11,913 research outputs found
Properties of Galactic Outflows: Measurements of the Feedback from Star Formation
Properties of starburst-driven outflows in dwarf galaxies are compared to
those in more massive galaxies. Over a factor of roughly 10 in galactic
rotation speed, supershells are shown to lift warm ionized gas out of the disk
at rates up to several times the star formation rate. The amount of mass
escaping the galactic potential, in contrast to the disk, does depend on the
galactic mass. The temperature of the hottest extended \x emission shows little
variation around K, and this gas has enough energy to escape
from the galaxies with rotation speed less than approximately 130 km/s.Comment: 11 pages + 3 figues. Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical
Journa
Matterwave Transport Without Transit
Classically it is impossible to have transport without transit, i.e., if the
points one, two and three lie sequentially along a path then an object moving
from one to three must, at some point in time, be located at two. However, for
a quantum particle in a three-well system it is possible to transport the
particle between wells one and three such that the probability of finding it at
any time in the classically accessible state in well two is negligible. We
consider theoretically the analogous scenario for a Bose-Einstein condensate
confined within a three well system. In particular, we predict the adiabatic
transportation of an interacting Bose-Einstein condensate of 2000 Li atoms from
well one to well three without transiting the allowed intermediate region. To
an observer of this macroscopic quantum effect it would appear that, over a
timescale of the order of one second, the condensate had transported, but not
transited, a macroscopic distance of 20 microns between wells one and three.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure
Examining the methodology of participatory design to create innovative sanitation technologies in rural Malawi
Top-down sanitation programs that promote a specific sanitation technology based on the presumptions of âoutside expertsâ have been criticised for endorsing unsustainable, expensive and inappropriate technologies. In response to these failings, a new era of demand-led sanitation programs (including community-led total sanitation and sanitation marketing) encourage greater participation of users to create appropriate sanitation technologies. This paper examines the use of participatory design sessions with local builders and householders in three rural districts in Malawi. The paper provides an account of the participatory design methodology and critically reflects on the processes and challenges in relation to power, creativity and ownership. The designs created during the sessions are presented with recommendations for further testing and structural refinement
The Clustering of Massive Halos
The clustering properties of dark matter halos are a firm prediction of
modern theories of structure formation. We use two large volume,
high-resolution N-body simulations to study how the correlation function of
massive dark matter halos depends upon their mass and formation history. We
find that halos with the lowest concentrations are presently more clustered
than those of higher concentration, the size of the effect increasing with halo
mass; this agrees with trends found in studies of lower mass halos. The
clustering dependence on other characterizations of the full mass accretion
history appears weaker than the effect with concentration. Using the integrated
correlation function, marked correlation functions, and a power-law fit to the
correlation function, we find evidence that halos which have recently undergone
a major merger or a large mass gain have slightly enhanced clustering relative
to a randomly chosen population with the same mass distribution.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures; text improved, references and one figure added;
accepted for publication in Ap
The correlation between black hole mass and bulge velocity dispersion in hierarchical galaxy formation models
Recent work has demonstrated that there is a tight correlation between the
mass of a black hole and the velocity dispersion of the bulge of its host
galaxy. We show that the model of Kauffmann & Haehnelt, in which bulges and
supermassive black holes both form during major mergers, produces a correlation
between M_bh and sigma with slope and scatter comparable to the observed
relation. In the model, the M_bh - sigma relation is significantly tighter than
the correlation between black hole mass and bulge luminosity or the correlation
between bulge luminosity and velocity dispersion. There are two reasons for
this: i) the gas masses of bulge progenitors depend on the velocity dispersion
but not on the formation epoch of the bulge, whereas the stellar masses of the
progenitors depend on both; ii) mergers between galaxies move black holes along
the observed M_bh - sigma relation, even at late times when the galaxies are
gas-poor and black holes grow mainly by merging of pre-existing black holes. We
conclude that the small scatter in the observed M_bh - sigma relation is
consistent with a picture in which bulges and black holes form over a wide
range in redshift.Comment: 5 pages, LaTeX, 3 postscript figures included; submitted to MNRA
Quantum electromagnetic field in a three dimensional oscillating cavity
We compute the photon creation inside a perfectly conducting, three
dimensional oscillating cavity, taking the polarization of the electromagnetic
field into account. As the boundary conditions for this field are both of
Dirichlet and (generalized) Neumann type, we analyze as a preliminary step the
dynamical Casimir effect for a scalar field satisfying generalized Neumann
boundary conditions. We show that particle production is enhanced with respect
to the case of Dirichlet boundary conditions. Then we consider the transverse
electric and transverse magnetic polarizations of the electromagnetic field.
