6,350 research outputs found
A variational approach to moment-closure approximations for the kinetics of biomolecular reaction networks
Approximate solutions of the chemical master equation and the chemical
Fokker-Planck equation are an important tool in the analysis of biomolecular
reaction networks. Previous studies have highlighted a number of problems with
the moment-closure approach used to obtain such approximations, calling it an
ad-hoc method. In this article, we give a new variational derivation of
moment-closure equations which provides us with an intuitive understanding of
their properties and failure modes and allows us to correct some of these
problems. We use mixtures of product-Poisson distributions to obtain a flexible
parametric family which solves the commonly observed problem of divergences at
low system sizes. We also extend the recently introduced entropic matching
approach to arbitrary ansatz distributions and Markov processes, demonstrating
that it is a special case of variational moment closure. This provides us with
a particularly principled approximation method. Finally, we extend the above
approaches to cover the approximation of multi-time joint distributions,
resulting in a viable alternative to process-level approximations which are
often intractable.Comment: Minor changes and clarifications; corrected some typo
Evidence for a parsec scale X-ray jet from the accreting neutron star Circinus X-1
We analyzed the zero-order image of a 50 ks Chandra gratings observation of
Circinus X-1, taken in 2005 during the source's low-flux state. Circinus X-1 is
an accreting neutron star that exhibits ultra-relativistic arcsecond-scale
radio jets and diffuse arcminute-scale radio jets and lobes. The image shows a
clear excess along the general direction of the north-western counter-jet,
coincident with the radio emission, suggesting that it originates either in the
jet itself or in the shock the jet is driving into its environment. This makes
Circinus X-1 the first neutron star for which an extended X-ray jet has been
detected. The kinetic jet power we infer is significantly larger than the
minimum power required for the jet to inflate the large scale radio nebula.Comment: Added journal reference, corrected on reference and typo in labels
for Fig. 1; 5 pages, 3 figures, ApJ Letter, in pres
Discovery of a large and bright bow shock nebula associated with low mass X-ray binary SAX J1712.6-3739
In a multiwavelength program dedicated to identifying optical counterparts of
faint persistent X-ray sources in the Galactic Bulge, we find an accurate X-ray
position of SAX J1712.6-3739 through Chandra observations, and discover its
faint optical counterpart using our data from EFOSC2 on the ESO 3.6m telescope.
We find this source to be a highly extincted neutron star LMXB with blue
optical colours. We serendipitously discover a relatively bright and large bow
shock shaped nebula in our deep narrowband H alpha imaging, most likely
associated with the X-ray binary. A nebula like this has never been observed
before in association with a LMXB, and as such provides a unique laboratory to
study the energetics of accretion and jets. We put forward different models to
explain the possible ways the LMXB may form this nebulosity, and outline how
they can be confirmed observationally.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS-Letters; 5 pages, 4 figures, 2
tables. Quality of figure 2 downgraded because of arXiv file size limit
Temperature dependent sound velocity in hydrodynamic equations for relativistic heavy-ion collisions
We analyze the effects of different forms of the sound-velocity function
cs(T) on the hydrodynamic evolution of matter formed in the central region of
relativistic heavy-ion collisions. At high temperatures (above the critical
temperature Tc) the sound velocity is calculated from the recent lattice
simulations of QCD, while in the low temperature region it is obtained from the
hadron gas model. In the intermediate region we use different interpolations
characterized by the values of the sound velocity at the local maximum (at T =
0.4 Tc) and local minimum (at T = Tc). In all considered cases the temperature
dependent sound velocity functions yield the entropy density, which is
consistent with the lattice QCD simulations at high temperature. Our
calculations show that the presence of a distinct minimum of the sound velocity
leads to a very long (about 20 fm/c) evolution time of the system, which is not
compatible with the recent estimates based on the HBT interferometry. Hence, we
conclude that the hydrodynamic description is favored in the case where the
cross-over phase transition renders the smooth sound velocity function with a
possible shallow minimum at Tc.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, talk given at SQM'07 Levoca, Slovaki
Investigation of octupole vibrational states in 150Nd via inelastic proton scattering (p,p'g)
Octupole vibrational states were studied in the nucleus
via inelastic proton scattering with \unit[10.9]{MeV} protons which are an
excellent probe to excite natural parity states. For the first time in
, both the scattered protons and the rays were
detected in coincidence giving the possibility to measure branching ratios in
detail. Using the coincidence technique, the ratios of the decaying
transitions for 10 octupole vibrational states and other negative-parity states
to the yrast band were determined and compared to the Alaga rule. The positive
and negative-parity states revealed by this experiment are compared with
Interacting Boson Approximation (IBA) calculations performed in the (spdf)
boson space. The calculations are found to be in good agreement with the
experimental data, both for positive and negative-parity states
The Origins of X-ray Line Emissions in Circinus~X-1 at Very Low X-ray Flux
Accretion conditions and morphologies of X-ray transients containing neutron
stars are still poorly understood. Circinus X-1 is an enigmatic case where we
observe X-ray flux changes covering four orders of magnitude. We observed
Circinus X-1 several times at its very lowest X-ray flux using the high energy
transmission grating spectrometer on board the Chandra X-ray Observatory. At a
flux of 1.8 \ergcm we observed a single 1.6 keV blackbody
spectrum. The observed continuum luminosity of 10 \ergsec is about two
orders of magnitude too low to explain the observed photoionized luminosity
suggesting a much more complex structure of the X-ray source which is partially
or entirely obscured as had been previously suggested. This affects most
emissions from the accretion disk including previously observed accretion disk
coronal line emissions. Instead, the strongest observed photoionized lines are
blueshifted by about \kms\ and we suggest that they originate in the
ionized wind of a B5Ia supergaint companion supporting a previous
identification. The neutron star in Cir X-1 is very young and should have a
high magnetic field. At the observed luminosity the emission radius of the
blackbody is small enough to be associated with the accretion hot spot as the
X-ray emitting region. The small emission radius then points to a field
strength below G which would be consistent with the observation of
occasional type I X-ray bursts at high magnetic fields. We discuss Cir X-1 in
the context of being a high-mass X-ray binary with some emphasis on a possible
Be-star X-ray binary nature.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figures, 3 table
Analytic Solution of the Pion-Laser Model
Brooding over bosons, wave packets and Bose - Einstein correlations, we find
that a generalization of the pion-laser model for the case of overlapping
wave-packets is analytically solvable with complete n-particle symmetrization.
The effective radius parameter of the two-particle correlation function is
reduced for low values and enlargened for high values of the mean momentum in
the rare gas limiting case, as compared to the case when multi-particle
symmetrization effects are neglected.
These results explicitly depend on the multiplicity, providing a theoretical
basis for event-by-event analysis of high energy heavy ion reactions.Comment: LaTeX, ReVTeX 3.1, 7 pages, uses 1 eps figure and epsfig.sty
(shortened version
Metric fluctuations and decoherence
Recently a model of metric fluctuations has been proposed which yields an
effective Schr\"odinger equation for a quantum particle with a modified
inertial mass, leading to a violation of the weak equivalence principle. The
renormalization of the inertial mass tensor results from a local space average
over the fluctuations of the metric over a fixed background metric. Here, we
demonstrate that the metric fluctuations of this model lead to a further
physical effect, namely to an effective decoherence of the quantum particle. We
derive a quantum master equation for the particle's density matrix, discuss in
detail its dissipation and decoherence properties, and estimate the
corresponding decoherence time scales. By contrast to other models discussed in
the literature, in the present approach the metric fluctuations give rise to a
decay of the coherences in the energy representation, i. e., to a localization
in energy space.Comment: 7 page
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