225 research outputs found
A Measurement of Time-Averaged Aerosol Optical Depth using Air-Showers Observed in Stereo by HiRes
Air fluorescence measurements of cosmic ray energy must be corrected for
attenuation of the atmosphere. In this paper we show that the air-showers
themselves can yield a measurement of the aerosol attenuation in terms of
optical depth, time-averaged over extended periods. Although the technique
lacks statistical power to make the critical hourly measurements that only
specialized active instruments can achieve, we note the technique does not
depend on absolute calibration of the detector hardware, and requires no
additional equipment beyond the fluorescence detectors that observe the air
showers. This paper describes the technique, and presents results based on
analysis of 1258 air-showers observed in stereo by the High Resolution Fly's
Eye over a four year span.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication by Astroparticle Physics
Journa
Flux-lattice melting in two-dimensional disordered superconductors
The flux line lattice melting transition in two-dimensional pure and
disordered superconductors is studied by a Monte Carlo simulation using the
lowest Landau level approximation and quasi-periodic boundary condition on a
plane. The position of the melting line was determined from the diffraction
pattern of the superconducting order parameter. In the clean case we confirmed
the results from earlier studies which show the existence of a quasi-long range
ordered vortex lattice at low temperatures. Adding frozen disorder to the
system the melting transition line is shifted to slightly lower fields. The
correlations of the order parameter for translational long range order of the
vortex positions seem to decay slightly faster than a power law (in agreement
with the theory of Carpentier and Le Doussal) although a simple power law decay
cannot be excluded. The corresponding positional glass correlation function
decays as a power law establishing the existence of a quasi-long range ordered
positional glass formed by the vortices. The correlation function
characterizing a phase coherent vortex glass decays however exponentially
ruling out the possible existence of a phase coherent vortex glass phase.Comment: 12 pages, 21 figures, final version to appear in Phys. Rev.
Deformations of quantum field theories on spacetimes with Killing vector fields
The recent construction and analysis of deformations of quantum field
theories by warped convolutions is extended to a class of curved spacetimes.
These spacetimes carry a family of wedge-like regions which share the essential
causal properties of the Poincare transforms of the Rindler wedge in Minkowski
space. In the setting of deformed quantum field theories, they play the role of
typical localization regions of quantum fields and observables. As a concrete
example of such a procedure, the deformation of the free Dirac field is
studied.Comment: 35 pages, 3 figure
Measurement of the Mass Splittings between the States
We present new measurements of photon energies and branching fractions for
the radiative transitions: Upsilon(2S)->gamma+chi_b(J=0,1,2). The masses of the
chi_b states are determined from the measured radiative photon energies. The
ratio of mass splittings between the chi_b substates,
r==(M[J=2]-M[J=1])/(M[J=1]-M[J=0]) with M the chi_b mass, provides information
on the nature of the bbbar confining potential. We find
r(1P)=0.54+/-0.02+/-0.02. This value is in conflict with the previous world
average, but more consistent with the theoretical expectation that r(1P)<r(2P);
i.e., that this mass splittings ratio is smaller for the chi_b(1P) triplet than
for the chi_b(2P) triplet.Comment: 11 page postscript file, postscript file also available through
http://w4.lns.cornell.edu/public/CLN
A Likelihood Method for Measuring the Ultrahigh Energy Cosmic Ray Composition
Air fluorescence detectors traditionally determine the dominant chemical
composit ion of the ultrahigh energy cosmic ray flux by comparing the averaged
slant depth of the shower maximum, , as a function of energy to the
slant depths expect ed for various hypothesized primaries. In this paper, we
present a method to make a direct measurement of the expected mean number of
protons and iron by comparing the shap es of the expected
distributions to the distribution for data. The advantages of this method
includes the use of information of the full distribution and its ability to
calculate a flux for various cosmic ray compositi ons. The same method can be
expanded to marginalize uncertainties due to choice of spectra, hadronic models
and atmospheric parameters. We demonstrate the technique with independent
simulated data samples from a parent sample of protons and iron. We accurately
