8,576 research outputs found
Eating disorders in the time of COVID-19.
We have all been stunned by the speed of this viral pandemic. At the time of writing, one fifth of the world is under lockdown. The main foci have been on the public health effort to contain the spread of the virus, and the care of individuals with acute infection. We, in eating disorders, must have a broader brief. Not only must we help care for those sufferers who contract COVID-19, we must also address the impact-psychological, financial and social - on those that do not. The peculiarities of COVID-19 and the reaction of the public and governments to it, have particular relevance for people living with an eating disorder and those who care for them
Event-by-event shape and flow fluctuations of relativistic heavy-ion collision fireballs
Heavy-ion collisions create deformed quark-gluon plasma (QGP) fireballs which
explode anisotropically. The viscosity of the fireball matter determines its
ability to convert the initial spatial deformation into momentum anisotropies
that can be measured in the final hadron spectra. A quantitatively precise
empirical extraction of the QGP viscosity thus requires a good understanding of
the initial fireball deformation. This deformation fluctuates from event to
event, and so does the finally observed momentum anisotropy. We present a
harmonic decomposition of the initial fluctuations in shape and orientation of
the fireball and perform event-by-event ideal fluid dynamical simulations to
extract the resulting fluctuations in the magnitude and direction of the
corresponding harmonic components of the final anisotropic flow at midrapidity.
The final harmonic flow coefficients are found to depend non-linearly on the
initial harmonic eccentricity coefficients. We show that, on average, initial
density fluctuations suppress the buildup of elliptic flow relative to what one
obtains from a smooth initial profile of the same eccentricity, and discuss
implications for the phenomenological extraction of the QGP shear viscosity
from experimental elliptic flow data.Comment: 22 pages, 17 figures. Relative to [v2], minor changes in text. Fig. 9
redrawn. This version accepted by Phys. Rev.
A lower bound in Nehari's theorem on the polydisc
By theorems of Ferguson and Lacey (d=2) and Lacey and Terwilleger (d>2),
Nehari's theorem is known to hold on the polydisc D^d for d>1, i.e., if H_\psi
is a bounded Hankel form on H^2(D^d) with analytic symbol \psi, then there is a
function \phi in L^\infty(\T^d) such that \psi is the Riesz projection of \phi.
A method proposed in Helson's last paper is used to show that the constant C_d
in the estimate \|\phi\|_\infty\le C_d \|H_\psi\| grows at least exponentially
with d; it follows that there is no analogue of Nehari's theorem on the
infinite-dimensional polydisc
Distribution of the very first PopIII stars and their relation to bright z~6 quasars
We discuss the link between dark matter halos hosting the first PopIII stars
and the rare, massive, halos that are generally considered to host bright
quasars at high redshift z~6. The main question that we intend to answer is
whether the super-massive black holes powering these QSOs grew out from the
seeds planted by the first intermediate massive black holes created in the
universe. This question involves a dynamical range of 10^13 in mass and we
address it by combining N-body simulations of structure formation to identify
the most massive halos at z~6 with a Monte Carlo method based on linear theory
to obtain the location and formation times of the first light halos within the
whole simulation box. We show that the descendants of the first ~10^6 Msun
virialized halos do not, on average, end up in the most massive halos at z~6,
but rather live in a large variety of environments. The oldest PopIII
progenitors of the most massive halos at z~6, form instead from density peaks
that are on average one and a half standard deviations more common than the
first PopIII star formed in the volume occupied by one bright high-z QSO. The
intermediate mass black hole seeds planted by the very first PopIII stars at
z>40 can easily grow to masses m_BH>10^9.5 Msun by z=6 assuming Eddington
accretion with radiative efficiency \epsilon~0.1. Quenching of the black hole
accretion is therefore crucial to avoid an overabundance of supermassive black
holes at lower redshift. This can be obtained if the mass accretion is limited
to a fraction \eta~6*10^{-3} of the total baryon mass of the halo hosting the
black hole. The resulting high end slope of the black hole mass function at z=6
is \alpha ~ -3.7, a value within the 1\sigma error bar for the bright end slope
