250 research outputs found
A Geometric Model for Odd Differential K-theory
Odd -theory has the interesting property that it admits an infinite number
of inequivalent differential refinements. In this paper we provide a bundle
theoretic model for odd differential -theory using the caloron
correspondence and prove that this refinement is unique up to a unique natural
isomorphism. We characterise the odd Chern character and its transgression form
in terms of a connection and Higgs field and discuss some applications. Our
model can be seen as the odd counterpart to the Simons-Sullivan construction of
even differential -theory. We use this model to prove a conjecture of
Tradler-Wilson-Zeinalian regarding a related differential extension of odd
-theoryComment: 36 page
Combined geochemical and electrochemical methodology to quantify corrosion of carbon steel by bacterial activity.
International audienceThe availability of respiratory substrates, such as H2 and Fe(II,III) solid corrosion products within nuclear waste repository, will sustain the activities of hydrogen-oxidizing bacteria (HOB) and iron-reducing bacteria (IRB). This may have a direct effect on the rate of carbon steel corrosion. This study investigates the effects of Shewanella oneidensis (an HOB and IRB model organism) on the corrosion rate by looking at carbon steel dissolution in the presence of H2 as the sole electron donor. Bacterial effect is evaluated by means of geochemical and electrochemical techniques. Both showed that the corrosion rate is enhanced by a factor of 2-3 in the presence of bacteria. The geochemical experiments indicated that the composition and crystallinity of the solid corrosion products (magnetite and vivianite) are modified by bacteria. Moreover, the electrochemical experiments evidenced that the bacterial activity can be stimulated when H2 is generated in a small confinement volume. In this case, a higher corrosion rate and mineralization (vivianite) on the carbon steel surface were observed. The results suggest that the mechanism likely to influence the corrosion rate is the bioreduction of Fe(III) from magnetite coupled to the H2 oxidation
Elevated Electron Temperatures in the Auroral E Layer Measured With the Chatanika Radar
An extensive series of spectral measurements has been made in the auroral E region with the Chatanika incoherent scatter radar. Becasue of the small scale length for variations of electron density, temperatures, and ion-neutral collisions we used the operating mode with the best possible range resolution—9 km. About 5% of the time the data exhibited an unusual spectral shape that was most pronounced at 105 and 110 km. Instead of being almost Gaussian with only a small hint of two peaks, the spectra are much wider, with two well-developed peaks. After carefully considering the validity of the measurements and their interpretation, we conclude that the unusual spectra are due to greatly enhanced electron temperatures. At 110 km, the electron temperature may increase from 250 K to 800 K, while the ion temperature remains near 250 K. This enhancement of the electron temperature extends from 99 km to at least 116 km. We show that the temperature increase is too large to be accounted for by auroral particle precipitation, though it coincides in time with ion temperature enhancements at altitudes above 125 km. Because these latter enhancements are believed to be due to joule heating, we deduce that electric fields of 24-40 mV/m are present and that the electrons are moving through the ions and neutrals at speeds of 500-800 m/s. Despite these velocities, we find that joule heating of the electrons also cannot account for the elevated electron temperatures. Several consequences of the elevated electron temperatures are discussed. One is that the rate constants for molecular recombination are reduced. Another is that during periods of significant joule heating, the deduced electron density profile, when fully corrected for temperatures, has a significantly lower peak altitude and greater density than that deduced under the usual assumption of equal electron and ion temperatures. Since conductivities, currents, ionization rates, and differential energy spectra are dependent upon the density profile, care must be taken to account properly for the temperature effects when deriving these quantities
Distribution function approach to redshift space distortions. Part II: N-body simulations
Measurement of redshift-space distortions (RSD) offers an attractive method
to directly probe the cosmic growth history of density perturbations. A
distribution function approach where RSD can be written as a sum over density
weighted velocity moment correlators has recently been developed. We use Nbody
simulations to investigate the individual contributions and convergence of this
expansion for dark matter. If the series is expanded as a function of powers of
mu, cosine of the angle between the Fourier mode and line of sight, there are a
finite number of terms contributing at each order. We present these terms and
investigate their contribution to the total as a function of wavevector k. For
mu^2 the correlation between density and momentum dominates on large scales.
