8,081 research outputs found
Monopole Planets and Galaxies
Spherical clusters of SU(2) BPS monopoles are investigated here. A large
class of monopole solutions is found using an abelian approximation, where the
clusters are spherically symmetric, although exact solutions cannot have this
symmetry precisely. Monopole clusters generalise the Bolognesi magnetic bag
solution of the same charge, but they are always larger. Selected density
profiles give structures analogous to planets of uniform density, and galaxies
with a density decaying as the inverse square of the distance from the centre.
The Bolognesi bag itself has features analogous to a black hole, and this
analogy between monopole clusters and astrophysical objects with or without
black holes in their central region is developed further. It is also shown that
certain exact, platonic monopoles of small charge have sizes and other features
consistent with what is expected for magnetic bags.Comment: 23 pages. Revised version to appear in Physical Review D. New
introduction and conclusions; analogy between monopoles and astrophysical
objects developed furthe
Influence, originality and similarity in directed acyclic graphs
We introduce a framework for network analysis based on random walks on
directed acyclic graphs where the probability of passing through a given node
is the key ingredient. We illustrate its use in evaluating the mutual influence
of nodes and discovering seminal papers in a citation network. We further
introduce a new similarity metric and test it in a simple personalized
recommendation process. This metric's performance is comparable to that of
classical similarity metrics, thus further supporting the validity of our
framework.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure
Four-quark state in QCD
The spectra of some 0++ four-quark states, which are composed of \bar qq
pairs, are calculated in QCD. The light four-quark states are calculated using
the traditional sum rules while four-quark states containing one heavy quark
are computed in HQET. For constructing the interpolating currents, different
couplings of the color and spin inside the \bar qq pair are taken into account.
It is found that the spin and color combination has little effect on the mass
of the four-quark states.Comment: 10 pages, 4 ps figures, Late
Release of mercury halides from KCl denuders in the presence of ozone
KCl-coated denuders have become a standard method for measurement of gaseous oxidized mercury, but their performance has not been exhaustively evaluated, especially in field conditions. In this study, KCl-coated and uncoated quartz denuders loaded with HgCl<sub>2</sub> and HgBr<sub>2</sub> lost 29–55% of these compounds, apparently as elemental mercury, when exposed to ozone (range of 6–100 ppb tested). This effect was also observed for denuders loaded with gaseous oxidized mercury at a field site in Nevada (3–37% of oxidized mercury lost). In addition, collection efficiency decreased by 12–30% for denuders exposed to 50 ppb ozone during collection of HgCl<sub>2</sub>. While data presented were obtained from laboratory tests and as such do not exactly simulate field sampling conditions, these results indicate that the KCl denuder oxidized mercury collection method may not be as robust as previously thought. This work highlights needs for further testing of this method, clear identification of gaseous oxidized mercury compounds in the atmosphere, and development of field calibration methods for these compounds
Ultraviolet HST Observations of the Jet in M87
We present new ultraviolet photometry of the jet in M87 obtained from HST
WFPC2 imaging. We combine these ultraviolet data with previously published
photometry for the knots of the jet in radio, optical, and X-ray, and fit three
theoretical synchrotron models to the full data set. The synchrotron models
consistently overpredict the flux in the ultraviolet when fit over the entire
dataset. We show that if the fit is restricted to the radio through ultraviolet
data, the synchrotron models can provide a good match to the data. The break
frequencies of these fits are much lower than previous estimates. The implied
synchrotron lifetimes for the bulk of the emitting population are longer than
earlier work, but still much shorter than the estimated kinematic lifetimes of
the knots. The observed X-ray flux cannot be successfully explained by the
simple synchrotron models that fit the ultraviolet and optical fluxes. We
discuss the possible implications of these results for the physical properties
of the M87 jet. We also observe increased flux for the HST-1 knot that is
consistent with previous results for flaring. This observation fills in a
significant gap in the time coverage early in the history of the flare, and