of the observed quasar luminosity function at z=6.Comment: 30 pages, 9 figures, ApJ accepte
Measuring the Cosmic Equation of State with Counts of Galaxies
The classical dN/dz test allows the determination of fundamental cosmological
parameters from the evolution of the cosmic volume element. This test is
applied by measuring the redshift distribution of a tracer whose evolution in
number density is known. In the past, ordinary galaxies have been used as such
a tracer; however, in the absence of a complete theory of galaxy formation,
that method is fraught with difficulties. In this paper, we propose studying
instead the evolution of the apparent abundance of dark matter halos as a
function of their circular velocity, observable via the linewidths or rotation
speeds of visible galaxies. Upcoming redshift surveys will allow the linewidth
distribution of galaxies to be determined at both z~1 and the present day. In
the course of studying this test, we have devised a rapid, improved
semi-analytic method for calculating the circular velocity distribution of dark
halos based upon the analytic mass function of Sheth et al. (1999) and the
formation time distribution of Lacey & Cole (1993). We find that if selection
effects are well-controlled and minimal external constraints are applied, the
planned DEEP Redshift Survey should allow the measurement of the cosmic
equation-of-state parameter w to 10% (as little as 3% if Omega_m has been
well-determined from other observations). This type of test has the potential
also to provide a constraint on any evolution of w such as that predicted by
``tracker'' models.Comment: 4 pages plus 3 embedded figures; version approved by Ap. J. Letters.
A greatly improved error analysis has been added, along with a figure showing
complementarity to other cosmological test
Feasibility and benefits of laminar flow control on supersonic cruise airplanes
An evaluation was made of the applicability and benefits of laminar flow control (LFC) technology to supersonic cruise airplanes. Ancillary objectives were to identify the technical issues critical to supersonic LFC application, and to determine how those issues can be addressed through flight and wind-tunnel testing. Vehicle types studied include a Mach 2.2 supersonic transport configuration, a Mach 4.0 transport, and two Mach 2-class fighter concepts. Laminar flow control methodologies developed for subsonic and transonic wing laminarization were extended and applied. No intractible aerodynamic problems were found in applying LFC to airplanes of the Mach 2 class, even ones of large size. Improvements of 12 to 17 percent in lift-drag ratios were found. Several key technical issues, such as contamination avoidance and excresence criteria were identified. Recommendations are made for their resolution. A need for an inverse supersonic wing design methodology is indicated
Mass of Clusters in Simulations
We show that dark matter haloes, in n--body simulations, have a boundary
layer (BL) with precise features. In particular, it encloses all dynamically
stable mass while, outside it, dynamical stability is lost soon. Particles can
pass through such BL, which however acts as a confinement barrier for dynamical
properties. BL is set by evaluating kinetic and potential energies (T(r) and
W(r)) and calculating R=-2T/W. Then, on BL, R has a minimum which closely
approaches a maximum of w= -dlog W/dlog r. Such ``requirement'' is
consistent with virial equilibrium, but implies further regularities. We test
the presence of a BL around haloes in spatially flat CDM simulations, with or
without cosmological constant. We find that the mass M_c, enclosed within the
radius r_c, where the requirement is fulfilled, closely approaches the
mass M_{dyn}, evaluated from the velocities of all particles within r_c,
according to the virial theorem. Using r_c we can then determine an individual
density contrast Delta_c for each virialized halo, which can be compared with
the "virial" density contrast (Omega_m: matter
density parameter) obtained assuming a spherically symmetric and unperturbed
fluctuation growth. The spread in Delta_c is wide, and cannot be neglected when
global physical quantities related to the clusters are calculated, while the
average Delta_c is ~25 % smaller than the corresponding Delta_v; moreover if
is defined from the radius linked to Delta_v, we have a much worse
fit with particle mass then starting from {\it Rw} requirement.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, contribution to the XXXVIIth Rencontres de
Moriond, The Cosmological Model, Les Arc March 16-23 2002, to appear in the
proceeding
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