44,717 research outputs found
The Global Star Formation Rate from the 1.4 GHz Luminosity Function
The decimetric luminosity of many galaxies appears to be dominated by
synchrotron emission excited by supernova explosions. Simple models suggest
that the luminosity is directly proportional to the rate of supernova
explosions of massive stars averaged over the past 30 Myr. The proportionality
may be used together with models of the evolving 1.4 GHz luminosity function to
estimate the global star formation rate density in the era z < 1. The local
value is estimated to be 0.026 solar masses per year per cubic megaparsec, some
50% larger than the value inferred from the Halpha luminosity density. The
value at z ~ 1 is found to be 0.30 solar masses per year per cubic megaparsec.
The 10-fold increase in star formation rate density is consistent with the
increase inferred from mm-wave, far-infrared, ultra-violet and Halpha
observations.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures, Astrophysical Journal Letters (in press); new PS
version has improved figure placemen
X-ray ptychography on low-dimensional hard-condensed matter materials
Tailoring structural, chemical, and electronic (dis-)order in heterogeneous media is one of the transformative opportunities to enable new functionalities and sciences in energy and quantum materials. This endeavor requires elemental, chemical, and magnetic sensitivities at the nano/atomic scale in two- and three-dimensional space. Soft X-ray radiation and hard X-ray radiation provided by synchrotron facilities have emerged as standard characterization probes owing to their inherent element-specificity and high intensity. One of the most promising methods in view of sensitivity and spatial resolution is coherent diffraction imaging, namely, X-ray ptychography, which is envisioned to take on the dominance of electron imaging techniques offering with atomic resolution in the age of diffraction limited light sources. In this review, we discuss the current research examples of far-field diffraction-based X-ray ptychography on two-dimensional and three-dimensional semiconductors, ferroelectrics, and ferromagnets and their blooming future as a mainstream tool for materials sciences
Electromagnetic vortex lines riding atop null solutions of the Maxwell equations
New method of introducing vortex lines of the electromagnetic field is
outlined. The vortex lines arise when a complex Riemann-Silberstein vector
is multiplied by a complex scalar function
. Such a multiplication may lead to new solutions of the Maxwell
equations only when the electromagnetic field is null, i.e. when both
relativistic invariants vanish. In general, zeroes of the function give
rise to electromagnetic vortices. The description of these vortices benefits
from the ideas of Penrose, Robinson and Trautman developed in general
relativity.Comment: NATO Workshop on Singular Optics 2003 To appear in Journal of Optics
Dynamical Localization in Quasi-Periodic Driven Systems
We investigate how the time dependence of the Hamiltonian determines the
occurrence of Dynamical Localization (DL) in driven quantum systems with two
incommensurate frequencies. If both frequencies are associated to impulsive
terms, DL is permanently destroyed. In this case, we show that the evolution is
similar to a decoherent case. On the other hand, if both frequencies are
associated to smooth driving functions, DL persists although on a time scale
longer than in the periodic case. When the driving function consists of a
series of pulses of duration , we show that the localization time
increases as as the impulsive limit, , is
approached. In the intermediate case, in which only one of the frequencies is
associated to an impulsive term in the Hamiltonian, a transition from a
localized to a delocalized dynamics takes place at a certain critical value of
the strength parameter. We provide an estimate for this critical value, based
on analytical considerations. We show how, in all cases, the frequency spectrum
of the dynamical response can be used to understand the global features of the
motion. All results are numerically checked.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures included. In this version is that Subsection III.B
and Appendix A on the quasiperiodic Fermi Accelerator has been replaced by a
reference to published wor
Emission lines and optical continuum in low-luminosity radio galaxies
We present spectroscopic observations of a complete sub-sample of 13
low-luminosity radio galaxies selected from the 2Jy sample. The underlying
continuum in these sources is carefully modelled in order to make a much-needed
comparison between the emission line and continuum properties of FRIs with
those of other classes of radio sources. We find that 5 galaxies in the sample
show a measurable UV excess: 2 of the these sources are BL Lacs and in the
remaining 3 galaxies we argue that the most likely contributor to the UV excess
is a young stellar component. Excluding the BL Lacs, we therefore find that
\~30% of the sample show evidence for young stars, which is similar to the
results obtained for higher luminosity samples. We compare our results with
far-infrared measurements in order to investigate the far-infrared-starburst
link. The nature of the optical-radio correlations is investigated in light of
this new available data and, in contrast to previous studies, we find that the
FRI sources follow the correlations with a similar slope to that found for the
FRIIs. Finally, we compare the luminosity of the emission lines in the FRI and
BL Lac sources and find a significant difference in the [OIII] line
luminosities of the two groups. Our results are discussed in the context of the
unified schemes.Comment: 18 pages, 31 figures, MNRAS in press, (all enquiries to Clive
Tadhunter ([email protected])
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