8,937 research outputs found
Superfluid to normal phase transition in strongly correlated bosons in two and three dimensions
Using quantum Monte Carlo simulations, we investigate the finite-temperature
phase diagram of hard-core bosons (XY model) in two- and three-dimensional
lattices. To determine the phase boundaries, we perform a finite-size-scaling
analysis of the condensate fraction and/or the superfluid stiffness. We then
discuss how these phase diagrams can be measured in experiments with trapped
ultracold gases, where the systems are inhomogeneous. For that, we introduce a
method based on the measurement of the zero-momentum occupation, which is
adequate for experiments dealing with both homogeneous and trapped systems, and
compare it with previously proposed approaches.Comment: 13 pages, 11 figures.
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevA.86.04362
On the recovery of ISW fluctuations using large-scale structure tracers and CMB temperature and polarization anisotropies
In this work we present a method to extract the signal induced by the
integrated Sachs-Wolfe (ISW) effect in the cosmic microwave background (CMB).
It makes use of the Linear Covariance-Based filter introduced by Barreiro et
al., and combines CMB data with any number of large-scale structure (LSS)
surveys and lensing information. It also exploits CMB polarization to reduce
cosmic variance. The performance of the method has been thoroughly tested with
simulations taking into account the impact of non-ideal conditions such as
incomplete sky coverage or the presence of noise. In particular, three galaxy
surveys are simulated, whose redshift distributions peak at low (), intermediate () and high redshift (). The
contribution of each of the considered data sets as well as the effect of a
mask and noise in the reconstructed ISW map is studied in detail. When
combining all the considered data sets (CMB temperature and polarization, the
three galaxy surveys and the lensing map), the proposed filter successfully
reconstructs a map of the weak ISW signal, finding a perfect correlation with
the input signal for the ideal case and around 80 per cent, on average, in the
presence of noise and incomplete sky coverage. We find that including CMB
polarization improves the correlation between input and reconstruction although
only at a small level. Nonetheless, given the weakness of the ISW signal, even
modest improvements can be of importance. In particular, in realistic
situations, in which less information is available from the LSS tracers, the
effect of including polarisation is larger. For instance, for the case in which
the ISW signal is recovered from CMB plus only one survey, and taking into
account the presence of noise and incomplete sky coverage, the improvement in
the correlation coefficient can be as large as 10 per cent.Comment: 17 pages, 15 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA
New Species of Scuttle Flies (Diptera: Phoridae) Associated with a Ponerine Ant (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) in Brazil
Among scuttle flies caught at colonies of the ant Dinoponera lucida Emery (Ponerinae) were Apocephalus exlucida Disney new species and females of two species of Megaselia Rondani that, which in our present state of knowledge, cannot be named until associated with their males
Particle linear theory on a self-gravitating perturbed cubic Bravais lattice
Discreteness effects are a source of uncontrolled systematic errors of N-body
simulations, which are used to compute the evolution of a self-gravitating
fluid. We have already developed the so-called "Particle Linear Theory" (PLT),
which describes the evolution of the position of self-gravitating particles
located on a perturbed simple cubic lattice. It is the discrete analogue of the
well-known (Lagrangian) linear theory of a self-gravitating fluid. Comparing
both theories permits to quantify precisely discreteness effects in the linear
regime. It is useful to develop the PLT also for other perturbed lattices
because they represent different discretizations of the same continuous system.
