1,311 research outputs found
The Survey of Lines in M31 (SLIM): The Drivers of the [CII]/TIR Variation
The ratio of the [CII] 158m emission line over the total infrared
emission (TIR) is often used as a proxy for the photoelectric (PE) heating
efficiency () of the far-ultraviolet (FUV) photons absorbed
by dust in the interstellar medium. In the nearby galaxy M31, we measure a
strong radial variation of [CII]/TIR that we rule out as being due to an
intrinsic variation in . [CII]/TIR fails as a proxy for
, because the TIR measures all dust heating, not just the
contribution from FUV photons capable of ejecting electrons from dust grains.
Using extensive multiwavelength coverage from the FUV to far-infrared (FIR), we
infer the attenuated FUV emission (), and the total attenuated
flux (). We find [CII]/TIR to be strongly correlated with /, indicating that, in M31 at least, one of the
dominant drivers for [CII]/TIR variation is the relative hardness of the
absorbed stellar radiation field. We define ,
[CII]/ which should be more closely related to the actual PE
efficiency, which we find to be essentially constant () in all
explored fields in M31. This suggests that part of the observed variation of
[CII]/TIR in other galaxies is likely due to a change in the relative hardness
of the absorbed stellar radiation field, caused by a combination of variations
in the stellar population, dust opacity and galaxy metallicity, although PE
efficiency may also vary across a wider range of environments.Comment: 19 pages, 16 figures, accepted for publication in Ap
The Molecular Gas Reservoirs of Galaxies: A comparison of CO(1-0) and dust-based molecular gas masses
We test the use of long-wavelength dust continuum emission as a molecular gas
tracer at high redshift, via a unique sample of 12, z~2 galaxies with
observations of both the dust continuum and CO(1-0) line emission (obtained
with the Atacama Large Millimeter Array and Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array,
respectively). Our work is motivated by recent, high redshift studies that
measure molecular gas masses (\ensuremath{\rm{M}_{\rm{mol}}}) via a calibration
of the rest-frame m luminosity () against the
CO(1-0)-derived \ensuremath{\rm{M}_{\rm{mol}}}\ of star-forming galaxies. We
hereby test whether this method is valid for the types of high-redshift,
star-forming galaxies to which it has been applied. We recover a clear
correlation between the rest-frame m luminosity, inferred from the
single-band, long-wavelength flux, and the CO(1-0) line luminosity, consistent
with the samples used to perform the m calibration. The molecular gas
masses, derived from , agree to within a factor of
two with those derived from CO(1-0). We show that this factor of two
uncertainty can arise from the values of the dust emissivity index and
temperature that need to be assumed in order to extrapolate from the observed
frequency to the rest-frame at 850. The extrapolation to
850 therefore has a smaller effect on the accuracy of \Mmol\
derived via single-band dust-continuum observations than the assumed
CO(1-0)-to-\ensuremath{\rm{M}_{\rm{mol}}}\ conversion factor. We therefore
conclude that single-band observations of long-wavelength dust emission can be
used to reliably constrain the molecular gas masses of massive, star-forming
galaxies at
The effect of the “rod-and-frame” illusion on grip planning in a sequential object manipulation task
We investigated the effect of visual context (i.e., a visual illusion) on the planning of a sequential object manipulation task. Participants (n = 13) had to grasp a rod embedded in a “rod-and-frame” illusion and insert the rod-end into a tight hole in a pre-defined way. The grip type (defined by start posture, either pronated or supinated; and end posture, either comfortable or uncomfortable) used to grasp the rod was registered as a macroscopic variable of motor planning. Different rod orientations forced the participants to switch between grip types. As expected, most participants switched between pronated and supinated start postures, such that they ended the movement with a comfortable end posture. As it has been argued that planning is dependent on visual context information, we hypothesized that the visual illusion would affect the specific rod orientation at which participants would switch into a different grip type. This hypothesis was confirmed. More specifically, the illusion affected the critical spatial information that is used for action planning. Collectively, these findings are the first to show an effect of an illusion on motor planning in a sequential object manipulation task
Noise-Net: Determining physical properties of HII regions reflecting observational uncertainties
Stellar feedback, the energetic interaction between young stars and their
birthplace, plays an important role in the star formation history of the
universe and the evolution of the interstellar medium (ISM). Correctly
interpreting the observations of star-forming regions is essential to
understand stellar feedback, but it is a non-trivial task due to the complexity
of the feedback processes and degeneracy in observations. In our recent paper,
we introduced a conditional invertible neural network (cINN) that predicts
seven physical properties of star-forming regions from the luminosity of 12
optical emission lines as a novel method to analyze degenerate observations. We
demonstrated that our network, trained on synthetic star-forming region models
produced by the WARPFIELD-Emission predictor (WARPFIELD-EMP), could predict
physical properties accurately and precisely. In this paper, we present a new
updated version of the cINN that takes into account the observational
uncertainties during network training. Our new network named Noise-Net reflects
the influence of the uncertainty on the parameter prediction by using both
emission-line luminosity and corresponding uncertainties as the necessary input
information of the network. We examine the performance of the Noise-Net as a
function of the uncertainty and compare it with the previous version of the
cINN, which does not learn uncertainties during the training. We confirm that
the Noise-Net outperforms the previous network for the typical observational
uncertainty range and maintains high accuracy even when subject to large
uncertainties.Comment: 22 pages, 14 figures, Accepted for publication by MNRAS on 04.
