Measurement of the neutral pion cross section in proton-proton collisions at sqrt{s}=200GeV with PHENIX

The inclusive cross section for neutral pion production in the range 1<p_T<13GeV/c in |eta|<0.35 has been measured by the PHENIX experiment in proton-proton collisions at sqrt{s}=200GeV. An NLO pQCD calculation is, within the experimental and theoretical uncertainties, consistent with the measurement.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures. Talk presented at Quark Matter 2002, Nantes, France, July 18-24, 2002. To appear in the proceedings (Nucl. Phys. A

Observation of an energetic radiation burst from mountain-top thunderclouds

During thunderstorms on 2008 September 20, a simultaneous detection of gamma rays and electrons was made at a mountain observatory in Japan located 2770 m above sea level. Both emissions, lasting 90 seconds, were associated with thunderclouds rather than lightning. The photon spectrum, extending to 10 MeV, can be interpreted as consisting of bremsstrahlung gamma rays arriving from a source which is 60 - 130 m in distance at 90% confidence level. The observed electrons are likely to be dominated by a primary population escaping from an acceleration region in the clouds.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in Physical Review Letter

Viscoelastic evaluation of biological soft tissue in crush process at subsonic level for anti-bird strike technology of airplane

Miniaturization and lightening of airplane are advanced to improve its economic efficiency, and the safety technology of airplane design becomes difficult while the accident of bird-strike is increasing year by year. Then a system of shock impact test by using airsoft rifle is developed to evaluate the design technology of anti-bird strike structure of airplane. The viscoelastic characteristics of specimen is evaluated by analyzing stress response using the modified Hertz contact theory and the wave equation at the moment when simple ball bullet is shot to specimen by the airsoft rifle. In the results of experiment, the obvious relationship is observed subjectively between quasi-static and impact responses of specimen. The evaluated viscoelastic relationship is applied to simulate the impact test by using LSDYNA with fundamental viscoelastic constitutive equation and the material parameters derived from the impact test, and the well similar behavior has been simulated by the constitutive equation. By using the developed technology here, the phantom imitating real bird will be developed as standard specimen for an anti-bird strike test in future

Abelian Higgs Hair for AdS-Schwarzschild Black Hole

We show that the Abelian Higgs field equations in the background of the four dimensional AdS-Schwarzschild black hole have a vortex line solution. This solution, which has axial symmetry, is a generalization of the AdS spacetime Nielsen-Olesen string. By a numerical study of the field equations, we show that black hole could support the Abelian Higgs field as its Abelian hair. Also, we conside the self gravity of the Abelian Higgs field both in the pure AdS spacetime and AdS-Schwarzschild black hole background and show that the effect of string as a black hole hair is to induce a deficit angle in the AdS-Schwarzschild black hole.Comment: 19 pages, 33 figure

Perturbations of global monopoles as a black hole's hair

We study the stability of a spherically symmetric black hole with a global monopole hair. Asymptotically the spacetime is flat but has a deficit solid angle which depends on the vacuum expectation value of the scalar field. When the vacuum expectation value is larger than a certain critical value, this spacetime has a cosmological event horizon. We investigate the stability of these solutions against the spherical and polar perturbations and confirm that the global monopole hair is stable in both cases. Although we consider some particular modes in the polar case, our analysis suggests the conservation of the "topological charge" in the presence of the event horizons and violation of black hole no-hair conjecture in asymptotically non-flat spacetime.Comment: 11 pages, 2 figures, some descriptions were improve

Laser Phase and Frequency Stabilization Using Atomic Coherence

We present a novel and simple method of stabilizing the laser phase and frequency by polarization spectroscopy of an atomic vapor. In analogy to the Pound-Drever-Hall method, which uses a cavity as a memory of the laser phase, this method uses atomic coherence (dipole oscillations) as a phase memory of the transmitting laser field. A preliminary experiment using a distributed feedback laser diode and a rubidium vapor cell demonstrates a shot-noise-limited laser linewidth reduction (from 2 MHz to 20 kHz). This method would improve the performance of gas-cell-based optical atomic clocks and magnetometers and facilitate laser-cooling experiments using narrow transitions.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures, appendix on the derivation of Eq.(3) (transfer function for a polarization-spectroscopy-based frequency discriminator) has been adde

Modeling the gamma-ray emission produced by runaway cosmic rays in the environment of RX J1713.7-3946

Diffusive shock acceleration in supernova remnants is the most widely invoked paradigm to explain the Galactic cosmic ray spectrum. Cosmic rays escaping supernova remnants diffuse in the interstellar medium and collide with the ambient atomic and molecular gas. From such collisions gamma-rays are created, which can possibly provide the first evidence of a parent population of runaway cosmic rays. We present model predictions for the GeV to TeV gamma-ray emission produced by the collisions of runaway cosmic rays with the gas in the environment surrounding the shell-type supernova remnant RX J1713.7-3946. The spectral and spatial distributions of the emission, which depend upon the source age, the source injection history, the diffusion regime and the distribution of the ambient gas, as mapped by the LAB and NANTEN surveys, are studied in detail. In particular, we find for the region surrounding RX J1713-3946, that depending on the energy one is observing at, one may observe startlingly different spectra or may not detect any enhanced emission with respect to the diffuse emission contributed by background cosmic rays. This result has important implications for current and future gamma-ray experiments.Comment: version published on PAS