Copepods encounter rates from a model of escape jump behaviour in turbulence

A key ecological parameter for planktonic copepods studies is their interspecies encounter rate which is driven by their behaviour and is strongly influenced by turbulence of the surrounding environment. A distinctive feature of copepods motility is their ability to perform quick displacements, often dubbed jumps, by means of powerful swimming strokes. Such a reaction has been associated to an escape behaviour from flow disturbances due to predators or other external dangers. In the present study, the encounter rate of copepods in a developed turbulent flow with intensity comparable to the one found in copepods' habitat is numerically investigated. This is done by means of a Lagrangian copepod (LC) model that mimics the jump escape reaction behaviour from localised high-shear rate fluctuations in the turbulent flows. Our analysis shows that the encounter rate for copepods of typical perception radius of ~ {\eta}, where {\eta} is the dissipative scale of turbulence, can be increased by a factor up to ~ 100 compared to the one experienced by passively transported fluid tracers. Furthermore, we address the effect of introducing in the LC model a minimal waiting time between consecutive jumps. It is shown that any encounter-rate enhancement is lost if such time goes beyond the dissipative time-scale of turbulence, {\tau}_{\eta}. Because typically in the ocean {\eta} ~ 0.001m and {\tau}_{\eta} ~ 1s, this provides stringent constraints on the turbulent-driven enhancement of encounter-rate due to a purely mechanical induced escape reaction.Comment: 11 pages, 10 figure

Imagerie d'objets mobiles à l'aide d'un radar bande étroite multistatique

Cet article traite de l'imagerie de cibles mobiles à l'aide d'un radar multistatique (dans notre cas plusieurs émetteurs et un seul récepteur). Tout d'abord, nous développons un algorithme original multistatique basé sur les méthodes spatio-temporelles de Radar à Synthèse d'Ouverture (RSO). Comme le signal émis est bande étroite et que sa fréquence centrale est faible, les résolutions finales de l'image dépendent principalement de deux paramètres : le nombre d'émetteurs et la longueur de l'antenne synthétique. La fonction d'ambiguïté du système est calculé numériquement pour étudier l'influence de ces deux paramètres. Ensuite, l'algorithme développé est testé sur des cibles réalistes. Les images sont intéressantes et permettent des premiers résultats de classification. A l'aide des modèles numériques des cibles, nous montrons aussi l'importance du placement des émetteurs ainsi que la nécessité d'un second récepteur

Spatio-temporal dynamics of wormlike micelles under shear

Velocity profiles in a wormlike micelle solution (CTAB in D2O) are recorded using ultrasound every 2 s after a step-like shear rate into the shear-banding regime. The stress relaxation occurs over more than six hours and corresponds to the very slow nucleation and growth of the high-shear band. Moreover, oscillations of the interface position with a period of about 50 s are observed during the growth process. Strong wall slip, metastable states and transient nucleation of three-band flows are also reported and discussed in light of previous experiments and theoretical models.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, submitted to Phys.Rev.Let

Arbitrary-order Hilbert spectral analysis for time series possessing scaling statistics: a comparison study with detrended fluctuation analysis and wavelet leaders

In this paper we present an extended version of Hilbert-Huang transform, namely arbitrary-order Hilbert spectral analysis, to characterize the scale-invariant properties of a time series directly in an amplitude-frequency space. We first show numerically that due to a nonlinear distortion, traditional methods require high-order harmonic components to represent nonlinear processes, except for the Hilbert-based method. This will lead to an artificial energy flux from the low-frequency (large scale) to the high-frequency (small scale) part. Thus the power law, if it exists, is contaminated. We then compare the Hilbert method with structure functions (SF), detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA), and wavelet leader (WL) by analyzing fractional Brownian motion and synthesized multifractal time series. For the former simulation, we find that all methods provide comparable results. For the latter simulation, we perform simulations with an intermittent parameter {\mu} = 0.15. We find that the SF underestimates scaling exponent when q > 3. The Hilbert method provides a slight underestimation when q > 5. However, both DFA and WL overestimate the scaling exponents when q > 5. It seems that Hilbert and DFA methods provide better singularity spectra than SF and WL. We finally apply all methods to a passive scalar (temperature) data obtained from a jet experiment with a Taylor's microscale Reynolds number Relambda \simeq 250. Due to the presence of strong ramp-cliff structures, the SF fails to detect the power law behavior. For the traditional method, the ramp-cliff structure causes a serious artificial energy flux from the low-frequency (large scale) to the high-frequency (small scale) part. Thus DFA and WL underestimate the scaling exponents. However, the Hilbert method provides scaling exponents {\xi}{\theta}(q) quite close to the one for longitudinal velocity.Comment: 13 pages, 10 figure

