133 research outputs found
Cost-effectiveness Study of Antihypertensive Drugs in Mumbai, India
Hypertension is a serious global public health problem. It accounts for 10% of all deaths in India and is the leading noncommunicable disease.1 Recent studies have shown that the prevalence of hypertension is 25% in urban and 10% in rural people in India.2 It exerts a substantial public health burden on cardiovascular health status and health care systems in India.3 Antihypertensive treatment effectively reduces hypertension-related morbidity and mortality.1 The cost of medications has always been a barrier to effective treatment
Bounds on the Magnetic Fields in the Radiative Zone of the Sun
We discuss bounds on the strength of the magnetic fields that could be buried
in the radiative zone of the Sun. The field profiles and decay times are
computed for all axisymmetric toroidal Ohmic decay eigenmodes with lifetimes
exceeding the age of the Sun. The measurements of the solar oblateness yield a
bound <~ 7 MG on the strength of the field. A comparable bound is expected to
come from the analysis of the splitting of the solar oscillation frequencies.
The theoretical analysis of the double diffusive instability also yields a
similar bound. The oblateness measurements at their present level of
sensitivity are therefore not expected to measure a toroidal field
contribution.Comment: 15 pages, 6 figure
Charged black holes: Wave equations for gravitational and electromagnetic perturbations
A pair of wave equations for the electromagnetic and gravitational
perturbations of the charged Kerr black hole are derived. The perturbed
Einstein-Maxwell equations in a new gauge are employed in the derivation. The
wave equations refer to the perturbed Maxwell spinor and to the shear
of a principal null direction of the Weyl curvature. The whole
construction rests on the tripod of three distinct derivatives of the first
curvature of a principal null direction.Comment: 12 pages, to appear in Ap.
Quantum Fields in a Big Crunch/Big Bang Spacetime
We consider quantum field theory on a spacetime representing the Big
Crunch/Big Bang transition postulated in the ekpyrotic or cyclic cosmologies.
We show via several independent methods that an essentially unique matching
rule holds connecting the incoming state, in which a single extra dimension
shrinks to zero, to the outgoing state in which it re-expands at the same rate.
For free fields in our construction there is no particle production from the
incoming adiabatic vacuum. When interactions are included the total particle
production for fixed external momentum is finite at tree level. We discuss a
formal correspondence between our construction and quantum field theory on de
Sitter spacetime.Comment: 30 pages, RevTex file, five postscript figure file
Spatial analysis of the Halpha emission in the local star-forming UCM galaxies
We present a photometric study of the Halpha emission in the Universidad
Complutense de Madrid (UCM) Survey galaxies. This work complements our
previously-published spectroscopic data. We study the location of the
star-forming knots, their intensity, concentration, and the relationship of
these properties with those of the host galaxy. We also estimate that the
amount of Halpha emission that arises from the diffuse ionized gas is about
15-30% of the total Halpha flux for a typical UCM galaxy. This percentage seems
to be independent of the Hubble type. Conversely, we found that an `average'
UCM galaxy harbours a star formation event with 30% of its Halpha luminosity
arising from a nuclear component. The implications of these results for
higher-redshift studies are discussed, including the effects of galaxy size and
the depth of the observations. A correlation between the SFR and the Balmer
decrement is observed, but such correlation breaks down for large values of the
extinction. Finally, we recalculate the Halpha luminosity function and star
formation rate density of the local Universe using the new imaging data. Our
results point out that, on average, spectroscopic observations detected about
one third of the total emission-line flux of a typical UCM galaxy. The new
values obtained for the Halpha luminosity density and the star formation rate
density of the local Universe are 10^(39.3+/-0.2) erg s-1 Mpc-3, and
rho_SFR=0.016^(+0.007)_(-0.004) Mass_sun yr-1 Mpc-3 (H_0=50 km s-1 Mpc-1,
Omega_M=1.0, Lambda=0). The corresponding values for the `concordance
cosmology' (H_0=70 km s-1 Mpc-1, Omega_M=0.3, Lambda=0.7) are 10^(39.5+/-0.2)
erg s-1 Mpc-3 rho_SFR=0.029^(+0.008)_(-0.005) Mass_sun yr-1 Mpc-3.Comment: 48 pages, 11 PostScript figures, 2 tables, accepted for publication
in ApJ. Halpha images available at
http://www.ucm.es/info/Astrof/UCM_Survey/UCM/ha_images.htm
Rapid dissipation of magnetic fields due to Hall current
We propose a mechanism for the fast dissipation of magnetic fields which is
effective in a stratified medium where ion motions can be neglected. In such a
medium, the field is frozen into the electrons and Hall currents prevail.
