Jet-Disc coupling in the accreting black hole XTEJ1118+480

We interpret the rapid correlated UV/optical/ X-ray variability of XTEJ1118+480 as a signature of the coupling between the X-ray corona and a jet emitting synchrotron radiation in the optical band.We propose a scenario in which the jet and the X-ray corona are fed by the same energy reservoir where large amounts of accretion power are stored before being channelled into either the jet or the high energy radiation. This time dependent model reproduces the main features of the rapid multi-wavelength variability of XTEJ1118+480. A strong requirement of the model is that the total jet power should be at least a few times larger than the observed X-ray luminosity. This would be consistent with the overall low radiative efficiency of the source. We present independent arguments showing that the jet probably dominates the energetic output of all accreting black holes in the low-hard state.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure, to appear in the proceedings of "From X-ray binaries to quasars: Black hole accretion on all mass scales, (Amsterdam, July 2004)", Eds. T. Maccarone, R. Fender, L. H

Selective phenotyping, entropy reduction, and the mastermind game.

BACKGROUND: With the advance of genome sequencing technologies, phenotyping, rather than genotyping, is becoming the most expensive task when mapping genetic traits. The need for efficient selective phenotyping strategies, i.e. methods to select a subset of genotyped individuals for phenotyping, therefore increases. Current methods have focused either on improving the detection of causative genetic variants or their precise genomic location separately. RESULTS: Here we recognize selective phenotyping as a Bayesian model discrimination problem and introduce SPARE (Selective Phenotyping Approach by Reduction of Entropy). Unlike previous methods, SPARE can integrate the information of previously phenotyped individuals, thereby enabling an efficient incremental strategy. The effective performance of SPARE is demonstrated on simulated data as well as on an experimental yeast dataset. CONCLUSIONS: Using entropy reduction as an objective criterion gives a natural way to tackle both issues of detection and localization simultaneously and to integrate intermediate phenotypic data. We foresee entropy-based strategies as a fruitful research direction for selective phenotyping

Optimization of quantum Monte Carlo wave functions by energy minimization

We study three wave function optimization methods based on energy minimization in a variational Monte Carlo framework: the Newton, linear and perturbative methods. In the Newton method, the parameter variations are calculated from the energy gradient and Hessian, using a reduced variance statistical estimator for the latter. In the linear method, the parameter variations are found by diagonalizing a non-symmetric estimator of the Hamiltonian matrix in the space spanned by the wave function and its derivatives with respect to the parameters, making use of a strong zero-variance principle. In the less computationally expensive perturbative method, the parameter variations are calculated by approximately solving the generalized eigenvalue equation of the linear method by a nonorthogonal perturbation theory. These general methods are illustrated here by the optimization of wave functions consisting of a Jastrow factor multiplied by an expansion in configuration state functions (CSFs) for the C$_2$ molecule, including both valence and core electrons in the calculation. The Newton and linear methods are very efficient for the optimization of the Jastrow, CSF and orbital parameters. The perturbative method is a good alternative for the optimization of just the CSF and orbital parameters. Although the optimization is performed at the variational Monte Carlo level, we observe for the C$_2$ molecule studied here, and for other systems we have studied, that as more parameters in the trial wave functions are optimized, the diffusion Monte Carlo total energy improves monotonically, implying that the nodal hypersurface also improves monotonically.Comment: 18 pages, 8 figures, final versio

The x-ray corona and jet of cygnus x-1

Evidence is presented indicating that in the hard state of Cygnus X-1, the coronal mag- netic field might be below equipartition with radiation (suggesting that the corona is not powered by magnetic field dissipation) and that the ion temperature in the corona is significantly lower than what predicted by ADAF like models. It is also shown that the current estimates of the jet power set interesting contraints on the jet velocity (which is at least mildly relativistic), the accretion efficiency (which is large in both spectral states), and the nature of the X-ray emitting region (which is unlikely to be the jet).Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure. Accepted for publication in Journal of Modern Physics D, Proceedings of HEPRO II conference, Buenos Aires, Argentina, October 26-30, 200

