1,112 research outputs found
On the peculiarities in the rotational frequency evolution of isolated neutron stars
The measurements of pulsar frequency second derivatives have shown that they
are times larger than expected for standard pulsar spin-down law,
and are even negative for about half of pulsars. We explain these paradoxical
results on the basis of the statistical analysis of the rotational parameters
, and of the subset of 295 pulsars taken mostly
from the ATNF database. We have found a strong correlation between
and for both and , as well as between
and . We interpret these dependencies as evolutionary ones due
to being nearly proportional to the pulsars' age. The derived
statistical relations as well as "anomalous" values of are well
described by assuming the long-time variations of the spin-down rate. The
pulsar frequency evolution, therefore, consists of secular change of
, and according to the power
law with , the irregularities, observed within a timespan as a
timing noise, and the variations on the timescale larger than that timespan --
several tens of years.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures. Accepted for publication in ApSS, in the
proceedings of the conference "Isolated Neutron Stars: from the Interior to
the Surface", London, April 2006; eds. S. Zane, R. Turolla and D. Pag
Phosphorus supply affects seedling growth of mycorrhizal but not cluster-root forming jarrah-forest species
Aims
Fertiliser is often used to kick-start ecological restoration despite growing evidence of the potentially negative impacts on plant diversity. Jarrah (Eucalyptus marginata) forest species growing on nutrient (especially phosphorus) impoverished soils in southwestern Australia have a suite of adaptations for phosphorus (P) acquisition, including the formation of cluster roots, and associations with mycorrhizal fungi. Here we investigated how escalating P supply, along with a stoichiometric adjustment of nitrogen (N) supply, impacted the growth and nutrition of a wide range of jarrah forest seedlings.
Methods
In a pot experiment, we measured seedling biomass and nutritional responses of 12 jarrah forest species to a gradient of P supply in relation to N supply, and for the mycorrhizal species, inoculation with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi.
Results
Three cluster-root forming species did not respond to increasing P, probably because they were reliant on seed P. Generally, mycorrhizal species showed a positive biomass response to increasing P when N was available. Mycorrhizas benefited seedling growth at low P (9 mg P added per kg of jarrah forest soil) when N was also available, and were parasitic to seedling growth at high P (243 mg P/ kg soil) without additional N.
Conclusions
These results highlight importance of P and N supply in determining the nature of the symbiosis between plants and mycorrhizal fungi. Since P supply has the potential to reduce plant growth, for a range of species, our results suggest careful consideration of fertiliser amounts for ecological restoration of ecosystems adapted to nutrient poor soils
Optimal Design and Tolerancing of Compressor Blades Subject to Manufacturing Variability
This paper presents a computational approach for optimal robust design and tolerancing of turbomachinery compressor blades that are subject to geometric variability. This approach simultaneously determines the optimal blade geometry and manufacturing tolerances to minimize the overall cost of producing and operating the resulting compressor blades. A pathwise sensitivity method is used to compute gradient information that is in turn used to optimize the design and tolerances. Results for a two-dimensional subsonic compressor are presented, demonstrating the significant performance improvements that can be achieved using the proposed approach.Pratt & Whitney Aircraft CompanyBoeing Compan
THE AMUNDSEN SEA LOW Variability, Change, and Impact on Antarctic Climate
The Amundsen Sea low (ASL) is a climatological low pressure center that exerts considerable influence on the climate of West Antarctica. Its potential to explain important recent changes in Antarctic climate, for example, in temperature and sea ice extent, means that it has become the focus of an increasing number of studies. Here, the authors summarize the current understanding of the ASL, using reanalysis datasets to analyze recent variability and trends, as well as ice-core chemistry and climate model projections, to examine past and future changes in the ASL, respectively. The ASL has deepened in recent decades, affecting the climate through its influence on the regional meridional wind field, which controls the advection of moisture and heat into the continent. Deepening of the ASL in spring is consistent with observed West Antarctic warming and greater sea ice extent in the Ross Sea. Climate model simulations for recent decades indicate that this deepening is mediated by tropical variability while climate model projections through the twenty-first century suggest that the ASL will deepen in some seasons in response to greenhouse gas concentration increases
Radiation reaction and energy-momentum conservation
We discuss subtle points of the momentum balance for radiating particles in
flat and curved space-time. An instantaneous balance is obscured by the
presence of the Schott term which is a finite part of the bound field momentum.
To establish the balance one has to take into account the initial and final
conditions for acceleration, or to apply averaging. In curved space-time an
additional contribution arises from the tidal deformation of the bound field.
