Simultaneous Projectile-Target Excitation in Heavy Ion Collisions

We calculate the lowest-order contribution to the cross section for simultaneous excitation of projectile and target nuclei in relativistic heavy ion collisions. This process is, to leading order, non-classical and adds incoherently to the well-studied semi-classical Weizs\"acker-Williams cross section. While the leading contribution to the cross section is down by only $1/Z_P$ from the semiclassical process, and consequently of potential importance for understanding data from light projectiles, we find that phase space considerations render the cross section utterly negligible.Comment: 9 pages, LA-UR-94-247

Sustained, multifaceted improvements in mental well-being following psychedelic experiences in a prospective opportunity sample

In the last 15 years, psychedelic substances, such as LSD and psilocybin, have regained legitimacy in clinical research. In the general population as well as across various psychiatric populations, mental well-being has been found to significantly improve after a psychedelic experience. Mental well-being has large socioeconomic relevance, but it is a complex, multifaceted construct. In this naturalistic observational study, a comprehensive approach was taken to assessing well-being before and after a taking a psychedelic compound to induce a “psychedelic experience.” Fourteen measures of well-being related constructs were included in order to examine the breadth and specificity of change in well-being. This change was then analysed to examine clusters of measures changing together. Survey data was collected from volunteers that intended to take a psychedelic. Four key time points were analysed: 1 week before and 2 weeks, 4 weeks, and 2 years after the experience (N = 654, N = 315, N = 212, and N = 64, respectively). Change on the included measures was found to cluster into three factors which we labelled: 1) “Being well”, 2) “Staying well,” and 3) “Spirituality.” Repeated Measures Multivariate Analysis of Variance revealed all but the spirituality factor to be improved in the weeks following the psychedelic experience. Additional Mixed model analyses revealed selective increases in Being Well and Staying Well (but not Spirituality) that remained statistically significant up to 2 years post-experience, albeit with high attrition rates. Post-hoc examination suggested that attrition was not due to differential acute experiences or mental-health changes in those who dropped out vs. those who did not. These findings suggest that psychedelics can have a broad, robust and sustained positive impact on mental well-being in those that have a prior intention to use a psychedelic compound. Public policy implications are discussed

River gauging at global scale using optical and passive microwave remote sensing

Recent discharge observations are lacking for most rivers globally. Discharge can be estimated from remotely sensed floodplain and channel inundation area, but there is currently no method that can be automatically extended to many rivers. We examined whether automated monitoring is feasible by statistically relating inundation estimates from moderate to coarse (>0.05°) resolution remote sensing to monthly station discharge records. Inundation extents were derived from optical MODIS data and passive microwave sensors, and compared to monthly discharge records from over 8000 gauging stations and satellite altimetry observations for 442 reaches of large rivers. An automated statistical method selected grid cells to construct “satellite gauging reaches” (SGRs). MODIS SGRs were generally more accurate than passive microwave SGRs, but there were complementary strengths. The rivers widely varied in size, regime, and morphology. As expected performance was low (R  0.6. The best results (R > 0.9) were obtained for large unregulated lowland rivers, particularly in tropical and boreal regions. Relatively poor results were obtained in arid regions, where flow pulses are few and recede rapidly, and in temperate regions, where many rivers are modified and contained. Provided discharge variations produce clear changes in inundated area and gauge records are available for part of the satellite record, SGRs can retrieve monthly river discharge values back to around 1998 and up to present

The Mystery of the Asymptotic Quasinormal Modes of Gauss-Bonnet Black Holes

We analyze the quasinormal modes of $D$-dimensional Schwarzschild black holes with the Gauss-Bonnet correction in the large damping limit and show that standard analytic techniques cannot be applied in a straightforward manner to the case of infinite damping. However, by using a combination of analytic and numeric techniques we are able to calculate the quasinormal mode frequencies in a range where the damping is large but finite. We show that for this damping region the famous $\ln(3)$ appears in the real part of the quasinormal mode frequency. In our calculations, the Gauss-Bonnet coupling, $\alpha$, is taken to be much smaller than the parameter $\mu$, which is related to the black hole mass.Comment: 12 pages and 5 figure

The Highly Damped Quasinormal Modes of Extremal Reissner-Nordstr\"om and Reissner-Nordstr\"om-de Sitter Black Holes

We analyze in detail the highly damped quasinormal modes of $D$-dimensional extremal Reissner-Nordstr$\ddot{\rm{o}}$m and Reissner-Nordstr$\ddot{\rm{o}}$m-de Sitter black holes. We only consider the extremal case where the event horizon and the Cauchy inner horizon coincide. We show that, even though the topology of the Stokes/anti-Stokes lines in the extremal case is different than the non-extremal case, the highly damped quasinormal mode frequencies of extremal black holes match exactly with the extremal limit of the non-extremal black hole quasinormal mode frequencies.Comment: 17 pages, 5 figure

Brain correlates of phasic autonomic response to acupuncture stimulation: An event‐related fMRI study

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/100160/1/hbm22091.pd

Strange Star Heating Events as a Model for Giant Flares of Soft Gamma-ray Repeaters

Two giant flares were observed on 5 March 1979 and 27 August 1998 from the soft gamma-ray repeaters SGR 0526-66 and SGR 1900+14, respectively. The striking similarity between these remarkable bursts strongly implies a common nature. We show that the light curves of the giant bursts may be easily explained in the model where the burst radiation is produced by the bare quark surface of a strange star heated, for example, by impact of a massive comet-like object.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Letter

Finite temperature calculations for the bulk properties of strange star using a many-body approach

We have considered a hot strange star matter, just after the collapse of a supernova, as a composition of strange, up and down quarks to calculate the bulk properties of this system at finite temperature with the density dependent bag constant. To parameterize the density dependent bag constant, we use our results for the lowest order constrained variational (LOCV) calculations of asymmetric nuclear matter. Our calculations for the structure properties of the strange star at different temperatures indicate that its maximum mass decreases by increasing the temperature. We have also compared our results with those of a fixed value of the bag constant. It can be seen that the density dependent bag constant leads to higher values of the maximum mass and radius for the strange star.Comment: 21 pages, 2 tables, 12 figures Astrophys. (2011) accepte

Bare Quark Matter Surfaces of Strange Stars and e+e−e^+e^- Emission

We show that the Coulomb barrier at the quark surface of a hot strange star may be a powerful source of $e^+e^-$ pairs which are created in an extremely strong electric field of the barrier and flow away from the star. The luminosity in the outflowing pair plasma depends on the surface temperature $T_{_S}$ and may be very high, up to $\sim 3\times 10^{51} ergs/s$ at $T_{_S}\sim 10^{11}$ K. The effect of pair creation by the Coulomb barrier may be a good observational signature of strange stars which can give an answer to the question of whether a compact object is a neutron or strange star.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure, LATEX, accepted for publication in the Physical Review Letter