On the void explanation of the Cold Spot

The integrated Sachs-Wolfe (ISW) contribution induced on the cosmic microwave background by the presence of a supervoid as the one detected by Szapudi et al. (2015) is reviewed in this letter in order to check whether it could explain the Cold Spot (CS) anomaly. Two different models, previously used for the same purpose, are considered to describe the matter density profile of the void: a top hat function and a compensated profile produced by a Gaussian potential. The analysis shows that, even enabling ellipticity changes or different values for the dark-energy equation of state parameter $\omega$, the ISW contribution due to the presence of the void does not reproduce the properties of the CS. Finally, the probability of alignment between the void and the CS is also questioned as an argument in favor of a physical connection between these two phenomena

Utilización de arenas procedentes de residuos de construcción y demolición, rcd, en la fabricación de morteros de albañilería.

En esta investigación se estudió el comportamiento y las propiedades más relevantes de los morteros de albañilería, al sustituir parte de la arena convencional por arena reciclada en diferentes porcentajes. Para ello se caracterizaron las arenas recicladas procedentes de las centrales de reciclaje y se realizaron ensayos con el fin de comparar las propiedades de los morteros tradicionales con los morteros elaborados con arena reciclada. La dosificación del mortero utilizada ha sido 1:3:0,5, y los porcentajes de sustitución de arena normalizada por arena reciclada fueron de: 10%, 15%, 25%, 35% y 45% , para los tres tipos de arenas recicladas empleadas en este estudio, dos arenas procedentes de la línea de reciclaje de hormigón y una de la línea de reciclaje cerámica. Los resultados indican un aumento en la demanda de agua para obtener morteros trabajables, siendo necesario el empleo de aditivos a partir del 10% de sustitución. Las resistencias mecánicas obtenidas en los morteros reciclados son superiores en el caso de la flexión y ligeramente inferiores en compresión. Tanto en el ensayo de adherencia como en el de retracción, los morteros reciclados presentan un peor comportamiento que los morteros tradicionales, pero sin evidenciar pérdidas significativas en dichos valores, por lo que los morteros de cemento para albañilería con dosificación 1:3:0,5 pueden incorporar hasta un 45% de árido reciclado sin que sus principales características se vean afectada

Caracterización e influencia del arido reciclado fino en las propiedades de los morteros de albañilería

This research aims to study mechanical behaviour and relevant properties of masonry mortars fabricated using fine recycled aggregate in different mixture proportions. Fine recycled aggregates samples originated from the ceramic and concrete recycling process and coming from two recycling plants of Madrid region have been used. Tests were performed using 1:3:0.5 volumetric cement-to-aggregate-to-water ratio. Standardized sand with fine recycled aggregate replacement percentages were: 10%, 15%, 25%, 35% and 45%. A continuous size distribution curve can be observed and the main crystalline phases determined have been quartz, calcite and gypsum. Compressive strength, shrinkage and bond strength tests revealed poorer performance of recycled mortars compared to the conventional mortars; however, specific values are within the limits established by the manufacturers and standards. This study shows that cement-based mortars prepared with volumetric ratio 1:3:0.5 may contain up to 45% of fine recycled aggregates, without their properties being affected and without presenting significant losses.Esta investigación estudia el comportamiento mecánico y las propiedades más relevantes de los morteros de albañilería fabricados usando arenas recicladas en diferentes proporciones. Muestras pertenecientes a la línea de reciclaje cerámica y de hormigón proceden de dos centrales de reciclaje de la Comunidad de Madrid. Los ensayos se realizaron con una dosificación 1:3:0,5. Los porcentajes de arena reciclada fueron: 10%, 15%, 25%, 35% y 45%. Se observa una línea granulométrica continua y las principales fases cristalinas encontradas son cuarzo, calcita y yeso. Los ensayos de resistencia a compresión, retracción y adherencia muestran un peor comportamiento en los morteros reciclados frente a los morteros elaborados con arena normalizada, aunque dentro de los límites establecidos por normativas y fabricantes. Se deduce que, los morteros de albañilería base cemento, pueden incorporar un 45% de arena reciclada con una dosificación 1:3:0,5 sin que las propiedades ensayadas se vean afectadas con pérdidas significativas de prestaciones

Exploring two-spin internal linear combinations for the recovery of the CMB polarization