Two-dimensional structures in the quintic Ginzburg-Landau equation

By using ZEUS cluster at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University we perform extensive numerical simulations based on a two-dimensional Fourier spectral method Fourier spatial discretization and an explicit scheme for time differencing) to find the range of existence of the spatiotemporal solitons of the two-dimensional complex Ginzburg-Landau equation with cubic and quintic nonlinearities. We start from the parameters used by Akhmediev {\it et. al.} and slowly vary them one by one to determine the regimes where solitons exist as stable/unstable structures. We present eight classes of dissipative solitons from which six are known (stationary, pulsating, vortex spinning, filament, exploding, creeping) and two are novel (creeping-vortex propellers and spinning "bean-shaped" solitons). By running lengthy simulations for the different parameters of the equation, we find ranges of existence of stable structures (stationary, pulsating, circular vortex spinning, organized exploding), and unstable structures (elliptic vortex spinning that leads to filament, disorganized exploding, creeping). Moreover, by varying even the two initial conditions together with vorticity, we find a richer behavior in the form of creeping-vortex propellers, and spinning "bean-shaped" solitons. Each class differentiates from the other by distinctive features of their energy evolution, shape of initial conditions, as well as domain of existence of parameters.Comment: 19 pages, 19 figures, 8 tables, updated text and reference

DOLPHIn - Dictionary Learning for Phase Retrieval

We propose a new algorithm to learn a dictionary for reconstructing and sparsely encoding signals from measurements without phase. Specifically, we consider the task of estimating a two-dimensional image from squared-magnitude measurements of a complex-valued linear transformation of the original image. Several recent phase retrieval algorithms exploit underlying sparsity of the unknown signal in order to improve recovery performance. In this work, we consider such a sparse signal prior in the context of phase retrieval, when the sparsifying dictionary is not known in advance. Our algorithm jointly reconstructs the unknown signal - possibly corrupted by noise - and learns a dictionary such that each patch of the estimated image can be sparsely represented. Numerical experiments demonstrate that our approach can obtain significantly better reconstructions for phase retrieval problems with noise than methods that cannot exploit such "hidden" sparsity. Moreover, on the theoretical side, we provide a convergence result for our method

Compact and Flexible Basis Functions for Quantum Monte Carlo Calculations

Molecular calculations in quantum Monte Carlo frequently employ a mixed basis consisting of contracted and primitive Gaussian functions. While standard basis sets of varying size and accuracy are available in the literature, we demonstrate that reoptimizing the primitive function exponents within quantum Monte Carlo yields more compact basis sets for a given accuracy. Particularly large gains are achieved for highly excited states. For calculations requiring non-diverging pseudopotentials, we introduce Gauss-Slater basis functions that behave as Gaussians at short distances and Slaters at long distances. These basis functions further improve the energy and fluctuations of the local energy for a given basis size. Gains achieved by exponent optimization and Gauss-Slater basis use are exemplified by calculations for the ground state of carbon, the lowest lying excited states of carbon with $^5S^o$, $^3P^o$, $^1D^o$, $^3F^o$ symmetries, carbon dimer, and naphthalene. Basis size reduction enables quantum Monte Carlo treatment of larger molecules at high accuracy.Comment: 8 Pages, 2 Figures, 9 Table

Branching Brownian motion with absorption and the all-time minimum of branching Brownian motion with drift

We study a dyadic branching Brownian motion on the real line with absorption at 0, drift $\mu \in \mathbb{R}$ and started from a single particle at position $x>0.$ When $\mu$ is large enough so that the process has a positive probability of survival, we consider $K(t),$ the number of individuals absorbed at 0 by time $t$ and for $s\ge 0$ the functions $\omega_s(x):= \mathbb{E}^x[s^{K(\infty)}].$ We show that $\omega_s<\infty$ if and only of $s\in[0,s_0]$ for some $s_0>1$ and we study the properties of these functions. Furthermore, for $s=0, \omega(x) := \omega_0(x) =\mathbb{P}^x(K(\infty)=0)$ is the cumulative distribution function of the all time minimum of the branching Brownian motion with drift started at 0 without absorption. We give three descriptions of the family $\omega_s, s\in [0,s_0]$ through a single pair of functions, as the two extremal solutions of the Kolmogorov-Petrovskii-Piskunov (KPP) traveling wave equation on the half-line, through a martingale representation and as an explicit series expansion. We also obtain a precise result concerning the tail behavior of $K(\infty)$. In addition, in the regime where $K(\infty)>0$ almost surely, we show that $u(x,t) := \mathbb{P}^x(K(t)=0)$ suitably centered converges to the KPP critical travelling wave on the whole real line.Comment: Grant information adde