898 research outputs found
Centers of probability measures without the mean
In the recent years, the notion of mixability has been developed with applications to operations research, optimal transportation, and quantitative finance. An n-tuple of distributions is said to be jointly mixable if there exist n random variables following these distributions and adding up to a constant, called center, with probability one. When the n distributions are identical, we speak of complete mixability. If each distribution has finite mean, the center is obviously the sum of the means. In this paper, we investigate the set of centers of completely and jointly mixable distributions not having a finite mean. In addition to several results, we show the (possibly counterintuitive) fact that, for each (Formula presented.), there exist n standard Cauchy random variables adding up to a constant C if and only if (Formula presented.
Blazar surveys with WMAP and Swift
We present the preliminary results from two new surveys of blazars that have
direct implications on the GLAST detection of extragalactic sources from two
different perspectives: microwave selection and a combined deep X-ray/radio
selection. The first one is a 41 GHz flux-limited sample extracted from the
WMAP 3-yr catalog of microwave point sources. This is a statistically well
defined sample of about 200 blazars and radio galaxies, most of which are
expected to be detected by GLAST. The second one is a new deep survey of
Blazars selected among the radio sources that are spatially coincident with
serendipitous sources detected in deep X-ray images (0.3-10 keV) centered on
the Gamma Ray Bursts (GRB) discovered by the Swift satellite. This sample is
particularly interesting from a statistical viewpoint since a) it is unbiased
as GRBs explode at random positions in the sky, b) it is very deep in the X-ray
band (\fx \simgt \ergs) with a position accuracy of a few
arc-seconds, c) it will cover a fairly large (20-30 square deg.) area of sky,
d) it includes all blazars with radio flux (1.4 GHz) larger than 10 mJy, making
it approximately two orders of magnitude deeper than the WMAP sample and about
one order of magnitude deeper than the deepest existing complete samples of
radio selected blazars, and e) it can be used to estimate the amount of
unresolved GLAST high latitude gamma-ray background and its anisotropy
spectrum.Comment: 3 pages, 3 figures, to appear in Proc. of the 1st GLAST Symposium,
Feb 5-8, 2007, Stanford, AIP, Eds. S. Ritz, P. F. Michelson, and C. Meega
Preclinical discovery and development of fingolimod for the treatment of multiple sclerosis
ABSTRACTIntroduction: Fingolimod, the first oral disease-modifying treatment (DMT) in multiple sclerosis (MS), is a sphingosine 1-phosphate receptor (S1PR) ligand. Approved in 2010, fingolimod has ..
The seven year Swift-XRT point source catalog (1SWXRT)
Swift is a multi-wavelength observatory specifically designed for gamma-ray
burst (GRB) astronomy that is operational since 2004. Swift is also a very
flexible multi-purpose facility that supports a wide range of scientific fields
such as active galactic nuclei, supernovae, cataclysmic variables, Galactic
transients, active stars and comets. The Swift X-ray Telescope (XRT) has
collected more than 150 Ms of observations in its first seven years of
operations. We present the list of all the X-ray point sources detected in XRT
imaging data taken in photon counting mode during the first seven years of
Swift operations. All these point-like sources, excluding the Gamma-Ray Bursts
(GRB), will be stored in a catalog publicly available (1SWXRT). We consider all
XRT observations with exposure time > 500 s taken in the period 2005-2011. Data
were reduced and analyzed with standard techniques and a list of detected
sources for each observation was produced. A careful visual inspection was
performed to remove extended, spurious and piled-up sources. Positions, count
rates, fluxes and the corresponding uncertainties were computed. We have
analyzed more than 35,000 XRT fields, with exposures ranging between 500 s and
100 ks, for a total exposure time of 140 Ms. The catalog includes ~ 89,000
entries, of which almost 85,000 are not affected by pile-up and are not GRBs.
Since many XRT fields were observed several times, we have a total of ~36,000
distinct celestial sources. We computed count rates in three energy bands:
0.3-10 keV (Full, or F), 0.3-3 keV (Soft, or S) and 2-10 keV (Hard, or H). Each
entry has a detection in at least one of these bands. In particular, we detect
~ 80,000, ~ 70,000 and ~ 25,500$ in the F, S and H band, respectively. Count
rates were converted into fluxes in the 0.5-10, 0.5-2 and 2-10 keV bands. Some
possible scientific uses of the catalog are also highlighted.Comment: 11 pages, 15 ps figures, accepted for publication in A&A. Abstract
shortened with respect to the original versio
The HELLAS2XMM survey. IX. Spectroscopic identification of super-EROs hosting AGNs
We present VLT near-IR spectroscopic observations of three X-ray sources
characterized by extremely high X-ray-to-optical ratios (X/O>40), extremely red
colors (6.3<R-K<7.4, i.e. EROs) and bright infrared magnitudes (17.6<K<18.3).
