On the equivalence of Lambda(t) and gravitationally induced particle production cosmologies

The correspondence between cosmological models powered by a decaying vacuum energy density and gravitationally induced particle production is investigated. Although being physically different in the physics behind them we show that both classes of cosmologies under certain conditions can exhibit the same dynamic and thermodynamic behavior. Our method is applied to obtain three specific models that may be described either as Lambda(t)CDM or gravitationally induced particle creation cosmologies. In the point of view of particle production models, the later class of cosmologies can be interpreted as a kind of one-component unification of the dark sector. By using current type Ia supernovae data, recent estimates of the cosmic microwave background shift parameter and baryon acoustic oscillations measurements we also perform a statistical analysis to test the observational viability within the two equivalent classes of models and we obtain the best-fit of the free parameters. By adopting the Akaike information criterion we also determine the rank of the models considered here. Finally, the particle production cosmologies (and the associated decaying Lambda(t)-models) are modeled in the framework of field theory by a phenomenological scalar field model.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures, new comments and 8 references added. Accepted for publication in Physics Letters

Deteccao de doencas na cultura do pimentao no submedio do Vale Sao Francisco-1998 a 2000.

A deteccao de doencas em 172 amostras de pimentao, provenientes de areas do Submedio do Vale do Sao Francisco, foi realizada no Laboratorio de Fitopatologia da Embrapa Semi-Arido, Petrolina, PE, no periodo de 1998 a 2000. Em 162 (94,2% ) amostras foram detectados fungos, bacterias e virus e em 7 (4,07%) amostras foram verificados danos causados por insetos, deficiencia nutricional e danos causados por herbicidas. Em 3 (1,7%) amostras, as causas dos sintomas nao foram identificadas. Infeccoes causadas por bacterias e por fungos foram detectadas em 32 (18,6%) e 27 ( 15,7% ) amostras, respectivamente. Cinco genero de fungos -Leveil,ula 9 ( 15,2% ), Cercospora 7 (11,8%), Colletotrichum 6 (10,2%), Rhizoctonia 4 (6,8%) e Sclerotium 1 ( l'7% ) -e tres de bacteria -Xanthomonas 26 ( 44, 1% ), Erwinia 3 ( 5, 1% ) e Ralstonia 3 (5,1%) -foram identificados nas amostras analisadas. A especie de tospovirus Groundnut ringspot virus foi detectada em 103 amostras.Suplemento. Edição do 41 Congresso Brasileiro de Olericultura; 1 Encontro sobre Plantas Medicinais, Aromáticas e Condimentares, Brasília, DF, jul. 2001

Optics and pool : play the game

In this communication we will present an experimental work to be carried out by students, from even the early ages of basic school, in a non-formal environment. Using a pool table (a game well known to many students) students will perform a series of experiments learning and demonstrating the laws of light reflection. The idea of associating the use of a pool table to the teaching of geometric optics is based on the need to make the teaching process more appealing on behalf of the students. Being pool a popular and appealing game it would be possible to teach physics concepts in an apparently informal or non-formal context. This assembly is also simplified due to the fact that only day-to-day materials are used, reducing its final cost as we only need to perform a few reversible changes to a pool table

Critical Behavior of a Three-State Potts Model on a Voronoi Lattice

We use the single-histogram technique to study the critical behavior of the three-state Potts model on a (random) Voronoi-Delaunay lattice with size ranging from 250 to 8000 sites. We consider the effect of an exponential decay of the interactions with the distance,$J(r)=J_0\exp(-ar)$, with $a>0$, and observe that this system seems to have critical exponents $\gamma$ and $\nu$ which are different from the respective exponents of the three-state Potts model on a regular square lattice. However, the ratio $\gamma/\nu$ remains essentially the same. We find numerical evidences (although not conclusive, due to the small range of system size) that the specific heat on this random system behaves as a power-law for $a=0$ and as a logarithmic divergence for $a=0.5$ and $a=1.0$Comment: 3 pages, 5 figure

Majority-Vote Model on a Random Lattice

The stationary critical properties of the isotropic majority vote model on random lattices with quenched connectivity disorder are calculated by using Monte Carlo simulations and finite size analysis. The critical exponents $\gamma$ and $\beta$ are found to be different from those of the Ising and majority vote on the square lattice model and the critical noise parameter is found to be $q_{c}=0.117\pm0.005$.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figure

Reação de 55 genótipos de abóboras e morangas à infecção natural com Papaya ringspot virus - type watermelon (PRSV-W) e Zucchini yellow mosaic virus (XYNV) em campo.

Resumo 1712

An interacting model for the cosmological dark sector

We discuss a new interacting model for the cosmological dark sector in which the attenuated dilution of cold dark matter scales as $a^{-3}f(a)$, where f(a) is an arbitrary function of the cosmic scale factor $a$. From thermodynamic arguments, we show that f(a) is proportional to entropy source of the particle creation process. In order to investigate the cosmological consequences of this kind of interacting models, we expand f(a) in a power series and viable cosmological solutions are obtained. Finally, we use current observational data to place constraints on the interacting function f(a).Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, Phys. Rev. D (in press