3,585 research outputs found
NS 1987A in SN 1987A
The possible detection of a compact object in the remnant of SN 1987A
presents an unprecedented opportunity to follow its early evolution. The
suspected detection stems from an excess of infrared emission from a dust blob
near the compact object's predicted position. The infrared excess could be due
to the decay of isotopes like 44Ti, accretion luminosity from a neutron star or
black hole, magnetospheric emission or a wind originating from the spindown of
a pulsar, or thermal emission from an embedded, cooling neutron star (NS
1987A). It is shown that the last possibility is the most plausible as the
other explanations are disfavored by other observations and/or require
fine-tuning of parameters. Not only are there indications the dust blob
overlaps the predicted location of a kicked compact remnant, but its excess
luminosity also matches the expected thermal power of a 30 year old neutron
star. Furthermore, models of cooling neutron stars within the Minimal Cooling
paradigm readily fit both NS 1987A and Cas A, the next-youngest known neutron
star. If correct, a long heat transport timescale in the crust and a large
effective stellar temperature are favored, implying relatively limited crustal
n-1S0 superfluidity and an envelope with a thick layer of light elements,
respectively. If the locations don't overlap, then pulsar spindown or accretion
might be more likely, but the pulsar's period and magnetic field or the
accretion rate must be rather finely tuned. In this case, NS 1987A may have
enhanced cooling and/or a heavy-element envelope.Comment: 21 pages, 6 figures, to be published in Ap
Wikipedia as an encyclopaedia of life
In his 2003 essay E O Wilson outlined his vision for an “encyclopaedia of life” comprising “an electronic page for each species of organism on Earth”, each page containing “the scientific name of the species, a pictorial or genomic presentation of the primary type specimen on which its name is based, and a summary of its diagnostic traits.” Although the “quiet revolution” in biodiversity informatics has generated numerous online resources, including some directly inspired by Wilson's essay (e.g., "http://ispecies.org":http://ispecies.org, "http://www.eol.org":http://www.eol.org), we are still some way from the goal of having available online all relevant information about a species, such as its taxonomy, evolutionary history, genomics, morphology, ecology, and behaviour. While the biodiversity community has been developing a plethora of databases, some with overlapping goals and duplicated content, Wikipedia has been slowly growing to the point where it now has over 100,000 pages on biological taxa. My goal in this essay is to explore the idea that, largely independent of the efforts of biodiversity informatics and well-funded international efforts, Wikipedia ("http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page) has emerged as potentially the best platform for fulfilling E O Wilson’s vision
Tuning magnetic frustration on the diamond lattice of the A-site magnetic spinels CoAlGaO: Lattice expansion and site disorder
The spinels CoBO with magnetic Co ions on the diamond lattice
A site can be frustrated because of competing near-neighbor () and
next-near neighbor () interactions. Here we describe attempts to tune the
relative strengths of these interactions by substitution on the non-magnetic
B-site. The system we employ is CoAlGaO, where Al is
systematically replaced by the larger Ga, ostensibly on the B site. As
expected, Ga substitution expands the lattice, resulting in Co atoms on the
A-site being pushed further from one other and thereby weakening magnetic
interactions. In addition, Ga distributes between the B and the A site in a
concentration dependent manner displacing an increasing amount of Co from the A
site with increasing . This increased inversion, which is confirmed by
neutron diffraction studies carried out at room temperature, affects magnetic
ordering very significantly, and changes the nature of the ground state.
Modeling of the magnetic coupling illustrates the complexity that arises from
the cation site disorder.Comment: 9 pages, 10 figure
Probability distributions for quantum stress tensors in four dimensions
We treat the probability distributions for quadratic quantum fields, averaged
with a Lorentzian test function, in four-dimensional Minkowski vacuum. These
distributions share some properties with previous results in two-dimensional
spacetime. Specifically, there is a lower bound at a finite negative value, but
no upper bound. Thus arbitrarily large positive energy density fluctuations are
possible. We are not able to give closed form expressions for the probability
distribution, but rather use calculations of a finite number of moments to
estimate the lower bounds, the asymptotic forms for large positive argument,
and possible fits to the intermediate region. The first 65 moments are used for
these purposes. All of our results are subject to the caveat that these
distributions are not uniquely determined by the moments. However, we also give
bounds on the cumulative distribution function that are valid for any
distribution fitting these moments.We apply the asymptotic form of the
electromagnetic energy density distribution to estimate the nucleation rates of
black holes and of Boltzmann brains.Comment: 26 pages, 2 figure
Accurate age estimation in small-scale societies
Precise estimation of age is essential in evolutionary anthropology, especially to infer population age structures and understand the evolution of human life history diversity. However, in small-scale societies, such as hunter-gatherer populations, time is often not referred to in calendar years, and accurate age estimation remains a challenge. We address this issue by proposing a Bayesian approach that accounts for age uncertainty inherent to fieldwork data. We developed a Gibbs sampling Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm that produces posterior distributions of ages for each individual, based on a ranking order of individuals from youngest to oldest and age ranges for each individual. We first validate our method on 65 Agta foragers from the Philippines with known ages, and show that our method generates age estimations that are superior to previously published regression-based approaches. We then use data on 587 Agta collected during recent fieldwork to demonstrate how multiple partial age ranks coming from multiple camps of hunter-gatherers can be integrated. Finally, we exemplify how the distributions generated by our method can be used to estimate important demographic parameters in small-scale societies: here, age-specific fertility patterns. Our flexible Bayesian approach will be especially useful to improve cross-cultural life history datasets for small-scale societies for which reliable age records are difficult to acquire
