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Measuring Dark Matter Profiles Non-Parametrically In Dwarf Spheroidals: An Application To Draco
We introduce a novel implementation of orbit-based (or Schwarzschild) modeling that allows dark matter density profiles to be calculated non-parametrically in nearby galaxies. Our models require no assumptions to be made about velocity anisotropy or the dark matter profile. The technique can be applied to any dispersion-supported stellar system, and we demonstrate its use by studying the Local Group dwarf spheroidal galaxy (dSph) Draco. We use existing kinematic data at larger radii and also present 12 new radial velocities within the central 13 pc obtained with the VIRUS-W integral field spectrograph on the 2.7 m telescope at McDonald Observatory. Our non-parametric Schwarzschild models find strong evidence that the dark matter profile in Draco is cuspy for 20 = 20 pc is well fit by a power law with slope alpha = -1.0 +/- 0.2, consistent with predictions from cold dark matter simulations. Our models confirm that, despite its low baryon content relative to other dSphs, Draco lives in a massive halo.NSF-0908639Astronom
Dynamic critical phenomena in the AdS/CFT duality
In critical phenomena, singular behaviors arise not only for thermodynamic
quantities but also for transport coefficients. We study this dynamic critical
phenomenon in the AdS/CFT duality. We consider black holes with a single
R-charge in various dimensions and compute the R-charge diffusion in the linear
perturbations. In this case, the black holes belong to model B according to the
classification of Hohenberg and Halperin.Comment: 17 pages, ReVTeX4; v2: added references and discussio
The relative tax burden of medium-sized corporations in Germany
Statistical offices do not provide sufficiently disaggregated tax statistics for calculating the relative tax burden of SMEs. We estimate the respective average and median tax burden of small, medium-sized and big corporations in Germany for the period 1998 to 2007 using enterprises micro panel data by applying OLS and quantile regression techniques. We find that the average tax burden levied on profit over the ten years was about 24%, and thus lower than forward-looking techniques suggest. The majority of small corporations did bear a significantly lower burden than the residual bigger corporations. We also provide evidence that medium-sized corporations faced a significantly higher median tax burden than big corporation. This implies an inverse U-shaped trajectory of median tax burden with respect to size of enterprise. Presumably big corporations are internationally operating and hence have more opportunities to manipulate the tax base. Hence, medium-sized corporations seem to have been disadvantaged to big corporations within the German corporation tax. Finally, the size of tax relief provided by the “Tax Reform 2000” was correlated positively with size of enterprise. This size-dependent tax burden identifies a so far neglected type of tax distortion. Future tax reforms hence also have to address size neutrality.Steuerlastmessung; KMU; Steuerreform; Umsatzneutralität
The kernel Kalman rule: efficient nonparametric inference with recursive least squares
Nonparametric inference techniques provide promising tools
for probabilistic reasoning in high-dimensional nonlinear systems.
Most of these techniques embed distributions into reproducing
kernel Hilbert spaces (RKHS) and rely on the kernel
Bayes’ rule (KBR) to manipulate the embeddings. However,
the computational demands of the KBR scale poorly
with the number of samples and the KBR often suffers from
numerical instabilities. In this paper, we present the kernel
Kalman rule (KKR) as an alternative to the KBR. The derivation
of the KKR is based on recursive least squares, inspired
by the derivation of the Kalman innovation update. We apply
the KKR to filtering tasks where we use RKHS embeddings
to represent the belief state, resulting in the kernel Kalman filter
(KKF). We show on a nonlinear state estimation task with
high dimensional observations that our approach provides a
significantly improved estimation accuracy while the computational
demands are significantly decreased
31P-NMR spectroscopy of phosphate compartmentation during ischaemia in hearts protected by cardioplegic treatment.
Four tissue compartments, differing in proton and inorganic phosphate concentration, were resolved by 31P-NMR spectroscopy in samples from dog hearts after cardioplegic treatment with HTK solution. Inversion of the physiological cytoplasmic-mitochondrial pH gradient was observed. The considerable ensuing acidosis of the matrix is discussed with regard to a possible delocalisation of ferrous ions
Hydrodynamical evolution near the QCD critical end point
Hydrodynamical calculations have been successful in describing global
observables in ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions, which aim to observe the
production of the quark-gluon plasma. On the other hand, recently, a lot of
evidence that there exists a critical end point (CEP) in the QCD phase diagram
has been accumulating. Nevertheless, so far, no equation of state with the CEP
has been employed in hydrodynamical calculations. In this paper, we construct
the equation of state with the CEP on the basis of the universality hypothesis
and show that the CEP acts as an attractor of isentropic trajectories. We also
consider the time evolution in the case with the CEP and discuss how the CEP
affects the final state observables, such as the correlation length,
fluctuation, chemical freezeout, kinetic freezeout, and so on. Finally, we
argue that the anomalously low kinetic freezeout temperature at the BNL
Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider suggests the possibility of the existence of
the CEP.Comment: 13 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in Physical Review
Learning robust policies for object manipulation with robot swarms
Swarm robotics investigates how a large population of robots with simple actuation and limited sensors can collectively solve complex tasks. One particular interesting application with robot swarms is autonomous object assembly.
Such tasks have been solved successfully with robot swarms that are controlled by a human operator using a light source.
In this paper, we present a method to solve such assembly tasks autonomously based on policy search methods. We split the assembly process in two subtasks: generating a high-level assembly plan and learning a low-level object movement policy. The assembly policy plans the trajectories for each object and the object movement policy controls the trajectory execution. Learning the object movement policy is challenging as it depends on the complex state of the swarm which consists of an individual state for each agent. To approach this problem, we introduce a representation of the swarm which is based on Hilbert space embeddings of distributions. This representation is invariant to the number of agents in the swarm as well as to the allocation of an agent to its position in the swarm. These invariances make the learned policy robust to changes in the swarm and also reduce the search space for the policy search method significantly. We show that the resulting system is able to solve assembly tasks with varying object shapes in multiple simulation scenarios and evaluate the robustness of our representation to changes in the swarm size. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the policies learned in simulation are robust enough to be transferred to real robots
The Existence of Sterile Neutrino Halos in Galactic Centers as an Explanation of the Black Hole mass - Velocity Dispersion Relation
If sterile neutrinos exist and form halos in galactic centers, they can give
rise to observational consequences. In particular, the sterile neutrinos decay
radiatively and heat up the gas in the protogalaxy to achieve hydrostatic
equilibrium, and they provide the mass to form supermassive blackholes. A
natural correlation between the blackhole mass and velocity dispersion thus
arises with and .Comment: Accepted in Ap
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