Pulsar Magnetosphere : A General Relativistic Treatment

A fully general relativistic description of the pulsar magnetosphere is provided. To be more concrete, a study of the pulsar magnetosphere is performed in the context of general relativistic magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) employing the so-called Grad-Shafranov approach. Not surprisingly, the resulting Grad-Shafranov equations and all the other related general relativistic MHD equations turn out to take essentially the same structures as those for the (rotating) black hole magnetosphere. Other different natures between the two cases including the structure of singular surfaces of MHD flows in each magnetosphere are essentially encoded in the different spacetime (metric) contents. In this way, the pulsar and the black hole magnetospheres can be described in an unified fashion. Particularly, the direction of poloidal currents circulating in the neutron star magnetosphere turns out to be the same as that of currents circulating in the black hole magnetosphere which, in turn, leads to the pulsar and the black hole spin-downs via the ``magnetic braking''.Comment: 42 pages, 3 figures, Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc.(MNRAS), in pres

Optical conductivity of one-dimensional narrow-gap semiconductors

The optical conductivities of two one-dimensional narrow-gap semiconductors, anticrossing quantum Hall edge states and carbon nanotubes, are studied using bosonization method. A lowest order renormalization group analysis indicates that the bare band gap can be treated perturbatively at high frequency/temperature. At very low energy scale the optical conductivity is dominated by the excitonic contribution, while at temperature higher than a crossover temperature the excitonic features are eliminated by thermal fluctuations. In case of carbon nanotubes the crossover temperature scale is estimated to be 300 K.Comment: RevTeX4 file, 6 pages, no figur

Nonmonotonic behavior of resistance in a superconductor-Luttinger liquid junction

Transport through a superconductor-Luttinger liquid junction is considered. When the interaction in the Luttinger liquid is repulsive, the resistance of the junction with a sufficiently clean interface shows nonmonotonic temperature- or voltage-dependence due to the competition between the superconductivity and the repulsive interaction. The result is discussed in connection with recent experiments on single-wall carbon nanotubes in contact with superconducting leads.Comment: Revtex4, 2 eps figure files, slightly revised from an earlier version submitted to PRL on 2001.12.

Fermion Production in Strong Magnetic Field and its Astrophysical Implications

We calculate the effective potential of a strong magnetic field induced by fermions with anomalous magnetic moments which couple to the electromagnetic field in the form of the Pauli interaction. For a uniform magnetic field, we find the explicit form of the effective potential. It is found that the non-vanishing imaginary part develops for a magnetic field stronger than a critical field and has a quartic form which is quite different from the exponential form of the Schwinger process. We also consider a linear magnetic field configuration as an example of inhomogeneous magnetic fields. We find that the imaginary part of the effective potential is nonzero even below the critical field and shows an exponentially decreasing behavior with respect to the inverse of the magnetic field gradient, which is the non-perturbative characteristics analogous to the Schwinger process. These results imply the instability of the strong magnetic field to produce fermion pairs as a purely magnetic effect. The possible applications to the astrophysical phenomena with strong magnetic field are also discussed.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figure

Lie algebra cohomology and group structure of gauge theories

We explicitly construct the adjoint operator of coboundary operator and obtain the Hodge decomposition theorem and the Poincar\'e duality for the Lie algebra cohomology of the infinite-dimensional gauge transformation group. We show that the adjoint of the coboundary operator can be identified with the BRST adjoint generator $Q^{\dagger}$ for the Lie algebra cohomology induced by BRST generator $Q$. We also point out an interesting duality relation - Poincar\'e duality - with respect to gauge anomalies and Wess-Zumino-Witten topological terms. We consider the consistent embedding of the BRST adjoint generator $Q^{\dagger}$ into the relativistic phase space and identify the noncovariant symmetry recently discovered in QED with the BRST adjoint N\"other charge $Q^{\dagger}$.Comment: 24 pages, RevTex, Revised version submitted to J. Math. Phy

MER Telemetry Processor

MERTELEMPROC processes telemetered data in data product format and generates Experiment Data Records (EDRs) for many instruments (HAZCAM, NAVCAM, PANCAM, microscopic imager, Moessbauer spectrometer, APXS, RAT, and EDLCAM) on the Mars Exploration Rover (MER). If the data is compressed, then MERTELEMPROC decompresses the data with an appropriate decompression algorithm. There are two compression algorithms (ICER and LOCO) used in MER. This program fulfills a MER specific need to generate Level 1 products within a 60-second time requirement. EDRs generated by this program are used by merinverter, marscahv, marsrad, and marsjplstereo to generate higher-level products for the mission operations. MERTELEPROC was the first GDS program to process the data product. Metadata of the data product is in XML format. The software allows user-configurable input parameters, per-product processing (not streambased processing), and fail-over is allowed if the leading image header is corrupted. It is used within the MER automated pipeline. MERTELEMPROC is part of the OPGS (Operational Product Generation Subsystem) automated pipeline, which analyzes images returned by in situ spacecraft and creates level 1 products to assist in operations, science, and outreach

Eccomi pronto : implementation of a Socio-Emotional Development curriculum in a South Korean elementary school

‘Eccomi Pronto’ (EP), an elementary school socio-emotional learning curriculum that was originally developed and evaluated in Italy was translated in Korean and implemented and evaluated in 4th grade classrooms of a primary school in South Korea. Qualitative data from teachers indicated that EP improved the self-reflection and selfdirection of students, resulted in pedagogically useful insights into the psychological functioning of students, and enhanced the quality of teacher-student interaction. However, statistically significant changes in students’ engaged, academic behavior (as measured by an 8-item survey) were not noted. Teachers reported that the core of the EP curriculum was appropriate for the South Korean educational context. Teachers also recommended modifications in the follow-up learning activities to make these activities more consistent with South Korean education practices.peer-reviewe