Magneto-Acoustic Waves of Small Amplitude in Optically Thin Quasi-Isentropic Plasmas

The evolution of quasi-isentropic magnetohydrodynamic waves of small but finite amplitude in an optically thin plasma is analyzed. The plasma is assumed to be initially homogeneous, in thermal equilibrium and with a straight and homogeneous magnetic field frozen in. Depending on the particular form of the heating/cooling function, the plasma may act as a dissipative or active medium for magnetoacoustic waves, while Alfven waves are not directly affected. An evolutionary equation for fast and slow magnetoacoustic waves in the single wave limit, has been derived and solved, allowing us to analyse the wave modification by competition of weakly nonlinear and quasi-isentropic effects. It was shown that the sign of the quasi-isentropic term determines the scenario of the evolution, either dissipative or active. In the dissipative case, when the plasma is first order isentropically stable the magnetoacoustic waves are damped and the time for shock wave formation is delayed. However, in the active case when the plasma is isentropically overstable, the wave amplitude grows, the strength of the shock increases and the breaking time decreases. The magnitude of the above effects depends upon the angle between the wave vector and the magnetic field. For hot (T > 10^4 K) atomic plasmas with solar abundances either in the interstellar medium or in the solar atmosphere, as well as for the cold (T < 10^3 K) ISM molecular gas, the range of temperature where the plasma is isentropically unstable and the corresponding time and length-scale for wave breaking have been found.Comment: 14 pages, 10 figures. To appear in ApJ January 200

Minimal Family Unification

Absract It is proposed that there exist, within a new $SU(2)^{'}$, a gauged discrete group $Q_6$ (the order 12 double dihedral group) acting as a family symmetry. This nonabelian finite group can explain hierarchical features of families, using an assignment for quarks and leptons dictated by the requirements of anomaly cancellation and of no additional quarks.Comment: 10 pages, IFP-701-UNC;VAND-TH-94-

Of CP and other Gauge Symmetries in String Theory

We argue that \CP is a gauge symmetry in string theory. As a consequence, \CP cannot be explicitly broken either perturbatively or non-pertubatively; there can be no non-perturbative \CP-violating parameters. String theory is thus an example of a theory where all $\theta$ angles arise due to spontaneous \CP violation, and are in principle calculable.Comment: 8 page

Gravitational Violation of R Parity and its Cosmological Signatures

The discrete R-parity ($R_P$) usually imposed on the Supersymmetric (SUSY) models is expected to be broken at least gravitationally. If the neutralino is a dark matter particle its decay channels into positrons, antiprotons and neutrinos are severely constrained from astrophysical observations. These constraints are shown to be violated even for Planck-mass-suppressed dimension-five interactions arising from gravitational effects. We perform a general analysis of gravitationally induced $R_P$ violation and identify two plausible and astrophysically consistent scenarios for achieving the required suppression.Comment: 10 pages, no figure

A Complete Supersymmetric SO(10) Model

A complete supersymmetric SO(10) model is constructed, which is the most general consistent with certain $R$, discrete, and $U(1)$ flavor symmetries. The desired vacuum of the theory has vevs which lie in particular directions of group space. This leads to both doublet triplet splitting and to the generation of just four operators for charged fermion masses. The model illustrates how many features of superunification become related in the context of a complete theory. The features discussed here include: the weak mixing angle prediction, the doublet-triplet splitting problem, proton decay, the generation of the $\mu$ parameter, neutrino masses and the generation of the operators which lead to charged fermion mass predictions.Comment: 18 page

Light Neutralinos in B-Decays

We consider the decays of a $B_s$-meson into a pair of lightest supersymmetric particles (LSP) in the minimal supersymmetric standard model. It is found that the parameter space for light LSP's in the range of 1 GeV can be appreciably constrained by looking for such decays.Comment: 9 pages, LaTex, 2 figures (hard copies of the figures available from the Authors on request

The Low Redshift survey at Calar Alto (LoRCA)

