2,029 research outputs found
The Age, Metallicity and Alpha-Element Abundance of Galactic Globular Clusters from Single Stellar Population Models
Establishing the reliability with which stellar population parameters can be
measured is vital to extragalactic astronomy. Galactic GCs provide an excellent
medium in which to test the consistency of Single Stellar Population (SSP)
models as they should be our best analogue to a homogeneous (single) stellar
population. Here we present age, metallicity and -element abundance
measurements for 48 Galactic globular clusters (GCs) as determined from
integrated spectra using Lick indices and SSP models from Thomas, Maraston &
Korn, Lee & Worthey and Vazdekis et al. By comparing our new measurements to
independent determinations we are able to assess the ability of these SSPs to
derive consistent results -- a key requirement before application to
heterogeneous stellar populations like galaxies.
We find that metallicity determinations are extremely robust, showing good
agreement for all models examined here, including a range of enhancement
methods. Ages and -element abundances are accurate for a subset of our
models, with the caveat that the range of these parameters in Galactic GCs is
limited. We are able to show that the application of published Lick index
response functions to models with fixed abundance ratios allows us to measure
reasonable -element abundances from a variety of models. We also
examine the age-metallicity and [/Fe]-metallicity relations predicted
by SSP models, and characterise the possible effects of varied model horizontal
branch morphology on our overall results.Comment: 22 pages, 19 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA
Parallel Metric Tree Embedding based on an Algebraic View on Moore-Bellman-Ford
A \emph{metric tree embedding} of expected \emph{stretch~}
maps a weighted -node graph to a weighted tree with such that, for all ,
and
. Such embeddings are highly useful for designing
fast approximation algorithms, as many hard problems are easy to solve on tree
instances. However, to date the best parallel -depth algorithm that achieves an asymptotically optimal expected stretch of
requires
work and a metric as input.
In this paper, we show how to achieve the same guarantees using
depth and
work, where and is an arbitrarily small constant.
Moreover, one may further reduce the work to at the expense of increasing the expected stretch to
.
Our main tool in deriving these parallel algorithms is an algebraic
characterization of a generalization of the classic Moore-Bellman-Ford
algorithm. We consider this framework, which subsumes a variety of previous
"Moore-Bellman-Ford-like" algorithms, to be of independent interest and discuss
it in depth. In our tree embedding algorithm, we leverage it for providing
efficient query access to an approximate metric that allows sampling the tree
using depth and work.
We illustrate the generality and versatility of our techniques by various
examples and a number of additional results
Extended instantons generated on the lattice
We have been able to observe directly extended instantons on the lattice,
with a new method that does not require dislocations to measure them, and where
we do not perform cooling. We showed, based on the simple Abelian Higgs model
in dim., that one can extract the instanton and anti-instanton density
and their size, by measuring the topological charge, , on sub-volumes
larger than the instanton sizes, but smaller than the periodic lattice of size
. We are working on the generalization for non-abelian models.Comment: Talk presented at the LATTICE96(topology) ,uuencoded 3 pp in Latex, 1
ps fig., uses espcrc2.sty and epsf to include fi
The Isgur-Wise function in a relativistic model for system
We use the Dirac equation with a ``(asymptotically free) Coulomb + (Lorentz
scalar) linear '' potential to estimate the light quark wavefunction for mesons in the limit . We use these wavefunctions to
calculate the Isgur-Wise function for orbital and radial
ground states in the phenomenologically interesting range . We find a simple expression for the zero-recoil slope, , where is the energy eigenvalue
of the light quark, which can be identified with the parameter
of the Heavy Quark Effective Theory. This result implies an upper bound of
for the slope . Also, because for a very light quark the size of the meson is determined mainly by the
``confining'' term in the potential , the shape of
is seen to be mostly sensitive to the dimensionless
ratio . We present results for the ranges of
parameters , and
light quark masses and compare to existing
experimental data and other theoretical estimates. Fits to the data give:
,
and [ARGUS
'93]; , and
[CLEO '93]; ${\bar\Lambda_{u,d}}^2/Comment: 22 pages, Latex, 4 figures (not included) available by fax or via
email upon reques
Current Concepts Imaging in COVID-19 and the Challenges for Low and Middle Income Countries
With nearly 3,800,000 cases and 270,000 deaths reported worldwide, COVID-19 is a global pandemic unlike any we have seen in our lifetimes (1). As early as 1995, the WHO was warning of a global infectious disease crisis, citing 30 new infectious diseases emerging in the past 20 years, loss of antibiotic effectiveness, low rates of immunization, poverty, and inadequate investment in public health contributing to the more than 17 million people dying each year from infectious diseases, principally in Low and Middle Income countries (LMIC) (2). Unlike previous infectious diseases, at the time of this writing over 63% of the total reported cases of COVID-19 are in 6 High Income Countries (HIC): USA, Italy, Spain, France, Germany and the UK.
Information concerning the imaging findings in COVID-19 has been rapidly disseminated from the centers first affected by the pandemic. This article attempts to summarize the current state of knowledge regarding the imaging findings in COVID-19, focusing on pulmonary findings, and offer recommendation for the use of imaging for diagnosis and surveillance of COVID-19, particularly in LMIC
Scalars from Top-condensation Models at Hadron Colliders
We study the production and decay of neutral scalars and pseudo-scalars at
hadron colliders, in theories where the top-quark mass is the result of a
condensate. We show that the dominant decay channel for masses below
the threshold is the flavor changing mode . This is a consequence
of the non-universal nature of the underlying interactions in all
top-condensation models and provides a model-independent signature of these
scenarios. We show that an upgraded Tevatron is sensitive to a sizeable region
of the interesting parameter space and that the LHC will highly constrain these
models through this flavor violating channel.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures. Minor changes in figures for readibility. final
version to appear in PR
Changing Ionization Conditions in SDSS Galaxies with AGN as a Function of Environment from Pairs to Clusters
We study how AGN activity changes across environments from galaxy pairs to
clusters using galaxies with from the Sloan Digital Sky
Survey (SDSS). Using a refined technique, we apply a continuous measure of AGN
activity, characteristic of the ionization state of the narrow-line emitting
gas. Changes in key emission-line ratios ([NII]/H,
[OIII]/H) between different samples allow us to disentangle
different environmental effects while removing contamination. We confirm that
galaxy interactions enhance AGN activity. However, conditions in the central
regions of clusters are inhospitable for AGN activity even if galaxies are in
pairs. These results can be explained through models of gas dynamics in which
pair interactions stimulate the transfer of gas to the nucleus and clusters
suppress gas availability for accretion onto the central black hole.Comment: Accepted for publication in Ap
Slicing Strategies for the Generalised Type-2 Mamdani Fuzzy Inferencing System
The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/[insert DOI]".As a three-dimensional object, there are a number of ways of slicing a generalised type-2 fuzzy set. In the context of the Mamdani Fuzzy Inferencing System, this paper concerns three accepted slicing strategies, the vertical slice, the wavy slice, and the horizontal slice or alpha -plane. Two ways of de ning the generalised type-2 fuzzy set, vertical slices and wavy slices, are presented. Fuzzi cation and inferencing is presented in terms of vertical slices. After that, the application of all three slicing strategies to defuzzi cation is described, and their strengths
and weaknesses assessed
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