Thermodynamic Geometry of Nambu -- Jona Lasinio model

The formalism of Riemannian geometry is applied to study the phase transitions in Nambu -Jona Lasinio (NJL) model. Thermodynamic geometry reliably describes the phase diagram, both in the chiral limit and for finite quark masses. The comparison between the geometrical study of NJL model and of (2+1) Quantum Chromodynamics at high temperature and small baryon density shows a clear connection between chiral symmetry restoration/breaking and deconfinement/confinement regimes

Deconfinement transition effects on cosmological parameters and primordial gravitational waves spectrum

The cosmological evolution can be described in terms of directly measurable cosmological scalar parameters (deceleration q, jerk j, snap s, etc⋯) constructed out of high order derivatives of the scale factor. Their behavior at the critical temperature of the quantum chromodynamics (QCD) phase transition in early universe could be a specific tool to study the transition, analogously to the fluctuations of conserved charges in QCD. We analyze the effect of the crossover transition from quarks and gluons to hadrons in early universe on the cosmological scalars and on the gravitational wave spectrum, by using the recent lattice QCD equation of state and including the electroweak degrees of freedom. Near the transition the cosmological parameters follow the behavior of QCD trace anomaly and of the speed of sound of the entire system. The effects of deconfinement turn out to be more relevant for the modification of the primordial spectrum of gravitational waves rather than for the evolution of the cosmological parameters. Our complete analysis, based on lattice QCD simulations and on the hadron resonance gas below the critical temperature, refines previous results

Optical variability of the BL Lacertae object GC 0109+224. Multiband behaviour and time scales from a 7-years monitoring campaign

We present the most continuous data base of optical $BVR_{c}I_{c}$ observations ever published on the BL Lacertae object GC 0109+224, collected mainly by the robotic telescope of the Perugia University Observatory in the period November 1994-February 2002. These observations have been complemented by data from the Torino Observatory, collected in the period July 1995-January 1999, and Mt. Maidanak Observatory (December 2000). GC 0109+224 showed rapid optical variations and six major outbursts were observed at the beginning and end of 1996, in fall 1998, at the beginning and at the end of 2000, and at the beginning of 2002. Fast and large-amplitude drops characterized its flux behaviour. The $R_c$ magnitude ranged from 13.3 (16.16 mJy) to 16.46 (0.8 mJy), with a mean value of 14.9 (3.38 mJy). In the periods where we collected multi-filter observations, we analyzed colour and spectral indexes, and the variability patterns during some flares. The long-term behaviour seems approximatively achromatic, but during some isolated outbursts we found evidence of the typical loop-like hysteresis behaviour, suggesting that rapid optical variability is dominated by non-thermal cooling of a single emitting particle population. We performed also a statistical analysis of the data, through the discrete correlation function (DCF), the structure function (SF), and the Lomb-Scargle periodogram, to identify characteristic times scales, from days to months, in the light curves, and to quantify the mode of variability. We also include the reconstruction of the historical light curve and a photometric calibration of comparison stars, to favour further extensive optical monitoring of this interesting blazar.Comment: 13 pages, 11 PS figures, 1 EPS figure, 3 tables, accepted by Astronomy and Astrophysics. Uses A&A documentclass aa.cls, and the package graphicx.st

A postprocessing technique for a discontinuous Galerkin discretization of time-dependent Maxwell's equations

We present a novel postprocessing technique for a discontinuous Galerkin (DG) discretization of time-dependent Maxwell's equations that we couple with an explicit Runge-Kutta time-marching scheme. The postprocessed electromagnetic field converges one order faster than the unprocessed solution in the H(curl)-norm. The proposed approach is local, in the sense that the enhanced solution is computed independently in each cell of the computational mesh, and at each time step of interest. As a result, it is inexpensive to compute, especially if the region of interest is localized, either in time or space. The key ideas behind this postprocessing technique stem from hybridizable discontinuous Galerkin (HDG) methods, which are equivalent to the analyzed DG scheme for specific choices of penalization parameters. We present several numerical experiments that highlight the superconvergence properties of the postprocessed electromagnetic field approximation

