Effect of dead space on avalanche speed

The effects of dead space (the minimum distance travelled by a carrier before acquiring enough energy to impact ionize) on the current impulse response and bandwidth of an avalanche multiplication process are obtained from a numerical model that maintains a constant carrier velocity but allows for a random distribution of impact ionization path lengths. The results show that the main mechanism responsible for the increase in response time with dead space is the increase in the number of carrier groups, which qualitatively describes the length of multiplication chains. When the dead space is negligible, the bandwidth follows the behavior predicted by Emmons but decreases as dead space increase

Chiral symmetry breaking in a uniform external magnetic field II. Symmetry restoration at high temperatures and chemical potentials

Chiral symmetry is dynamically broken in quenched, ladder QED at weak gauge couplings when an external magnetic field is present. In this paper, we show that chiral symmetry is restored above a critical chemical potential and the corresponding phase transition is of first order. In contrast, the chiral symmetry restoration at high temperatures (and at zero chemical potential) is a second order phase transition.Comment: Latex; 12 pages; 8 postscript figures include

Integrative model of behavioural intention: the influence of environmental concern and condition factors on food waste separation

Purpose This paper positions environmental concern as the antecedent of attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioural control. It also sets to expand the theory of planned behaviour by including two condition factors: favourable situation and facility availability on the intention to separate food waste at source. Design/methodology/approach The study collects data by using self-administered questionnaires on 682 respondents in Malaysia. Structural equation modelling is employed to test the conceptual model and the proposed hypotheses. Findings The results show that environmental concern positively influences attitude and subjective norms, which, in turn, influences food waste separation intention. Favourable situation and facility availability are found to influence the separation intention. Originality/value This study is one of the earliest studies to investigate residents’ intention to participate in food waste separation at a source that employs the expanded theory of planned behaviour with environmental concern and condition factors

Topological spin excitations of Heisenberg antiferromagnets in two dimensions

In this paper we discuss the construction and the dynamics of vortex-like topological spin excitations in the Schwinger-boson description of Heisenberg antiferromagnets in two dimensions. The topological spin excitations are Dirac fermions (with gap) when spin value $S$ is a half-integer. Experimental and theoretical implications of these excitations are being investigated.Comment: Latex file, no figur

High-Energy emissions from the Pulsar/Be binary system PSR J2032+4127/MT91 213

PSR J2032+4127 is a radio-loud gamma-ray-emitting pulsar; it is orbiting around a high-mass Be type star with a very long orbital period of 25-50years, and is approaching periastron, which will occur in late 2017/early 2018. This system comprises with a young pulsar and a Be type star, which is similar to the so-called gamma-ray binary PSR~B1259-63/LS2883. It is expected therefore that PSR J2032+4127 shows an enhancement of high-energy emission caused by the interaction between the pulsar wind and Be wind/disk around periastron. Ho et al. recently reported a rapid increase in the X-ray flux from this system. In this paper, we also confirm a rapid increase in the X-ray flux along the orbit, while the GeV flux shows no significant change. We discuss the high-energy emissions from the shock caused by the pulsar wind and stellar wind interaction and examine the properties of the pulsar wind in this binary system. We argue that the rate of increase of the X-ray flux observed by Swift indicates (1) a variation of the momentum ratio of the two-wind interaction region along the orbit, or (2) an evolution of the magnetization parameter of the pulsar wind with the radial distance from the pulsar. We also discuss the pulsar wind/Be disk interaction at the periastron passage, and propose the possibility of formation of an accretion disk around the pulsar. We model high-energy emissions through the inverse-Compton scattering process of the cold-relativistic pulsar wind off soft photons from the accretion disk.Comment: 18 pages, 23 figures, 1 Table, accepted for publication in Ap

The X-ray modulation of PSR J2032+4127/MT91 213 during the Periastron Passage in 2017

We present the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory (Swift), Fermi Large Area Telescope (Fermi-LAT), and Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) observations of the gamma-ray binary PSR J2032+4127/MT91 213, of which the periastron passage has just occurred in November 2017. In the Swift X-ray light curve, the flux was steadily increasing before mid-October 2017, however, a sharp X-ray dip on a weekly time-scale is seen during the periastron passage, followed by a post-periastron X-ray flare lasting for ~20 days. We suggest that the X-ray dip is caused by (i) an increase of the magnetization parameter at the shock, and (ii) the suppression due to the Doppler boosting effect. The 20-day post-periastron flare could be a consequence of the Be stellar disk passage by the pulsar. An orbital GeV modulation is also expected in our model, however, no significant variability is seen in the Fermi-LAT light curve. We suspect that the GeV emission resulted from the interaction between the binary's members is hidden behind the bright magnetospheric emission of the pulsar. Pulsar gating technique would be useful to remove the magnetospheric emission and recover the predicted GeV modulation, if an accurate radio timing solution over the periastron passage is provided in the future.Comment: 6 pages, including 2 figures. Accepted for publication in Ap

Blood levels of PAF are elevated during induction of immune complex mediated enteropathy in the rat

Intravenous injection into rats of immune complexes (IC) prepared in 5 × antigen excess rapidly induces annular bands of vascular congestion and transmural haemorrhage producing a striped appearance of the small intestine. Indirect evidence suggested a major role for PAF in the induction of lesions. In the present study, we showed that blood and leukocyte levels of PAF were elevated in most rats injected 10 min earlier with sufficient IC to induce lesions of 3+ to 4+ intensity. There was no significant difference in the number of rats with elevated plasma levels of PAF. The possibility that changes in blood PAF levels might be mirrored at sites closer to the lesions was considered. The overall effect of PAF on the small intestine of the rats is to induce stasis of flow; the precise target of PAF in mediating this effect is unknown

Parallel String Sample Sort

We discuss how string sorting algorithms can be parallelized on modern multi-core shared memory machines. As a synthesis of the best sequential string sorting algorithms and successful parallel sorting algorithms for atomic objects, we propose string sample sort. The algorithm makes effective use of the memory hierarchy, uses additional word level parallelism, and largely avoids branch mispredictions. Additionally, we parallelize variants of multikey quicksort and radix sort that are also useful in certain situations.Comment: 34 pages, 7 figures and 12 table