1,436 research outputs found
Eating disorder services for young people in Ireland: perspectives of service providers, service users and the general adolescent population
Objectives: This paper illuminates how national eating disorder (ED) policy translates into day-to-day practice by exploring how ED services are experienced by those who deliver and use them. Methods: A mixed-methods approach was used, which combined qualitative and quantitative techniques. The paper collates data from three studies: (i) an interview study exploring the lived experiences of young people with EDs (n =8), their parents (n =5) and their healthcare professionals (n =3); (ii) a national survey of health professionals’ perspectives on existing ED services (n =171); (iii) a nationwide survey of secondary-school students’ eating concerns and patterns of help - seeking (n=290). Results: The qualitative interviews with young people and their parents revealed feelings of isolation and helplessness. Young people expressed interest in patient support groups, while parents desired greater support for the family unit. Parents were highly critical of available services, particularly in relation to access. These criticisms were echoed in the survey of healthcare professionals, who reported many barriers to delivering effective care. Clinicians were almost unanimous in calling for care pathways to be clarified via a standardised treatment protocol. The survey of adolescents indicated widespread reluctance to seek help regarding eating concerns: over one-third expressed concern about their own eating habits, but half of these had not divulged their concerns to anyone. Participants’ preferred pathways of help-seeking revolved around family and friends, and adolescents were unsure about routes of access to professional support. 3 Conclusions: The research demonstrates that many aspects of national ED policy have not been implemented in practice. The paper highlights specific gaps and suggests ways they can be redressed
A Chandra Study of the Effects of a Major Merger on the Structure of Abell 2319
We present an analysis of a Chandra observation of the massive, nearby galaxy
cluster Abell 2319. A sharp surface brightness discontinuity--suggested by
previous, lower angular resolution X-ray imaging--is clearly visible in the
ACIS image. This roughly 300kpc feature suggests that a major merger is taking
place with a significant velocity component perpendicular to the line of sight.
The cluster emission-weighted mean temperature is 11.8+/-0.6kev, somewhat
higher than previous temperature measurements. The Chandra temperature map of
A2319 reveals substructure resembling that anticipated based on hydrodynamic
simulations of cluster mergers. The merger feature shows a pressure change
across the surface brightness discontinuity by a factor of <=2.5. The higher
density side of the front has a lower temperature, suggesting the presence of a
cold front similar to those in many other merging clusters. The velocity of the
front is roughly sonic.
We compare bulk properties of the ICM and galaxies in A2319 to the same
properties in a large sample of clusters as a way of gauging the effects of the
major merger. Interestingly, by comparing A2319 to a sample of 44 clusters
studied with the ROSAT PSPC we find that the X-ray luminosity, isophotal size,
and ICM mass are consistent with the expected values for a cluster of its
temperature; in addition, the K-band galaxy light is consistent with the
light--temperature scaling relation derived from a sample of about 100 clusters
studied with 2MASS. Together, these results indicate either that the merger in
A2319 has not been effective at altering the bulk properties of the cluster, or
that there are large but correlated displacements in these quantities.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures, ApJ Submitte
Measurement of the Zero Crossing in a Feshbach Resonance of Fermionic 6-Li
We measure a zero crossing in the scattering length of a mixture of the two
lowest hyperfine states of 6-Li. To locate the zero crossing, we monitor the
decrease in temperature and atom number arising from evaporation in a CO2 laser
trap as a function of magnetic field B. The temperature decrease and atom loss
are minimized for B=528(4) G, consistent with no evaporation. We also present
preliminary calculations using potentials that have been constrained by the
measured zero crossing and locate a broad Feshbach resonance at approximately
860 G, in agreement with previous theoretical predictions. In addition, our
theoretical model predicts a second and much narrower Feshbach resonance near
550 G.Comment: Five pages, four figure
Boson induced s-wave pairing in dilute boson-fermion mixtures
We show that in dilute boson-fermion mixtures with fermions in two internal
states, even when the bare fermion-fermion interaction is repulsive, the
exchange of density fluctuations of the Bose condensate may lead to an
effective fermion-fermion attraction, and thus to a Cooper instability in the
s-wave channel. We give an analytical method to derive the associated in