For resonant frequencies, the total number of photons grows exponentially in
time for both polarizations, the rate being greater for transverse magnetic
modes.Comment: 11 pages, 1 figur
Hominin tracks in southern Africa: a review and an approach to identification
Three Late Pleistocene hominin tracksites have been reported from coastal aelioanites in South Africa. Two have been dated to 124 ka and 117 ka , and the third is inferred to be 90 ka. There are no other globally reported sites for probable Homo sapiens tracks older than
46 ka. Given this documented record, a search for further hominin tracksites in southern Africa may well yield additional positive results. However, this is a field that demands scientific rigour, as false positive tracksites (pseudotracks) may occur. Criteria have been
developed for the identification of fossil vertebrate tracks and hominin tracks, but these are specific neither to southern Africa nor to aeolianites.An important caveat is that the tracks of shod humans would not fulfil these criteria. Preservation of tracks varies with facies
and is known to be suboptimal in aeolianites. An analysis of the tracks from the three documented South African sites, along with pseudotracks and tracks of questionable provenance, allows for the proposal and development of guidelines for fossil hominin track
identification that are of specific relevance to southern Africa. Such guidelines have broader implications for understanding the constraints that track preservation and substrate have on identifying diagnostic morphological features.Palaeontological Scientific Trust (PAST)JNC201
Evaporation of Sessile Droplets on Slippery Liquid-Infused Porous Surfaces (SLIPS)
Over the past decade, the most common approach to creating liquid shedding surfaces has been to amplify the effects of nonwetting surface chemistry, using micro/nanotexturing to create superhydrophobic and superoleophobic surfaces. Recently, an alternative approach using impregnation of micro/nanotextured surfaces with immiscible lubricating liquids to create slippery liquid-infused porous surfaces (SLIPS) has been developed. These types of surfaces open up new opportunities to study the mechanism of evaporation of sessile droplets in zero contact angle hysteresis situations where the contact line is completely mobile. In this study, we fabricated surfaces consisting of square pillars (10â90 ÎŒm) of SU-8 photoresist arranged in square lattice patterns with the center-to-center separation between pillars of 100 ÎŒm, on which a hydrophobic coating was deposited and the textures impregnated by a lubricating silicone oil. These surfaces showed generally low sliding angles of 1° or less for small droplets of water. Droplet profiles were more complicated than on nonimpregnated surfaces and displayed a spherical cap shape modified by a wetting ridge close to the contact line due to balancing the interfacial forces at the line of contact between the droplet, the lubricant liquid and air (represented by a Neumann triangle). The wetting ridge leads to the concept of a wetting âskirtâ of lubricant around the base of the droplet. For the SLIP surfaces, we found that the evaporation of small sessile droplets (âŒ2 mm in diameter) followed an ideal constant contact angle mode where the apparent contact angle was defined from the intersection of the substrate profile with the droplet spherical cap profile. A theoretical model based on diffusion controlled evaporation was able to predict a linear dependence in time for the square of the apparent contact radius. The experimental data was in excellent quantitative agreement with the theory and enabled estimates of the diffusion constant to be obtained
The DEEP2 Galaxy Redshift Survey: The Evolution of Void Statistics from z~1 to z~0
We present measurements of the void probability function (VPF) at z~1 using
data from the DEEP2 Redshift Survey and its evolution to z~0 using data from
the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). We measure the VPF as a function of galaxy
color and luminosity in both surveys and find that it mimics trends displayed
in the two-point correlation function, ; namely that samples of brighter,
red galaxies have larger voids (i.e. are more strongly clustered) than fainter,
blue galaxies. We also clearly detect evolution in the VPF with cosmic time,
with voids being larger in comoving units at z~0. We find that the reduced VPF
matches the predictions of a `negative binomial' model for galaxies of all
colors, luminosities, and redshifts studied. This model lacks a physical
motivation, but produces a simple analytic prediction for sources of any number
density and integrated two-point correlation function, \bar{\xi}. This implies
that differences in the VPF across different galaxy populations are consistent
with being due entirely to differences in the population number density and
\bar{\xi}. The robust result that all galaxy populations follow the negative
binomial model appears to be due to primarily to the clustering of dark matter
halos. The reduced VPF is insensitive to changes in the parameters of the halo
occupation distribution, in the sense that halo models with the same \bar{\xi}
will produce the same VPF. For the wide range of galaxies studied, the VPF
therefore does not appear to provide useful constraints on galaxy evolution
models that cannot be gleaned from studies of \bar{\xi} alone. (abridged)Comment: 17 pages, 15 figures, ApJ accepte
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