The origin of the positron excess in cosmic rays

We show that the positron excess measured by the PAMELA experiment in the region between 10 and 100 GeV may well be a natural consequence of the standard scenario for the origin of Galactic cosmic rays. The 'excess' arises because of positrons created as secondary products of hadronic interactions inside the sources, but the crucial physical ingredient which leads to a natural explanation of the positron flux is the fact that the secondary production takes place in the same region where cosmic rays are being accelerated. Therefore secondary positrons (and electrons) participate in the acceleration process and turn out to have a very flat spectrum, which is responsible, after propagation in the Galaxy, for the observed positron 'excess'. This effect cannot be avoided though its strength depends on the values of the environmental parameters during the late stages of evolution of supernova remnants.Comment: 4 Pages, 2 figures. Some references and discussion adde

Teleportation on a quantum dot array

We present a model of quantum teleportation protocol based on a double quantum dot array. The unknown qubit is encoded using a pair of quantum dots, coupled by tunneling, with one excess electron. It is shown how to create maximally entangled states with this kind of qubits using an adiabatically increasing Coulomb repulsion between different pairs. This entangled states are exploited to perform teleportation again using an adiabatic coupling between them and the incoming unknown state. Finally, a sudden separation of Bob's qubit enables a time evolution of Alice's state providing a modified version of standard Bell measurement. Substituting the four quantum dots entangled state with a chain of coupled DQD's, a quantum channel with high fidelity arises from this scheme allowing the transmission over long distances.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

Asymptotics of Harish-Chandra expansions, bounded hypergeometric functions associated with root systems, and applications

A series expansion for Heckman-Opdam hypergeometric functions $\varphi_\lambda$ is obtained for all $\lambda \in \mathfrak a^*_{\mathbb C}.$ As a consequence, estimates for $\varphi_\lambda$ away from the walls of a Weyl chamber are established. We also characterize the bounded hypergeometric functions and thus prove an analogue of the celebrated theorem of Helgason and Johnson on the bounded spherical functions on a Riemannian symmetric space of the noncompact type. The $L^p$-theory for the hypergeometric Fourier transform is developed for $0<p<2$. In particular, an inversion formula is proved when $1\leq p <2$

Regulation of the Neuron-specific Ras GTPase-activating Protein, synGAP, by Ca2+/Calmodulin-dependent Protein Kinase II

synGAP is a neuron-specific Ras GTPase-activating protein found in high concentration in the postsynaptic density fraction from mammalian forebrain. Proteins in the postsynaptic density, including synGAP, are part of a signaling complex attached to the cytoplasmic tail of the N-methyl-D-aspartate-type glutamate receptor. synGAP can be phosphorylated by a second prominent component of the complex, Ca2+/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II. Here we show that phosphorylation of synGAP by Ca2+/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II increases its Ras GTPase-activating activity by 70-95%. We identify four major sites of phosphorylation, serines 1123, 1058, 750/751/756, and 764/765. These sites together with other minor phosphorylation sites in the carboxyl tail of synGAP control stimulation of GTPase-activating activity. When three of these sites and four other serines in the carboxyl tail are mutated, stimulation of GAP activity after phosphorylation is reduced to 21 ± 5% compared with 70-95% for the wild type protein. We used phosphosite-specific antibodies to show that, as predicted, phosphorylation of serines 765 and 1123 is increased in cultured cortical neurons after exposure of the neurons to the agonist N-methyl-D-aspartate

Flavor stability analysis of dense supernova neutrinos with flavor-dependent angular distributions

Numerical simulations of the supernova (SN) neutrino self-induced flavor conversions, associated with the neutrino-neutrino interactions in the deepest stellar regions, have been typically carried out assuming the "bulb-model". In this approximation, neutrinos are taken to be emitted half-isotropically by a common neutrinosphere. In the recent Ref. \cite{Mirizzi:2011tu} we have removed this assumption by introducing flavor-dependent angular distributions for SN neutrinos, as suggested by core-collapse simulations. We have found that in this case a novel multi-angle instability in the self-induced flavor transitions can arise. In this work we perform an extensive study of this effect, carrying out a linearized flavor stability analysis for different SN neutrino energy fluxes and angular distributions, in both normal and inverted neutrino mass hierarchy. We confirm that spectra of different nu species which cross in angular space (where F_{\nu_e}=F_{\nu_x} and F_{\bar\nu_e}=F_{\bar\nu_x}) present a significant enhancement of the flavor instability, and a shift of the onset of the flavor conversions at smaller radii with respect to the case of an isotropic neutrino emission. We also illustrate how a qualitative (and sometimes quantitative) understanding of the dynamics of these systems follows from a stability analysis.Comment: (v2: revised version. 10 pages, 10 eps figures. References updated. Figures imrproved. Matches the version published in PRD.

Three-dimensional evolution of magnetic and velocity shear driven instabilities in a compressible magnetized jet

The problem of three-dimensional combined magnetic and velocity shear driven instabilities of a compressible magnetized jet modeled with a plane neutral/current double vortex sheet in the framework of the resistive magnetohydrodynamics is addressed. The resulting dynamics given by the stream+current sheet interaction is analyzed and the effects of a variable geometry of the basic fields are considered. Depending on the basic asymptotic magnetic field configuration, a selection rule of the linear instability modes can be obtained. Hence, the system follows a two-stage path developing either through a fully three-dimensional dynamics with a rapid evolution of kink modes leading to a final turbulent state, or rather through a driving two-dimensional instability pattern that develops on parallel planes on which a reconnection+coalescence process takes place.Comment: 33 pages, 15 figures, accepted for publication in Physics of Plasma