In this paper we detail how to implement the PLT for perturbed cubic Bravais
lattices (simple, body and face-centered) in a cubic simulation box. As an
application, we will study the discreteness effects -- in the linear regime --
of N-body simulations for which initial conditions have been set-up using these
different lattices.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures and 4 tables. Minor corrections to match published
versio
New Records, Including a New Species, of Scuttle Flies (Diptera: Phoridae) Associated with Leaf Cutter Ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) in Brazil
Among scuttle flies caught at colonies of leaf cutter ants were Apterophora bragancai Disney new species, and new host records for other species
Cell death induced by the application of alternating magnetic fields to nanoparticle-loaded dendritic cells
In this work, the capability of primary, monocyte-derived dendritic cells
(DCs) to uptake iron oxide magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) is assessed and a
strategy to induce selective cell death in these MNP-loaded DCs using external
alternating magnetic fields (AMFs) is reported. No significant decrease in the
cell viability of MNP-loaded DCs, compared to the control samples, was observed
after five days of culture. The amount of MNPs incorporated into the cytoplasm
was measured by magnetometry, which confirmed that 1 to 5 pg of the particles
were uploaded per cell. The intracellular distribution of these MNPs, assessed
by transmission electron microscopy, was found to be primarily inside the
endosomic structures. These cells were then subjected to an AMF for 30 min, and
the viability of the blank DCs (i.e., without MNPs), which were used as control
samples, remained essentially unaffected. However, a remarkable decrease of
viability from approximately 90% to 2-5% of DCs previously loaded with MNPs was
observed after the same 30 min exposure to an AMF. The same results were
obtained using MNPs having either positive (NH2+) or negative (COOH-) surface
functional groups. In spite of the massive cell death induced by application of
AMF to MNP-loaded DCs, the amount of incorporated magnetic particles did not
raise the temperature of the cell culture. Clear morphological changes at the
cell structure after magnetic field application were observed using scanning
electron microscopy. Therefore, local damage produced by the MNPs could be the
main mechanism for the selective cell death of MNP-loaded DCs under an AMF.
Based on the ability of these cells to evade the reticuloendothelial system,
these complexes combined with an AMF should be considered as a potentially
powerful tool for tumour therapy.Comment: In Press. 33 pages, 11 figure
Clostridium difficile colitis in patients after kidney and pancreas-kidney transplantation
Limited data exist about Clostridium difficile colitis (CDC) in solid organ transplant patients. Between 1/1/99 and 12/31/02, 600 kidney and 102 pancreas–kidney allograft recipients were transplanted. Thirty-nine (5.5%) of these patients had CDC on the basis of clinical and laboratory findings. Of these 39 patients, 35 have information available for review. CDC developed at a median of 30 days after transplantation, and the patients undergoing pancreas–kidney transplantation had a slightly higher incidence of CDC than recipients of kidney alone (7.8% vs. 4.5%, P> 0.05). All but one patient presented with diarrhea. Twenty-four patients (64.9%) were diagnosed in the hospital, and CDC occurred during first hospitalization in 14 patients (40%). Treatment was with oral metronidazole (M) in 33 patients (94%)and M + oral vancomycin (M + V) in 2 patients. Eight patients had recurrent CDC, which occurred at a median of 30 days (range 15–314) after the first episode. Two patients (5.7%) developed fulminant CDC, presented with toxic megacolon, and underwent colectomy. One of them died; the other patient survived after colectomy. CDC should be considered as a diagnosis in transplant patients with history of diarrhea after antibiotic use, and should be treated aggressively before the infection becomes complicated
Predictions for Triple Stars with and without a Pulsar in Star Clusters
Though about 80 pulsar binaries have been detected in globular clusters so
far, no pulsar has been found in a triple system in which all three objects are
of comparable mass. Here we present predictions for the abundance of such
triple systems, and for the most likely characteristics of these systems. Our
predictions are based on an extensive set of more than 500 direct simulations
of star clusters with primordial binaries, and a number of additional runs
containing primordial triples. Our simulations employ a number N_{tot} of equal
mass stars from N_{tot}=512 to N_{tot}=19661 and a primordial binary fraction
from 0-50%. In addition, we validate our results against simulations with
N=19661 that include a mass spectrum with a turn-off mass at 0.8 M_{sun},
appropriate to describe the old stellar populations of galactic globular
clusters. Based on our simulations, we expect that typical triple abundances in
the core of a dense cluster are two orders of magnitude lower than the binary
abundances, which in itself already suggests that we don't have to wait too
long for the first comparable-mass triple with a pulsar to be detected.Comment: 11 pages, minor changes to match MNRAS accepted versio
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