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Synthetic flavonoids as novel modulators of platelet function and thrombosis
Cardiovascular diseases represent a major cause of mortality and morbidity in the world and thrombotic conditions such as heart attacks and strokes are caused by unwarranted activation of platelets and subsequent formation of blood clots (thrombi) within the blood vessels during pathological circumstances. Therefore, platelets act as a primary therapeutic target to treat and prevent thrombotic conditions. Current treatments are limited due to intolerance and they are associated with severe side effects such as bleeding complications. Hence, the development of novel therapeutic strategies for thrombotic diseases is an urgent priority. Flavonoids are naturally occurring plant-derived molecules that exert numerous beneficial effects in humans through modulating the functions of distinct cell types. However, naturally occurring flavonoids suffer from several issues such as poor solubility, lipophilicity, and bioavailability, which hinder their efficacy and potency. Despite this, flavonoids act as versatile templates for the design and synthesis of novel molecules for various therapeutic targets. Indeed, several synthetic flavonoids have recently been developed to improve their stability, bioavailability and efficacy including for the modulation of platelet function. Here, we provide insight into the actions of certain natural flavonoids along with the advantages of synthetic flavonoids in the modulation of platelet function, haemostasis and thrombosis
The Evolution in the Faint-End Slope of the Quasar Luminosity Function
(Abridged) Based on numerical simulations of galaxy mergers that incorporate
black hole (BH) growth, we predict the faint end slope of the quasar luminosity
function (QLF) and its evolution with redshift. Our simulations have yielded a
new model for quasar lifetimes where the lifetime depends on both the
instantaneous and peak quasar luminosities. This motivates a new interpretation
of the QLF in which the bright end consists of quasars radiating at nearly
their peak luminosities, but the faint end is mostly made up of quasars in less
luminous phases of evolution. The faint-end QLF slope is then determined by the
faint-end slope of the quasar lifetime for quasars with peak luminosities near
the observed break. We determine this slope from the quasar lifetime as a
function of peak luminosity, based on a large set of simulations spanning a
wide variety of host galaxy, merger, BH, and ISM gas properties. Brighter peak
luminosity (higher BH mass) systems undergo more violent evolution, and expel
and heat gas more rapidly in the final stages of quasar evolution, resulting in
a flatter faint-end slope (as these objects fall below the observed break in
the QLF more rapidly). Therefore, as the QLF break luminosity moves to higher
luminosities with increasing redshift, implying a larger typical quasar peak
luminosity, the faint-end QLF slope flattens. From the quasar lifetime as a
function of peak luminosity and this interpretation of the QLF, we predict the
faint-end QLF slope and its evolution with redshift in good agreement with
observations. Although BHs grow anti-hierarchically (with lower-mass BHs formed
primarily at lower redshifts), the observed change in slope and differential or
luminosity dependent density evolution in the QLF is completely determined by
the luminosity-dependent quasar lifetime and physics of quasar feedback.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figures, submitted to ApJ (Replacement with minor
revisions and changed sign convention
1-2-3-flavor color superconductivity in compact stars
We suggest a scenario where the three light quark flavors are sequentially
deconfined under increasing pressure in cold asymmetric nuclear matter, e.g.,
as in neutron stars. The basis for our analysis is a chiral quark matter model
of Nambu--Jona-Lasinio (NJL) type with diquark pairing in the spin-1 single
flavor (CSL) and spin-0 two/three flavor (2SC/CFL) channels, and a
Dirac-Brueckner Hartree-Fock (DBHF) approach in the nuclear matter sector. We
find that nucleon dissociation sets in at about the saturation density, n_0,
when the down-quark Fermi sea is populated (d-quark dripline) due to the flavor
asymmetry imposed by beta-equilibrium and charge neutrality. At about 3n_0
u-quarks appear forming a two-flavor color superconducting (2SC) phase, while
the s-quark Fermi sea is populated only at still higher baryon density. The
hybrid star sequence has a maximum mass of 2.1 M_sun. Two- and three-flavor
quark matter phases are found only in gravitationally unstable hybrid star
solutions.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, to appear in the proceedings of Quark Matter
2008: 20th International Conference on Ultra-Relativistic Nucleus Nucleus
Collisions (QM 2008), Jaipur, India, 4-10 Feb 200
Time Domain Analysis of Variability in Cygnus X-1: Constraints on the Emission Models
We use time domain analysis techniques to investigate the rapid variability
of Cygnus X-1. We show that the cross-correlation functions between hard and
soft energy bands reach values very close to unity and peak at a lag of less
than 2 millisecond for energies separated by a factor of 10. This confirms that
the process that produces X-ray photons at different energies is extremely
coherent on short time scales and strongly constrains emission models proposed
to explain Fourier-frequency-dependent time lags. We present autocorrelation
functions at different energies, and note their widths decrease with increasing
energy. We show that the extended Compton corona model produces
auto-correlation functions whose widths increase with increasing energy, that
the model of cylindrical waves moving inward through a transition disk has too
large a peak lag in the cross-correlation function. Models of magnetic flaring
and of drifting blobs in a hot corona can qualitatively fit the observations.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, accepted to Astrophysical Journal Letter
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