7,573 research outputs found
Are the hosts of VLBI selected radio-AGN different to those of radio-loud AGN?
Recent studies have found that radio-AGN selected by radio-loudness show
little difference in terms of their host galaxy properties when compared to
non-AGN galaxies of similar stellar mass and redshift. Using new 1.4~GHz VLBI
observations of the COSMOS field we find that approximately 49\% of
high-mass (M 10 M), high luminosity (L
10 W~Hz) radio-AGN possess a VLBI detected counterpart. These
objects show no discernible bias towards specific stellar masses, redshifts or
host properties other than what is shown by the radio-AGN population in
general. Radio-AGN that are detected in VLBI observations are not special, but
form a representative sample of the radio-loud AGN population.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, lette
Estimativa quantitativa da resposta Ă clortetraciclina em um caso grave de disenteria por Balantidium coli
Feita uma tentativa de determinar a eficĂĄcia terapĂȘutica da clortetraciclina em um caso grave de disenteria por Balantidium. Foram feitas vĂĄrias estimativas da população de trofozoitos de Balantidium, a partir de fezes de 24 horas, antes e durante o tratamento de 4 dias com a droga. Houve uma redução marcante no nĂșmero de parasitas eliminados durante o tratamento, associada a uma melhora clĂnica significativa nas condiçÔes da paciente.The therapeutic efficiency of chlortetracyclines for the treatment of Balantidial dysentery was tested in a Yanomama indian. Parasite counts were made on 24 hour samples of the patient's faeces, before treatment and on the third and fourth day of treatment. A marked reduction in parasite counts was seen during treatment associated with an improvement in the patient's condition
Quasi-thermal Comptonization and gamma-ray bursts
Quasi-thermal Comptonization in internal shocks formed between relativistic
shells can account for the high energy emission of gamma-ray bursts. This is in
fact the dominant cooling mechanism if the typical energy of the emitting
particles is achieved either through the balance between heating and cooling or
as a result of electron-positron pair production. Both processes yield sub or
mildly relativistic energies. In this case the synchrotron spectrum is
self-absorbed, providing the seed soft photons for the Comptonization process,
whose spectrum is flat [F(v) ~ const], ending either in an exponential cutoff
or a Wien peak, depending on the scattering optical depth of the emitting
particles. Self-consistent particle energy and optical depth are estimated and
found in agreement with the observed spectra.Comment: 10 pages, ApJ Letters, accepted for publicatio
On the crosscorrelation between Gravitational Wave Detectors for detecting association with Gamma Ray Bursts
Crosscorrelation of the outputs of two Gravitational Wave (GW) detectors has
recently been proposed [1] as a method for detecting statistical association
between GWs and Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs). Unfortunately, the method can be
effectively used only in the case of stationary noise. In this work a different
crosscorrelation algorithm is presented, which may effectively be applied also
in non-stationary conditions for the cumulative analysis of a large number of
GRBs. The value of the crosscorrelation at zero delay, which is the only one
expected to be correlated to any astrophysical signal, is compared with the
distribution of crosscorrelation of the same data for all non-zero delays
within the integration time interval. This background distribution is gaussian,
so the statistical significance of an experimentally observed excess would be
well-defined.
Computer simulations using real noise data of the cryogenic GW detectors
Explorer and Nautilus with superimposed delta-like signals were performed, to
test the effectiveness of the method, and theoretical estimates of its
sensitivity compared to the results of the simulation. The effectiveness of the
proposed algorithm is compared to that of other cumulative techniques, finding
that the algorithm is particularly effective in the case of non-gaussian noise
and of a large (100-1000s) and unpredictable delay between GWs and GRBs.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, 1 table. Submitted by Phys. Rev.
Semi-Analytical Models for Lensing by Dark Halos: I. Splitting Angles
We use the semi-analytical approach to analyze gravitational lensing of
quasars by dark halos in various cold dark matter (CDM) cosmologies, in order
to determine the sensitivity of the prediction probabilities of images
separations to the input assumptions regarding halos and cosmologies. The mass
function of dark halos is assumed to be given by the Press-Schechter function.