the limit where the phonon branch of the Bogoliubov excitation spectrum of the
bosons is important. We find a of the same order as for a pure Fermi gas
with bare attraction.Comment: 12 pages, no figure
Auger decay, Spin-exchange, and their connection to Bose-Einstein condensation of excitons in Cu_2O
In view of the recent experiments of O'Hara, et al. on excitons in Cu_2O, we
examine the interconversion between the angular-momentum triplet-state excitons
and the angular-momentum singlet-state excitons by a spin-exchange process
which has been overlooked in the past. We estimate the rate of this
particle-conserving mechanism and find a substantially higher value than the
Auger process considered so far. Based on this idea, we give a possible
explanation of the recent experimental observations, and make certain
predictions, with the most important being that the singlet-state excitons in
Cu_2O is a very serious candidate for exhibiting the phenomenon of
Bose-Einstein condensation.Comment: 4 pages, RevTex, 1 ps figur
Cooper pairing and single particle properties of trapped Fermi gases
We calculate the elementary excitations and pairing of a trapped atomic Fermi
gas in the superfluid phase. The level spectra and pairing gaps undergo several
transitions as the strength of the interactions between and the number of atoms
are varied. For weak interactions, the Cooper pairs are formed between
particles residing in the same harmonic oscillator shell. In this regime, the
nature of the paired state is shown to depend critically on the position of the
chemical potential relative to the harmonic oscillator shells and on the size
of the mean field. For stronger interactions, we find a region where pairing
occur between time-reversed harmonic oscillator states in different shells
also.Comment: Slightly revised version: Mistakes in equation references in figures
corrected. Accepted for Phys. Rev.
Spectroscopic Temperature Determination of Degenerate Fermi Gases
We suggest a simple method for measuring the temperature of ultra-cold gases
made of fermions. We show that by using a two-photon Raman probe, it is
possible to obtain lineshapes which reveal properties of the degenerate sample,
notably its temperature . The proposed method could be used with identical
fermions in different hyperfine states interacting via s-wave scattering or
identical fermions in the same hyperfine state via p-wave scattering. We
illustrate the applicability of the method in realistic conditions for Li
prepared in two different hyperfine states. We find that temperatures down to
0.05 can be determined by this {\it in-situ} method.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, Revtex
Mean-Field vs Monte-Carlo equation of state for the expansion of a Fermi superfluid in the BCS-BEC crossover
The equation of state (EOS) of a Fermi superfluid is investigated in the
BCS-BEC crossover at zero temperature. We discuss the EOS based on Monte-Carlo
(MC) data and asymptotic expansions and the EOS derived from the extended BCS
(EBCS) mean-field theory. Then we introduce a time-dependent density
functional, based on the bulk EOS and Landau's superfluid hydrodynamics with a
von Weizs\"acker-type correction, to study the free expansion of the Fermi
superfluid. We calculate the aspect ratio and the released energy of the
expanding Fermi cloud showing that MC EOS and EBCS EOS are both compatible with
the available experimental data of Li atoms. We find that the released
energy satisfies an approximate analytical formula that is quite accurate in
the BEC regime. For an anisotropic droplet, our numerical simulations show an
initially faster reversal of anisotropy in the BCS regime, later suppressed by
the BEC fluid.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figures, presented to the 15th International Laser
Physics Workshop (Lausanne, July 24-28, 2006); to be published in Laser
Physic
Pairing of fermions in atomic traps and nuclei
Pairing gaps for fermionic atoms in harmonic oscillator traps are calculated
for a wide range of interaction strengths and particle number, and compared to
pairing in nuclei. Especially systems, where the pairing gap exceeds the level
spacing but is smaller than the shell splitting , are studied
which applies to most trapped Fermi atomic systems as well as to finite nuclei.
When solving the gap equation for a large trap with such multi-level pairing,
one finds that the matrix elements between nearby harmonic oscillator levels
and the quasi-particle energies lead to a double logarithm of the gap, and a
pronounced shell structure at magic numbers. It is argued that neutron and
proton pairing in nuclei belongs to the class of multi-level pairing, that
their shell structure follows naturally and that the gaps scale as - all in qualitative agreement with odd-even staggering of nuclear
binding energies. Pairing in large systems are related to that in the bulk
limit. For large nuclei the neutron and proton superfluid gaps approach the
asymptotic value in infinite nuclear matter: MeV.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figure
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