17,771 research outputs found
Can Heavy WIMPs Be Captured by the Earth?
If weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) in bound solar orbits are
systematically driven into the Sun by solar-system resonances (as Farinella et
al. have shown is the case for many Earth-crossing asteroids), then the capture
of high-mass WIMPs by the Earth would be affected dramatically because
high-mass WIMPs are captured primarily from bound orbits. WIMP capture would be
eliminated for M_x>630 GeV and would be highly suppressed for M_x>~150 GeV.
Annihilation of captured WIMPs and anti-WIMPs is expected to give rise to
neutrinos coming from the Earth's center. The absence of such a neutrino signal
has been used to place limits on WIMP parameters. At present, one does not know
if typical WIMP orbits are in fact affected by these resonances. Until this
question is investigated and resolved, one must (conservatively) assume that
they are. Hence, limits on high-mass WIMP parameters are significantly weaker
than previously believed.Comment: 8 pages + 1 figure. Submitted to Ap
Frequency of Solar-like Systems and of Ice and Gas Giants Beyond the Snow Line from High-magnification Microlensing Events in 2005-2008
We present the first measurement of the planet frequency beyond the "snow line," for the planet-to-star mass-ratio interval –4.5 200) microlensing events during 2005-2008. The sampled host stars have a typical mass M_(host) ~ 0.5 M_⊙, and detection is sensitive to planets over a range of planet-star-projected separations (s ^(–1)_(max)R_E, s_(max)R_E), where R_E ~ 3.5 AU(M_(host)/M_⊙)^(1/2) is the Einstein radius and s_(max) ~ (q/10^(–4.3))^(1/3). This corresponds to deprojected separations roughly three times the "snow line." We show that the observations of these events have the properties of a "controlled experiment," which is what permits measurement of absolute planet frequency. High-magnification events are rare, but the survey-plus-follow-up high-magnification channel is very efficient: half of all high-mag events were successfully monitored and half of these yielded planet detections. The extremely high sensitivity of high-mag events leads to a policy of monitoring them as intensively as possible, independent of whether they show evidence of planets. This is what allows us to construct an unbiased sample. The planet frequency derived from microlensing is a factor 8 larger than the one derived from Doppler studies at factor ~25 smaller star-planet separations (i.e., periods 2-2000 days). However, this difference is basically consistent with the gradient derived from Doppler studies (when extrapolated well beyond the separations from which it is measured). This suggests a universal separation distribution across 2 dex in planet-star separation, 2 dex in mass ratio, and 0.3 dex in host mass. Finally, if all planetary systems were "analogs" of the solar system, our sample would have yielded 18.2 planets (11.4 "Jupiters," 6.4 "Saturns," 0.3 "Uranuses," 0.2 "Neptunes") including 6.1 systems with two or more planet detections. This compares to six planets including one two-planet system in the actual sample, implying a first estimate of 1/6 for the frequency of solar-like systems
Tempo and Mode of Evolution in the Tangled Nature Model
We study the Tangled Nature model of macro evolution and demonstrate that the
co-evolutionary dynamics produces an increasingly correlated core of well
occupied types. At the same time the entire configuration of types becomes
increasing de-correlated. This finding is related to ecosystem evolution. The
systems level dynamics of the model is subordinated to intermittent transitions
between meta-stable states. We improve on previous studies of the statistics of
the transition times and show that the fluctuations in the offspring
probability decreases with number of transitions. The longtime adaptation, as
seen by an increasing population size is demonstrated to be related to the
convexity of the offspring probability. We explain how the models behaviour is
a mathematical reflection of Darwin's concept of adaptation of profitable
variations.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figure
Punctuated Equilibrium in Software Evolution
The approach based on paradigm of self-organized criticality proposed for
experimental investigation and theoretical modelling of software evolution. The
dynamics of modifications studied for three free, open source programs Mozilla,
Free-BSD and Emacs using the data from version control systems. Scaling laws
typical for the self-organization criticality found. The model of software
evolution presenting the natural selection principle is proposed. The results
of numerical and analytical investigation of the model are presented. They are
in a good agreement with the data collected for the real-world software.Comment: 4 pages, LaTeX, 2 Postscript figure
Empirical Study of Simulated Two-planet Microlensing Event
We undertake the first study of two-planet microlensing models recovered from
simulations of microlensing events generated by realistic multi-planet systems
in which 292 planetary events including 16 two-planet events were detected from
6690 simulated light curves. We find that when two planets are recovered, their
parameters are usually close to those of the two planets in the system most
responsible for the perturbations. However, in one of the 16 examples, the
apparent mass of both detected planets was more than doubled by the unmodeled
influence of a third, massive planet. This fraction is larger than, but
statistically consistent with, the roughly 1.5% rate of serious mass errors due
to unmodeled planetary companions for the 274 cases from the same simulation in
which a single planet is recovered. We conjecture that an analogous effect due
to unmodeled stellar companions may occur more frequently. For seven out of 23
cases in which two planets in the system would have been detected separately,
only one planet was recovered because the perturbations due to the two planets
had similar forms. This is a small fraction (7/274) of all recovered
