Generation of helical magnetic fields from inflation

The generation of helical magnetic fields during single field inflation due to an axial coupling of the electromagnetic field to the inflaton is discussed. We find that such a coupling always leads to a blue spectrum of magnetic fields during slow roll inflation. Though the helical magnetic fields further evolve during the inverse cascade in the radiation era after inflation, we conclude that the magnetic fields generated by such an axial coupling can not lead to observed field strength on cosmologically relevant scales.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure; Contribution to the proceedings of the International Conference on Gravitation and Cosmology (ICGC), Goa, India, December, 201

MgII absorption systems with W_0 > 0.1 \AA for a radio selected sample of 77 QSOs and their associated magnetic fields at high redshifts

We present a catalogue of MgII absorption systems obtained from high resolution UVES/VLT data of 77 QSOs in the redshift range 0.6 < z < 2.0, and down to an equivalent width W_0 > 0.1 \AA. The statistical properties of our sample are found to be in agreement with those from previous work in the literature. However, we point out that the previously observed increase with redshift of dN/dz for weak absorbers, pertains exclusively to very weak absorbers with W_0 < 0.1 \AA. Instead, dN/dz for absorbers with W_0 in the range 0.1-0.3 \AA actually decreases with redshift, similarly to the case of strong absorbers. We then use this catalogue to extend our earlier analysis of the links between the Faraday Rotation Measure of the quasars and the presence of intervening MgII absorbing systems in their spectra. In contrast to the case with strong MgII absorption systems W_0 > 0.3 \AA, the weaker systems do not contribute significantly to the observed Rotation Measure of the background quasars. This is possibly due to the higher impact parameters of the weak systems compared to strong ones, suggesting that the high column density magnetized material that is responsible for the Faraday Rotation is located within about 50 kpc of the galaxies. Finally, we show that this result also rules out the possibility that some unexpected secondary correlation between the quasar redshift and its intrinsic Rotation Measure is responsible for the association of high Rotation Measure and strong intervening MgII absorption that we have presented elsewhere, since this would have produced an equal effect for the weak absorption line systems, which exhibit a very similar distribution of quasar redshifts.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ. 12 pages, 8 figure

Generation of 10^15 - 10^17 eV photons by UHE CR in the Galactic magnetic filed

We show that the deep expected in the diffuse photon spectrum above the threshold of e+e- pair production, i.e., at energies 10^15 - 10^17 eV, may be absent due to the synchrotron radiation by the electron component of the extragalactic Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays (UHE CR) in the Galactic magnetic filed. The mechanism we propose requires small (less than 2x10^-12 G) extragalactic magnetic fields and large fraction of photons in the UHE CR. For a typical photon flux expected in top-down scenarios of UHE CR, the predicted flux in the region of the deep is close to the existing experimental limit. The sensitivity of our mechanism to the extragalactic magnetic field may be used to improve existing bounds on the latter by two orders of magnitude.Comment: 11 pages, LaTeX, 1 .ps figure. Numerical error corrected; references adde

Heating Hot Atmospheres with Active Galactic Nuclei

High resolution X-ray spectroscopy of the hot gas in galaxy clusters has shown that the gas is not cooling to low temperatures at the predicted rates of hundreds to thousands of solar masses per year. X-ray images have revealed giant cavities and shock fronts in the hot gas that provide a direct and relatively reliable means of measuring the energy injected into hot atmospheres by active galactic nuclei (AGN). Average radio jet powers are near those required to offset radiative losses and to suppress cooling in isolated giant elliptical galaxies, and in larger systems up to the richest galaxy clusters. This coincidence suggests that heating and cooling are coupled by feedback, which suppresses star formation and the growth of luminous galaxies. How jet energy is converted to heat and the degree to which other heating mechanisms are contributing, eg. thermal conduction, are not well understood. Outburst energies require substantial late growth of supermassive black holes. Unless all of the approximately 10E62 erg required to suppress star formation is deposited in the cooling regions of clusters, AGN outbursts must alter large-scale properties of the intracluster medium.Comment: 60 pages, 12 figures, to appear in 1997 Annual Reviews of Astronomy and Astrophysics. This version supersedes the April 2007 version in Reviews in Advance (references and minor corrections were added), and is similar to the one scheduled to appear in Volume 45 of ARA

A Faraday Rotation Search for Magnetic Fields in Large Scale Structure

Faraday rotation of radio source polarization provides a measure of the integrated magnetic field along the observational lines of sight. We compare a new, large sample of Faraday rotation measures (RMs) of polarized extragalactic sources with galaxy counts in Hercules and Perseus-Pisces, two nearby superclusters. We find that the average of RMs in these two supercluster areas are larger than in control areas in the same galactic latitude range. This is the first RM detection of magnetic fields that pervade a supercluster volume, in which case the fields are at least partially coherent over several megaparsecs. Even the most conservative interpretation of our observations, according to which Milky Way RM variations mimic the background supercluster galaxy overdensities, puts constraints on the IGM magneto-ionic ``strength'' in these two superclusters. We obtain an approximate typical upper limit on the field strength of about 0.3 microGauss l/(500 kpc), when we combine our RM data with fiducial estimates of electron density from the environments of giant radio galaxies, and of the warm-hot intergalactic medium (WHIM).Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, 1 table, to appear in the Astrophysical Journa

