54,176 research outputs found
Black Hole Winds
We show that black holes accreting at or above the Eddington rate probably
produce winds which are optically thick in the continuum, whether in quasars or
X-ray binaries. The photospheric radius and outflow speed are proportional to
\mo^2 and \mo^-1 respectively, where \mo is the mass outflow rate. The outflow
momentum rate is always of order L_Edd/c. Blackbody emission from these winds
may provide the big blue bump in some quasars and AGN, as well as ultrasoft
X-ray components in ULXs.Comment: 3 pages, no figures; MNRAS, in press (with minor corrections applied
Blunting the Spike: the CV Minimum Period
The standard picture of CV secular evolution predicts a spike in the CV
distribution near the observed short-period cutoff P_0 ~ 78 min, which is not
observed. We show that an intrinsic spread in minimum (`bounce') periods P_b
resulting from a genuine difference in some parameter controlling the evolution
can remove the spike without smearing the sharpness of the cutoff. The most
probable second parameter is different admixtures of magnetic stellar wind
braking (at up to 5 times the GR rate) in a small tail of systems, perhaps
implying that the donor magnetic field strength at formation is a second
parameter specifying CV evolution. We suggest that magnetic braking resumes
below the gap with a wide range, being well below the GR rate in most CVs, but
significantly above it in a small tail.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures; accepted for publication in MNRA
Representation of probabilistic scientific knowledge
This article is available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund. Copyright © 2013 Soldatova et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.The theory of probability is widely used in biomedical research for data analysis and modelling. In previous work the probabilities of the research hypotheses have been recorded as experimental metadata. The ontology HELO is designed to support probabilistic reasoning, and provides semantic descriptors for reporting on research that involves operations with probabilities. HELO explicitly links research statements such as hypotheses, models, laws, conclusions, etc. to the associated probabilities of these statements being true. HELO enables the explicit semantic representation and accurate recording of probabilities in hypotheses, as well as the inference methods used to generate and update those hypotheses. We demonstrate the utility of HELO on three worked examples: changes in the probability of the hypothesis that sirtuins regulate human life span; changes in the probability of hypotheses about gene functions in the S. cerevisiae aromatic amino acid pathway; and the use of active learning in drug design (quantitative structure activity relation learning), where a strategy for the selection of compounds with the highest probability of improving on the best known compound was used. HELO is open source and available at https://github.com/larisa-soldatova/HELO.This work was partially supported by grant BB/F008228/1 from the UK Biotechnology & Biological Sciences Research Council, from the European Commission under the FP7 Collaborative Programme, UNICELLSYS, KU Leuven GOA/08/008 and ERC Starting Grant 240186
Evidence for a planetary mass third body orbiting the binary star KIC 5095269
In this paper, we report the evidence for a planetary mass body orbiting the
close binary star KIC 5095269. This detection arose from a search for eclipse
timing variations among the more than 2,000 eclipsing binaries observed by
Kepler. Light curve and periodic eclipse time variations have been analysed
using Systemic and a custom Binary Eclipse Timings code based on the Transit
Analysis Package which indicates a object orbiting every
around a primary and secondary in an
18.6d orbit. A dynamical integration over years suggests a stable
orbital configuration. Radial velocity observations are recommended to confirm
the properties of the binary star components and the planetary mass of the
companion.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figures, Accepted for publication in MNRA
Axion-like-particle decay in strong electromagnetic backgrounds
The decay of a massive pseudoscalar, scalar and U(1) boson into an
electron-positron pair in the presence of strong electromagnetic backgrounds is
calculated. Of particular interest is the constant-crossed-field limit,
relevant for experiments that aim to measure high-energy axion-like-particle
conversion into electron-positron pairs in a magnetic field. The total
probability depends on the quantum nonlinearity parameter - a product of field
and lightfront momentum invariants. Depending on the seed particle mass,
different decay regimes are identified. In the below-threshold case, we find
the probability depends on a non-perturbative tunnelling exponent depending on
the quantum parameter and the particle mass. In the above-threshold case, we
find that when the quantum parameter is varied linearly, the probability
oscillates nonlinearly around the spontaneous decay probability. A strong-field
limit is identified in which the threshold is found to disappear. In modelling
the fall-off of a quasi-constant-crossed magnetic field, we calculate
probabilities beyond the constant limit and investigate when the decay
probability can be regarded as locally constant.Comment: 22 pages, 7 figure
Discriminative Tandem Features for HMM-based EEG Classification
Abstract—We investigate the use of discriminative feature extractors in tandem configuration with generative EEG classification system. Existing studies on dynamic EEG classification typically use hidden Markov models (HMMs) which lack discriminative capability. In this paper, a linear and a non-linear classifier are discriminatively trained to produce complementary input features to the conventional HMM system. Two sets of tandem features are derived from linear discriminant analysis (LDA) projection output and multilayer perceptron (MLP) class-posterior probability, before appended to the standard autoregressive (AR) features. Evaluation on a two-class motor-imagery classification task shows that both the proposed tandem features yield consistent gains over the AR baseline, resulting in significant relative improvement of 6.2% and 11.2 % for the LDA and MLP features respectively. We also explore portability of these features across different subjects. Index Terms- Artificial neural network-hidden Markov models, EEG classification, brain-computer-interface (BCI)
X-ray Polarization Signatures of Compton Scattering in Magnetic Cataclysmic Variables
Compton scattering within the accretion column of magnetic cataclysmic
variables (mCVs) can induce a net polarization in the X-ray emission. We
investigate this process using Monte Carlo simulations and find that
significant polarization can arise as a result of the stratified flow structure
in the shock-ionized column. We find that the degree of linear polarization can
reach levels up to ~8% for systems with high accretion rates and low
white-dwarf masses, when viewed at large inclination angles with respect to the
accretion column axis. These levels are substantially higher than previously
predicted estimates using an accretion column model with uniform density and
temperature. We also find that for systems with a relatively low-mass white
dwarf accreting at a high accretion rate, the polarization properties may be
insensitive to the magnetic field, since most of the scattering occurs at the
base of the accretion column where the density structure is determined mainly
by bremsstrahlung cooling instead of cyclotron cooling.Comment: 7 pages, 8 figures, accepted by MNRA
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