2,031 research outputs found
The spectral variability of FSRQs
The optical variability of 29 flat spectrum radio quasars in SDSS Stripe 82
region are investigated by using DR7 released multi-epoch data. All FSRQs show
variations with overall amplitude ranging from 0.24 mag to 3.46 mag in
different sources. About half of FSRQs show a bluer-when-brighter trend, which
is commonly observed for blazars. However, only one source shows a
redder-when-brighter trend, which implies it is rare in FSRQs. In this source,
the thermal emission may likely be responsible for the spectral behavior.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, to be published in Journal of Astrophysics and
Astronomy, as a proceeding paper of the conference "Multiwavelength
Variability of Blazars", Guangzhou, China, September 22-24, 201
Tunable Multifunctional Topological Insulators in Ternary Heusler Compounds
Recently the Quantum Spin Hall effect (QSH) was theoretically predicted and
experimentally realized in a quantum wells based on binary semiconductor
HgTe[1-3]. QSH state and topological insulators are the new states of quantum
matter interesting both for fundamental condensed matter physics and material
science[1-11]. Many of Heusler compounds with C1b structure are ternary
semiconductors which are structurally and electronically related to the binary
semiconductors. The diversity of Heusler materials opens wide possibilities for
tuning the band gap and setting the desired band inversion by choosing
compounds with appropriate hybridization strength (by lattice parameter) and
the magnitude of spin-orbit coupling (by the atomic charge). Based on the
first-principle calculations we demonstrate that around fifty Heusler compounds
show the band inversion similar to HgTe. The topological state in these
zero-gap semiconductors can be created by applying strain or by designing an
appropriate quantum well structure, similar to the case of HgTe. Many of these
ternary zero-gap semiconductors (LnAuPb, LnPdBi, LnPtSb and LnPtBi) contain the
rare earth element Ln which can realize additional properties ranging from
superconductivity (e. g. LaPtBi[12]) to magnetism (e. g. GdPtBi[13]) and
heavy-fermion behavior (e. g. YbPtBi[14]). These properties can open new
research directions in realizing the quantized anomalous Hall effect and
topological superconductors.Comment: 20 pages, 5 figure
Radiation from a D-dimensional collision of shock waves: first order perturbation theory
We study the spacetime obtained by superimposing two equal Aichelburg-Sexl
shock waves in D dimensions traveling, head-on, in opposite directions.
Considering the collision in a boosted frame, one shock becomes stronger than
the other, and a perturbative framework to compute the metric in the future of
the collision is setup. The geometry is given, in first order perturbation
theory, as an integral solution, in terms of initial data on the null surface
where the strong shock has support. We then extract the radiation emitted in
the collision by using a D-dimensional generalisation of the Landau-Lifschitz
pseudo-tensor and compute the percentage of the initial centre of mass energy
epsilon emitted as gravitational waves. In D=4 we find epsilon=25.0%, in
agreement with the result of D'Eath and Payne. As D increases, this percentage
increases monotonically, reaching 40.0% in D=10. Our result is always within
the bound obtained from apparent horizons by Penrose, in D=4, yielding 29.3%,
and Eardley and Giddings, in D> 4, which also increases monotonically with
dimension, reaching 41.2% in D=10. We also present the wave forms and provide a
physical interpretation for the observed peaks, in terms of the null generators
of the shocks.Comment: 27 pages, 11 figures; v2 some corrections, including D dependent
factor in epsilon; matches version accepted in JHE
SMILE: A joint ESA/CAS mission to investigate the interaction between the solar wind and Earth's magnetosphere
The Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer (SMILE) is a collaborative science mission between ESA and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). SMILE is a novel self-standing mission to observe the coupling of the solar wind and Earth's magnetosphere via X-Ray imaging of the solar wind -- magnetosphere interaction zones, UV imaging of global auroral distributions and simultaneous in-situ solar wind, magnetosheath plasma and magnetic field measurements. The SMILE mission proposal was submitted by a consortium of European, Chinese and Canadian scientists following a joint call for mission by ESA and CAS. It was formally selected by ESA's Science Programme Committee (SPC) as an element of the ESA Science Program in November 2015, with the goal of a launch at the end of 2021.