This force is shown to be the finite remnant from the mass renormalization and
it is different both form the radiation recoil force and the Schott force. For
radiation of non-gravitational nature from point particles in curved space-time
the reaction force can be computed substituting the retarded field directly to
the equations of motion. Similar procedure is applicable to gravitational
radiation in vacuum space-time, but fails in the non-vacuum case. The existence
of the gravitational quasilocal reaction force in this general case seems
implausible, though it still exists in the non-relativistic approximation. We
also explain the putative antidamping effect for gravitational radiation under
non-geodesic motion and derive the non-relativistic gravitational quadrupole
Schott term. Radiation reaction in curved space of dimension other than four is
also discussedComment: Lecture given at the C.N.R.S. School "Mass and Motion in General
Relativity", Orleans, France, 200
Rotation measure variations for 20 millisecond pulsars
We report on variations in the mean position angle of the 20 millisecond
pulsars being observed as part of the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array (PPTA)
project. It is found that the observed variations are dominated by changes in
the Faraday rotation occurring in the Earth's ionosphere. Two ionospheric
models are used to correct for the ionospheric contribution and it is found
that one based on the International Reference Ionosphere gave the best results.
Little or no significant long-term variation in interstellar RM was found with
limits typically about 0.1 rad m yr in absolute value. In a few
cases, apparently significant RM variations over timescales of a few 100 days
or more were seen. These are unlikely to be due to localised magnetised regions
crossing the line of sight since the implied magnetic fields are too high. Most
probably they are statistical fluctuations due to random spatial and temporal
variations in the interstellar electron density and magnetic field along the
line of sight.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astrophysics & Space Scienc
The Magnetic Field of the Solar Corona from Pulsar Observations
We present a novel experiment with the capacity to independently measure both
the electron density and the magnetic field of the solar corona. We achieve
this through measurement of the excess Faraday rotation due to propagation of
the polarised emission from a number of pulsars through the magnetic field of
the solar corona. This method yields independent measures of the integrated
electron density, via dispersion of the pulsed signal and the magnetic field,
via the amount of Faraday rotation. In principle this allows the determination
of the integrated magnetic field through the solar corona along many lines of
sight without any assumptions regarding the electron density distribution. We
present a detection of an increase in the rotation measure of the pulsar
J18012304 of approximately 160 \rad at an elongation of 0.95 from
the centre of the solar disk. This corresponds to a lower limit of the magnetic
field strength along this line of sight of . The lack of
precision in the integrated electron density measurement restricts this result
to a limit, but application of coronal plasma models can further constrain this
to approximately 20mG, along a path passing 2.5 solar radii from the solar
limb. Which is consistent with predictions obtained using extensions to the
Source Surface models published by Wilcox Solar ObservatoryComment: 16 pages, 4 figures (1 colour): Submitted to Solar Physic
Do the Unidentified EGRET Sources Trace Annihilating Dark Matter in the Local Group?
In a cold dark matter (CDM) framework of structure formation, the dark matter
haloes around galaxies assemble through successive mergers with smaller haloes.
This merging process is not completely efficient, and hundreds of surviving
halo cores, or {\it subhaloes}, are expected to remain in orbit within the halo
of a galaxy like the Milky Way. While the dozen visible satellites of the Milky
Way may trace some of these subhaloes, the majority are currently undetected. A
large number of high-velocity clouds (HVCs) of neutral hydrogen {\it are}
observed around the Milky Way, and it is plausible that some of the HVCs may
trace subhaloes undetected in the optical. Confirming the existence of
concentrations of dark matter associated with even a few of the HVCs would
represent a dramatic step forward in our attempts to understand the nature of
dark matter. Supersymmetric (SUSY) extensions of the Standard Model of particle
physics currently suggest neutralinos as a natural well-motivated candidate for
the non-baryonic dark matter of the universe. If this is indeed the case, then
it may be possible to detect dark matter indirectly as it annihilates into
neutrinos, photons or positrons. In particular, the centres of subhaloes might
show up as point sources in gamma-ray observations. In this work we consider
the possibility that some of the unidentified EGRET -ray sources trace
annihilating neutralino dark matter in the dark substructure of the Local
Group. We compare the observed positions and fluxes of both the unidentified
EGRET sources and the HVCs with the positions and fluxes predicted by a model
of halo substructure, to determine to what extent any of these three
populations could be associated.Comment: 12 Pages, 4 figures, to appear in a special issue of ApSS. Presented
at "The Multiwavelength Approach to Unidentified Gamma-Ray Sources" (Hong
Kong, June 1 - 4, 2004; Conference organizers: K.S. Cheng and G.E. Romero
A new photon recoil experiment: towards a determination of the fine structure constant
We report on progress towards a measurement of the fine structure constant to
an accuracy of or better by measuring the ratio of the
Planck constant to the mass of the cesium atom. Compared to similar
experiments, ours is improved in three significant ways: (i) simultaneous
conjugate interferometers, (ii) multi-photon Bragg diffraction between same
internal states, and (iii) an about 1000 fold reduction of laser phase noise to
-138 dBc/Hz. Combining that with a new method to simultaneously stabilize the
phases of four frequencies, we achieve 0.2 mrad effective phase noise at the
location of the atoms. In addition, we use active stabilization to suppress
systematic effects due to beam misalignment.Comment: 12 pages, 9 figure
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