Entrenamiento musical y desempeño en funciones ejecutivas: Diseño, metodología y resultados preliminares de un estudio piloto

The present descriptive study shows findings that involve music and cognition research areas. A 36 subjects sample was taken to administer a cognitive performance tests batiery, designed specially for the study: nine rhythmic performer musicians, nine melodic performer musicians, nine harmonic performer musicians, and nine non-musicians. Preliminary results show that there is a different relationship in cognitive performance, between musical performers and non-musicians, and in turn, some differences in musicians who have had rhythmic, melodic or harmonic musical training for a prolonged time, of at least 10,000 hours. The cognitive aspects including in this research are mainly executive functions, although other aspects such as fluid intelligence, atiention and processing speed. In this way, the evidence shows that the differences in neurological processing have a certain relationship with cognitive performance for the different elements of music, and it is expected that the next literature in these areas go deeper in the findings that are shown here.El presente estudio descriptivo muestra hallazgos en el área de la cognición musical. Se tomó una muestra de 36 personas para administrarles distintas pruebas de desempeño cognitivo, en una batería de test diseñada especialmente para el estudio: nueve intérpretes en instrumentos rítmicos, nueve intérpretes en instrumentos melódicos, nueve intérpretes en instrumentos armónicos y nueve personas no músicos. Los resultados preliminares mostraron una relación distinta en desempeño cognitivo entre intérpretes musicales y no músicos, y a su vez, algunas diferencias en músicos según hayan tenido entrenamiento musical rítmico, melódico o armónico, por un tiempo prolongado de al menos 10.000 horas. Los aspectos cognitivos implicados en la investigación fueron principalmente funciones ejecutivas, aunque también se evaluaron otros aspectos como inteligencia fluida, atención y velocidad de procesamiento. De esta manera, la evidencia mostró que las diferencias de procesamiento neurológico guardan cierta relación con el desempeño cognitivo para los distintos elementos de la música, y se espera que la literatura que avance en estas áreas pueda profundizar en los diferentes hallazgos que aquí se muestran

The Sensitivity of HAWC to High-Mass Dark Matter Annihilations

The High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) observatory is a wide field-of-view detector sensitive to gamma rays of 100 GeV to a few hundred TeV. Located in central Mexico at 19 degrees North latitude and 4100 m above sea level, HAWC will observe gamma rays and cosmic rays with an array of water Cherenkov detectors. The full HAWC array is scheduled to be operational in Spring 2015. In this paper, we study the HAWC sensitivity to the gamma-ray signatures of high-mass (multi- TeV) dark matter annihilation. The HAWC observatory will be sensitive to diverse searches for dark matter annihilation, including annihilation from extended dark matter sources, the diffuse gamma-ray emission from dark matter annihilation, and gamma-ray emission from non-luminous dark matter subhalos. Here we consider the HAWC sensitivity to a subset of these sources, including dwarf galaxies, the M31 galaxy, the Virgo cluster, and the Galactic center. We simulate the HAWC response to gamma rays from these sources in several well-motivated dark matter annihilation channels. If no gamma-ray excess is observed, we show the limits HAWC can place on the dark matter cross-section from these sources. In particular, in the case of dark matter annihilation into gauge bosons, HAWC will be able to detect a narrow range of dark matter masses to cross-sections below thermal. HAWC should also be sensitive to non-thermal cross-sections for masses up to nearly 1000 TeV. The constraints placed by HAWC on the dark matter cross-section from known sources should be competitive with current limits in the mass range where HAWC has similar sensitivity. HAWC can additionally explore higher dark matter masses than are currently constrained.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures, version to be published in PR

VAMOS: a Pathfinder for the HAWC Gamma-Ray Observatory

VAMOS was a prototype detector built in 2011 at an altitude of 4100m a.s.l. in the state of Puebla, Mexico. The aim of VAMOS was to finalize the design, construction techniques and data acquisition system of the HAWC observatory. HAWC is an air-shower array currently under construction at the same site of VAMOS with the purpose to study the TeV sky. The VAMOS setup included six water Cherenkov detectors and two different data acquisition systems. It was in operation between October 2011 and May 2012 with an average live time of 30%. Besides the scientific verification purposes, the eight months of data were used to obtain the results presented in this paper: the detector response to the Forbush decrease of March 2012, and the analysis of possible emission, at energies above 30 GeV, for long gamma-ray bursts GRB111016B and GRB120328B.Comment: Accepted for pubblication in Astroparticle Physics Journal (20 pages, 10 figures). Corresponding authors: A.Marinelli and D.Zaboro

Milagro limits and HAWC sensitivity for the rate-density of evaporating Primordial Black Holes

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Sensitivity of the Cherenkov Telescope Array for probing cosmology and fundamental physics with gamma-ray propagation

The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA), the new-generation ground-based observatory for $\gamma$-ray astronomy, provides unique capabilities to address significant open questions in astrophysics, cosmology, and fundamental physics. We study some of the salient areas of $\gamma$-ray cosmology that can be explored as part of the Key Science Projects of CTA, through simulated observations of active galactic nuclei (AGN) and of their relativistic jets. Observations of AGN with CTA will enable a measurement of $\gamma$-ray absorption on the extragalactic background light with a statistical uncertainty below 15% up to a redshift $z=2$ and to constrain or detect $\gamma$-ray halos up to intergalactic-magnetic-field strengths of at least 0.3pG. Extragalactic observations with CTA also show promising potential to probe physics beyond the Standard Model. The best limits on Lorentz invariance violation from $\gamma$-ray astronomy will be improved by a factor of at least two to three. CTA will also probe the parameter space in which axion-like particles could constitute a significant fraction, if not all, of dark matter. We conclude on the synergies between CTA and other upcoming facilities that will foster the growth of $\gamma$-ray cosmology