1,182 research outputs found
Improving the resolution in soft X-ray emission spectrometers through photon-counting using an Electron Multiplying CCD
In 2007, a study of back-illuminated Charge-Coupled Devices (CCDs) for soft X-ray photon detection demonstrated the improvements that could be brought over more traditional micro-channel plate detectors for X-ray spectrometers based on diffraction gratings and position sensitive detectors. Whilst the spatial resolution was reported to be improved dramatically, an intrinsic limit of approximately 25 micrometers was found due to the spreading of the charge cloud generated in the CCD across several pixels. To overcome this resolution limit, it is necessary to move away from the current integrated imaging methods and consider a photon-counting approach, recording the photon interaction locations to the sub-pixel level. To make use of photon-counting techniques it is important that the individual events are separable. To maintain the throughput of the spectrometer for high intensity lines, higher frame rates and therefore higher readout speeds are required. With CCD based systems, the increased noise at high readout speeds can limit the photon-counting performance. The Electron-Multiplying CCD shares a similar architecture with the standard CCD but incorporates a "gain register". This novel addition allows controllable gain to be applied to the signal before the read noise is introduced, therefore allowing individual events to be resolved above the noise even at much higher readout rates. In the past, the EM-CCD has only been available with imaging areas too small to be practical in soft X-ray emission spectrometers. The current drive for large area Electron-Multiplying CCDs is opening this technology to new photon-counting applications, requiring in-depth analysis of the processes and techniques involved. Early results indicate that through the introduction of photon-counting techniques the resolution in such systems can be dramatically improved
Stochastic homogenization of the laser intensity to improve the irradiation uniformity of capsules directly driven by thousands laser beams
Illumination uniformity of a spherical capsule directly driven by laser beams has been assessed numerically. Laser facilities characterized by ND = 12, 20, 24, 32, 48 and 60 directions of irradiation with associated a single laser beam or a bundle of NB laser beams have been considered. The laser beam intensity profile is assumed super-Gaussian and the calculations take into account beam imperfections as power imbalance and pointing errors. The optimum laser intensity profile, which minimizes the root-mean-square deviation of the capsule illumination, depends on the values of the beam imperfections. Assuming that the NB beams are statistically independents is found that they provide a stochastic homogenization of the laser intensity associated to the whole bundle, reducing the errors associated to the whole bundle by the factor , which in turn improves the illumination uniformity of the capsule. Moreover, it is found that the uniformity of the irradiation is almost the same for all facilities and only depends on the total number of laser beams Ntot = ND × NB
Strong-field terahertz-optical mixing in excitons
Driving a double-quantum-well excitonic intersubband resonance with a
terahertz (THz) electric field of frequency \omega_{THz} generated terahertz
optical sidebands \omega=\omega_{THz}+\omega_{NIR} on a weak NIR probe. At high
THz intensities, the intersubband dipole energy which coupled two excitons was
comparable to the THz photon energy. In this strong-field regime the sideband
intensity displayed a non-monotonic dependence on the THz field strength. The
oscillating refractive index which gives rise to the sidebands may be
understood by the formation of Floquet states, which oscillate with the same
periodicity as the driving THz field.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figure
Genetic influences on neonatal cortical thickness and surface area
Genetic and environmental influences on cortical thickness (CT) and surface area (SA) are thought to vary in a complex and dynamic way across the lifespan. It has been established that CT and SA are genetically distinct in older children, adolescents, and adults, and that heritability varies across cortical regions. Very little, however, is known about how genetic and environmental factors influence infant CT and SA. Using structural MRI, we performed the first assessment of genetic and environmental influences on normal variation of SA and CT in 360 twin neonates. We observed strong and significant additive genetic influences on total SA (a2 = 0.78) and small and nonsignificant genetic influences on average CT (a2 = 0.29). Moreover, we found significant genetic overlap (genetic correlation = 0.65) between these global cortical measures. Regionally, there were minimal genetic influences across the cortex for both CT and SA measures and no distinct patterns of genetic regionalization. Overall, outcomes from this study suggest a dynamic relationship between CT and SA during the neonatal period and provide novel insights into how genetic influences shape cortical structure during early development
Holes in the t-J_z model: a thorough study
The t-J_z model is the strongly anisotropic limit of the t-J model which
captures some general properties of the doped antiferromagnets (AF). The
absence of spin fluctuations simplifies the analytical treatment of hole motion
