12,368 research outputs found
Detection of K+ mesons in segmented electromagnetic calorimeters
The combination of the CrystalBall and TAPS electromagnetic calorimeters were installed in the MAMI A2 hall in 2003. Here they are able to detect the reaction products from photo-induced reactions in combination with the Glasgow photon tagger. In the last two years the MAMI facility was upgraded from 885 MeV to 1.5 GeV, the A2 photon tagger underwent a similar upgrade crossing the threshold for strangeness photoproduction. For the CrystalBall this created a new challenge, to identify K+ mesons above the large background from other charged hadrons, in a situation where the detector setup does not benefit from a magnetic field to help separate particle species. These proceedings outline a novel technique which uses the decay products of the K+ as a strangeness tag
Thermodynamic limit of the first-order phase transition in the Kuramoto model
In the Kuramoto model, a uniform distribution of the natural frequencies
leads to a first-order (i.e., discontinuous) phase transition from incoherence
to synchronization, at the critical coupling parameter . We obtain the
asymptotic dependence of the order parameter above criticality: . For a finite population, we demonstrate that the population
size may be included into a self-consistency equation relating and
in the synchronized state. We analyze the convergence to the thermodynamic
limit of two alternative schemes to set the natural frequencies. Other
frequency distributions different from the uniform one are also considered.Comment: 6 page
Magnetar giant flare high-energy emission
High energy ( keV) emission has been detected persisting for several
tens of seconds after the initial spike of magnetar giant flares. It has been
conjectured that this emission might arise via inverse Compton scattering in a
highly extended corona generated by super-Eddington outflows high up in the
magnetosphere. In this paper we undertake a detailed examination of this model.
We investigate the properties of the required scatterers, and whether the
mechanism is consistent with the degree of pulsed emission observed in the tail
of the giant flare. We conclude that the mechanism is consistent with current
data, although the origin of the scattering population remains an open
question. We propose an alternative picture in which the emission is closer to
that star and is dominated by synchrotron radiation. The observations
of the December 2004 flare modestly favor this latter picture. We assess the
prospects for the Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope to detect and characterize a
similar high energy component in a future giant flare. Such a detection should
help to resolve some of the outstanding issues.Comment: 20 pages, 14 figure
Self-avoiding walks on scale-free networks
Several kinds of walks on complex networks are currently used to analyze
search and navigation in different systems. Many analytical and computational
results are known for random walks on such networks. Self-avoiding walks (SAWs)
are expected to be more suitable than unrestricted random walks to explore
various kinds of real-life networks. Here we study long-range properties of
random SAWs on scale-free networks, characterized by a degree distribution
. In the limit of large networks (system size ), the average number of SAWs starting from a generic site
increases as , with . For finite ,
is reduced due to the presence of loops in the network, which causes the
emergence of attrition of the paths. For kinetic growth walks, the average
maximum length, , increases as a power of the system size: , with an exponent increasing as the parameter is
raised. We discuss the dependence of on the minimum allowed degree in
the network. A similar power-law dependence is found for the mean
self-intersection length of non-reversal random walks. Simulation results
support our approximate analytical calculations.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figure
Evaluation of resistive-plate-chamber-based TOF-PET applied to in-beam particle therapy monitoring
Particle therapy is a highly conformal radiotherapy technique which reduces the dose deposited to the surrounding normal tissues. In order to fully exploit its advantages, treatment monitoring is necessary to minimize uncertainties related to the dose delivery. Up to now, the only clinically feasible technique for the monitoring of therapeutic irradiation with particle beams is Positron Emission Tomography (PET). In this work we have compared a Resistive Plate Chamber (RPC)-based PET scanner with a scintillation-crystal-based PET scanner for this application. In general, the main advantages of the RPC-PET system are its excellent timing resolution, low cost, and the possibility of building large area systems. We simulated a partial-ring scannerbeam monitoring, which has an intrinsically low positron yield compared to diagnostic PET. In addition, for in-beam PET there is a further data loss due to the partial ring configuration. In order to improve the performance of the RPC-based