4,611 research outputs found
Shallow extra mixing in solar twins inferred from Be abundances
Lithium and beryllium are destroyed at different temperatures in stellar
interiors. As such, their relative abundances offer excellent probes of the
nature and extent of mixing processes within and below the convection zone. We
determine Be abundances for a sample of eight solar twins for which Li
abundances have previously been determined. The analyzed solar twins span a
very wide range of age, 0.5-8.2 Gyr, which enables us to study secular
evolution of Li and Be depletion. We gathered high-quality UVES/VLT spectra and
obtained Be abundances by spectral synthesis of the Be II 313 nm doublet. The
derived beryllium abundances exhibit no significant variation with age. The
more fragile Li, however, exhibits a monotonically decreasing abundance with
increasing age. Therefore, relatively shallow extra mixing below the convection
zone is necessary to simultaneously account for the observed Li and Be behavior
in the Sun and solar twins
Future dynamics in f(R) theories
The gravity theories provide an alternative way to explain the current
cosmic acceleration without invoking dark energy matter component. However, the
freedom in the choice of the functional forms of gives rise to the
problem of how to constrain and break the degeneracy among these gravity
theories on theoretical and/or observational grounds. In this paper to proceed
further with the investigation on the potentialities, difficulties and
limitations of gravity, we examine the question as to whether the future
dynamics can be used to break the degeneracy between gravity theories by
investigating the future dynamics of spatially homogeneous and isotropic dust
flat models in two gravity theories, namely the well known gravity and another by A. Aviles et al., whose motivation comes
from the cosmographic approach to gravity. To this end we perform a
detailed numerical study of the future dynamic of these flat model in these
theories taking into account the recent constraints on the cosmological
parameters made by the Planck team. We show that besides being powerful for
discriminating between gravity theories, the future dynamics technique
can also be used to determine the fate of the Universe in the framework of
these gravity theories. Moreover, there emerges from our numerical
analysis that if we do not invoke a dark energy component with
equation-of-state parameter one still has dust flat FLRW solution
with a big rip, if gravity deviates from general relativity via . We also show that FLRW dust solutions with do not
necessarily lead to singularity.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures. V2: Generality and implications of the results
are emphasized, connection with the recent literature improved, typos
corrected, references adde
Geometrical Constraints on the Cosmological Constant
The cosmological constant problem is examined under the assumption that the
extrinsic curvature of the space-time contributes to the vacuum. A compensation
mechanism based on a variable cosmological term is proposed. Under a suitable
hypothesis on the behavior of the extrinsic curvature, we find that an
initially large rolls down rapidly to zero during the early stages
of the universe. Using perturbation analysis, it is shown that such vacuum
behaves essentially as a spin-2 field which is independent of the metric.Comment: [email protected], 17 pages, Latex, 2 figures obtained by reques
Dynamic model of gene regulation for the lac operon
Gene regulatory network is a collection of DNA which interact with each other and with other matter in the cell. The lac operon is an example of a relatively simple genetic network and is one of the best-studied structures in the Escherichia coli bacteria. In this work we consider a deterministic model of the lac operon with a noise term, representing the stochastic nature of the regulation. The model is written in terms of a system of simultaneous first order differential equations with delays. We investigate an analytical and numerical solution and analyse the range of values for the parameters corresponding to a stable solution
Diffusive epidemic process: theory and simulation
We study the continuous absorbing-state phase transition in the
one-dimensional diffusive epidemic process via mean-field theory and Monte
Carlo simulation. In this model, particles of two species (A and B) hop on a
lattice and undergo reactions B -> A and A + B -> 2B; the total particle number
is conserved. We formulate the model as a continuous-time Markov process
described by a master equation. A phase transition between the (absorbing)
B-free state and an active state is observed as the parameters (reaction and
diffusion rates, and total particle density) are varied. Mean-field theory
reveals a surprising, nonmonotonic dependence of the critical recovery rate on
the diffusion rate of B particles. A computational realization of the process
that is faithful to the transition rates defining the model is devised,
allowing for direct comparison with theory. Using the quasi-stationary
simulation method we determine the order parameter and the survival time in
systems of up to 4000 sites. Due to strong finite-size effects, the results
converge only for large system sizes. We find no evidence for a discontinuous
transition. Our results are consistent with the existence of three distinct
universality classes, depending on whether A particles diffusive more rapidly,
less rapidly, or at the same rate as B particles.Comment: 19 pages, 5 figure
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