506 research outputs found
Duality for symmetric second rank tensors. II. The linearized gravitational field
The construction of dual theories for linearized gravity in four dimensions
is considered. Our approach is based on the parent Lagrangian method previously
developed for the massive spin-two case, but now considered for the zero mass
case. This leads to a dual theory described in terms of a rank two symmetric
tensor, analogous to the usual gravitational field, and an auxiliary
antisymmetric field. This theory has an enlarged gauge symmetry, but with an
adequate partial gauge fixing it can be reduced to a gauge symmetry similar to
the standard one of linearized gravitation. We present examples illustrating
the general procedure and the physical interpretation of the dual fields. The
zero mass case of the massive theory dual to the massive spin-two theory is
also examined, but we show that it only contains a spin-zero excitation.Comment: 20 pages, no figure
New pixelized Micromegas detector for the COMPASS experiment
New Micromegas (Micro-mesh gaseous detectors) are being developed in view of
the future physics projects planned by the COMPASS collaboration at CERN.
Several major upgrades compared to present detectors are being studied:
detectors standing five times higher luminosity with hadron beams, detection of
beam particles (flux up to a few hundred of kHz/mm^2, 10 times larger than for
the present detectors) with pixelized read-out in the central part, light and
integrated electronics, and improved robustness. Studies were done with the
present detectors moved in the beam, and two first pixelized prototypes are
being tested with muon and hadron beams in real conditions at COMPASS. We
present here this new project and report on two series of tests, with old
detectors moved into the beam and with pixelized prototypes operated in real
data taking condition with both muon and hadron beams.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures, proceedings to the Micro-Pattern Gaseous
Detectors conference (MPGD2009), 12-15 June 2009, Kolympari, Crete, Greece
Minor details added and language corrections don
Cortical and subcortical alterations associated with precision visuomotor behavior in individuals with autism spectrum disorder
In addition to core deficits in social-communication abilities and repetitive behaviors and interests, many 2 patients with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) experience developmental comorbidities, including 3 sensorimotor issues. Sensorimotor issues are common in ASD and associated with more severe clinical 4 symptoms. Importantly, sensorimotor behaviors are precisely quantifiable and highly translational, 5 offering promising targets for neurophysiological studies of ASD. We used functional MRI to identify 6 brain regions associated with sensorimotor behavior using a visually-guided precision gripping task in 7 individuals with ASD (N=20) and age-, IQ-, and handedness-matched controls (N=18). During 8 visuomotor behavior, individuals with ASD showed greater force variability than controls. BOLD signal 9 for multiple cortical and subcortical regions was associated with force variability, including motor and 10 premotor cortex, posterior parietal cortex, extrastriate cortex, putamen, and cerebellum. Activation in 11 right premotor cortex scaled with sensorimotor variability in controls, but not in ASD. Individuals with 12 ASD showed greater activation than controls in left putamen and left cerebellar lobule VIIb and activation 13 in these regions was associated with more severe clinically-rated symptoms of ASD. Together, these 14 results suggest that greater sensorimotor variability in ASD is associated with altered cortical-striatal 15 processes supporting action selection and cortical-cerebellar circuits involved in feedback-guided reactive 16 adjustments of motor output. Our findings also indicate that atypical organization of visuomotor cortical 17 circuits may result in heightened reliance on subcortical circuits typically dedicated to motor skill 18 acquisition. Overall, these results provide new evidence that sensorimotor alterations in ASD involve 19 aberrant cortical and subcortical organization that may contribute to key clinical issues in patients. 20
21
New and noteworthy: This is the first known study to examine functional brain activation during 22 precision visuomotor behavior in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). We replicate previous findings of 23 elevated force variability in ASD and find these deficits are associated with atypical function of ventral 24 premotor cortex, putamen, and posterolateral cerebellum, indicating cortical-striatal processes supporting 25 action selection and cortical-cerebellar circuits involved in feedback-guided reactive adjustments of motor 26 output may be key targets for understanding the neurobiology of ASD.NICHD 055751NIMH R01 12743-01NCATS TL1 TR002368,Kansas Center for Autism Research and Training (K-CART) Research Investment Council Strategic Initiative Gran
Quantum Einstein-Maxwell Fields: A Unified Viewpoint from the Loop Representation
We propose a naive unification of Electromagnetism and General Relativity
based on enlarging the gauge group of Ashtekar's new variables. We construct
the connection and loop representations and analyze the space of states. In the
loop representation, the wavefunctions depend on two loops, each of them
carrying information about both gravitation and electromagnetism. We find that
the Chern-Simons form and the Jones Polynomial play a role in the model.Comment: 13pp. no figures, Revtex, UU-HEP-92/9, IFFI 92-1
New pixelized Micromegas detector with low discharge rate for the COMPASS experiment
New Micromegas (Micro-mesh gaseous detectors) are being developed in view of
the future physics projects planned by the COMPASS collaboration at CERN.
Several major upgrades compared to present detectors are being studied:
detectors standing five times higher luminosity with hadron beams, detection of
beam particles (flux up to a few hundred of kHz/mm^{2}, 10 times larger than
for the present Micromegas detectors) with pixelized read-out in the central
part, light and integrated electronics, and improved robustness. Two solutions
of reduction of discharge impact have been studied, with Micromegas detectors
using resistive layers and using an additional GEM foil. Performance of such
detectors has also been measured. A large size prototypes with nominal active
area and pixelized read-out has been produced and installed at COMPASS in 2010.
