Very large scale structures in growing neutrino quintessence

A quintessence scalar field or cosmon interacting with neutrinos can have important effects on cosmological structure formation. Within growing neutrino models the coupling becomes effective only in recent times, when neutrinos become non-relativistic, stopping the evolution of the cosmon. This can explain why dark energy dominates the universe only in a rather recent epoch by relating the present dark energy density to the small mass of neutrinos. Such models predict the presence of stable neutrino lumps at supercluster scales (~200 Mpc and bigger), caused by an attractive force between neutrinos which is stronger than gravity and mediated by the cosmon. We present a method to follow the initial non-linear formation of neutrino lumps in physical space, by integrating numerically on a 3D grid non-linear evolution equations, until virialization naturally occurs. As a first application, we show results for cosmologies with final large neutrino average mass ~2 eV: in this case, neutrino lumps indeed form and mimic very large cold dark matter structures, with a typical gravitational potential 10^{-5} for a lump size ~10 Mpc, and reaching larger values for lumps of about 200 Mpc. A rough estimate of the cosmological gravitational potential at small k in the non-linear regime, Phi_nu = 10^{-6} (k/k_0)^{-2}, 1.2x10^{-2} h/Mpc < k_0 < 7.8x10^{-2} h/Mpc, turns out to be many orders of magnitude smaller than an extrapolation of the linear evolution of density fluctuations. The size of the neutrino-induced gravitational potential could modify the spectrum of CMB anisotropies for small angular momenta.Comment: 17 pages, 16 figures, accepted for publication in Physical Review D, minor changes and correction

Klein-Gordon oscillator in a topologically nontrivial space-time

In this study, we analyze solutions of the wave equation for scalar particles in a space-time with nontrivial topology. Solutions for the Klein--Gordon oscillator are found considering two configurations of this space-time. In the first one, it is assumed the $S^{1}\times R^{3}$ space where the metric is written in the usual inertial frame of reference. In the second case, we consider a rotating reference frame adapted to the circle S1. We obtained compact expressions for the energy spectrum and for the particles wave functions in both configurations. Additionally, we show that the energy spectrum of the solution associated to the rotating system has an additional term that breaks the symmetry around $E = 0$

Phase Transition and Monopoles Densities in a Nearest Neighbors Two-Dimensional Spin Ice Model

In this work, we show that, due to the alternating orientation of the spins in the ground state of the artificial square spin ice, the influence of a set of spins at a certain distance of a reference spin decreases faster than the expected result for the long range dipolar interaction, justifying the use of the nearest neighbor two dimensional square spin ice model as an effective model. Using an extension of the model presented in ref. [Scientific Reports 5, 15875 (2015)], considering the influence of the eight nearest neighbors of each spin on the lattice, we analyze the thermodynamics of the model and study the monopoles and string densities dependence as a function of the temperature.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figure

The pinewood nematode, Bursaphelenchus xylophilus, in Madeira Island

The environmental conditions in Madeira Island are favorable for the presence and dissemination of the pinewood nematode (PWN), Bursaphelenchus xylophilus. Five hundred Pinus pinaster wood samples were collected in several forest areas and PWN was detected in 22.8 % of the samples. Bursaphelenchus xylophilus isolates from Madeira Island displayed the species-specific diagnostic characters. A morphological variation in the female tail terminus was detected. In most females, the tail presented a broadly rounded terminus and, occasionally, a digitate terminus with a terminal nipple-like extension resembling a mucro. PCR ITS-RFLP analysis revealed that Madeira Island isolates exhibited patterns specific to the species B. xylophilus and similar to virulent isolates. Amplified ITS regions were further sequenced and no genetic diversity was found for this genomic region among 17 Portuguese isolates (Madeira Island and Continental Portugal). Phylogenetic analysis revealed that Portuguese isolates grouped with isolates from China, Korea and one isolate from Japa

Compressed Sensing With Prior Information: Strategies, Geometry, and Bounds

We address the problem of compressed sensing (CS) with prior information: reconstruct a target CS signal with the aid of a similar signal that is known beforehand, our prior information. We integrate the additional knowledge of the similar signal into CS via 1-1 and 1-2 minimization. We then establish bounds on the number of measurements required by these problems to successfully reconstruct the original signal. Our bounds and geometrical interpretations reveal that if the prior information has good enough quality, 1-1 minimization improves the performance of CS dramatically. In contrast, 1-2 minimization has a performance very similar to classical CS, and brings no significant benefits. In addition, we use the insight provided by our bounds to design practical schemes to improve prior information. All our findings are illustrated with experimental results