1,412 research outputs found
Evolution of circular, non-equatorial orbits of Kerr black holes due to gravitational-wave emission: II. Inspiral trajectories and gravitational waveforms
The inspiral of a ``small'' () compact body into a
``large'' () black hole is a key source of
gravitational radiation for the space-based gravitational-wave observatory
LISA. The waves from such inspirals will probe the extreme strong-field nature
of the Kerr metric. In this paper, I investigate the properties of a restricted
family of such inspirals (the inspiral of circular, inclined orbits) with an
eye toward understanding observable properties of the gravitational waves that
they generate. Using results previously presented to calculate the effects of
radiation reaction, I assemble the inspiral trajectories (assuming that
radiation reacts adiabatically, so that over short timescales the trajectory is
approximately geodesic) and calculate the wave generated as the compact body
spirals in. I do this analysis for several black hole spins, sampling a range
that should be indicative of what spins we will encounter in nature. The spin
has a very strong impact on the waveform. In particular, when the hole rotates
very rapidly, tidal coupling between the inspiraling body and the event horizon
has a very strong influence on the inspiral time scale, which in turn has a big
impact on the gravitational wave phasing. The gravitational waves themselves
are very usefully described as ``multi-voice chirps'': the wave is a sum of
``voices'', each corresponding to a different harmonic of the fundamental
orbital frequencies. Each voice has a rather simple phase evolution. Searching
for extreme mass ratio inspirals voice-by-voice may be more effective than
searching for the summed waveform all at once.Comment: 15 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in PRD. This version
incorporates referee's comments, and is much less verbos
Approximating the inspiral of test bodies into Kerr black holes
We present a new approximate method for constructing gravitational radiation
driven inspirals of test-bodies orbiting Kerr black holes. Such orbits can be
fully described by a semi-latus rectum , an eccentricity , and an
inclination angle ; or, by an energy , an angular momentum component
, and a third constant . Our scheme uses expressions that are exact
(within an adiabatic approximation) for the rates of change (,
, ) as linear combinations of the fluxes (,
, ), but uses quadrupole-order formulae for these fluxes.
This scheme thus encodes the exact orbital dynamics, augmenting it with
approximate radiation reaction. Comparing inspiral trajectories, we find that
this approximation agrees well with numerical results for the special cases of
eccentric equatorial and circular inclined orbits, far more accurate than
corresponding weak-field formulae for (, , ). We
use this technique to study the inspiral of a test-body in inclined, eccentric
Kerr orbits. Our results should be useful tools for constructing approximate
waveforms that can be used to study data analysis problems for the future LISA
gravitational-wave observatory, in lieu of waveforms from more rigorous
techniques that are currently under development.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figures, submitted to PR
The evolution of RNAi as a defence against viruses and transposable elements
RNA interference (RNAi) is an important defence against viruses and transposable elements (TEs). RNAi not only protects against viruses by degrading viral RNA, but hosts and viruses can also use RNAi to manipulate each other's gene expression, and hosts can encode microRNAs that target viral sequences. In response, viruses have evolved a myriad of adaptations to suppress and evade RNAi. RNAi can also protect cells against TEs, both by degrading TE transcripts and by preventing TE expression through heterochromatin formation. The aim of our review is to summarize and evaluate the current data on the evolution of these RNAi defence mechanisms. To this end, we also extend a previous analysis of the evolution of genes of the RNAi pathways. Strikingly, we find that antiviral RNAi genes, anti-TE RNAi genes and viral suppressors of RNAi all evolve rapidly, suggestive of an evolutionary arms race between hosts and parasites. Over longer time scales, key RNAi genes are repeatedly duplicated or lost across the metazoan phylogeny, with important implications for RNAi as an immune defence
Solar Flares and Coronal Mass Ejections: A Statistically Determined Flare Flux-CME Mass Correlation
In an effort to examine the relationship between flare flux and corresponding
CME mass, we temporally and spatially correlate all X-ray flares and CMEs in
the LASCO and GOES archives from 1996 to 2006. We cross-reference 6,733 CMEs
having well-measured masses against 12,050 X-ray flares having position
information as determined from their optical counterparts. For a given flare,
we search in time for CMEs which occur 10-80 minutes afterward, and we further
require the flare and CME to occur within +/-45 degrees in position angle on
the solar disk. There are 826 CME/flare pairs which fit these criteria.
Comparing the flare fluxes with CME masses of these paired events, we find CME
mass increases with flare flux, following an approximately log-linear, broken
relationship: in the limit of lower flare fluxes, log(CME mass)~0.68*log(flare
flux), and in the limit of higher flare fluxes, log(CME mass)~0.33*log(flare
flux). We show that this broken power-law, and in particular the flatter slope
at higher flare fluxes, may be due to an observational bias against CMEs
associated with the most energetic flares: halo CMEs. Correcting for this bias
yields a single power-law relationship of the form log(CME mass)~0.70*log(flare
flux). This function describes the relationship between CME mass and flare flux
over at least 3 dex in flare flux, from ~10^-7 to 10^-4 W m^-2.Comment: 28 pages, 16 figures, accepted to Solar Physic
Magnetic Field Stimulated Transitions of Excited States in Fast Muonic Helium Ions
It is shown that one can stimulate, by using the present-day laboratory
magnetic fields, transitions between the sub-levels of fast
ions formating in muon catalyzed fusion. Strong fields also cause the
self-ionization from highly excited states of such muonic ions. Both effects
are the consequence of the interaction of the bound muon with the oscillating
field of the Stark term coupling the center-of-mass and muon motions of the
ion due to the non-separability of the collective and internal
variables in this system. The performed calculations show a possibility to
drive the population of the sub-levels by applying a field of a few
, which affects the reactivation rate and is especially important to the
-ray production in muon catalyzed fusion. It is also shown that
the splitting in due to the vacuum polarization slightly
decreases the stimulated transition rates.Comment: 5 figure
Developmental language disorders and risk of recidivism among young offenders
Background
Although factors such as adverse family background have been widely examined, little is known about the prevalence or potential impact of developmental language disorder (DLD) on risk of recidivism in young people with history of criminal justice system contact.