The Baryon Acoustic Oscillation (BAO) feature in the power spectrum of galaxies provides a standard ruler to measure the accelerated expansion of the Universe. To extract all available information about dark energy, it is necessary to measure a standard ruler in the local, z<0.2, universe where dark energy dominates most the energy density of the Universe. Though the volume available in the local universe is limited, it is just big enough to measure accurately the long 100 Mpc/h wave-mode of the BAO. Using cosmological N-body simulations and approximate methods based on Lagrangian perturbation theory, we construct a suite of a thousand light-cones to evaluate the precision at which one can measure the BAO standard ruler in the local universe. We find that using the most massive galaxies on the full sky (34,000 sq. deg.), i.e. a K(2MASS)<14 magnitude-limited sample, one can measure the BAO scale up to a precision of 4\% and 1.2\% using reconstruction). We also find that such a survey would help to detect the dynamics of dark energy.Therefore, we propose a 3-year long observational project, named the Low Redshift survey at Calar Alto (LoRCA), to observe spectroscopically about 200,000 galaxies in the northern sky to contribute to the construction of aforementioned galaxy sample. The suite of light-cones is made available to the public.Comment: 15 pages. Accepted in MNRAS. Please visit our website: http://lorca-survey.ft.uam.es

Pretectal projections to the oculomotor cerebellum in hummingbirds ( Calypte anna ), zebra finches ( Taeniopygia guttata ), and pigeons ( Columba livia )

In birds, optic flow is processed by a retinal‐recipient nucleus in the pretectum, the nucleus lentiformis mesencephali (LM), which then projects to the cerebellum, a key site for sensorimotor integration. Previous studies have shown that the LM is hypertrophied in hummingbirds, and that LM cell response properties differ between hummingbirds and other birds. Given these differences in anatomy and physiology, we ask here if there are also species differences in the connectivity of the LM. The LM is separated into lateral and medial subdivisions, which project to the oculomotor cerebellum and the vestibulocerebellum. In pigeons, the projection to the vestibulocerebellum largely arises from the lateral LM; the projection to the oculomotor cerebellum largely arises from the medial LM. Here, using retrograde tracing, we demonstrate differences in the distribution of projections in these pathways between Anna's hummingbirds (Calypte anna ), zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata ), and pigeons (Columba livia ). In all three species, the projections to the vestibulocerebellum were largely from lateral LM. In contrast, projections to the oculomotor cerebellum in hummingbirds and zebra finches do not originate in the medial LM (as in pigeons) but instead largely arise from pretectal structures just medial, the nucleus laminaris precommissuralis and nucleus principalis precommissuralis. These species differences in projection patterns provide further evidence that optic flow circuits differ among bird species with distinct modes of fligh

The Low Redshift survey at Calar Alto (LoRCA)

The Baryon Acoustic Oscillation (BAO) feature in the power spectrum of galaxies provides a standard ruler to measure the accelerated expansion of the Universe. To extract all available information about dark energy, it is necessary to measure a standard ruler in the local, z<0.2, universe where dark energy dominates most the energy density of the Universe. Though the volume available in the local universe is limited, it is just big enough to measure accurately the long 100 Mpc/h wave-mode of the BAO. Using cosmological N-body simulations and approximate methods based on Lagrangian perturbation theory, we construct a suite of a thousand light-cones to evaluate the precision at which one can measure the BAO standard ruler in the local universe. We find that using the most massive galaxies on the full sky (34,000 sq. deg.), i.e. a K(2MASS)<14 magnitude-limited sample, one can measure the BAO scale up to a precision of 4\% and 1.2\% using reconstruction). We also find that such a survey would help to detect the dynamics of dark energy.Therefore, we propose a 3-year long observational project, named the Low Redshift survey at Calar Alto (LoRCA), to observe spectroscopically about 200,000 galaxies in the northern sky to contribute to the construction of aforementioned galaxy sample. The suite of light-cones is made available to the public.Comment: 15 pages. Accepted in MNRAS. Please visit our website: http://lorca-survey.ft.uam.es