Higher order corrections, which act as a Finger-of-God (FoG) term, contribute
1% at k~0.015h/Mpc, 10% at k~0.05h/Mpc at z=0, while for k>0.15h/Mpc they
dominate and make the total negative. These higher order terms are dominated by
density-energy density correlations which contribute negatively to the power,
while the contribution from vorticity part of momentum density auto-correlation
is an order of magnitude lower. For mu^4 term the dominant term on large scales
is the scalar part of momentum density auto-correlation, while higher order
terms dominate for k>0.15h/Mpc. For mu^6 and mu^8 we find it has very little
power for k<0.15h/Mpc. We also compare the expansion to the full 2D P^ss(k,mu)
as well as to their multipoles. For these statistics an infinite number of
terms contribute and we find that the expansion achieves percent level accuracy
for kmu<0.15h/Mpc at 6th order, but breaks down on smaller scales because the
series is no longer perturbative. We explore resummation of the terms into FoG
kernels, which extend the convergence up to a factor of 2 in scale. We find
that the FoG kernels are approximately Lorentzian.Comment: 21 pages, 9 figures, published in JCA
Radar Measurements of High-Latitude Ion Composition between 140 and 300 km Altitude
The Chatanika radar has been used to measure the ratio of atomic (O+) ions to molecular (O2 +, NO+) ions in the high-latitude ionosphere. The radar results agreed well with simultaneous in situ rocket data, giving confidence in the radar method of deducing ion composition. Measurements made over long periods of time show seasonal variations, diurnal variations, and variations due to auroral processes. The transition altitude, where the number densities of atomic and molecular ions are equal, is a convenient parameter for describing the composition variation with altitude or ‘composition altitude profile.’ The transition altitude occurs at ∼190 km at night and ∼170 km during the day, in agreement with midlatitude results. During the winter the daytime transition altitude is 15 km lower than in summer, a seasonal variation similar to that at midlatitudes. Energetic particle precipitation results in the lowering of the transition altitude, by 10 km in one case when energetic particles deposited ∼20 ergs/cm² s in the atmosphere. The largest variations in ion composition were found during periods of large joule heat input resulting from electric fields on the order of 50 mV/m. The transition altitude increased by 50 km in a case where the joule heat input rate was 30 ergs/cm² s. These observations were compared to calculations from a simple steady state model involving the principal consituents and reactions. The results indicate that the transition altitude during particle precipitation is most influenced by the increased ion production. There do not appear to be significant effects from possible increases of N2 vibrational temperature. A number of interrelated effects contribute to the increase in transition altitude during joule heating. The most important effect is the electric field contribution in raising the effective ion temperature. In addition, it appears that increased N2 density is also required to account for the observed change
Galaxy Zoo: The Environmental Dependence of Bars and Bulges in Disc Galaxies
We present an analysis of the environmental dependence of bars and bulges in
disc galaxies, using a volume-limited catalogue of 15810 galaxies at z<0.06
from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey with visual morphologies from the Galaxy Zoo
2 project. We find that the likelihood of having a bar, or bulge, in disc
galaxies increases when the galaxies have redder (optical) colours and larger
stellar masses, and observe a transition in the bar and bulge likelihoods, such
that massive disc galaxies are more likely to host bars and bulges. We use
galaxy clustering methods to demonstrate statistically significant
environmental correlations of barred, and bulge-dominated, galaxies, from
projected separations of 150 kpc/h to 3 Mpc/h. These environmental correlations
appear to be independent of each other: i.e., bulge-dominated disc galaxies
exhibit a significant bar-environment correlation, and barred disc galaxies
show a bulge-environment correlation. We demonstrate that approximately half
(50 +/- 10%) of the bar-environment correlation can be explained by the fact
that more massive dark matter haloes host redder disc galaxies, which are then
