Differences in audiovisual temporal processing in autistic adults are specific to simultaneity judgments

Research has shown that children on the autism spectrum and adults with high levels of autistic traits are less sensitive to audiovisual asynchrony compared to their neurotypical peers. However, this evidence has been limited to simultaneity judgments (SJ) which require participants to consider the timing of two cues together. Given evidence of partly divergent perceptual and neural mechanisms involved in making temporal order judgments (TOJ) and SJ, and given that SJ require a more global type of processing which may be impaired in autistic individuals, here we ask whether the observed differences in audiovisual temporal processing are task and stimulus specific. We examined the ability to detect audiovisual asynchrony in a group of 26 autistic adult males and a group of age and IQ‐matched neurotypical males. Participants were presented with beep‐flash, point‐light drumming, and face‐voice displays with varying degrees of asynchrony and asked to make SJ and TOJ. The results indicated that autistic participants were less able to detect audiovisual asynchrony compared to the control group, but this effect was specific to SJ and more complex social stimuli (e.g., face‐voice) with stronger semantic correspondence between the cues, requiring a more global type of processing. This indicates that audiovisual temporal processing is not generally different in autistic individuals and that a similar level of performance could be achieved by using a more local type of processing, thus informing multisensory integration theory as well as multisensory training aimed to aid perceptual abilities in this population

Relic Neutrino Absorption Spectroscopy

Resonant annihilation of extremely high-energy cosmic neutrinos on big-bang relic anti-neutrinos (and vice versa) into Z-bosons leads to sizable absorption dips in the neutrino flux to be observed at Earth. The high-energy edges of these dips are fixed, via the resonance energies, by the neutrino masses alone. Their depths are determined by the cosmic neutrino background density, by the cosmological parameters determining the expansion rate of the universe, and by the large redshift history of the cosmic neutrino sources. We investigate the possibility of determining the existence of the cosmic neutrino background within the next decade from a measurement of these absorption dips in the neutrino flux. As a by-product, we study the prospects to infer the absolute neutrino mass scale. We find that, with the presently planned neutrino detectors (ANITA, Auger, EUSO, OWL, RICE, and SalSA) operating in the relevant energy regime above 10^{21} eV, relic neutrino absorption spectroscopy becomes a realistic possibility. It requires, however, the existence of extremely powerful neutrino sources, which should be opaque to nucleons and high-energy photons to evade present constraints. Furthermore, the neutrino mass spectrum must be quasi-degenerate to optimize the dip, which implies m_{nu} >~ 0.1 eV for the lightest neutrino. With a second generation of neutrino detectors, these demanding requirements can be relaxed considerably.Comment: 19 pages, 26 figures, REVTeX

The ATESP 5 GHz radio survey I. Source counts and spectral index properties of the faint radio population

[Abridged] The nature and evolutionary properties of the faint radio population, responsible for the steepening observed in the 1.4 GHz source counts below 1 milliJy, are not yet entirely clear. Radio spectral indices may help to constrain the origin of the radio emission in such faint radio sources and may be fundamental in understanding eventual links to the optical light. We study the spectral index behaviour of sources that were found in the 1.4 GHz ATESP survey (Prandoni et al. 2000a,b). Using the Australia Telescope Compact Array we observed at 5 GHz part of the region covered by the sub-mJy ATESP survey. In particular we imaged a one square degree area for which deep optical imaging in UBVRIJK is available. In this paper we present the 5 GHz survey and source catalogue, we derive the 5 GHz source counts and we discuss the 1.4-5 GHz spectral index properties of the ATESP sources. The analysis of the optical properties of the sample will be the subject of a following paper. The 5 GHz survey has produced a catalogue of 111 radio sources, complete down to a (6 sigma) limit S_lim(5 GHz)~0.4 mJy. We take advantage of the better spatial resolution at 5 GHz (~2 arcsec compared to ~8 arcsec at 1.4 GHz) to infer radio source structures and sizes. The 5 GHz source counts derived by the present sample are consistent with those reported in the literature, but improve significantly the statistics in the flux range 0.4< S(5 GHz)<1 mJy. The ATESP sources show a flattening of the 1.4-5 GHz spectral index with decreasing flux density, which is particularly significant for the 5 GHz selected sample. Such a flattening confirm previous results coming from smaller samples and is consistent with a flattening of the 5 GHz source counts occurring at fluxes <=0.5 mJy.Comment: 22 pages, 13 figures Accepted for publication on Astronomy and Astrophysics. Replaced version: corrected typos and references update

The Lockman Hole project: LOFAR observations and spectral index properties of low-frequency radio sources

The Lockman Hole is a well-studied extragalactic field with extensive multi-band ancillary data covering a wide range in frequency, essential for characterizing the physical and evolutionary properties of the various source populations detected in deep radio fields (mainly star-forming galaxies and AGNs). In this paper, we present new 150-MHz observations carried out with the LOw-Frequency ARray (LOFAR), allowing us to explore a new spectral window for the faint radio source population. This 150-MHz image covers an area of 34.7 square degrees with a resolution of 18.6 × 14.7 arcsec and reaches an rms of 160 μJy beam$^-1$ at the centre of the field. As expected for a low-frequency selected sample, the vast majority of sources exhibit steep spectra, with a median spectral index of $\alpha _{150}^{1400}=-0.78\pm 0.015$. The median spectral index becomes slightly flatter (increasing from $\alpha _{150}^{1400}=-0.75)$ with decreasing flux density down to S_1_5_0 ∼10 mJy before flattening out and remaining constant below this flux level. For a bright subset of the 150-MHz selected sample, we can trace the spectral properties down to lower frequencies using 60-MHz LOFAR observations, finding tentative evidence for sources to become flatter in spectrum between 60 and 150 MHz. Using the deep, multi-frequency data available in the Lockman Hole, we identify a sample of 100 ultra-steep-spectrum sources and 13 peaked-spectrum sources. We estimate that up to 21 per cent of these could have z > 4 and are candidate high-z radio galaxies, but further follow-up observations are required to confirm the physical nature of these objects

Atmospheric electrification in dusty, reactive gases in the solar system and beyond

Detailed observations of the solar system planets reveal a wide variety of local atmospheric conditions. Astronomical observations have revealed a variety of extrasolar planets none of which resembles any of the solar system planets in full. Instead, the most massive amongst the extrasolar planets, the gas giants, appear very similar to the class of (young) Brown Dwarfs which are amongst the oldest objects in the universe. Despite of this diversity, solar system planets, extrasolar planets and Brown Dwarfs have broadly similar global temperatures between 300K and 2500K. In consequence, clouds of different chemical species form in their atmospheres. While the details of these clouds differ, the fundamental physical processes are the same. Further to this, all these objects were observed to produce radio and X-ray emission. While both kinds of radiation are well studied on Earth and to a lesser extent on the solar system planets, the occurrence of emission that potentially originate from accelerated electrons on Brown Dwarfs, extrasolar planets and protoplanetary disks is not well understood yet. This paper offers an interdisciplinary view on electrification processes and their feedback on their hosting environment in meteorology, volcanology, planetology and research on extrasolar planets and planet formation