in an AF background and allows us to calculate the single- and two-hole spectra
with high accuracy using regular diagram technique combined with real-space
approach. At the same time, numerical studies of this model via exact
diagonalization (ED) on small clusters show negligible finite size effects for
a number of quantities, thus allowing a direct comparison between analytical
and numerical results. Both approaches demonstrate that the holes have tendency
to pair in the p- and d-wave channels at realistic values of t/J. The
interactions leading to pairing and effects selecting p and d waves are
thoroughly investigated. The role of transverse spin fluctuations is considered
using perturbation theory. Based on the results of the present study, we
discuss the pairing problem in the realistic t-J-like model. Possible
implications for preformed pairs formation and phase separation are drawn.Comment: 21 pages, 15 figure
The Fueling and Evolution of AGN: Internal and External Triggers
In this chapter, I review the fueling and evolution of active galactic nuclei
(AGN) under the influence of internal and external triggers, namely intrinsic
properties of host galaxies (morphological or Hubble type, color, presence of
bars and other non-axisymmetric features, etc) and external factors such as
environment and interactions. The most daunting challenge in fueling AGN is
arguably the angular momentum problem as even matter located at a radius of a
few hundred pc must lose more than 99.99 % of its specific angular momentum
before it is fit for consumption by a BH. I review mass accretion rates,
angular momentum requirements, the effectiveness of different fueling
mechanisms, and the growth and mass density of black BHs at different epochs. I
discuss connections between the nuclear and larger-scale properties of AGN,
both locally and at intermediate redshifts, outlining some recent results from
the GEMS and GOODS HST surveys.Comment: Invited Review Chapter to appear in LNP Volume on "AGN Physics on All
Scales", Chapter 6, in press. 40 pages, 12 figures. Typo in Eq 5 correcte
Aggregate structure of hydroxyproline-rich glycoprotein (HRGP) and HRGP assisted dispersion of carbon nanotubes
Hydroxyproline-rich glycoproteins (HRGP) comprise a super-family of extracellular structural glycoproteins whose precise roles in plant cell wall assembly and functioning remain to be elucidated. However, their extended structure and repetitive block co-polymer character of HRGPs may mediate their self-assembly as wall scaffolds by like-with-like alignment of their hydrophobic peptide and hydrophilic glycopeptide modules. Intermolecular crosslinking further stabilizes the scaffold. Thus the design of HRGP-based scaffolds may have practical applications in bionanotechnology and medicine. As a first step, we have used single-molecule or single-aggregate atomic force microscopy (AFM) to visualize the structure of YK20, an amphiphilic HRGP comprised entirely of 20 tandem repeats of: Ser-Hyp4-Ser-Hyp-Ser-Hyp4-Tyr-Tyr-Tyr-Lys. YK20 formed tightly aggregated coils at low ionic strength, but networks of entangled chains with a porosity of ~0.5–3 μm at higher ionic strength. As a second step we have begun to design HRGP-carbon nanotube composites. Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) can be considered as seamless cylinders rolled up from graphene sheets. These unique all-carbon structures have extraordinary aromatic and hydrophobic properties and form aggregated bundles due to strong inter-tube van der Waals interactions. Sonicating aggregated SWNT bundles with aqueous YK20 solubilized them presumably by interaction with the repetitive, hydrophobic, Tyr-rich peptide modules of YK20 with retention of the extended polyproline-II character. This may allow YK20 to form extended structures that could potentially be used as scaffolds for site-directed assembly of nanomaterials
Gluon polarization in the nucleon from quasi-real photoproduction of high-pT hadron pairs
We present a determination of the gluon polarization Delta G/G in the
nucleon, based on the helicity asymmetry of quasi-real photoproduction events,
Q^2<1(GeV/c)^2, with a pair of large transverse-momentum hadrons in the final
state. The data were obtained by the COMPASS experiment at CERN using a 160 GeV
polarized muon beam scattered on a polarized 6-LiD target. The helicity
asymmetry for the selected events is = 0.002 +- 0.019(stat.) +-
0.003(syst.). From this value, we obtain in a leading-order QCD analysis Delta
G/G=0.024 +- 0.089(stat.) +- 0.057(syst.) at x_g = 0.095 and mu^2 =~ 3
(GeV}/c)^2.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figure
A new measurement of the Collins and Sivers asymmetries on a transversely polarised deuteron target
New high precision measurements of the Collins and Sivers asymmetries of
charged hadrons produced in deep-inelastic scattering of muons on a
transversely polarised 6LiD target are presented. The data were taken in 2003
and 2004 with the COMPASS spectrometer using the muon beam of the CERN SPS at
160 GeV/c. Both the Collins and Sivers asymmetries turn out to be compatible
with zero, within the present statistical errors, which are more than a factor
of 2 smaller than those of the published COMPASS results from the 2002 data.
The final results from the 2002, 2003 and 2004 runs are compared with naive
expectations and with existing model calculations.Comment: 40 pages, 28 figure
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