Detecting stars, galaxies, and asteroids with Gaia

(Abridged) Gaia aims to make a 3-dimensional map of 1,000 million stars in our Milky Way to unravel its kinematical, dynamical, and chemical structure and evolution. Gaia's on-board detection software discriminates stars from spurious objects like cosmic rays and Solar protons. For this, parametrised point-spread-function-shape criteria are used. This study aims to provide an optimum set of parameters for these filters. We developed an emulation of the on-board detection software, which has 20 free, so-called rejection parameters which govern the boundaries between stars on the one hand and sharp or extended events on the other hand. We evaluate the detection and rejection performance of the algorithm using catalogues of simulated single stars, double stars, cosmic rays, Solar protons, unresolved galaxies, and asteroids. We optimised the rejection parameters, improving - with respect to the functional baseline - the detection performance of single and double stars, while, at the same time, improving the rejection performance of cosmic rays and of Solar protons. We find that the minimum separation to resolve a close, equal-brightness double star is 0.23 arcsec in the along-scan and 0.70 arcsec in the across-scan direction, independent of the brightness of the primary. We find that, whereas the optimised rejection parameters have no significant impact on the detectability of de Vaucouleurs profiles, they do significantly improve the detection of exponential-disk profiles. We also find that the optimised rejection parameters provide detection gains for asteroids fainter than 20 mag and for fast-moving near-Earth objects fainter than 18 mag, albeit this gain comes at the expense of a modest detection-probability loss for bright, fast-moving near-Earth objects. The major side effect of the optimised parameters is that spurious ghosts in the wings of bright stars essentially pass unfiltered.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&

Lattice Simulation of Nuclear Multifragmentation

Motivated by the decade-long debate over the issue of criticality supposedly observed in nuclear multifragmentation, we propose a dynamical lattice model to simulate the phenomenon. Its Ising Hamiltonian mimics a short range attractive interaction which competes with a thermal-like dissipative process. The results here presented, generated through an event-by-event analysis, are in agreement with both experiment and those produced by a percolative (non-dynamical) model.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figure

Sistema reprodutivo de Bertholletia excelsa e implicações para o manejo e conservação da espécie.

A castanheira é uma espécie arbórea de grande porte, cujas sementes apresentam grande valor ecológico e econômico, sendo comercializadas e servindo como alternativa de renda para as famílias que vivem dos produtos retirados da floresta. Assim, o objetivo deste trabalho foi estimar parâmetros do sistema de reprodução em uma população natural de Bertholletia excelsa no Acre

A method for solve integrable A2A_2 spin chains combining different representations

A non homogeneous spin chain in the representations $\{3 \}$ and $\{3^*\}$ of $A_2$ is analyzed. We find that the naive nested Bethe ansatz is not applicable to this case. A method inspired in the nested Bethe ansatz, that can be applied to more general cases, is developed for that chain. The solution for the eigenvalues of the trace of the monodromy matrix is given as two coupled Bethe equations different from that for a homogeneous chain. A conjecture about the form of the solutions for more general chains is presented. PACS: 75.10.Jm, 05.50+q 02.20 SvComment: PlainTeX, harvmac, 13 pages, 3 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev.

Diversidade genética de populações naturais de castanheira (Bertholletia excelsa) com marcadores ISSR.

A castanheira possui um grande valor econômico devido à exploração de suas sementes. Consequentemente, é uma espécie arbórea muito visada para fins de extrativismo. Nesse sentido, as análises genéticas são de grande importância, pois geram um conhecimento sobre a estrutura genética relevante para a elaboração de projetos de conservação da espécie. Os marcadores moleculares ISSR têm sido utilizados para estudos genéticos por serem altamente informativos, multilocos e de baixo custo, permitindo a caracterização da diversidade genética da espécie. O objetivo deste trabalho foi avaliar a estrutura genética populacional da castanheira nas regionais do Baixo e Alto Acre, no Estado do Acre

Eletroforese de isoenzimas de plântulas na identificação de espécies de Brachiaria.

Lotes de sementes de braquiaria comercializados no Brasil vem apresentando contaminacoes som sementes de outras especies pertencentes ao mesmo genero. Deste modo, uma das especies de braquiaria atuaria como planta infestante da outra no agroecossistema e a erradicacao da especie infestante seria dificultada pela agressividade caracteristca do genero e pela falta de seletividade dos herbecidas disponiveis no mercado

Catastrophic senescence and semelparity in the Penna aging model

The catastrophic senescence of the Pacific salmon is among the initial tests used to validate the Penna aging model. Based on the mutation accumulation theory, the sudden decrease in fitness following reproduction may be solely attributed to the semelparity of the species. In this work, we report other consequences of mutation accumulation. Contrary to earlier findings, such dramatic manifestation of aging depends not only on the choice of breeding strategy but also on the value of the reproduction age, R, and the mutation threshold, T. Senescence is catastrophic when $T \leq R$. As the organism's tolerance for harmful genetic mutations increases, the aging process becomes more gradual. We observe senescence that is threshold dependent whenever T>R. That is, the sudden drop in survival rate occurs at age equal to the mutation threshold value

Exactly solvable quantum spin ladders associated with the orthogonal and symplectic Lie algebras

We extend the results of spin ladder models associated with the Lie algebras $su(2^n)$ to the case of the orthogonal and symplectic algebras $o(2^n),\ sp(2^n)$ where n is the number of legs for the system. Two classes of models are found whose symmetry, either orthogonal or symplectic, has an explicit n dependence. Integrability of these models is shown for an arbitrary coupling of XX type rung interactions and applied magnetic field term.Comment: 7 pages, Late

Ground State Structure and Low Temperature Behaviour of an Integrable Chain with Alternating Spins

In this paper we continue the investigation of an anisotropic integrable spin chain, consisting of spins $s=1$ and $s=\frac{1}{2}$, started in our paper \cite{meissner}. The thermodynamic Bethe ansatz is analysed especially for the case, when the signs of the two couplings $\bar{c}$ and $\tilde{c}$ differ. For the conformally invariant model ($\bar{c}=\tilde{c}$) we have calculated heat capacity and magnetic susceptibility at low temperature. In the isotropic limit our analysis is carried out further and susceptibilities are calculated near phase transition lines (at $T=0$).Comment: 22 pages, LaTeX, uses ioplppt.sty and PicTeX macro