual hydrogen burning should be assessed using metal-poor globular clusters.Comment: 9 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in A&