156 research outputs found
Buried treasure—marine turtles do not ‘disguise’ or ‘camouflage’ their nests but avoid them and create a decoy trail
After laying their eggs and refilling the egg chamber, sea turtles scatter sand extensively around the nest site. This is presumed to camouflage the nest, or optimize local conditions for egg development, but a consensus on its function is lacking. We quantified activity and mapped the movements of hawksbill (Eretmochelys imbricata) and leatherback (Dermochelys coriacea) turtles during sand-scattering. For leatherbacks, we also recorded activity at each sand-scattering position. For hawksbills, we recorded breathing rates during nesting as an indicator of metabolic investment and compared with published values for leatherbacks. Temporal and inferred metabolic investment in sand-scattering was substantial for both species. Neither species remained near the nest while sand-scattering, instead moving to several other positions to scatter sand, changing direction each time, progressively displacing themselves from the nest site. Movement patterns were highly diverse between individuals, but activity at each sand-scattering position changed little between completion of egg chamber refilling and return to the sea. Our findings are inconsistent with sand-scattering being to directly camouflage the nest, or primarily for modifying the nest-proximal environment. Instead, they are consistent with the construction of a series of dispersed decoy nests that may reduce the discovery of nests by predators
Energy calibration of large underwater detectors using stopping muons
We propose to use stopping cosmic-ray muons in the energy calibration of planned and deployed large underwater detectors. The method is based on the proportionality between the incident muon energy and the length of the muon path before it stops. Simultaneous measurements of the muon path and the amplitude of the signal from the photomultiplier tubes allow a relation between the energy deposited in the sensitive volume of the detector and the observed signal to be derived, and also provide a test of detector simulations. We describe the proposed method and present the results of simulations
Short time evolved wave functions for solving quantum many-body problems
The exact ground state of a strongly interacting quantum many-body system can
be obtained by evolving a trial state with finite overlap with the ground state
to infinite imaginary time. In this work, we use a newly discovered fourth
order positive factorization scheme which requires knowing both the potential
and its gradients. We show that the resultaing fourth order wave function
alone, without further iterations, gives an excellent description of strongly
interacting quantum systems such as liquid 4He, comparable to the best
variational results in the literature.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, 1 tabl
Microscopic study of the He2-SF6 trimers
The He2-SF6 trimers, in their different He isotopic combinations, are studied
both in the framework of the correlated Jastrow approach and of the Correlated
Hyperspherical Harmonics expansion method. The energetics and structure of the
He-SF6 dimers are analyzed, and the existence of a characteristic rotational
band in the excitation spectrum is discussed, as well as the isotopic
differences. The binding energies and the spatial properties of the trimers, in
their ground and lowest lying excited states, obtained by the Jastrow ansatz
are in excellent agreement with the results of the converged CHH expansion. The
introduction of the He-He correlation makes all trimers bound by largely
suppressing the short range He-He repulsion.
The structural properties of the trimers are qualitatively explained in terms
of the shape of the interactions, Pauli principle and masses of the
constituents.Comment: 17 pages, 5 figures. Submitted to PR
Signature of small rings in the Raman spectra of normal and compressed amorphous silica: A combined classical and ab initio study
We calculate the parallel (VV) and perpendicular (VH) polarized Raman spectra
of amorphous silica. Model SiO2 glasses, uncompressed and compressed, were
generated by a combination of classical and ab initio molecular-dynamics
simulations and their dynamical matrices were computed within the framework of
the density functional theory. The Raman scattering intensities were determined
using the bond-polarizability model and a good agreement with experimental
spectra was found. We confirm that the modes associated to the fourfold and
threefold rings produce most of the Raman intensity of the D1 and D2 peaks,
respectively, in the VV Raman spectra. Modifications of the Raman spectra upon
compression are found to be in agreement with experimental data. We show that
the modes associated to the fourfold rings still exist upon compression but do
not produce a strong Raman intensity, whereas the ones associated to the
threefold rings do. This result strongly suggests that the area under the D1
and D2 peaks is not directly proportional to the concentration of small rings
in amorphous SiO2.Comment: 21 pages, 8 figures. Phys. Rev. B, in pres
Two-dimensional clusters of liquid 4-He
The binding energies of two-dimensional clusters (puddles) of He are
calculated in the framework of the diffusion Monte Carlo method. The results
are very well fitted by a mass formula in powers of , where is
the number of particles. The analysis of the mass formula allows for the
extraction of the line tension, which turns out to be 0.121 K/A. Sizes and
density profiles of the puddles are also reported.Comment: 19 pages including 2 figs; revtex4. Matches published version: major
changes in section V: profiles are now calculated with an unbiased estimator.
