685 research outputs found
Globular clusters versus dark matter haloes in strong lensing observations
Small distortions in the images of Einstein rings or giant arcs offer the exciting prospect of detecting low mass dark matter haloes or subhaloes of mass below 109 M⊙ (for independent haloes, the mass refers to M200, and for subhaloes, the mass refers to the mass within tidal radius), most of which are too small to have made a visible galaxy. A very large number of such haloes are predicted to exist in the cold dark matter model of cosmogony; in contrast, other models, such as warm dark matter, predict no haloes below a mass of this order, which depends on the properties of the warm dark matter particle. Attempting to detect these small perturbers could therefore discriminate between different kinds of dark matter particles, and even rule out the cold dark matter model altogether. Globular clusters in the lens galaxy also induce distortions in the image, which could, in principle, contaminate the test. Here, we investigate the population of globular clusters in six early-type galaxies in the Virgo cluster. We find that the number density of globular clusters of mass MGC ∼ 106 M⊙ is comparable to that of the dark matter perturbers (subhaloes in the lenses and haloes along the line of sight of comparable mass). We show that the very different degrees of mass concentration in globular clusters and dark matter haloes result in different lensing distortions. These are detectable with milli-arcsecond resolution imaging, which can distinguish between globular cluster and dark matter halo signals
Structural and Magnetic Properties of Trigonal Iron
First principles calculations of the electronic structure of trigonal iron
were performed using density function theory. The results are used to predict
lattice spacings, magnetic moments and elastic properties; these are in good
agreement with experiment for both the bcc and fcc structures. We find however,
that in extracting these quantities great care must be taken in interpreting
numerical fits to the calculated total energies. In addition, the results for
bulk iron give insight into the properties of thin iron films. Thin films grown
on substrates with mismatched lattice constants often have non-cubic symmetry.
If they are thicker than a few monolayers their electronic structure is similar
to a bulk material with an appropriately distorted geometry, as in our trigonal
calculations. We recast our bulk results in terms of an iron film grown on the
(111) surface of an fcc substrate, and find the predicted strain energies and
moments accurately reflect the trends for iron growth on a variety of
substrates.Comment: 11 pages, RevTeX,4 tar'd,compressed, uuencoded Postscript figure
A Topological Study of Chaotic Iterations. Application to Hash Functions
International audienceChaotic iterations, a tool formerly used in distributed computing, has recently revealed various interesting properties of disorder leading to its use in the computer science security field. In this paper, a comprehensive study of its topological behavior is proposed. It is stated that, in addition to being chaotic as defined in the Devaney's formulation, this tool possesses the property of topological mixing. Additionally, its level of sensibility, expansivity, and topological entropy are evaluated. All of these properties lead to a complete unpredictable behavior for the chaotic iterations. As it only manipulates binary digits or integers, we show that it is possible to use it to produce truly chaotic computer programs. As an application example, a truly chaotic hash function is proposed in two versions. In the second version, an artificial neural network is used, which can be stated as chaotic according to Devaney
Higgs-Boson Production Associated with a Single Bottom Quark in Supersymmetric QCD
Due to the enhancement of the couplings between Higgs boson and bottom quarks
in the minimal sypersymmetric standard model (MSSM), the cross section of the
process pp(p\bar{p}) \to h^0b(h^0\bar{b})+X at hadron colliders can be
considerably enhanced. We investigated the production of Higgs boson associated
with a single high-p_T bottom quark via subprocess bg(\bar{b}g) \to
h^0b(h^0\bar{b}) at hadron colliders including the next-to-leading order (NLO)
QCD corrections in MSSM. We find that the NLO QCD correction in the MSSM
reaches 50%-70% at the LHC and 60%-85% at the Fermilab Tevatron in our chosen
parameter space.Comment: accepted by Phys. Rev.
Hydrodynamic theory for granular gases
A granular gas subjected to a permanent injection of energy is described by
means of hydrodynamic equations derived from a moment expansion method. The
method uses as reference function not a Maxwellian distribution but
a distribution , such that adds a fourth cumulant
to the velocity distribution. The formalism is applied to a stationary
conductive case showing that the theory fits extraordinarily well the results
coming from our molecular dynamic simulations once we determine as a
function of the inelasticity of the particle-particle collisions. The shape of
is independent of the size of the system.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures, more about our research in
http://www.cec.uchile.cl/cinetica
Gravitationally lensed QSOs in the ISSIS/WSO-UV era
Gravitationally lensed QSOs (GLQs) at redshift z = 1-2 play a key role in
understanding the cosmic evolution of the innermost parts of active galaxies
(black holes, accretion disks, coronas and internal jets), as well as the
structure of galaxies at intermediate redshifts. With respect to studies of
normal QSOs, GLQ programmes have several advantages. For example, a monitoring
of GLQs may lead to unambiguous detections of intrinsic and extrinsic
variations. Both kinds of variations can be used to discuss central engines in
distant QSOs, and mass distributions and compositions of lensing galaxies. In
this context, UV data are of particular interest, since they correspond to
emissions from the immediate surroundings of the supermassive black hole. We
describe some observation strategies to analyse optically bright GLQs at z of
about 1.5, using ISSIS (CfS) on board World Space Observatory-Ultraviolet.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, Accepted for publication in Astrophysics & Space
Scienc
Nuclear effects in the Drell-Yan process at very high energies
We study Drell-Yan (DY) dilepton production in proton(deuterium)-nucleus and
in nucleus-nucleus collisions within the light-cone color dipole formalism.