more likely to have bars. Likewise, we show that the environmental dependence
of stellar mass can only explain a small fraction (25 +/- 10%) of the
bar-environment correlation. Therefore, a significant fraction of our observed
environmental dependence of barred galaxies is not due to colour or stellar
mass dependences, and hence could be due to another galaxy property. Finally,
by analyzing the projected clustering of barred and unbarred disc galaxies with
halo occupation models, we argue that barred galaxies are in slightly
higher-mass haloes than unbarred ones, and some of them (approximately 25%) are
satellite galaxies in groups. We also discuss implications about the effects of
minor mergers and interactions on bar formation.Comment: 20 pages, 18 figures; references updated; published in MNRA
Lyman-alpha Forest Tomography from Background Galaxies: The First Megaparsec-Resolution Large-Scale Structure Map at z>2
We present the first observations of foreground Lyman- forest
absorption from high-redshift galaxies, targeting 24 star-forming galaxies
(SFGs) with within a region of the COSMOS
field. The transverse sightline separation is
comoving, allowing us to create a tomographic reconstruction of the 3D
Ly forest absorption field over the redshift range . The resulting map covers in the transverse plane and
along the line-of-sight with a spatial resolution of , and is the first high-fidelity map of large-scale
structure on scales at . Our map reveals significant
structures with extent, including several
spanning the entire transverse breadth, providing qualitative evidence for the
filamentary structures predicted to exist in the high-redshift cosmic web.
Simulated reconstructions with the same sightline sampling, spectral
resolution, and signal-to-noise ratio recover the salient structures present in
the underlying 3D absorption fields. Using data from other surveys, we
identified 18 galaxies with known redshifts coeval with our map volume enabling
a direct comparison to our tomographic map. This shows that galaxies
preferentially occupy high-density regions, in qualitative agreement with the
same comparison applied to simulations. Our results establishes the feasibility
of the CLAMATO survey, which aims to obtain Ly forest spectra for SFGs over of the COSMOS field, in order to map
out IGM large-scale structure at over a large
volume .Comment: Accepted for publication in Astrophysical Journal Letters; 8 pages
and 5 figure
The host galaxies of radio-loud AGN: colour structure
We construct a sample of 3,516 radio-loud host galaxies of active galactic
nuclei (AGN) from the optical Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and Faint Images
of the Radio Sky at Twenty cm (FIRST). These have 1.4 GHz luminosities in the
range 10E23-1025 WHz^{-1}, span redshifts 0.02<z<0.18, are brighter than
r*_{petro}<17.77 mag and are constrained to `early-type' morphology in colour
space (u*-r*>2.22 mag). Optical emission line ratios (at >3 sigma) are used to
remove type 1 AGN and star-forming galaxies from the radio sample using BPT
diagnostics. For comparison, we select a sample of 35,160 radio-quiet galaxies
with the same r*-band magnitude-redshift distribution as the radio sample. We
also create comparison radio and control samples derived by adding the NRAO VLA
Sky Survey (NVSS) to quantify the effect of completeness on our results.
We investigate the effective radii of the surface brightness profiles in the
SDSS r and u bands in order to quantify any excess of blue colour in the inner
region of radio galaxies. We define a ratio R=r_{e}(r)/r_{e}(u) and use maximum
likelihood analysis to compare the average value of R and its intrinsic
dispersion between both samples. R is larger for the radio-loud AGN sample as
compared to its control counterpart, and we conclude that the two samples are
not drawn from the same population at >99% significance. Given that star
formation proceeds over a longer time than radio activity, the difference
suggests that a subset of galaxies has the predisposition to become radio loud.
We discuss host galaxy features that cause the presence of a radio-loud AGN to
increase the scale size of a galaxy in red relative to blue light, including
excess central blue emission, point-like blue emission from the AGN itself,
and/or diffuse red emission. We favour an explanation that arises from the
stellar rather than the AGN light.Comment: 14 pages, accepted to MNRA
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