In order to achieve its scientific objectives, the SMILE payload will comprise four instruments: the Soft X-ray Imager (SXI), which will spectrally map the Earth's magnetopause, magnetosheath and magnetospheric cusps; the UltraViolet Imager (UVI), dedicated to imaging the auroral regions; the Light Ion Analyser (LIA) and the MAGnetometer (MAG), which will establish the solar wind properties simultaneously with the imaging instruments. We report on the status of the mission and payload developments and the findings of a design study carried out in parallel at the concurrent design facilities (CDF) of ESA and CAS in October/November 2015. © (2016) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only
Mitochondrial DNA Copy Number Is Associated with Breast Cancer Risk
Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) copy number in peripheral blood is associated with increased risk of several cancers. However, data from prospective studies on mtDNA copy number and breast cancer risk are lacking. We evaluated the association between mtDNA copy number in peripheral blood and breast cancer risk in a nested case-control study of 183 breast cancer cases with pre-diagnostic blood samples and 529 individually matched controls among participants of the Singapore Chinese Health Study. The mtDNA copy number was measured using real time PCR. Conditional logistic regression analyses showed that there was an overall positive association between mtDNA copy number and breast cancer risk (Ptrend = 0.01). The elevated risk for higher mtDNA copy numbers was primarily seen for women with <3 years between blood draw and cancer diagnosis; ORs (95% CIs) for 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th quintile of mtDNA copy number were 1.52 (0.61, 3.82), 2.52 (1.03, 6.12), 3.12 (1.31, 7.43), and 3.06 (1.25, 7.47), respectively, compared with the 1st quintile (Ptrend = 0.004). There was no association between mtDNA copy number and breast cancer risk among women who donated a blood sample ≥3 years before breast cancer diagnosis (Ptrend = 0.41). This study supports a prospective association between increased mtDNA copy number and breast cancer risk that is dependent on the time interval between blood collection and breast cancer diagnosis. Future studies are warranted to confirm these findings and to elucidate the biological role of mtDNA copy number in breast cancer risk. © 2013 Thyagarajan et al
Natural variation in immune responses to neonatal mycobacterium bovis bacillus calmette-guerin (BCG) vaccination in a cohort of Gambian infants
Background There is a need for new vaccines for tuberculosis (TB) that protect against adult pulmonary disease in regions where BCG is not effective. However, BCG could remain integral to TB control programmes because neonatal BCG protects against disseminated forms of childhood TB and many new vaccines rely on BCG to prime immunity or are recombinant strains of BCG. Interferon-gamma (IFN-) is required for immunity to mycobacteria and used as a marker of immunity when new vaccines are tested. Although BCG is widely given to neonates IFN- responses to BCG in this age group are poorly described. Characterisation of IFN- responses to BCG is required for interpretation of vaccine immunogenicity study data where BCG is part of the vaccination strategy. Methodology/Principal Findings 236 healthy Gambian babies were vaccinated with M. bovis BCG at birth. IFN-, interleukin (IL)-5 and IL-13 responses to purified protein derivative (PPD), killed Mycobacterium tuberculosis (KMTB), M. tuberculosis short term culture filtrate (STCF) and M. bovis BCG antigen 85 complex (Ag85) were measured in a whole blood assay two months after vaccination. Cytokine responses varied up to 10 log-fold within this population. The majority of infants (89-98% depending on the antigen) made IFN- responses and there was significant correlation between IFN- responses to the different mycobacterial antigens (Spearman’s coefficient ranged from 0.340 to 0.675, p=10-6-10-22). IL-13 and IL-5 responses were generally low and there were more non-responders (33-75%) for these cytokines. Nonetheless, significant correlations were observed for IL-13 and IL-5 responses to different mycobacterial antigens Conclusions/Significance Cytokine responses to mycobacterial antigens in BCG-vaccinated infants are heterogeneous and there is significant inter-individual variation. Further studies in large populations of infants are required to identify the factors that determine variation in IFN- responses