Methods
A total of 145 young offenders participated. An adversity score was constructed based on information found in youth justice service records. Data collected included standardised measures of expressive and receptive language, nonverbal IQ and the inventory of callous–unemotional traits. Survival analysis was performed to examine differences in reoffending risk between young offenders with and without DLD.
Results
The cumulative incidence of reoffending within a year of the young person's court order was markedly raised in the DLD group (62%; 95% CI 52, 72) versus the non‐DLD group (25%; 95% CI 16, 39). Furthermore, in the final multivariable survival analysis the independent elevation in risk linked with DLD was not greatly attenuated with adjustment for nonverbal IQ, adversity score, age at first offence, number of previous offences and deprivation score. DLD was the most significant predictor with an adjusted hazard ratio of 2.61 (95% CI 1.80, 3.78).
Conclusions
Young offenders with DLD are more than twice as likely to reoffend than their unaffected offending peers. DLD is a powerful predictor of recidivism above and beyond other known risk factors
Highly Damped Quasinormal Modes of Kerr Black Holes: A Complete Numerical Investigation
We compute for the first time very highly damped quasinormal modes of the
(rotating) Kerr black hole. Our numerical technique is based on a decoupling of
the radial and angular equations, performed using a large-frequency expansion
for the angular separation constant_{s}A_{l m}. This allows us to go much
further in overtone number than ever before. We find that the real part of the
quasinormal frequencies approaches a non-zero constant value which does not
depend on the spin s of the perturbing field and on the angular index l:
\omega_R=m\varpi(a). We numerically compute \varpi(a). Leading-order
corrections to the asymptotic frequency are likely to be of order 1/\omega_I.
The imaginary part grows without bound, the spacing between consecutive modes
being a monotonic function of a.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure
The angular distribution of the reaction
The reaction is very important for low-energy
( MeV) antineutrino experiments. In this paper we calculate
the positron angular distribution, which at low energies is slightly backward.
We show that weak magnetism and recoil corrections have a large effect on the
angular distribution, making it isotropic at about 15 MeV and slightly forward
at higher energies. We also show that the behavior of the cross section and the
angular distribution can be well-understood analytically for MeV by calculating to , where is the nucleon mass. The
correct angular distribution is useful for separating events from other reactions and detector backgrounds, as well as for
possible localization of the source (e.g., a supernova) direction. We comment
on how similar corrections appear for the lepton angular distributions in the
deuteron breakup reactions and . Finally, in the reaction , the
angular distribution of the outgoing neutrons is strongly forward-peaked,
leading to a measurable separation in positron and neutron detection points,
also potentially useful for rejecting backgrounds or locating the source
direction.Comment: 10 pages, including 5 figure
Entanglement, Bell Inequalities and Decoherence in Particle Physics
We demonstrate the relevance of entanglement, Bell inequalities and
decoherence in particle physics. In particular, we study in detail the features
of the ``strange'' system as an example of entangled
meson--antimeson systems. The analogies and differences to entangled spin--1/2
or photon systems are worked, the effects of a unitary time evolution of the
meson system is demonstrated explicitly. After an introduction we present
several types of Bell inequalities and show a remarkable connection to CP
violation. We investigate the stability of entangled quantum systems pursuing
the question how possible decoherence might arise due to the interaction of the
system with its ``environment''. The decoherence is strikingly connected to the
entanglement loss of common entanglement measures. Finally, some outlook of the
field is presented.Comment: Lectures given at Quantum Coherence in Matter: from Quarks to Solids,
42. Internationale Universit\"atswochen f\"ur Theoretische Physik,
Schladming, Austria, Feb. 28 -- March 6, 2004, submitted to Lecture Notes in
Physics, Springer Verlag, 45 page
DT/T beyond linear theory
The major contribution to the anisotropy of the temperature of the Cosmic
Microwave Background (CMB) radiation is believed to come from the interaction
of linear density perturbations with the radiation previous to the decoupling
time. Assuming a standard thermal history for the gas after recombination, only
the gravitational field produced by the linear density perturbations present on
a universe can generate anisotropies at low z (these
anisotropies would manifest on large angular scales). However, secondary
anisotropies are inevitably produced during the nonlinear evolution of matter
at late times even in a universe with a standard thermal history. Two effects
associated to this nonlinear phase can give rise to new anisotropies: the
time-varying gravitational potential of nonlinear structures (Rees-Sciama RS
effect) and the inverse Compton scattering of the microwave photons with hot
electrons in clusters of galaxies (Sunyaev-Zeldovich SZ effect). These two
effects can produce distinct imprints on the CMB temperature anisotropy. We
discuss the amplitude of the anisotropies expected and the relevant angular
scales in different cosmological scenarios. Future sensitive experiments will
be able to probe the CMB anisotropies beyong the first order primary
contribution.Comment: plain tex, 16 pages, 3 figures. Proceedings of the Laredo Advance
School on Astrophysics "The universe at high-z, large-scale structure and the
cosmic microwave background". To be publised by Springer-Verla
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