Although Hall currents conserve magnetic energy, in the presence of density
gradients, they are able to create current sheets which can be the sites for
efficient dissipation of magnetic fields. We recover the frequency,
, for Hall oscillations modified by the presence of density
gradients. We show that these oscillations can lead to the exchange of energy
between different components of the field. We calculate the time evolution and
show that magnetic fields can dissipate on a timescale of order
. This mechanism can play an important role for magnetic
dissipation in systems with very steep density gradients where the ions are
static such as those found in the solid crust of neutron stars.Comment: 9 pages, changed fig.
Chaotic Friedmann-Robertson-Walker Cosmology
We show that the dynamics of a spatially closed Friedmann - Robertson -
Walker Universe conformally coupled to a real, free, massive scalar field, is
chaotic, for large enough field amplitudes. We do so by proving that this
system is integrable under the adiabatic approximation, but that the
corresponding KAM tori break up when non adiabatic terms are considered. This
finding is confirmed by numerical evaluation of the Lyapunov exponents
associated with the system, among other criteria. Chaos sets strong limitations
to our ability to predict the value of the field at the Big Crunch, from its
given value at the Big Bang. (Figures available on request)Comment: 28 pages, 11 figure
Thermal Particle Creation in Cosmological Spacetimes: A Stochastic Approach
The stochastic method based on the influence functional formalism introduced
in an earlier paper to treat particle creation in near-uniformly accelerated
detectors and collapsing masses is applied here to treat thermal and
near-thermal radiance in certain types of cosmological expansions. It is
indicated how the appearance of thermal radiance in different cosmological
spacetimes and in the two apparently distinct classes of black hole and
cosmological spacetimes can be understood under a unifying conceptual and
methodological framework.Comment: 17 pages, revtex (aps, eqsecnum), submitted to PRD, April 199
Mining metrics for buried treasure
The same but different: That might describe two metrics. On the surface
CLASSI may show two metrics are locally equivalent, but buried beneath one may
be a wealth of further structure. This was beautifully described in a paper by
M.A.H. MacCallum in 1998. Here I will illustrate the effect with two flat
metrics -- one describing ordinary Minkowski spacetime and the other describing
a three-parameter family of Gal'tsov-Letelier-Tod spacetimes. I will dig out
the beautiful hidden classical singularity structure of the latter (a structure
first noticed by Tod in 1994) and then show how quantum considerations can
illuminate the riches. I will then discuss how quantum structure can help us
understand classical singularities and metric parameters in a variety of exact
solutions mined from the Exact Solutions book.Comment: 16 pages, no figures, minor grammatical changes, submitted to
Proceedings of the Malcolm@60 Conference (London, July 2004
Ohm's Law for Plasma in General Relativity and Cowling's Theorem
The general-relativistic Ohm's law for a two-component plasma which includes
the gravitomagnetic force terms even in the case of quasi-neutrality has been
derived. The equations that describe the electromagnetic processes in a plasma
surrounding a neutron star are obtained by using the general relativistic form
of Maxwell equations in a geometry of slow rotating gravitational object. In
addition to the general-relativistic effect first discussed by Khanna \&
Camenzind (1996) we predict a mechanism of the generation of azimuthal current
under the general relativistic effect of dragging of inertial frames on radial
current in a plasma around neutron star. The azimuthal current being
proportional to the angular velocity of the dragging of inertial
frames can give valuable contribution on the evolution of the stellar magnetic
field if exceeds (
is the number density of the charged particles, is the conductivity of
plasma). Thus in general relativity a rotating neutron star, embedded in
plasma, can in principle generate axial-symmetric magnetic fields even in
axisymmetry. However, classical Cowling's antidynamo theorem, according to
which a stationary axial-symmetric magnetic field can not be sustained against
ohmic diffusion, has to be hold in the general-relativistic case for the
typical plasma being responsible for the rotating neutron star.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astrophysics & Space Scienc
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