therefore sets constraints on the initial brightening of the flare.Comment: 14 pages, 2 figures, Accepted for publication in ApJ, changed
lightcurve and caption in Figure
Release of mercury halides from KCl denuders in the presence of ozone
KCl-coated denuders have become a standard method for measurement of gaseous oxidized mercury, but their performance has not been exhaustively evaluated, especially in field conditions. In this study, KCl-coated and uncoated quartz denuders loaded with HgCl<sub>2</sub> and HgBr<sub>2</sub> lost 29–55% of these compounds, apparently as elemental mercury, when exposed to ozone (range of 6–100 ppb tested). This effect was also observed for denuders loaded with gaseous oxidized mercury at a field site in Nevada (3–37% of oxidized mercury lost). In addition, collection efficiency decreased by 12–30% for denuders exposed to 50 ppb ozone during collection of HgCl<sub>2</sub>. While data presented were obtained from laboratory tests and as such do not exactly simulate field sampling conditions, these results indicate that the KCl denuder oxidized mercury collection method may not be as robust as previously thought. This work highlights needs for further testing of this method, clear identification of gaseous oxidized mercury compounds in the atmosphere, and development of field calibration methods for these compounds
Optimizing Pulsar Timing Arrays to Maximize Gravitational Wave Single Source Detection: a First Cut
Pulsar Timing Arrays (PTAs) use high accuracy timing of a collection of low
timing noise pulsars to search for gravitational waves in the microhertz to
nanohertz frequency band. The sensitivity of such a PTA depends on (a) the
direction of the gravitational wave source, (b) the timing accuracy of the
pulsars in the array and (c) how the available observing time is allocated
among those pulsars. Here, we present a simple way to calculate the sensitivity
of the PTA as a function of direction of a single GW source, based only on the
location and root-mean-square residual of the pulsars in the array. We use this
calculation to suggest future strategies for the current North American
Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav) PTA in its goal of
detecting single GW sources. We also investigate the affects of an additional
pulsar on the array sensitivity, with the goal of suggesting where PTA pulsar
searches might be best directed. We demonstrate that, in the case of single GW
sources, if we are interested in maximizing the volume of space to which PTAs
are sensitive, there exists a slight advantage to finding a new pulsar near
where the array is already most sensitive. Further, the study suggests that
more observing time should be dedicated to the already low noise pulsars in
order to have the greatest positive effect on the PTA sensitivity. We have made
a web-based sensitivity mapping tool available at http://gwastro.psu.edu/ptasm.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figures, accepted by Ap
Gauged vortices in a background
We discuss the statistical mechanics of a gas of gauged vortices in the
canonical formalism. At critical self-coupling, and for low temperatures, it
has been argued that the configuration space for vortex dynamics in each
topological class of the abelian Higgs model approximately truncates to a
finite-dimensional moduli space with a Kaehler structure. For the case where
the vortices live on a 2-sphere, we explain how localisation formulas on the
moduli spaces can be used to compute explicitly the partition function of the
vortex gas interacting with a background potential. The coefficients of this
analytic function provide geometrical data about the Kaehler structures, the
simplest of which being their symplectic volume (computed previously by Manton
using an alternative argument). We use the partition function to deduce simple
results on the thermodynamics of the vortex system; in particular, the average
height on the sphere is computed and provides an interesting effective picture
of the ground state.Comment: Final version: 22 pages, LaTeX, 1 eps figur
Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays and Stable H-dibaryon
It is shown that an instanton induced interaction between quarks produces a
very deeply bound H-dibaryon with mass below 2M_N, M_H=1718 MeV. Therefore the
H-dibaryon is predicted to be a stable particle. The reaction of
photodisintegration of H-dibaryon to in during of its penetration
into cosmic microwave background will result in a new possible cut-off in the
cosmic-ray spectrum. This provides an explanation of ultra-high energy cosmic
ray events observed above the GZK cut-off as a result of the strong interaction
of high energy H-dibaryons from cosmic rays with nuclei in Earth's atmosphere.Comment: 5 pages, Late
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