predict the number of protons and iron in the parent sample and show that the
uncertainties are meaningful.Comment: 11 figures, 22 pages, accepted by Astroparticle Physic
Alternative Methods to Finding Patterns in HiRes Stereo Data
In this paper Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays UHECRs data observed by the HiRes
fluorescence detector in stereo mode is analyzed to search for events in the
sky with an arrival direction lying on a great circle. Such structure is known
as the arc structure. The arc structure is expected when the charged cosmic
rays pass through the galactic magnetic field. The arcs searched for could
represent a broad or a small scale anisotropy depending on the proposed source
model for the UHECRs. The Arcs in this paper are looked for using Hough
transform were Hough transform is a technique used to looking for patterns in
images. No statistically significant arcs were found in this study
General Overview of Black Hole Accretion Theory
I provide a broad overview of the basic theoretical paradigms of black hole
accretion flows. Models that make contact with observations continue to be
mostly based on the four decade old alpha stress prescription of Shakura &
Sunyaev (1973), and I discuss the properties of both radiatively efficient and
inefficient models, including their local properties, their expected stability
to secular perturbations, and how they might be tied together in global flow
geometries. The alpha stress is a prescription for turbulence, for which the
only existing plausible candidate is that which develops from the
magnetorotational instability (MRI). I therefore also review what is currently
known about the local properties of such turbulence, and the physical issues
that have been elucidated and that remain uncertain that are relevant for the
various alpha-based black hole accretion flow models.Comment: To be published in Space Science Reviews and as hard cover in the
Space Sciences Series of ISSI: The Physics of Accretion on to Black Holes
(Springer Publisher
The HERMES Spectrometer
The HERMES experiment is collecting data on inclusive and semi-inclusive deep inelastic scattering of polarised positrons from polarised targets of Il, D, and He-3. These data give information on the spin structure of the nucleon. This paper describes the forward angle spectrometer built for this purpose. The spectrometer includes numerous tracking chambers (micro-strip gas chambers, drift and proportional chambers) in front of and behind a 1.3 T.m magnetic field, as well as an extensive set of detectors for particle identification (a lead-glass calorimeter, a pre-shower detector, a transition radiation detector, and a threshold Cherenkov detector). Two of the main features of the spectrometer are its good acceptance and identification of both positrons and hadrons, in particular pions. These characteristics, together with the purity of the targets, are allowing HERMES to make unique contributions to the understanding of how the spins of the quarks contribute to the spin of the nucleon. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved
Regulation of inflammatory transcription factors by heat shock protein 70 in primary cultured astrocytes exposed to oxygen–glucose deprivation
Inflammation is an important event in ischemic injury. These immune responses begin with the expression of pro-inflammatory genes modulating transcription factors, such as nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB), activator protein-1 (AP-1), and signal transducers and activator of transcription-1 (STAT-1). The 70-kDa heat shock protein (Hsp70) can both induce and arrest inflammatory reactions and lead to improved neurological outcome in experimental brain injury and ischemia. Since Hsp70 are induced under heat stress, we investigated the link between Hsp70 neuroprotection and phosphorylation of inhibitor of κB (IκB), c-Jun N-terminal kinases (JNK) and p38 through co-immunoprecipitation and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) assay. Transcription factors and pro-inflammatory genes were quantified by immunoblotting, electrophoretic-mobility shift assay and reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction assays. The results showed that heat stress led to Hsp70 overexpression which rendered neuroprotection after ischemia-like injury. Overexpression Hsp70 also interrupts the phosphorylation of IκB, JNK and p38 and blunts DNA binding of their transcription factors (NF-κB, AP-1 and STAT-1), effectively downregulating the expression of pro-inflammatory genes in heat-pretreated astrocytes. Taken together, these results suggest that overexpression of Hsp70 may protect against brain ischemia via an anti-inflammatory mechanism by interrupting the phosphorylation of upstream of transcription factors
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