We present a methodology to recover cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization in which the quantity $P = Q+ iU$ is linearly combined at different frequencies using complex coefficients. This is the most general linear combination of the $Q$ and $U$ Stokes parameters which preserves the physical coherence of the residual contribution on the CMB estimation. The approach is applied to the internal linear combination (ILC) and the internal template fitting (ITF) methodologies. The variance of $P$ of the resulting map is minimized to compute the coefficients of the linear combination. One of the key aspects of this procedure is that it serves to account for a global frequency-dependent shift of the polarization phase. Although in the standard case, in which no global E-B transference depending on frequency is expected in the foreground components, minimizing $\left\langle |P|^2\right\rangle$ is similar to minimizing $\left\langle Q^2\right\rangle$ and $\left\langle U^2\right\rangle$ separately (as previous methodologies proceed), multiplying $Q$ and $U$ by different coefficients induces arbitrary changes in the polarization angle and it does not preserve the coherence between the spinorial components. The approach is tested on simulations, obtaining a similar residual level with respect to the one obtained with other implementations of the ILC, and perceiving the polarization rotation of a toy model with the frequency dependence of the Faraday rotation.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figures, 2 tables. Accepted for publication in MNRA

Trees, homology, and automorphism groups of right-angled Artin groups

We study the homology of an explicit finite-index subgroup of the automorphism group of a partially commutative group, in the case when its defining graph is a tree. More concretely, we give a lower bound on the first Betti number of this subgroup, based on the number and degree of a certain type of vertices, which we call deep. We then use combinatorial methods to analyze the average value of this Betti number, in terms of the size of the defining tree

Searching for a dipole modulation in the large-scale structure of the Universe

Several statistical anomalies in the CMB temperature anisotropies seem to defy the assumption of a homogeneous and isotropic universe. In particular, a dipole modulation has been detected both in WMAP and Planck data. We adapt the methodology proposed by Eriksen et al. (2007) on CMB data to galaxy surveys, tracing the large-scale structure. We analyse the NRAO VLA Sky Survey (NVSS) data at a resolution of ~2 degrees for three different flux thresholds: 2.5, 5.0 and 10.0 mJy respectively. No evidence of a dipole modulation is found. This result suggests that the origin of the dipole asymmetry found in the CMB cannot be assigned to secondary anisotropies produced at redshifts around z = 1. However, it could still have been generated at redshifts higher or lower, such as the integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect produced by the local structures. Other all-sky surveys, like the infrared WISE catalogue, could help to explore with a high sensitivity a redshift interval closer than the one probed with NVSS.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures. Some minor changes have been done from the original manuscript. This paper is accepted by MNRA

Performance Evaluation of Non-Hitless Spectrum Defragmentation Algorithms in Elastic Optical Networks

Fragmentation in Elastic Optical Networks is an issue caused by isolated, non-aligned, and non-contiguous frequency slots that can not be used to allocate new connection request to the network, due to the optical layer restrictions imposed to the Routing and Spectrum Assignment (RSA) algorithms. To deal with this issue, several studies about Spectrum Defragmentation have been presented. In this work, we analyze the most important Non-Hitless Defragmentation Algorithms found in the literature, with proactive and reactive approaches that include rerouting and non-rerouting schemes, and compare their performance in terms of Blocking Probability, Entropy, and Bandwidth Fragmentation Ratio. Simulations results showed that the Fragmentation Aware schemes outperformed the other algorithms in low traffic load, but the Reactive schemes got better results in high traffic load.Sociedad Argentina de Informática e Investigación Operativa (SADIO

On the improvement of the low energy neutrino factory

The low energy neutrino factory has been proposed as a very sensitive setup for future searches for CP violation and matter effects. Here we study how its performance is affected when the experimental specifications of the setup are varied. Most notably, we have considered the addition of the 'platinum' nu_{mu} -> nu_{e} channel. We find that, whilst theoretically the extra channel provides very useful complementary information and helps to lift degeneracies, its practical usefulness is lost when considering realistic background levels. Conversely, an increase in statistics in the 'golden' nu_{e} -> nu_{mu} channel and, to some extent, an improvement in the energy resolution, lead to an important increase in the performance of the facility, given the rich energy dependence of the 'golden' channel at these energies. We show that a low energy neutrino factory with a baseline of 1300 km, muon energy of 4.5 GeV, and either a 20 kton totally active scintillating detector or 100 kton liquid argon detector, can have outstanding sensitivity to the neutrino oscillation parameters theta13, delta and the mass hierarchy. For our estimated exposure of 2.8 x 10^{23} kton x decays per muon polarity, the low energy neutrino factory has sensitivity to theta13 and delta for sin^{2}(2theta13) > 10^{-4} and to the mass hierarchy for sin^{2}(2theta13) > 10^{-3}.Comment: 13 pages, 8 eps figures. Version published in PRD - experimental section with preliminary results removed, abstract and conclusions re-written accordingly, title changed, author list amended