The general gaugings of maximal d=9 supergravity
We use the embedding tensor method to construct the most general maximal
gauged/massive supergravity in d=9 dimensions and to determine its extended
field content. Only the 8 independent deformation parameters (embedding tensor
components, mass parameters etc.) identified by Bergshoeff \textit{et al.} (an
SL(2,R) triplet, two doublets and a singlet can be consistently introduced in
the theory, but their simultaneous use is subject to a number of quadratic
constraints. These constraints have to be kept and enforced because they cannot
be used to solve some deformation parameters in terms of the rest. The
deformation parameters are associated to the possible 8-forms of the theory,
and the constraints are associated to the 9-forms, all of them transforming in
the conjugate representations. We also give the field strengths and the gauge
and supersymmetry transformations for the electric fields in the most general
case. We compare these results with the predictions of the E11 approach,
finding that the latter predicts one additional doublet of 9-forms, analogously
to what happens in N=2, d=4,5,6 theories.Comment: Latex file, 43 pages, reference adde
Theoretical survey of tidal-charged black holes at the LHC
We analyse a family of brane-world black holes which solve the effective
four-dimensional Einstein equations for a wide range of parameters related to
the unknown bulk/brane physics. We first constrain the parameters using known
experimental bounds and, for the allowed cases, perform a numerical analysis of
their time evolution, which includes accretion through the Earth. The study is
aimed at predicting the typical behavior one can expect if such black holes
were produced at the LHC. Most notably, we find that, under no circumstances,
would the black holes reach the (hazardous) regime of Bondi accretion.
Nonetheless, the possibility remains that black holes live long enough to
escape from the accelerator (and even from the Earth's gravitational field) and
result in missing energy from the detectors.Comment: RevTeX4, 12 pages, 4 figures, 5 tables, minor changes to match the
accepted version in JHE
Distributions of charged massive scalars and fermions from evaporating higher-dimensional black holes
A detailed numerical analysis is performed to obtain the Hawking spectrum for
charged, massive brane scalars and fermions on the approximate background of a
brane charged rotating higher-dimensional black hole constructed in
arXiv:0907.5107. We formulate the problem in terms of a "spinor-like" first
order system of differential wave equations not only for fermions, but for
scalars as well and integrate it numerically. Flux spectra are presented for
non-zero mass, charge and rotation, confirming and extending previous results
based on analytic approximations. In particular we describe an inverted charge
splitting at low energies, which is not present in four or five dimensions and
increases with the number of extra dimensions. This provides another signature
of the evaporation of higher-dimensional black holes in TeV scale gravity
scenarios.Comment: 19 pages, 6 figures, minor typos corrected, 1 page added with a
discussion on higher spins, added reference
Brane-world black holes and the scale of gravity
A particle in four dimensions should behave like a classical black hole if
the horizon radius is larger than the Compton wavelength or, equivalently, if
its degeneracy (measured by entropy in units of the Planck scale) is large. For
spherically symmetric black holes in 4 + d dimensions, both arguments again
lead to a mass threshold MC and degeneracy scale Mdeg of the order of the
fundamental scale of gravity MG. In the brane-world, deviations from the
Schwarzschild metric induced by bulk effects alter the horizon radius and
effective four-dimensional Euclidean action in such a way that MC \simeq Mdeg
might be either larger or smaller than MG. This opens up the possibility that
black holes exist with a mass smaller than MG and might be produced at the LHC
even if M>10 TeV, whereas effects due to bulk graviton exchanges remain
undetectable because suppressed by inverse powers of MG. Conversely, even if
black holes are not found at the LHC, it is still possible that MC>MG and MG
\simeq 1TeV.Comment: 4 pages, no figur
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