single-planet models, but almost a third of all events that might plausibly
have led to two-planet models. Still, in these cases, the recovered planet
tends to have parameters similar to one of the two real planets most
responsible for the anomaly.Comment: 21 pages, 9 figures, 2 tables; submitted to ApJ; for a short video
introducing the key results, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhK4a6sbfO
Critical behavior in an evolutionary Ultimatum Game
Experimental studies have shown the ubiquity of altruistic behavior in human
societies. The social structure is a fundamental ingredient to understand the
degree of altruism displayed by the members of a society, in contrast to
individual-based features, like for example age or gender, which have been
shown not to be relevant to determine the level of altruistic behavior. We
explore an evolutionary model aiming to delve how altruistic behavior is
affected by social structure. We investigate the dynamics of interacting
individuals playing the Ultimatum Game with their neighbors given by a social
network of interaction. We show that a population self-organizes in a critical
state where the degree of altruism depends on the topology characterizing the
social structure. In general, individuals offering large shares but in turn
accepting large shares, are removed from the population. In heterogeneous
social networks, individuals offering intermediate shares are strongly selected
in contrast to random homogeneous networks where a broad range of offers, below
a critical one, is similarly present in the population.Comment: 13 pages, 7 figure
Recommended from our members
Replication enhancer elements within the open reading frame of tick-borne encephalitis virus and their evolution within the Flavivirus genus
We provide experimental evidence of a replication enhancer element (REE) within the capsid gene of tick-borne encephalitis virus (TBEV, genus Flavivirus). Thermodynamic and phylogenetic analyses predicted that the REE folds as a long stable stem–loop (designated SL6), conserved among all tick-borne flaviviruses (TBFV). Homologous sequences and potential base pairing were found in the corresponding regions of mosquito-borne flaviviruses, but not in more genetically distant flaviviruses. To investigate the role
of SL6, nucleotide substitutions were introduced which changed a conserved hexanucleotide motif, the conformation of the terminal loop and the base-paired dsRNA stacking. Substitutions were made within a TBEV reverse genetic system and recovered mutants were compared for plaque
morphology, single-step replication kinetics and cytopathic effect. The greatest phenotypic changes were observed in mutants with a destabilized stem. Point mutations in the conserved hexanucleotide motif of the terminal loop caused
moderate virus attenuation. However, all mutants
eventually reached the titre of wild-type virus late post-infection. Thus, although not essential for growth in tissue culture, the SL6 REE acts to up-regulate virus replication. We hypothesize that this modulatory role may be important for TBEV survival in nature, where the virus circulates by non-viraemic transmission between infected and
non-infected ticks, during co-feeding on local rodents
A New Photometric Model of the Galactic Bar using Red Clump Giants
We present a study of the luminosity density distribution of the Galactic bar
using number counts of red clump giants (RCGs) from the OGLE-III survey. The
data were recently published by Nataf et al. (2013) for 9019 fields towards the
bulge and have RC stars over a viewing area of . The data include the number counts, mean distance modulus
(), dispersion in and full error matrix, from which we fit the data
with several tri-axial parametric models. We use the Markov Chain Monte Carlo
(MCMC) method to explore the parameter space and find that the best-fit model
is the model, with the distance to the GC is 8.13 kpc, the ratio of
semi-major and semi-minor bar axis scale lengths in the Galactic plane
, and vertical bar scale length , is (close to being prolate). The scale length of the stellar
density profile along the bar's major axis is 0.67 kpc and has an angle
of , slightly larger than the value obtained from a similar study
based on OGLE-II data. The number of estimated RC stars within the field of
view is , which is systematically lower than the observed
value. We subtract the smooth parametric model from the observed counts and
find that the residuals are consistent with the presence of an X-shaped
structure in the Galactic centre, the excess to the estimated mass content is
. We estimate the total mass of the bar is . Our results can be used as a key ingredient to construct new density
models of the Milky Way and will have implications on the predictions of the
optical depth to gravitational microlensing and the patterns of hydrodynamical
gas flow in the Milky Way.Comment: 15 pages, 6 figures, 4 tables. MNRAS accepte
The phase transition in random catalytic sets
The notion of (auto) catalytic networks has become a cornerstone in
understanding the possibility of a sudden dramatic increase of diversity in
biological evolution as well as in the evolution of social and economical
systems. Here we study catalytic random networks with respect to the final
outcome diversity of products. We show that an analytical treatment of this
longstanding problem is possible by mapping the problem onto a set of
non-linear recurrence equations. The solution of these equations show a crucial
dependence of the final number of products on the initial number of products
and the density of catalytic production rules. For a fixed density of rules we
can demonstrate the existence of a phase transition from a practically
unpopulated regime to a fully populated and diverse one. The order parameter is
the number of final products. We are able to further understand the origin of
this phase transition as a crossover from one set of solutions from a quadratic
equation to the other.Comment: 7 pages, ugly eps files due to arxiv restriction
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