Spark Model for Pulsar Radiation Modulation Patterns

A non-stationary polar gap model first proposed by Ruderman & Sutherland (1975) is modified and applied to spark-associated pulsar emission at radio wave-lengths. It is argued that under physical and geometrical conditions prevailing above pulsar polar cap, highly non-stationary spark discharges do not occur at random positions. Instead, sparks should tend to operate in well determined preferred regions. At any instant the polar cap is populated as densely as possible with a number of two-dimensional sparks with a characteristic dimension as well as a typical distance between adjacent sparks being about the polar gap height. Our model differs, however, markedly from its original 'hollow cone' version. The key feature is the quasi-central spark driven by pair production process and anchored to the local pole of a sunspot-like surface magnetic field. This fixed spark prevents the motion of other sparks towards the pole, restricting it to slow circumferential drift across the planes of field lines converging at the local pole. We argue that the polar spark constitutes the core pulsar emission, and that the annular rings of drifting sparks contribute to conal components of the pulsar beam. We found that the number of nested cones in the beam of typical pulsar should not excced three; a number also found by Mitra & Deshpande (1999) using a completely different analysis.Comment: 31 pages, 8 figures, accepted by Ap

Flexible Authentication in Vehicular Ad hoc Networks

A Vehicular Ad-Hoc Network (VANET) is a form of Mobile ad-hoc network, to provide communications among nearby vehicles and between vehicles and nearby fixed roadside equipment. The key operation in VANETs is the broadcast of messages. Consequently, the vehicles need to make sure that the information has been sent by an authentic node in the network. VANETs present unique challenges such as high node mobility, real-time constraints, scalability, gradual deployment and privacy. No existent technique addresses all these requirements. In particular, both inter-vehicle and vehicle-to-roadside wireless communications present different characteristics that should be taken into account when defining node authentication services. That is exactly what is done in this paper, where the features of inter-vehicle and vehicle-to-roadside communications are analyzed to propose differentiated services for node authentication, according to privacy and efficiency needs

Frequency dependence of pulsar radiation patterns

We report on new results from simultaneous, dual frequency, single pulse observation of PSR B0329+54 using the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope. We find that the longitude separation of subpulses at two different frequencies (238 and 612 MHz) is less than that for the corresponding components in the average profile. A similar behaviour has been noticed before in a number of pulsars. We argue that subpulses are emitted within narrow flux tubes of the dipolar field lines and that the mean pulsar beam has a conal structure. In such a model the longitudes of profile components are determined by the intersection of the line of sight trajectory with subpulse-associated emission beams. Thus, we show that the difference in the frequency dependence of subpulse and profile component longitudes is a natural property of the conal model of pulsar emission beam. We support our conclusions by numerical modelling of pulsar emission, using the known parameters for this pulsar, which produce results that agree very well with our dual frequency observations.Comment: 24 pages, 8 figures. Accepted for publication in Ap

Controlling secretion to limit chemoresistance

The tumor microenvironment influences cancer progression and therapy outcome by mechanisms not yet fully understood. In this issue, Bent et al. (2016) show how chemotherapy causes endothelial senescence. Interestingly, senescent endothelial cells do not mount a typical senescence-associated secretory phenotype but instead acutely secrete IL-6, promoting chemoresistance. This study unveils a physiological switch involving PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling that restrains the senescence secretory responses to limit the detrimental consequences of persistent inflammation

Spot-like Structures of Neutron Star Surface Magnetic Fields

There is growing evidence, based on both X-ray and radio observations of isolated neutron stars, that besides the large--scale (dipolar) magnetic field, which determines the pulsar spin--down behaviour, small--scale poloidal field components are present, which have surface strengths one to two orders of magnitude larger than the dipolar component. We argue in this paper that the Hall--effect can be an efficient process in producing such small--scale field structures just above the neutron star surface. It is shown that due to a Hall--drift induced instability, poloidal magnetic field structures can be generated from strong subsurface toroidal fields, which are the result of either a dynamo or a thermoelectric instability acting at early times of a neutron star's life. The geometrical structure of these small--scale surface anomalies of the magnetic field resembles that of some types of ``star--spots''. The magnetic field strength and the length--scales are comparable with values that can be derived from various observations.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, accepted by Astronomy & Astrophysics Letters; language improved, 2nd para of Sect. 3 change