scanner, an improved version of the RPC detector (modifying the thickness of the gas and glass layers), providing a larger sensitivity, has been simulated and compared with an axially extended version of the crystal-based device. The improved version of the RPC shows better performance than the prototype, but the extended version of the crystal-based PET outperforms all other options. based on an RPC prototype under construction within the Fondazione per Adroterapia Oncologica (TERA). For comparison with the crystal-based PET scanner we have chosen the geometry of a commercially available PET scanner, the Philips Gemini TF. The coincidence time resolution used in the simulations takes into account the current achievable values as well as expected improvements of both technologies. Several scenarios (including patient data) have been simulated to evaluate the performance of different scanners. Initial results have shown that the low sensitivity of the RPC hampers its application to hadro
Dissecting magnetar variability with Bayesian hierarchical models
Neutron stars are a prime laboratory for testing physical processes under
conditions of strong gravity, high density, and extreme magnetic fields. Among
the zoo of neutron star phenomena, magnetars stand out for their bursting
behaviour, ranging from extremely bright, rare giant flares to numerous, less
energetic recurrent bursts. The exact trigger and emission mechanisms for these
bursts are not known; favoured models involve either a crust fracture and
subsequent energy release into the magnetosphere, or explosive reconnection of
magnetic field lines. In the absence of a predictive model, understanding the
physical processes responsible for magnetar burst variability is difficult.
Here, we develop an empirical model that decomposes magnetar bursts into a
superposition of small spike-like features with a simple functional form, where
the number of model components is itself part of the inference problem. The
cascades of spikes that we model might be formed by avalanches of reconnection,
or crust rupture aftershocks. Using Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) sampling
augmented with reversible jumps between models with different numbers of
parameters, we characterise the posterior distributions of the model parameters
and the number of components per burst. We relate these model parameters to
physical quantities in the system, and show for the first time that the
variability within a burst does not conform to predictions from ideas of
self-organised criticality. We also examine how well the properties of the
spikes fit the predictions of simplified cascade models for the different
trigger mechanisms.Comment: accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal; code available
at https://bitbucket.org/dhuppenkothen/magnetron, data products at
http://figshare.com/articles/SGR_J1550_5418_magnetron_data/129242
Relativistic Doppler effect: universal spectra and zeptosecond pulses
We report on a numerical observation of the train of zeptosecond pulses
produced by reflection of a relativistically intense femtosecond laser pulse
from the oscillating boundary of an overdense plasma because of the Doppler
effect. These pulses promise to become a unique experimental and technological
tool since their length is of the order of the Bohr radius and the intensity is
extremely high W/cm. We present the physical mechanism,
analytical theory, and direct particle-in-cell simulations. We show that the
harmonic spectrum is universal: the intensity of th harmonic scales as
for , where is the largest --factor
of the electron fluid boundary, and for the broadband and
quasimonochromatic laser pulses respectively.Comment: 4 figure
Random Walks in Local Dynamics of Network Losses
We suggest a model for data losses in a single node of a packet-switched
network (like the Internet) which reduces to one-dimensional discrete random
walks with unusual boundary conditions. The model shows critical behavior with
an abrupt transition from exponentially small to finite losses as the data
arrival rate increases. The critical point is characterized by strong
fluctuations of the loss rate. Although we consider the packet arrival being a
Markovian process, the loss rate exhibits non-Markovian power-law correlations
in time at the critical point.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure
Navigability is a Robust Property
The Small World phenomenon has inspired researchers across a number of
fields. A breakthrough in its understanding was made by Kleinberg who
introduced Rank Based Augmentation (RBA): add to each vertex independently an
arc to a random destination selected from a carefully crafted probability
distribution. Kleinberg proved that RBA makes many networks navigable, i.e., it
allows greedy routing to successfully deliver messages between any two vertices
in a polylogarithmic number of steps. We prove that navigability is an inherent
property of many random networks, arising without coordination, or even
independence assumptions
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