5,678 research outputs found
Merged infrared catalogue
A compilation of equatorial coordinates, spectral types, magnitudes, and fluxes from five catalogues of infrared observations is presented. This first edition of the Merged Infrared Catalogue contains 11,201 oservations from the Two-Micron Sky Survey, Observations of Infrared Radiation from Cool Stars, the Air Force Geophysics Laboratory four Color Infrared Sky Survey and its Supplemental Catalog, and from Catalog of 10 micron Celestial Objects (HALL). This compilation is a by-product of a computerized infrared data base under development at Goddard Space Flight Center; the objective is to maintain a complete and current record of all infrared observations from 1 micron m to 1000 micron m of nonsolar system objects. These observations are being placed into a standardized system
Helodermatid Lizard From the Mio-Pliocene Oak-Hickory Forest of Tennessee, Eastern USA, and a Review of Monstersaurian Osteoderms
The extant venomous Gila monster and beaded lizards, species of Heloderma, live today in southwestern USA and south along the Pacific coastal region into Central America, but their fossil history is poorly understood. Here we report helodermatid osteoderms (dermal ossicles) from the late Miocene-early Pliocene Gray Fossil Site, eastern Tennessee USA. Twenty-three species of mammals are known from the fauna including abundant Tapirus polkensis, as well as fishes, anurans, salamanders, turtles, Alligator, birds, and snakes. Beaded lizards belong to the Monstersauria, a clade that includes Primaderma + Paraderma + Gobiderma + Helodermatidae (Estesia, Eurheloderma, Lowesaurus, and Heloderma). Osteoderms of lizards in this clade are unique within Squamata; they typically are circular to polygonal in outline, domed to flat-domed in cross-section, have a vermiculate surface texture, are not compound structures, and do not have imbricate surfaces as on many scincomorph and anguid lizards. We review and characterize the osteoderms of all members of Monstersauria. Osteoderms from the cranium, body, and limbs of Heloderma characteristically have a ring-extension (bony flange) at least partly surrounding the dome. Its presence appears to be a key character distinct to all species of Heloderma, consequently, we propose the presence of a ring-extension to be an apomorphy. Three osteoderms from the Gray Fossil Site range from 1.5 to 3.0 mm in diameter, have the circular shape of helodermatid osteoderms with a domed apical surface, and have the ring-extensions, permiting generic identification. Macrobotanical remains from the Gray Fossil Site indicate an oak-hickory subtropical forest dominated by Quercus (oak) and Carya (hickory) with some conifer species, an understorey including the climbing vines Sinomenium, Sargentodoxa, and Vitis. Plant and mammal remains indicate a strong Asian influence
Born-Oppenheimer Approximation near Level Crossing
We consider the Born-Oppenheimer problem near conical intersection in two
dimensions. For energies close to the crossing energy we describe the wave
function near an isotropic crossing and show that it is related to generalized
hypergeometric functions 0F3. This function is to a conical intersection what
the Airy function is to a classical turning point. As an application we
calculate the anomalous Zeeman shift of vibrational levels near a crossing.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure, Lette
The Born Oppenheimer wave function near level crossing
The standard Born Oppenheimer theory does not give an accurate description of
the wave function near points of level crossing. We give such a description
near an isotropic conic crossing, for energies close to the crossing energy.
