495 research outputs found
TurbuStat: Turbulence Statistics in Python
We present TurbuStat (v1.0): a Python package for computing turbulence
statistics in spectral-line data cubes. TurbuStat includes implementations of
fourteen methods for recovering turbulent properties from observational data.
Additional features of the software include: distance metrics for comparing two
data sets; a segmented linear model for fitting lines with a break-point; a
two-dimensional elliptical power-law model; multi-core fast-fourier-transform
support; a suite for producing simulated observations of fractional Brownian
Motion fields, including two-dimensional images and optically-thin HI data
cubes; and functions for creating realistic world coordinate system information
for synthetic observations. This paper summarizes the TurbuStat package and
provides representative examples using several different methods. TurbuStat is
an open-source package and we welcome community feedback and contributions.Comment: Accepted in AJ. 21 pages, 8 figure
Assessing the Impact of Astrochemistry on Molecular Cloud Turbulence Statistics
We analyze hydrodynamic simulations of turbulent, star-forming molecular
clouds that are post-processed with the photo-dissociation region
astrochemistry code 3D-PDR. We investigate the sensitivity of 15 commonly
applied turbulence statistics to post-processing assumptions, namely variations
in gas temperature, abundance and external radiation field. We produce
synthetic CO(1-0) and CI(P-P) observations and
examine how the variations influence the resulting emission distributions. To
characterize differences between the datasets, we perform statistical
measurements, identify diagnostics sensitive to our chemistry parameters, and
quantify the statistic responses by using a variety of distance metrics. We
find that multiple turbulent statistics are sensitive not only to the chemical
complexity but also to the strength of the background radiation field. The
statistics with meaningful responses include principal component analysis,
spatial power spectrum and bicoherence. A few of the statistics, such as the
velocity coordinate spectrum, are primarily sensitive to the type of tracer
being utilized, while others, like the delta-variance, strongly respond to the
background radiation field. Collectively, these findings indicate that more
realistic chemistry impacts the responses of turbulent statistics and is
necessary for accurate statistical comparisons between models and observed
molecular clouds.Comment: 27 pages, 21 figures, accepted to Ap
Appraising the Effectiveness of a Simple Evaluational Approach to Problems of Retardation and Behavior in Childhood
Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/67035/2/10.1177_000992287201100921.pd
Application of the Density Matrix Renormalization Group in momentum space
We investigate the application of the Density Matrix Renormalization Group
(DMRG) to the Hubbard model in momentum-space. We treat the one-dimensional
models with dispersion relations corresponding to nearest-neighbor hopping and
hopping and the two-dimensional model with isotropic nearest-neighbor
hopping. By comparing with the exact solutions for both one-dimensional models
and with exact diagonalization in two dimensions, we first investigate the
convergence of the ground-state energy. We find variational convergence of the
energy with the number of states kept for all models and parameter sets. In
contrast to the real-space algorithm, the accuracy becomes rapidly worse with
increasing interaction and is not significantly better at half filling. We
compare the results for different dispersion relations at fixed interaction
strength over bandwidth and find that extending the range of the hopping in one
dimension has little effect, but that changing the dimensionality from one to
two leads to lower accuracy at weak to moderate interaction strength. In the
one-dimensional models at half-filling, we also investigate the behavior of the
single-particle gap, the dispersion of spinon excitations, and the momentum
distribution function. For the single-particle gap, we find that proper
extrapolation in the number of states kept is important. For the spinon
dispersion, we find that good agreement with the exact forms can be achieved at
weak coupling if the large momentum-dependent finite-size effects are taken
into account for nearest-neighbor hopping. For the momentum distribution, we
compare with various weak-coupling and strong-coupling approximations and
discuss the importance of finite-size effects as well as the accuracy of the
DMRG.Comment: 15 pages, 11 eps figures, revtex
Stretching and squeezing of sessile dielectric drops by the optical radiation pressure
We study numerically the deformation of sessile dielectric drops immersed in
a second fluid when submitted to the optical radiation pressure of a continuous
Gaussian laser wave. Both drop stretching and drop squeezing are investigated
at steady state where capillary effects balance the optical radiation pressure.
A boundary integral method is implemented to solve the axisymmetric Stokes flow
in the two fluids. In the stretching case, we find that the drop shape goes
from prolate to near-conical for increasing optical radiation pressure whatever
the drop to beam radius ratio and the refractive index contrast between the two
fluids. The semi-angle of the cone at equilibrium decreases with the drop to
beam radius ratio and is weakly influenced by the index contrast. Above a
threshold value of the radiation pressure, these "optical cones" become
unstable and a disruption is observed. Conversely, when optically squeezed, the
drop shifts from an oblate to a concave shape leading to the formation of a
stable "optical torus". These findings extend the electrohydrodynamics approach
of drop deformation to the much less investigated "optical domain" and reveal
the openings offered by laser waves to actively manipulate droplets at the
micrometer scale
On the Nature of Small Planets around the Coolest Kepler Stars
We constrain the densities of Earth- to Neptune-size planets around very cool
(Te =3660-4660K) Kepler stars by comparing 1202 Keck/HIRES radial velocity
measurements of 150 nearby stars to a model based on Kepler candidate planet
radii and a power-law mass-radius relation. Our analysis is based on the
presumption that the planet populations around the two sets of stars are the
same. The model can reproduce the observed distribution of radial velocity
variation over a range of parameter values, but, for the expected level of
Doppler systematic error, the highest Kolmogorov-Smirnov probabilities occur
for a power-law index alpha ~ 4, indicating that rocky-metal planets dominate
the planet population in this size range. A single population of gas-rich,
low-density planets with alpha = 2 is ruled out unless our Doppler errors are
>= 5m/s, i.e., much larger than expected based on observations and stellar
chromospheric emission. If small planets are a mix of gamma rocky planets
(alpha = 3.85) and 1-gamma gas-rich planets (alpha = 2), then gamma > 0.5
unless Doppler errors are >=4 m/s. Our comparison also suggests that Kepler's
detection efficiency relative to ideal calculations is less than unity. One
possible source of incompleteness is target stars that are misclassified
subgiants or giants, for which the transits of small planets would be
impossible to detect. Our results are robust to systematic effects, and
plausible errors in the estimated radii of Kepler stars have only moderate
impact.Comment: Accepted to the Astrophysical Journa
Spin-flip scattering in the quantum Hall regime
We present a microscopic theory of spin-orbit coupling in the integer quantum
Hall regime. The spin-orbit scattering length is evaluated in the limit of
long-range random potential. The spin-flip rate is shown to be determined by
rare fluctuations of anomalously high electric field. A mechanism of strong
spin-orbit scattering associated with exchange-induced spontaneous
spin-polarization is suggested. Scaling of the spin-splitting of the
delocalization transition with the strength of spin-orbit and exchange
interactions is also discussed.Comment: References added, small additional comments, to appear in Phys. Rev.
B; 23 pages, RevTeX 3.
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