Mito-nuclear genetic comparison in a Wolbachia infected weevil: insights on reproductive mode, infection age and evolutionary forces shaping genetic variation

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Maternally inherited endosymbionts like <it>Wolbachia pipientis </it>are in linkage disequilibrium with the mtDNA of their hosts. Therefore, they can induce selective sweeps, decreasing genetic diversity over many generations. This sex ratio distorter, that is involved in the origin of parthenogenesis and other reproductive alterations, infects the parthenogenetic weevil <it>Naupactus cervinus</it>, a serious pest of ornamental and fruit plants.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Molecular evolution analyses of mitochondrial (<it>COI</it>) and nuclear (<it>ITS1</it>) sequences from 309 individuals of <it>Naupactus cervinus </it>sampled over a broad range of its geographical distribution were carried out. Our results demonstrate lack of recombination in the nuclear fragment, non-random association between nuclear and mitochondrial genomes and the consequent coevolution of both genomes, being an indirect evidence of apomixis. This weevil is infected by a single <it>Wolbachia </it>strain, which could have caused a moderate bottleneck in the invaded population which survived the initial infection.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Clonal reproduction and <it>Wolbachia </it>infection induce the coevolution of bacterial, mitochondrial and nuclear genomes. The time elapsed since the <it>Wolbachia </it>invasion would have erased the traces of the demographic crash in the mtDNA, being the nuclear genome the only one that retained the signal of the bottleneck. The amount of genetic change accumulated in the mtDNA and the high prevalence of <it>Wolbachia </it>in all populations of <it>N. cervinus </it>agree with the hypothesis of an ancient infection. <it>Wolbachia </it>probably had great influence in shaping the genetic diversity of <it>N. cervinus</it>. However, it would have not caused the extinction of males, since sexual and asexual infected lineages coexisted until recent times.</p

Application of a CFD validated model to plan fan heater position within flour mills during a heat treatment for insect pest control

The development of environmentally-friendly methods as alternatives to chemical fumigation for controlling insect pests has attracted public attention. Among these methods, heat treatment is based on the use of fan heaters that are positioned by operators who typically establish their number and position within buildings to be treated. The aim of this research was to improve heat treatment effectiveness by applying a validated computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model for planning fan heater positions within the building environment. Based on a CFD model, which was built and validated according to experimental data acquired during heat treatment of a flour mill, simulations were carried out by changing the position and/or rotation of fan heaters with the aim of enhancing temperature distribution inside the building. The results showed that in some simulations the percentage of internal wall surfaces having a temperature value lower than that required for heat treatment efficacy was considerably reduced, by up to 56.7%. Therefore, the CFD approach proposed in this study could be used as a decision support system for improving heat treatment efficacy

A special irreducible matrix representation of the real Clifford algebra C(3,1)

4x4 Dirac (gamma) matrices (irreducible matrix representations of the Clifford algebras C(3,1), C(1,3), C(4,0)) are an essential part of many calculations in quantum physics. Although the final physical results do not depend on the applied representation of the Dirac matrices (e.g. due to the invariance of traces of products of Dirac matrices), the appropriate choice of the representation used may facilitate the analysis. The present paper introduces a particularly symmetric real representation of 4x4 Dirac matrices (Majorana representation) which may prove useful in the future. As a byproduct, a compact formula for (transformed) Pauli matrices is found. The consideration is based on the role played by isoclinic 2-planes in the geometry of the real Clifford algebra C(3,0) which provide an invariant geometric frame for it. It can be generalized to larger Clifford algebras.Comment: 23 pages LaTeX, to appear in the J. Math. Phys. (v2: appendix B on Pauli matrices and references are added, minor other changes