This approach is especially suitable for predicting nuclear effects in the DY
cross section for heavy ion collisions, as it provides the impact parameter
dependence of nuclear shadowing and transverse momentum broadening, quantities
that are not available from the standard parton model. For p(D)+A collisions we
calculate nuclear shadowing and investigate nuclear modification of the DY
transverse momentum distribution at RHIC and LHC for kinematics corresponding
to coherence length much longer than the nuclear size. Calculations are
performed separately for transversely and longitudinally polarized DY photons,
and predictions are presented for the dilepton angular distribution.
Furthermore, we calculate nuclear broadening of the mean transverse momentum
squared of DY dileptons as function of the nuclear mass number and energy. We
also predict nuclear effects for the cross section of the DY process in heavy
ion collisions. We found a substantial nuclear shadowing for valence quarks,
stronger than for the sea.Comment: 46 pages, 18 figures, title changed and some discussion added,
accepted for publication in PR
Pseudoscalar Higgs boson production associated with a single bottom quark at hadron colliders
We compute the complete next-to-leading order (NLO) SUSY-QCD corrections for
the associated production of a pseudoscalar Higgs boson with a bottom quark via
bottom-gluon fusion at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and the Fermilab
Tevatron. We find that the NLO QCD correction in the MSSM reaches
at the LHC and at the Tevatron in our chosen parameter space
A new ghost cell/level set method for moving boundary problems:application to tumor growth
In this paper, we present a ghost cell/level set method for the evolution of interfaces whose normal velocity depend upon the solutions of linear and nonlinear quasi-steady reaction-diffusion equations with curvature-dependent boundary conditions. Our technique includes a ghost cell method that accurately discretizes normal derivative jump boundary conditions without smearing jumps in the tangential derivative; a new iterative method for solving linear and nonlinear quasi-steady reaction-diffusion equations; an adaptive discretization to compute the curvature and normal vectors; and a new discrete approximation to the Heaviside function. We present numerical examples that demonstrate better than 1.5-order convergence for problems where traditional ghost cell methods either fail to converge or attain at best sub-linear accuracy. We apply our techniques to a model of tumor growth in complex, heterogeneous tissues that consists of a nonlinear nutrient equation and a pressure equation with geometry-dependent jump boundary conditions. We simulate the growth of glioblastoma (an aggressive brain tumor) into a large, 1 cm square of brain tissue that includes heterogeneous nutrient delivery and varied biomechanical characteristics (white matter, gray matter, cerebrospinal fluid, and bone), and we observe growth morphologies that are highly dependent upon the variations of the tissue characteristics—an effect observed in real tumor growth
The outer halos of elliptical galaxies
Recent progress is summarized on the determination of the density
distributions of stars and dark matter, stellar kinematics, and stellar
population properties, in the extended, low surface brightness halo regions of
elliptical galaxies. With integral field absorption spectroscopy and with
planetary nebulae as tracers, velocity dispersion and rotation profiles have
been followed to ~4 and ~5-8 effective radii, respectively, and in M87 to the
outer edge at ~150 kpc. The results are generally consistent with the known
dichotomy of elliptical galaxy types, but some galaxies show more complex
rotation profiles in their halos and there is a higher incidence of
misalignments, indicating triaxiality. Dynamical models have shown a range of
slopes for the total mass profiles, and that the inner dark matter densities in
ellipticals are higher than in spiral galaxies, indicating earlier assembly
redshifts. Analysis of the hot X-ray emitting gas in X-ray bright ellipticals
and comparison with dynamical mass determinations indicates that non-thermal
components to the pressure may be important in the inner ~10 kpc, and that the
properties of these systems are closely related to their group environments.
First results on the outer halo stellar population properties do not yet give a
clear picture. In the halo of one bright galaxy, lower [alpha/Fe] abundances
indicate longer star formation histories pointing towards late accretion of the
halo. This is consistent with independent evidence for on-going accretion, and
suggests a connection to the observed size evolution of elliptical galaxies
with redshift.Comment: 8 pages. Invited review to appear in the proceedings of "Galaxies and
their Masks" eds. Block, D.L., Freeman, K.C. & Puerari, I., 2010, Springer
(New York
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