Januar
Four-lepton production at hadron colliders: aMC@NLO predictions with theoretical uncertainties
We use aMC@NLO to study the production of four charged leptons at the LHC,
performing parton showers with both HERWIG and Pythia6. Our underlying matrix
element calculation features the full next-to-leading order
result and the contribution of the channel, and it
includes all off-shell, spin-correlation, virtual-photon-exchange, and
interference effects. We present several key distributions together with the
corresponding theoretical uncertainties. These are obtained through a
process-independent technique that allows aMC@NLO to compute scale and PDF
uncertainties in a fully automated way and at no extra CPU-time costComment: 24 pages, 6 figure
The physiological bases of hidden noise-induced hearing loss: protocol for a functional neuroimaging study
Background: Rodent studies indicate that noise exposure can cause permanent damage to synapses between inner hair cells and high-threshold auditory nerve fibers, without permanently altering threshold sensitivity. These demonstrations of what is commonly known as “hidden hearing loss” have been confirmed in several rodent species, but the implications for human hearing are unclear.
Objective: Our Medical Research Council (MRC) funded programme aims to address this unanswered question, by investigating functional consequences of the damage to the human peripheral and central auditory nervous system that results from cumulative lifetime noise exposure. Behavioral and neuroimaging techniques are being used in a series of parallel studies aimed at detecting hidden hearing loss in humans. The planned neuroimaging study aims to (1) identify central auditory biomarkers associated with hidden hearing loss, (2) investigate if there are any additive contributions from tinnitus or diminished sound tolerance, which are often comorbid with hearing problems, and (3) explore the relation between subcortical functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) measures and the auditory brainstem response (ABR).
Methods: Individuals aged 25 to 40 years with pure tone hearing thresholds ≤ 20 dB HL over the range 500 Hz to 8 kHz and no contraindications for MRI or signs of ear disease will be recruited into the study. Lifetime noise exposure will be estimated using an in-depth structured interview. Auditory responses throughout the central auditory system will be recorded using ABR and fMRI. Analyses will focus predominantly on correlations between lifetime noise exposure and auditory response characteristics.
Results: This article reports the study protocol. The programme grant was awarded in July 2013. Enrollment for the study described in this protocol commenced in February 2017 and was completed in December 2017. Results are expected in 2018.
Conclusions: This challenging and comprehensive study will have the potential to impact diagnostic procedures for hidden hearing loss, enabling early identification of noise-induced auditory damage via the detection of changes in central auditory processing. Consequently, this will generate the opportunity to give personalized advice regarding provision of ear defense and monitoring of further damage, thus reducing the incidence of noise-induced hearing loss
Antenna subtraction for gluon scattering at NNLO
We use the antenna subtraction method to isolate the double real radiation
infrared singularities present in gluonic scattering amplitudes at
next-to-next-to-leading order. The antenna subtraction framework has been
successfully applied to the calculation of NNLO corrections to the 3-jet cross
section and related event shape distributions in electron-positron
annihilation. Here we consider processes with two coloured particles in the
initial state, and in particular two-jet production at hadron colliders such as
the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). We construct a subtraction term that describes
the single and double unresolved contributions from the six-gluon tree-level
process using antenna functions with initial state partons and show numerically
that the subtraction term correctly approximates the matrix elements in the
various single and double unresolved configurations.Comment: 71 pages, JHEP3 class; corrected typos, equivalent but more compact
version of eq. (5.12), results unchange
A review of fMRI simulation studies
Simulation studies that validate statistical techniques for fMRI data are challenging due to the complexity of the data. Therefore, it is not surprising that no common data generating process is available (i.e. several models can be found to model BOLD activation and noise). Based on a literature search, a database of simulation studies was compiled. The information in this database was analysed and critically evaluated focusing on the parameters in the simulation design, the adopted model to generate fMRI data, and on how the simulation studies are reported. Our literature analysis demonstrates that many fMRI simulation studies do not report a thorough experimental design and almost consistently ignore crucial knowledge on how fMRI data are acquired. Advice is provided on how the quality of fMRI simulation studies can be improved
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