17,468 research outputs found
Shadows and strong gravitational lensing: a brief review
For ultra compact objects (UCOs), Light Rings (LRs) and Fundamental Photon
Orbits (FPOs) play a pivotal role in the theoretical analysis of strong
gravitational lensing effects, and of BH shadows in particular. In this short
review, specific models are considered to illustrate how FPOs can be useful in
order to understand some non-trivial gravitational lensing effects. This paper
aims at briefly overviewing the theoretical foundations of these effects,
touching also some of the related phenomenology, both in General Relativity
(GR) and alternative theories of gravity, hopefully providing some intuition
and new insights for the underlying physics, which might be critical when
testing the Kerr black hole hypothesis.Comment: 32 pages, 9 figures; Review paper in the General Relativity and
Gravitation (GRG) Topical Collection "Testing the Kerr spacetime with
gravitational-wave and electromagnetic observations" (Guest Editor: Emanuele
Berti); v2: Typo corrected and two references adde
Wang-Landau sampling in three-dimensional polymers
Monte Carlo simulations using Wang-Landau sampling are performed to study
three-dimensional chains of homopolymers on a lattice. We confirm the accuracy
of the method by calculating the thermodynamic properties of this system. Our
results are in good agreement with those obtained using Metropolis importance
sampling. This algorithm enables one to accurately simulate the usually hardly
accessible low-temperature regions since it determines the density of states in
a single simulation.Comment: 5 pages, 9 figures arch-ive/Brazilian Journal of Physic
Is CDM an effective CCDM cosmology?
We show that a cosmology driven by gravitationally induced particle
production of all non-relativistic species existing in the present Universe
mimics exactly the observed flat accelerating CDM cosmology with just
one dynamical free parameter. This kind of scenario includes the creation cold
dark matter (CCDM) model [Lima, Jesus & Oliveira, JCAP 011(2010)027] as a
particular case and also provides a natural reduction of the dark sector since
the vacuum component is not needed to accelerate the Universe. The new cosmic
scenario is equivalent to CDM both at the background and perturbative
levels and the associated creation process is also in agreement with the
universality of the gravitational interaction and equivalence principle.
Implicitly, it also suggests that the present day astronomical observations
cannot be considered the ultimate proof of cosmic vacuum effects in the evolved
Universe because CDM may be only an effective cosmology.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, changes in the abstract, introduction, new
references and typo correction
Asteroseismology and Magnetic Cycles
Small cyclic variations in the frequencies of acoustic modes are expected to
be a common phenomenon in solar-like pulsators, as a result of stellar magnetic
activity cycles. The frequency variations observed throughout the solar and
stellar cycles contain information about structural changes that take place
inside the stars as well as about variations in magnetic field structure and
intensity. The task of inferring and disentangling that information is,
however, not a trivial one. In the sun and solar-like pulsators, the direct
effect of the magnetic field on the oscillations might be significantly
important in regions of strong magnetic field (such as solar- / stellar-spots),
where the Lorentz force can be comparable to the gas-pressure gradient. Our aim
is to determine the sun- / stellar-spots effect on the oscillation frequencies
and attempt to understand if this effect contributes strongly to the frequency
changes observed along the magnetic cycle. The total contribution of the spots
to the frequency shifts results from a combination of direct and indirect
effects of the magnetic field on the oscillations. In this first work we
considered only the indirect effect associated with changes in the
stratification within the starspot. Based on the solution of the wave equation
and the variational principle we estimated the impact of these stratification
changes on the oscillation frequencies of global modes in the sun and found
that the induced frequency shifts are about two orders of magnitude smaller
than the frequency shifts observed over the solar cycle.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figures, ESF Conference: The Modern Era of Helio- and
Asteroseismology, to be published on 3 December 2012 at Astronomische
Nachrichten 333, No. 10, 1032-103
Accessing the Acceleration of the Universe with Sunyaev-Zel'dovich and X-ray Data from Galaxy Clusters
By using exclusively the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect and X-ray surface
brightness data from 25 galaxy clusters in the redshift range 0.023< z < 0.784
we access cosmic acceleration employing a kinematic description. Such result is
fully independent on the validity of any metric gravity theory, the possible
matter-energy contents filling the Universe, as well as on the SNe Ia Hubble
diagram.Comment: 3 pages, 4 figures, To appear in the Proceedings of the Twelfth
Marcel Grossmann Meeting on General Relativit
Are Galaxy Clusters Suggesting an Accelerating Universe?
The present cosmic accelerating stage is discussed through a new kinematic
method based on the Sunyaev- Zel'dovich effect (SZE) and X-ray surface
brightness data from galaxy clusters. By using the SZE/X-ray data from 38
galaxy clusters in the redshift range [Bonamente et
al., Astrop. J. {\bf 647}, 25 (2006)] it is found that the present Universe is
accelerating and that the transition from an earlier decelerating to a late
time accelerating regime is relatively recent. The ability of the ongoing
Planck satellite mission to obtain tighter constraints on the expansion history
through SZE/X-ray angular diameters is also discussed. Our results are fully
independent on the validity of any metric gravity theory, the possible matter-
energy contents filling the Universe, as well as on the SNe Ia Hubble diagram
from which the presenting accelerating stage was inferred.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures, AIP Conf. Proc. Invisible Universe: Proceedings
of the Conferenc
Type-safe evolution of spreadsheets
Lecture Notes in Computer Science Volume 6603, 2011Spreadsheets are notoriously error-prone. To help avoid the introduction of errors when changing spreadsheets, models that capture the structure and interdependencies of spreadsheets at a conceptual level have been proposed. Thus, spreadsheet evolution can be made safe within the confines of a model. As in any other model/instance setting, evolution may not only require changes at the instance level but also at the model level. When model changes are required, the safety of instance evolution can not be guarded by the model alone. We have designed an appropriate representation of spreadsheet models, including the fundamental notions of formulæand references. For these models and their instances, we have designed coupled transformation rules that cover specific spreadsheet evolution steps, such as the insertion of columns in all occurrences of a repeated block of cells. Each model-level transformation rule is coupled with instance level migration rules from the source to the target model and vice versa. These coupled rules can be composed to create compound transformations at the model level inducing compound transformations at the instance level. This approach guarantees safe evolution of spreadsheets even when models change.Supported by Fundac ao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia, grant no. SFRH/BD/30231/2006. Supported by Fundac ao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia, grant no. SFRH/BD/30215/2006. Work supported by the SSaaPP project, FCT contract no. PTDC/EIA-CCO/108613/200
Quantum computing with incoherent resources and quantum jumps
Spontaneous emission and the inelastic scattering of photons are two natural
processes usually associated with decoherence and the reduction in the capacity
to process quantum information. Here we show that when suitably detected, these
photons are sufficient to build all the fundamental blocks needed to perform
quantum computation in the emitting qubits while protecting them from
deleterious dissipative effects. We exemplify by showing how to teleport an
unknown quantum state and how to efficiently prepare graph states for the
implementation of measurement-based quantum computation.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure
N=2-Maxwell-Chern-Simons model with anomalous magnetic moment coupling via dimensional reduction
An N=1--supersymmetric version of the Cremmer-Scherk-Kalb-Ramond model with
non-minimal coupling to matter is built up both in terms of superfields and in
a component-field formalism. By adopting a dimensional reduction procedure, the
N=2--D=3 counterpart of the model comes out, with two main features: a genuine
(diagonal) Chern-Simons term and an anomalous magnetic moment coupling between
matter and the gauge potential.Comment: 15 pages, Latex; one reference corrected; To be published in the Int.
J. Mod. Phys.
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