Robustness evaluation of seismic pile response considering uncertainty mechanism of soil properties

Robustness analysis of the seismic pile response of a structure–pile–soil system with uncertain soil properties and concrete Young’s modulus is presented in this paper. The bounds of the bending moment of a pile are investigated by means of the previously proposed uncertainty analysis method (Updated Reference-Point method) and the newly developed revised method (NURP method). An efficient finite-element model of a structure–pile–soil system with smart displacement functions for connecting elements is adopted and a response spectrum method is applied in the evaluation of the seismic pile responses of the system. Two cases of soil uncertainties resulting from different uncertainty mechanisms are considered. It is shown that the worst combination of uncertain soil parameters can be determined by the NURP method in an accurate manner

A Solution for Little Hierarchy Problem and b --> s gamma

We show that all the parameters which destabilize the weak scale can be taken around the weak scale in the MSSM without conflicting with the SM Higgs mass bound set by LEP experiment. The essential point is that if the lightest CP-even Higgs h in the MSSM has only a small coupling to Z boson, g_{ZZh}, LEP cannot generate the Higgs sufficiently. In the scenario, the SM Higgs mass bound constrains the mass of the heaviest CP-even Higgs H which has the SM like g_{ZZH} coupling. However, it is easier to make the heaviest Higgs heavy by the effect of off-diagonal elements of the mass matrix of the CP-even Higgs because the larger eigenvalue of 2 times 2 matrix becomes larger by introducing off-diagonal elements. Thus, the smaller stop masses can be consistent with the LEP constraints. Moreover, the two excesses observed at LEP Higgs search can naturally be explained as the signals of the MSSM Higgs h and H in this scenario. One of the most interesting results in the scenario is that all the Higgs in the MSSM have the weak scale masses. For example, the charged Higgs mass should be around 130 GeV. This looks inconsistent with the lower bound obtained by the b --> s gamma process as m_{H^\pm}>350GeV. However, we show that the amplitude induced by the charged Higgs can naturally be compensated by that of the chargino if we take the mass parameters by which the little hierarchy problem can be solved. The point is that the both amplitudes have the same order of magnitudes when all the fields in the both loops have the same order of masses.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures, input parameter slightly changed, figures replaced, references correcte

The X-ray Properties of the Nearby Star-Forming Galaxy IC 342: The XMM-Newton View

We present the X-ray properties of IC342 using XMM-Newton. Thirty-five sources are detected coincident with the disk of IC342 (more than tripling the number known), of which ~31 are likely to be intrinsic to IC342. This population shows a range of spectral properties and has an X-ray luminosity function slope and infrared luminosity comparable to that of starburst galaxies such as M82 and the Antennae, while its relative lack of extended X-ray emission is similar to the properties of quiescent spirals. We do detect long-term variability between this observation and the 1991 ROSAT and 1993/2000 ASCA observations for five sources. Notably, the second most luminous source IC342 X-2 is is found to be in its the lowest luminosity state observed for X-2 to date, although the slope of the spectrum is intermediate between the previously observed low/hard and high/soft states. IC342 X-1, on the other hand, is found to be in an identical state to that observed in 2000 with ASCA. Assuming X-1 is in an anomalous very high (VH) state, then either (1) X-1 has remained in this state between 2000 and 2002, and is therefore the longest duration VH-state binary ever observed, or (2) it was simply caught in a VH state by chance in both the 2000 ASCA and 2002 XMM-Newton observations. We have also confirmed the ROSAT HRI result that the nucleus of IC342 is made up of both point-like and extended emission. The relative fluxes of the two spectral components suggest that the nucleus is complex, with a soft extended component contributing approximately half of the total luminosity. (Abridged)Comment: AJ in press (December 2003), 9 pages, 7 figures, 2 tables, emulateapj.cls use

Accretion Disk Spectra of the Ultra-luminous X-ray Sources in Nearby Spiral Galaxies and Galactic Superluminal Jet Sources

Ultra-luminous Compact X-ray Sources (ULXs) in nearby spiral galaxies and Galactic superluminal jet sources share the common spectral characteristic that they have unusually high disk temperatures which cannot be explained in the framework of the standard optically thick accretion disk in the Schwarzschild metric. On the other hand, the standard accretion disk around the Kerr black hole might explain the observed high disk temperature, as the inner radius of the Kerr disk gets smaller and the disk temperature can be consequently higher. However, we point out that the observable Kerr disk spectra becomes significantly harder than Schwarzschild disk spectra only when the disk is highly inclined. This is because the emission from the innermost part of the accretion disk is Doppler-boosted for an edge-on Kerr disk, while hardly seen for a face-on disk. The Galactic superluminal jet sources are known to be highly inclined systems, thus their energy spectra may be explained with the standard Kerr disk with known black hole masses. For ULXs, on the other hand, the standard Kerr disk model seems implausible, since it is highly unlikely that their accretion disks are preferentially inclined, and, if edge-on Kerr disk model is applied, the black hole mass becomes unreasonably large (> 300 M_solar). Instead, the slim disk (advection dominated optically thick disk) model is likely to explain the observed super-Eddington luminosities, hard energy spectra, and spectral variations of ULXs. We suggest that ULXs are accreting black holes with a few tens of solar mass, which is not unexpected from the standard stellar evolution scenario, and that their X-ray emission is from the slim disk shining at super-Eddington luminosities.Comment: ApJ, accepte