The mass density profile of dark halos is alternatively taken to be the
singular isothermal sphere (SIS), the Navarro-Frenk-White (NFW) profile, or the
generalized NFW profile. The cosmologies include: the Einstein-de Sitter model
(SCDM), the open model (OCDM), and the flat \Lambda-model (LCDM). As expected,
we find that the lensing probability is extremely sensitive to the mass density
profile of dark halos, and somewhat less so to the mean mass density in the
universe, and the amplitude of primordial fluctuations. NFW halos are very much
less effective in producing multiple images than SIS halos. However, none of
these models can completely explain the current observations: the SIS models
predict too many large splitting lenses, while the NFW models predict too few
small splitting lenses. This indicates that there must be at least two
populations of halos in the universe. A combination of SIS and NFW halos can
reasonably reproduce the current observations if we choose the mass for the
transition from SIS to NFW to be ~ 10^{13} solar masses. Additionally, there is
a tendency for CDM models to have too much power on small scales, i.e. too much
mass concentration; and it appears that the cures proposed for other apparent
difficulties of CDM would help here as well, an example being the warm dark
matter (WDM) variant which is shown to produce large splitting lenses fewer
than the corresponding CDM model by one order of magnitude.Comment: 46 pages, including 13 figures. Revised version with significant
improvemen
The Expected Rate of Gamma-Ray Burst Afterglows In Supernova Searches
We predict the rate at which Gamma-Ray Burst (GRB) afterglows should be
detected in supernova searches as a function of limiting flux. Although GRB
afterglows are rarer than supernovae, they are detectable at greater distances
because of their higher intrinsic luminosity. Assuming that GRBs trace the
cosmic star formation history and that every GRB gives rise to a bright
afterglow, we find that the average detection rate of supernovae and afterglows
should be comparable at limiting magnitudes brighter than K=18. The actual rate
of afterglows is expected to be somewhat lower since only a fraction of all
gamma-ray selected GRBs were observed to have associated afterglows. However,
the rate could also be higher if the initial gamma-ray emission from GRB
sources is more beamed than their late afterglow emission. Hence, current and
future supernova searches can place strong constraints on the afterglow
appearance fraction and the initial beaming angle of GRB sources.Comment: 13 pages, submitted to ApJ
Cosmic Renaissance: The First Sources of Light
I review recent progress in understanding the formation of the first stars
and quasars. The initial conditions for their emergence are given by the now
firmly established model of cosmological structure formation. Numerical
simulations of the collapse and fragmentation of primordial gas indicate that
the first stars formed at redshifts z ~ 20 - 30, and that they were
predominantly very massive, with M_* > 100 M_sun. Important uncertainties,
however, remain. Paramount among them is the accretion process, which builds up
the final stellar mass by incorporating part of the diffuse, dust-free envelope
into the central protostellar core. The first quasars, on the other hand, are
predicted to have formed later on, at z ~ 10, in more massive dark matter
halos, with total masses, ~ 10^8 M_sun, characteristic of dwarf galaxies.Comment: 16 pages, 7 figures, invited review, to appear in PASP, Feb. 200
Radiation from collision-dominated relativistic pair fireballs
It is generally accepted that gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are initiated by a
relativistic pair fireball, converting its internal energy into kinetic energy
of a relativistically moving plasmoid and subsequently into radiation. Here, we
investigate the early stages of this evolution, after the pair fireball has
become optically thin to gamma-gamma pair production. We show that for a short
period of time, ~ 0.1 - a few seconds after the initial explosion, the pair
plasmoid evolution might be dominated by collisional processes prior to the
formation of a collisionless shock. We simulate these processes during the
early pair plasmoid evolution and calculate the expected radiative signatures.
We show that the radiation from the collision-dominated pair plasmoid phase
results in a short (~ a few ms) flash of thermal soft X-ray emission, followed
by a transition phase of < 1 s during which the fireball turns Thomson thin,
but its radiation remains dominated by thermal Comptonization, peaking at
around E_pk ~ 100 MeV - a few GeV. While the very early thermal emission could
be associated with the quasi-thermal radiation signatures found in the very
early phases of several bright BATSE GRBs, the predicted subsequent flash of
high-energy emission should be easily detectable with the GLAST satellite.Comment: AASTeX, 25 pages, including 7 figures. Accepted for publication in
Ap
Economical (k,m)-threshold controlled quantum teleportation
We study a (k,m)-threshold controlling scheme for controlled quantum
teleportation. A standard polynomial coding over GF(p) with prime p > m-1 needs
to distribute a d-dimensional qudit with d >= p to each controller for this
purpose. We propose a scheme using m qubits (two-dimensional qudits) for the
controllers' portion, following a discussion on the benefit of a quantum
control in comparison to a classical control of a quantum teleportation.Comment: 11 pages, 2 figures, v2: minor revision, discussions improved, an
equation corrected in procedure (A) of section 4.3, v3: major revision,
protocols extended, citations added, v4: minor grammatical revision, v5:
minor revision, discussions extende
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