Conclusions remain unchange
Zero-point vacancies in quantum solids
A Jastrow wave function (JWF) and a shadow wave function (SWF) describe a
quantum solid with Bose--Einstein condensate; i.e. a supersolid. It is known
that both JWF and SWF describe a quantum solid with also a finite equilibrium
concentration of vacancies x_v. We outline a route for estimating x_v by
exploiting the existing formal equivalence between the absolute square of the
ground state wave function and the Boltzmann weight of a classical solid. We
compute x_v for the quantum solids described by JWF and SWF employing very
accurate numerical techniques. For JWF we find a very small value for the zero
point vacancy concentration, x_v=(1.4\pm0.1) x 10^-6. For SWF, which presently
gives the best variational description of solid 4He, we find the significantly
larger value x_v=(1.4\pm0.1) x 10^-3 at a density close to melting. We also
study two and three vacancies. We find that there is a strong short range
attraction but the vacancies do not form a bound state.Comment: 19 pages, submitted to J. Low Temp. Phy
Weak Localization Effect in Superconductors by Radiation Damage
Large reductions of the superconducting transition temperature and
the accompanying loss of the thermal electrical resistivity (electron-phonon
interaction) due to radiation damage have been observed for several A15
compounds, Chevrel phase and Ternary superconductors, and in
the high fluence regime. We examine these behaviors based on the recent theory
of weak localization effect in superconductors. We find a good fitting to the
experimental data. In particular, weak localization correction to the
phonon-mediated interaction is derived from the density correlation function.
It is shown that weak localization has a strong influence on both the
phonon-mediated interaction and the electron-phonon interaction, which leads to
the universal correlation of and resistance ratio.Comment: 16 pages plus 3 figures, revtex, 76 references, For more information,
Plesse see http://www.fen.bilkent.edu.tr/~yjki
Quantitative comparison of single- and two-particle properties in the cuprates
We explore the strong variations of the electronic properties of
copper-oxygen compounds across the doping phase diagram in a quantitative way.
To this end we calculate the electronic Raman response on the basis of results
from angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES). In the limits of our
approximations we find agreement on the overdoped side and pronounced
discrepancies at lower doping. In contrast to the successful approach for the
transport properties at low energies, the Raman and the ARPES data cannot be
reconciled by adding angle-dependent momentum scattering. We discuss possible
routes towards an explanation of the suppression of spectral weight close to
the points which sets in abruptly close to 21% doping.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure
The Planetary Nebula Luminosity Function at the Dawn of Gaia
The [O III] 5007 Planetary Nebula Luminosity Function (PNLF) is an excellent
extragalactic standard candle. In theory, the PNLF method should not work at
all, since the luminosities of the brightest planetary nebulae (PNe) should be
highly sensitive to the age of their host stellar population. Yet the method
appears robust, as it consistently produces < 10% distances to galaxies of all
Hubble types, from the earliest ellipticals to the latest-type spirals and
irregulars. It is therefore uniquely suited for cross-checking the results of
other techniques and finding small offsets between the Population I and
Population II distance ladders. We review the calibration of the method and
show that the zero points provided by Cepheids and the Tip of the Red Giant
Branch are in excellent agreement. We then compare the results of the PNLF with
those from Surface Brightness Fluctuation measurements, and show that, although
both techniques agree in a relative sense, the latter method yields distances
that are ~15% larger than those from the PNLF. We trace this discrepancy back
to the calibration galaxies and argue that, due to a small systematic error
associated with internal reddening, the true distance scale likely falls
between the extremes of the two methods. We also demonstrate how PNLF
measurements in the early-type galaxies that have hosted Type Ia supernovae can
help calibrate the SN Ia maximum magnitude-rate of decline relation. Finally,
we discuss how the results from space missions such as Kepler and Gaia can help
our understanding of the PNLF phenomenon and improve our knowledge of the
physics of local planetary nebulae.Comment: 12 pages, invited review at the conference "The Fundamental Cosmic
Distance Scale: State of the Art and Gaia Perspective", to appear in
Astrophysics and Space Scienc
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