Synapse efficiency diverges due to synaptic pruning following over-growth

In the development of the brain, it is known that synapses are pruned following over-growth. This pruning following over-growth seems to be a universal phenomenon that occurs in almost all areas -- visual cortex, motor area, association area, and so on. It has been shown numerically that the synapse efficiency is increased by systematic deletion. We discuss the synapse efficiency to evaluate the effect of pruning following over-growth, and analytically show that the synapse efficiency diverges as O(log c) at the limit where connecting rate c is extremely small. Under a fixed synapse number criterion, the optimal connecting rate, which maximize memory performance, exists.Comment: 15 pages, 16 figure

Structural phase transitions in multipole traps

A small number of laser-cooled ions trapped in a linear radiofrequency multipole trap forms a hollow tube structure. We have studied, by means of molecular dynamics simulations, the structural transition from a double ring to a single ring of ions. We show that the single-ring configuration has the advantage to inhibit the thermal transfer from the rf-excited radial components of the motion to the axial component, allowing to reach the Doppler limit temperature along the direction of the trap axis. Once cooled in this particular configuration, the ions experience an angular dependency of the confinement if the local adiabaticity parameter exceeds the empirical limit. Bunching of the ion structures can then be observed and an analytic expression is proposed to take into account for this behaviour

Higgs coupling constants as a probe of new physics

We study new physics effects on the couplings of weak gauge bosons with the lightest CP-even Higgs boson ($h$), $hZZ$, and the tri-linear coupling of the lightest Higgs boson, $hhh$, at the one loop order, as predicted by the two Higgs doublet model. Those renormalized coupling constants can deviate from the Standard Model (SM) predictions due to two distinct origins; the tree level mixing effect of Higgs bosons and the quantum effect of additional particles in loop diagrams. The latter can be enhanced in the renormalized $hhh$ coupling constant when the additional particles show the non-decoupling property. Therefore, even in the case where the $hZZ$ coupling is close to the SM value, deviation in the $hhh$ coupling from the SM value can become as large as plus 100 percent, while that in the $hZZ$ coupling is at most minus 1 percent level. Such large quantum effect on the Higgs tri-linear coupling is distinguishable from the tree level mixing effect, and is expected to be detectable at a future linear collider.Comment: 52 pages, 10 figures, revtex

Effective theoretical approach of Gauge-Higgs unification model and its phenomenological applications

We derive the low energy effective theory of Gauge-Higgs unification (GHU) models in the usual four dimensional framework. We find that the theories are described by only the zero-modes with a particular renormalization condition in which essential informations about GHU models are included. We call this condition ``Gauge-Higgs condition'' in this letter. In other wards, we can describe the low energy theory as the SM with this condition if GHU is a model as the UV completion of the Standard Model. This approach will be a powerful tool to construct realistic models for GHU and to investigate their low energy phenomena.Comment: 18 pages, 2 figures; Two paragraphs discussing the applicable scope of this approach are adde

Discovery of Spectral Transitions from Two Ultra-Luminous Compact X-Ray Sources in Ic342

Two {\it ASCA} observations were made of two ultra-luminous compact X-ray sources (ULXs), Source 1 and Source 2, in the spiral galaxy IC 342. In the 1993 observation, Source 2 showed a 0.5--10 keV luminosity of $6 \times 10^{39}$ ergs s$^{-1}$ (assuming a distance of 4.0 Mpc), and a hard power-law spectrum of photon index $\sim 1.4$. As already reported, Source 1 was $\sim 3$ times brighter on that occasion, and exhibited a soft spectrum represented by a multi-color disk model of inner-disk temperature $\sim 1.8$ keV. The second observation made in February 2000 revealed that Source 1 had made a transition into a hard spectral state, while Source 2 into a soft spectral state. The ULXs are therefore inferred to exhibit two distinct spectral states, and sometimes make transitions between them. These results significantly reinforce the scenario which describes ULXs as mass-accreting black holes.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures; acceoted for ApJ

Does the Slim-Disk Model Correctly Consider Photon-Trapping Effects?

We investigate the photon-trapping effects in the super-critical black hole accretion flows by solving radiation transfer as well as the energy equations of radiation and gas. It is found that the slim-disk model generally overestimates the luminosity of the disk at around the Eddington luminosity (L_E) and is not accurate in describing the effective temperature profile, since it neglects time delay between energy generation at deeper inside the disk and energy release at the surface. Especially, the photon-trapping effects are appreciable even below L ~ L_E, while they appear above ~ 3L_E according to the slim disk. Through the photon-trapping effects, the luminosity is reduced and the effective temperature profile becomes flatter than r^{-3/4} as in the standard disk. In the case that the viscous heating is effective only around the equatorial plane, the luminosity is kept around the Eddington luminosity even at very large mass accretion rate, Mdot>>L_E/c^2. The effective temperature profile is almost flat, and the maximum temperature decreases in accordance with rise in the mass accretion rate. Thus, the most luminous radius shifts to the outer region when Mdot/(L_E/c^2) >> 10^2. In the case that the energy is dissipated equally at any heights, the resultant luminosity is somewhat larger than in the former case, but the energy-conversion efficiency still decreases with increase of the mass accretion rate, as well. The most luminous radius stays around the inner edge of the disk in the latter case. Hence, the effective temperature profile is sensitive to the vertical distribution of energy production rates, so is the spectral shape. Future observations of high L/L_E objects will be able to test our model.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in Ap