A Global Probe of Cosmic Magnetic Fields to High Redshifts

Faraday rotation (RM) probes of magnetic fields in the universe are sensitive to cosmological and evolutionary effects as $z$ increases beyond $\sim$1 because of the scalings of electron density and magnetic fields, and the growth in the number of expected intersections with galaxy-scale intervenors, $d$N/$dz$. In this new global analysis of an unprecedented large sample of RM's of high latitude quasars extending out to $z\sim$3.7 we find that the distribution of RM broadens with redshift in the 20 $-$ 80 rad m$^{-2}$ range range, despite the (1 +$z$)$^{-2}$ wavelength dilution expected in the observed Faraday rotation. Our results indicate that the Universe becomes increasingly ``Faraday-opaque'' to sources beyond $z \sim$ 2, that is, as $z$ increases progressively fewer sources are found with a ``small'' RM in the observer's frame. This is in contrast to sources at z \la1. They suggest that the environments of galaxies were significantly magnetized at high redshifts, with magnetic field strengths that were at least as strong within a few Gyr of the Big Bang as at the current epoch. We separately investigate a simple unevolving toy model in which the RM is produced by MgII absorber systems, and find that it can approximately reproduce the observed trend with redshift. An additional possibility is that the intrinsic RM associated with the radio sources was much higher in the past, and we show that this is not a trivial consequence of the higher radio luminosities of the high redshift sources.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures Astrophysical Jounrnal in press, March 200

Optimización de la producción de biomasa usando glicerol crudo, de una cepa mutante de Yarrowia lipolytica con actividad incrementada de lipasa

218-225The yeast Yarrowia lipolytica accumulates oils and is able to produce extracellular lipases when growing in different carbon sources including glycerol, the principal by-product of the biodiesel industry. In this study, biomass production of a novel mutant strain of Y. lipolytica was statistically optimized by Response Surface Methodology in media containing biodiesel-derived glycerol as main carbon source. This strain exhibited distinctive morphological and fatty acid profile characteristics, and showed an increased extracellular lipase activity. An organic source of nitrogen and the addition of 1.0 g/l olive oil were necessary for significant lipase production. Plackett-Burman and Central Composite Statistical Designs were employed for screening and optimization of fermentation in shaken flasks cultures, and the maximum values obtained were 16.1 g/l for biomass and 12.2 Units/ml for lipase, respectively. Optimized batch bioprocess was thereafter scaled in aerated bioreactors and the values reached for lipase specific activity after 95 percent of the glycerol had been consumed, were three-fold higher than those obtained in shaken flasks cultures. A sustainable bioprocess to obtain biomass and extracellular lipase activity was attained by maximizing the use of the by-products of biodiesel industry

Coincidence isometries of a shifted square lattice

We consider the coincidence problem for the square lattice that is translated by an arbitrary vector. General results are obtained about the set of coincidence isometries and the coincidence site lattices of a shifted square lattice by identifying the square lattice with the ring of Gaussian integers. To illustrate them, we calculate the set of coincidence isometries, as well as generating functions for the number of coincidence site lattices and coincidence isometries, for specific examples.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figure; paper presented at Aperiodic 2009 (Liverpool

Large-scale magnetic fields from inflation in dilaton electromagnetism

The generation of large-scale magnetic fields is studied in dilaton electromagnetism in inflationary cosmology, taking into account the dilaton's evolution throughout inflation and reheating until it is stabilized with possible entropy production. It is shown that large-scale magnetic fields with observationally interesting strength at the present time could be generated if the conformal invariance of the Maxwell theory is broken through the coupling between the dilaton and electromagnetic fields in such a way that the resultant quantum fluctuations in the magnetic field has a nearly scale-invariant spectrum. If this condition is met, the amplitude of the generated magnetic field could be sufficiently large even in the case huge amount of entropy is produced with the dilution factor $\sim 10^{24}$ as the dilaton decays.Comment: 28 pages, 5 figures, the version accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. D; some references are adde

Cosmic magnetic fields from velocity perturbations in the early Universe

We show, using a covariant and gauge-invariant charged multifluid perturbation scheme, that velocity perturbations of the matter-dominated dust Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) model can lead to the generation of cosmic magnetic fields. Moreover, using cosmic microwave background (CMB) constraints, it is argued that these fields can reach strengths of between 10^{-28} and 10^{-29} G at the time the dynamo mechanism sets in, making them plausible seed field candidates.Comment: 11 pages, 1 figure, IOP style, minor changes and typos correcte