179 research outputs found
Some aspects of the abnormal fruit of November-flowering bananas
During February in south-eastern Queensland some peculiarly shaped bananas, referred to by the trade as "November dumps", are marketed. This fruit owes its name to the blunt and stubby flower end and to the fact that the bunches are thrown (emerge) from the plant in early November. Carpel numbers are lower in Giant Cavendish fruit in bunches emerging in early November and the fruit is thinner
Mid-infrared transmission properties of step index and large mode area ZnSe microstructured optical fibers
ZnSe microstructured fibers have been designed and fabricated using silica capillaries and an air-silica photonic band-gap optical fiber as high-pressure microfluidic templates for semiconductor growth via chemical fluid deposition. We examine their transmission properties over a wide spectral range
Fluctuations in the Cosmic Microwave Background I: Form Factors and their Calculation in Synchronous Gauge
It is shown that the fluctuation in the temperature of the cosmic microwave
background in any direction may be evaluated as an integral involving scalar
and dipole form factors, which incorporate all relevant information about
acoustic oscillations before the time of last scattering. A companion paper
gives asymptotic expressions for the multipole coefficient in terms of
these form factors. Explicit expressions are given here for the form factors in
a simplified hydrodynamic model for the evolution of perturbations.Comment: 35 pages, no figures. Improved treatment of damping, including both
Landau and Silk damping; inclusion of late-time effects; several references
added; minor changes and corrections made. Accepted for publication in Phys.
Rev. D1
An Isocurvature Mechanism for Structure Formation
We examine a novel mechanism for structure formation involving initial number
density fluctuations between relativistic species, one of which then undergoes
a temporary downward variation in its equation of state and generates
superhorizon-scale density fluctuations. Isocurvature decaying dark matter
models (iDDM) provide concrete examples. This mechanism solves the
phenomenological problems of traditional isocurvature models, allowing iDDM
models to fit the current CMB and large-scale structure data, while still
providing novel behavior. We characterize the decaying dark matter and its
decay products as a single component of ``generalized dark matter''. This
simplifies calculations in decaying dark matter models and others that utilize
this mechanism for structure formation.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, submitted to PRD (rapid communications
Two-photon absorption and self-phase modulation in silicon optical fibers into the mid-infrared regime
Nonlinear transmission is investigated in a hydrogenated amorphous silicon optical fiber extending into the mid-infrared region. Low losses past the two-photon absorption edge allow for strong spectral broadening in this important wavelength regime
Limits on the gravity wave contribution to microwave anisotropies
We present limits on the fraction of large angle microwave anisotropies which
could come from tensor perturbations. We use the COBE results as well as
smaller scale CMB observations, measurements of galaxy correlations, abundances
of galaxy clusters, and Lyman alpha absorption cloud statistics. Our aim is to
provide conservative limits on the tensor-to-scalar ratio for standard
inflationary models. For power-law inflation, for example, we find T/S<0.52 at
95% confidence, with a similar constraint for phi^p potentials. However, for
models with tensor amplitude unrelated to the scalar spectral index it is still
currently possible to have T/S>1.Comment: 23 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. D.
Calculations extended to blue spectral index, Fig. 6 added, discussion of
results expande
Constraining the Power Spectrum using Clusters
(Shortened Abstract). We analyze a redshift sample of Abell/ACO clusters and
compare them with numerical simulations based on the truncated Zel'dovich
approximation (TZA), for a list of eleven dark matter (DM) models. For each
model we run several realizations, on which we estimate cosmic variance
effects. We analyse correlation statistics, the probability density function,
and supercluster properties from percolation analysis. As a general result, we
find that the distribution of galaxy clusters provides a constraint only on the
shape of the power spectrum, but not on its amplitude: a shape parameter 0.18 <
\Gamma < 0.25 and an effective spectral index at 20Mpc/h in the range
[-1.1,-0.9] are required by the Abell/ACO data. In order to obtain
complementary constraints on the spectrum amplitude, we consider the cluster
abundance as estimated using the Press--Schechter approach, whose reliability
is explicitly tested against N--body simulations. We conclude that, of the
cosmological models considered here, the only viable models are either Cold+Hot
DM ones with \Omega_\nu = [0.2-0.3], better if shared between two massive
neutrinos, and flat low-density CDM models with \Omega_0 = [0.3-0.5].Comment: 37 pages, Latex file, 9 figures; New Astronomy, in pres
Is cosmology consistent?
We perform a detailed analysis of the latest CMB measurements (including
BOOMERaNG, DASI, Maxima and CBI), both alone and jointly with other
cosmological data sets involving, e.g., galaxy clustering and the Lyman Alpha
Forest. We first address the question of whether the CMB data are internally
consistent once calibration and beam uncertainties are taken into account,
performing a series of statistical tests. With a few minor caveats, our answer
is yes, and we compress all data into a single set of 24 bandpowers with
associated covariance matrix and window functions. We then compute joint
constraints on the 11 parameters of the ``standard'' adiabatic inflationary
cosmological model. Out best fit model passes a series of physical consistency
checks and agrees with essentially all currently available cosmological data.
In addition to sharp constraints on the cosmic matter budget in good agreement
with those of the BOOMERaNG, DASI and Maxima teams, we obtain a heaviest
neutrino mass range 0.04-4.2 eV and the sharpest constraints to date on gravity
waves which (together with preference for a slight red-tilt) favors
``small-field'' inflation models.Comment: Replaced to match accepted PRD version. 14 pages, 12 figs. Tiny
changes due to smaller DASI & Maxima calibration errors. Expanded neutrino
and tensor discussion, added refs, typos fixed. Combined CMB data, window and
covariance matrix at http://www.hep.upenn.edu/~max/consistent.html or from
[email protected]
The Formation of Cosmic Structures in a Light Gravitino Dominated Universe
We analyse the formation of cosmic structures in models where the dark matter
is dominated by light gravitinos with mass of eV -- 1 keV, as predicted
by gauge-mediated supersymmetry (SUSY) breaking models. After evaluating the
number of degrees of freedom at the gravitinos decoupling (), we compute
the transfer function for matter fluctuations and show that gravitinos behave
like warm dark matter (WDM) with free-streaming scale comparable to the galaxy
mass scale. We consider different low-density variants of the WDM model, both
with and without cosmological constant, and compare the predictions on the
abundances of neutral hydrogen within high-redshift damped Ly-- systems
and on the number density of local galaxy clusters with the corresponding
observational constraints. We find that none of the models satisfies both
constraints at the same time, unless a rather small value (\mincir
0.4) and a rather large Hubble parameter (\magcir 0.9) is assumed.
Furthermore, in a model with warm + hot dark matter, with hot component
provided by massive neutrinos, the strong suppression of fluctuation on scales
of \sim 1\hm precludes the formation of high-redshift objects, when the
low-- cluster abundance is required. We conclude that all different variants
of a light gravitino DM dominated model show strong difficulties for what
concerns cosmic structure formation.
This gives a severe cosmological constraint on the gauge-mediated SUSY
breaking scheme.Comment: 28 pages,Latex, submitted for publication to Phys.Rev.
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