This leads to the study of two coupled second order ordinary differential
equations whose solution is described in terms of the generalized
hypergeometric functions of the kind 0F3(;a,b,c;z). We find that, at low
angular momenta, the mixing due to crossing is surprisingly large, scaling like
\mu^(1/6), where \mu is the electron to nuclear mass ratio.Comment: 21 pages, 7 figure
Local Extinction and Unintentional Rewilding of Bighorn Sheep (Ovis canadensis) on a Desert Island
Bighorn sheep ( Ovis canadensis) were not known to live on Tiburón Island, the largest island in the Gulf of California and Mexico, prior to the surprisingly successful introduction of 20 individuals as a conservation measure in 1975. Today, a stable island population of ∼500 sheep supports limited big game hunting and restocking of depleted areas on the Mexican mainland. We discovered fossil dung morphologically similar to that of bighorn sheep in a dung mat deposit from Mojet Cave, in the mountains of Tiburón Island. To determine the origin of this cave deposit we compared pellet shape to fecal pellets of other large mammals, and extracted DNA to sequence mitochondrial DNA fragments at the 12S ribosomal RNA and control regions. The fossil dung was 14C-dated to 1476-1632 calendar years before present and was confirmed as bighorn sheep by morphological and ancient DNA (aDNA) analysis. 12S sequences closely or exactly matched known bighorn sheep sequences; control region sequences exactly matched a haplotype described in desert bighorn sheep populations in southwest Arizona and southern California and showed subtle differentiation from the extant Tiburón population. Native desert bighorn sheep previously colonized this land-bridge island, most likely during the Pleistocene, when lower sea levels connected Tiburón to the mainland. They were extirpated sometime in the last ∼1500 years, probably due to inherent dynamics of isolated populations, prolonged drought, and (or) human overkill. The reintroduced population is vulnerable to similar extinction risks. The discovery presented here refutes conventional wisdom that bighorn sheep are not native to Tiburón Island, and establishes its recent introduction as an example of unintentional rewilding, defined here as the introduction of a species without knowledge that it was once native and has since gone locally extinct
Calculation of Densities of States and Spectral Functions by Chebyshev Recursion and Maximum Entropy
We present an efficient algorithm for calculating spectral properties of
large sparse Hamiltonian matrices such as densities of states and spectral
functions. The combination of Chebyshev recursion and maximum entropy achieves
high energy resolution without significant roundoff error, machine precision or
numerical instability limitations. If controlled statistical or systematic
errors are acceptable, cpu and memory requirements scale linearly in the number
of states. The inference of spectral properties from moments is much better
conditioned for Chebyshev moments than for power moments. We adapt concepts
from the kernel polynomial approximation, a linear Chebyshev approximation with
optimized Gibbs damping, to control the accuracy of Fourier integrals of
positive non-analytic functions. We compare the performance of kernel
polynomial and maximum entropy algorithms for an electronic structure example.Comment: 8 pages RevTex, 3 postscript figure
Neural Filters for Jet Analysis
We study the efficiency of a neural-net filter and deconvolution method for
estimating jet energies and spectra in high-background reactions such as
nuclear collisions at the relativistic heavy-ion collider and the large hadron
collider. The optimal network is shown to be surprisingly close but not
identical to a linear high-pass filter. A suitably constrained deconvolution
method is shown to uncover accurately the underlying jet distribution in spite
of the broad network response. Finally, we show that possible changes of the
jet spectrum in nuclear collisions can be analyzed quantitatively, in terms of
an effective energy loss with the proposed method. {} {Dong D W and Gyulassy M
1993}{Neural filters for jet analysis}
{(LBL-31560) Physical Review E Vol~47(4) pp~2913-2922}Comment: 21 pages of Postscript, (LBL-31560
Ceratoscopelus maderensis : pecular sound-scattering layer identified with this myctophid fish
Reprint. Science, vol. 160, no. 3831, 1968, pp. 991-993. Originally issued as Reference No. 68-58, series later renamed WHOI-.A sound- scattering layer, composed of discrete
hyperbolic echo-sequences and apparently restricted to the
Slope Water region of the western North Atlantic, has been
identified from the Deep Submergence Research Vehicle ALVIN
with schools of the myctophid fish Ceratoscopelus maderensis.
By diving into the layer and using ALVIN's echo-ranging sonar,
we approached and visually identified the sound scatterers. The
number of echo sequences observed with the surface echo-sounder
(1 /23. 76 x 105 cubic meters of water) checked roughly with the
number of sonar targets observed from the submarine (1/7. 45 x
105 cubic meters) . The fish schools appeared to be 5 to 10 meters
thick, 10 to 100 meters in diameter, and on centers 100 to 200
meters apart. Density within schools was estimated at 10 to 15
fish per cubic meter.Supported in part by contracts Nonr-3484(00)
and Nonr-4029(00) and by NSF grant GB-4431
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