These objects are very faint in the optical, making their spectroscopic
identification extremely challenging. Instead, our near-IR spectroscopic
observations have been successful in identifying the redshift of two of them
(z=2.08 and z=1.35), and tentatively even of the third one (z=2.13). When
combined with the X-ray properties, our results clearly indicate that all these
objects host obscured QSOs (4e44 < L(2-10keV) < 1.5e45 erg/s, 2e22 < N_H < 4e23
cm-2) at high redshift. The only object with unresolved morphology in the K
band shows broad Halpha emission, but not broad Hbeta, implying a type 1.9 AGN
classification. The other two objects are resolved and dominated by the host
galaxy light in the K band, and appear relatively quiescent: one of them has a
LINER-like emission line spectrum and the other presents only a single, weak
emission line which we tentatively identify with Halpha. The galaxy
luminosities for the latter two objects are an order of magnitude brighter than
typical local L* galaxies and the derived stellar masses are well in excess of
10^11 Msun. For these objects we estimate black hole masses higher than 10^9
Msun and we infer that they are radiating at Eddington ratios L/L_Edd < 0.1. We
discuss the implications of these findings for the coevolution of galaxies and
black hole growth. Our results provide further support that X-ray sources with
high X/O ratios and very red colors tend to host obscured QSO in very massive
galaxies at high redshift.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in A&
Unveiling obscured accretion in the Chandra Deep Field South
A large population of heavily obscured, Compton Thick AGNs is predicted by
models of galaxy formation, models of Cosmic X-ray Background and by the
``relic'' super-massive black-hole mass function measured from local bulges.
However, so far only a handful of Compton thick AGNs have been possibly
detected using even the deepest Chandra and XMM surveys. Compton-thick AGNs can
be recovered thanks to the reprocessing of the AGN UV emission in the infrared
by selecting sources with AGN luminosity's in the mid-infrared and faint
near-infrared and optical emission. To this purpose, we make use of deep HST,
VLT, Spitzer and Chandra data on the Chandra Deep Field South to constrain the
number of Compton thick AGN in this field. We show that sources with high
24m to optical flux ratios and red colors form a distinct source
population, and that their infrared luminosity is dominated by AGN emission.
Analysis of the X-ray properties of these extreme sources shows that most of
them (80) are indeed likely to be highly obscured, Compton thick AGNs.
The number of infrared selected, Compton thick AGNs with 5.8m luminosity
higher than erg s turns out to be similar to that of X-ray
selected, unobscured and moderately obscured AGNs with 2-10 keV luminosity
higher than erg s in the redshift bin 1.2-2.6. This ``factor
of 2'' source population is exactly what it is needed to solve the
discrepancies between model predictions and X-ray AGN selection.Comment: Revised version, to be published by The Astrophysical Journa
High Momentum Probes of Nuclear Matter
We discuss how the chemical composition of QCD jets is altered by final state
interactions in surrounding nuclear matter. We describe this process through
conversions of leading jet particles. We find that conversions lead to an
enhancement of kaons at high transverse momentum in Au+Au collisions at RHIC,
while their azimuthal asymmetry v_2 is suppressed.Comment: Contribution to the 4th international workshop High-pT physics at LHC
09, Prague; 6 pages, 6 figure
Numerical Investigation of Viscous Dissipation in Elliptic Microducts
In this work a numerical analysis of heat transfer in elliptical microchannels heated at constant and uniform heat flux is presented. A gaseous flow has been considered, in laminar steady state condition, in hydrodynamically and thermally fully developed forced convection, accounting for the rarefaction effects. The velocity and temperature distributions have been determined in the elliptic cross section, for different values of aspect ratio, Knudsen number and Brinkman number, solving the Navier-Stokes and energy equations within the Comsol MultiphysicsÂź environment. The numerical procedure has been validated resorting to data available in literature for slip flow in elliptic cross sections with Br =0 and for slip flow in circular ducts with Br > 0. The comparison between numerical results and data available in literature shows a perfect agreement. The velocity and temperature distributions thus found have been used to calculate the average Nusselt number in the cross section. The numerical results for Nusselt number are presented in terms of rarefaction degree (Knudsen number), of viscous dissipation (Brinkman number), and of the aspect ratio. The results point out that the thermal fluid behavior is significantly affected by the viscous dissipation for low rarefaction degrees and for aspect ratios of the elliptic cross-section higher than 0.2
Science with Simbol-X
Simbol-X is a French-Italian mission, with a participation of German
laboratories, for X-ray astronomy in the wide 0.5-80 keV band. Taking advantage
of emerging technology in mirror manufacturing and spacecraft formation flying,
Simbol-X will push grazing incidence imaging up to ~80 keV, providing an
improvement of roughly three orders of magnitude in sensitivity and angular
resolution compared to all instruments that have operated so far above 10 keV.
This will open a new window in X-ray astronomy, allowing breakthrough studies
on black hole physics and census and particle acceleration mechanisms. We
describe briefly the main scientific goals of the Simbol-X mission, giving a
few examples aimed at highlighting key issues of the Simbol-X design.Comment: Proc. of the workshop "Simbol-X: The hard X-ray universe in focus",
Bologna 14-16 May, 200
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