In 2011 prototypes featuring an additional GEM foil, as well as an resistive
prototype, are installed at COMPASS and preliminary results from those
detectors presented very good performance. We present here the project and
report on its status, in particular the performance of large size prototypes
with an additional GEM foil.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures, proceedings to the Micro-Pattern Gaseous
Detectors conference (MPGD2011), 29-31 August 2011, Kobe, Japa
Neutrinos in a spherical box
In the present paper we study some neutrino properties as they may appear in
the low energy neutrinos emitted in triton decay with maximum neutrino energy
of 18.6 keV. The technical challenges to this end can be achieved by building a
very large TPC capable of detecting low energy recoils, down to a a few tenths
of a keV, within the required low background constraints. More specifically We
propose the development of a spherical gaseous TPC of about 10-m in radius and
a 200 Mcurie triton source in the center of curvature. One can list a number of
exciting studies, concerning fundamental physics issues, that could be made
using a large volume TPC and low energy antineutrinos: 1) The oscillation
length involving the small angle of the neutrino mixing matrix, directly
measured in this disappearance experiment, is fully contained inside the
detector. Measuring the counting rate of neutrino-electron elastic scattering
as a function of the distance of the source will give a precise and unambiguous
measurement of the oscillation parameters free of systematic errors. In fact
first estimates show that even with a year's data taking a sensitivity of a few
percent for the measurement of the above angle will be achieved. 2) The low
energy detection threshold offers a unique sensitivity for the neutrino
magnetic moment which is about two orders of magnitude beyond the current
experimental limit. 3) Scattering at such low neutrino energies has never been
studied and any departure from the expected behavior may be an indication of
new physics beyond the standard model. In this work we mainly focus on the
various theoretical issues involved including a precise determination of the
Weinberg angle at very low momentum transfer.Comment: 16 Pages, LaTex, 7 figures, talk given at NANP 2003, Dubna, Russia,
June 23, 200
Visuomotor brain network activation and functional connectivity among individuals with autism spectrum disorder
Sensorimotor abnormalities are common in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and predictive of functional outcomes, though their neural underpinnings remain poorly understood. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we examined both brain activation and functional connectivity during visuomotor behavior in 27 individuals with ASD and 30 typically developing (TD) controls (ages 9–35 years). Participants maintained a constant grip force while receiving visual feedback at three different visual gain levels. Relative to controls, ASD participants showed increased force variability, especially at high gain, and reduced entropy. Brain activation was greater in individuals with ASD than controls in supplementary motor area, bilateral superior parietal lobules, and contralateral middle frontal gyrus at high gain. During motor action, functional connectivity was reduced between parietal-premotor and parietal-putamen in individuals with ASD compared to controls. Individuals with ASD also showed greater age-associated increases in functional connectivity between cerebellum and visual, motor, and prefrontal cortical areas relative to controls. These results indicate that visuomotor deficits in ASD are associated with atypical activation and functional connectivity of posterior parietal, premotor, and striatal circuits involved in translating sensory feedback information into precision motor behaviors, and that functional connectivity of cerebellar–cortical sensorimotor and nonsensorimotor networks show delayed maturation
Towards the classification of static vacuum spacetimes with negative cosmological constant
We present a systematic study of static solutions of the vacuum Einstein
equations with negative cosmological constant which asymptotically approach the
generalized Kottler (``Schwarzschild--anti-de Sitter'') solution, within
(mainly) a conformal framework. We show connectedness of conformal infinity for
appropriately regular such space-times. We give an explicit expression for the
Hamiltonian mass of the (not necessarily static) metrics within the class
considered; in the static case we show that they have a finite and well defined
Hawking mass. We prove inequalities relating the mass and the horizon area of
the (static) metrics considered to those of appropriate reference generalized
Kottler metrics. Those inequalities yield an inequality which is opposite to
the conjectured generalized Penrose inequality. They can thus be used to prove
a uniqueness theorem for the generalized Kottler black holes if the generalized
Penrose inequality can be established.Comment: the discussion of our results includes now some solutions of Horowitz
and Myers; typos corrected here and there; a shortened version of this
version will appear in Journal of Mathematical Physic
Fast readout of the COMPASS RICH CsI-MWPC photon chambers
Abstract A new readout system for CsI-coated MWPCs, used in the COMPASS RICH detector, has been proposed and tested in nominal high-rate conditions. It is based on the APV25-S1 analog sampling chip, and will replace the Gassiplex chip readout used up to now. The APV chip, originally designed for silicon microstrip detectors, is shown to perform well even with "slow" signals from a MWPC, keeping a signal-to-noise ratio of 9. For every trigger the system reads three consecutive in-time samples, thus allowing to extract information on the signal shape and its timing. The effective time window is reduced from ∼3 μs for the Gassiplex to below 400 ns for the APV25-S1 chip, reducing pile-up events at high particle rate. A significant improvement of the signal-to-background ratio by a factor 5–6 with respect to the original readout has been measured in the central region of the RICH detector. Due to its pipelined architecture, the new readout system also considerably reduces the dead time per event, allowing efficient data taking at higher trigger rate
Many-body effects in 16O(e,e'p)
Effects of nucleon-nucleon correlations on exclusive reactions on
closed-shell nuclei leading to single-hole states are studied using
( MeV, ) as an example. The quasi-hole wave
function, calculated from the overlap of translationally invariant many-body
variational wave functions containing realistic spatial, spin and isospin
correlations, seems to describe the initial state of the struck proton
accurately inside the nucleus, however it is too large at the surface. The
effect of short-range correlations on the final state is found to be largely
cancelled by the increase in the transparency for the struck proton. It is
estimated that the values of the spectroscopic factors obtained with the DWIA
may increase by a few percent due to correlation effects in the final state.Comment: 21 Pages, PHY-7849-TH-9
- …