Multifractal Scaling of Thermally-Activated Rupture Processes

We propose a ``multifractal stress activation'' model combining thermally activated rupture and long memory stress relaxation, which predicts that seismic decay rates after mainshocks follow the Omori law $\sim 1/t^p$ with exponents $p$ linearly increasing with the magnitude $M_L$ of the mainshock and the inverse temperature. We carefully test this prediction on earthquake sequences in the Southern California Earthquake catalog: we find power law relaxations of seismic sequences triggered by mainshocks with exponents $p$ increasing with the mainshock magnitude by approximately $0.1-0.15$ for each magnitude unit increase, from $p(M_L=3) \approx 0.6$ to $p(M_L=7) \approx 1.1$, in good agreement with the prediction of the multifractal model.Comment: four pages and 2 figure

Fifteen years in the high-energy life of the solar-type star HD 81809. XMM-Newton observations of a stellar activity cycle

Aims. The data set of the long-term XMM-Newton monitoring program of HD 81809 is analyzed to study its X-ray cycle, to investigate if the latter is related to the chromospheric one, to infer the structure of the corona of HD 81809, and to explore if the coronal activity of HD 81809 can be ascribed to phenomena similar to the solar ones and, therefore, considered an extension of the solar case. Methods. We analyze the observations of HD 81809 performed with XMM-Newton with a regular cadence of 6 months from 2001 to 2016 and representing one of the longest available observational baseline ($\sim 15$~yr) for a solar-like star with a well-studied chromospheric cycle (with a period of $\sim 8$~yr). We investigate the modulation of coronal luminosity and temperature and its relation with the chromospheric cycle. We interpret the data in terms of a mixture of solar-like coronal regions, adopting a methodology originally proposed to study the Sun as an X-ray star. Results. The observations show a well-defined regular cyclic modulation of the X-ray luminosity that reflects the activity level of HD 81809. The data covers approximately two cycles of coronal activity; the modulation has an amplitude of a factor of $\sim 5$ (excluding evident flares, as in the June 2002 observation) and a period of $7.3\pm 1.5$~yr, consistent with that of the chromospheric cycle. We demonstrate that the corona of HD 81809 can be interpreted as an extension of the solar case and it can be modeled with a mixture of solar-like coronal regions along the whole cycle. The activity level is mainly determined by a varying coverage of very bright active regions, similar to cores of active regions observed in the Sun. Evidence of unresolved significant flaring activity is present especially in proximity of cycle maxima.Comment: 11 pages, 5 Figures, A&A accepte

The X-ray cycle in the solar-type star HD 81809

(abridged) Our long-term XMM-Newton program of long-term monitoring of a solar-like star with a well-studied chromospheric cycle, HD 81809 aims to study whether an X-ray cycle is present, along with studying its characteristics and its relation to the chromospheric cycle. Regular observations of HD 81809 were performed with XMM-Newton, spaced by 6 months from 2001 to 2007. We studied the variations in the resulting coronal luminosity and temperature, and compared them with the chromospheric CaII variations. We also modeled the observations in terms of a mixture of active regions, using a methodology originally developed to study the solar corona. Our observations show a well-defined cycle with an amplitude exceeding 1 dex and an average luminosity approximately one order of magnitude higher than in the Sun. The behavior of the corona of HD 81809 can be modeled well in terms of varying coverage of solar-like active regions, with a larger coverage than for the Sun, showing it to be compatible with a simple extension of the solar case.Comment: In press, Astronomy & Astrophysic

Statistical analysis of polychaete population density: dynamics of dominant species and scaling properties in relative abundance fluctuations

We consider here the dynamics of two polychaete populations based on a 20 yr temporal benthic survey of two muddy fine sand communities in the Bay of Morlaix, Western English Channel. These populations display high temporal variability, which is analyzed here using scaling approaches. We find that population densities have heavy tailed probability density functions. We analyze the dynamics of relative species abundance in two different communities of polychaetes by estimating in a novel way a "mean square drift" coefficient which characterizes their fluctuations in relative abundance over time. We show the usefulness of using new tools to approach and model such highly variable population dynamics in marine ecosystems

Critical temperature for kaon condensation in color-flavor locked quark matter

We study the behavior of Goldstone bosons in color-flavor-locked (CFL) quark matter at nonzero temperature. Chiral symmetry breaking in this phase of cold and dense matter gives rise to pseudo-Goldstone bosons, the lightest of these being the charged and neutral kaons K^+ and K^0. At zero temperature, Bose-Einstein condensation of the kaons occurs. Since all fermions are gapped, this kaon condensed CFL phase can, for energies below the fermionic energy gap, be described by an effective theory for the bosonic modes. We use this effective theory to investigate the melting of the condensate: we determine the temperature-dependent kaon masses self-consistently using the two-particle irreducible effective action, and we compute the transition temperature for Bose-Einstein condensation. Our results are important for studies of transport properties of the kaon condensed CFL phase, such as bulk viscosity.Comment: 24 pages, 8 figures, v2: new section about effect of electric neutrality on critical temperature added; references added; version to appear in J.Phys.

Commensurate structural modulation in the charge- and orbitally-ordered phase of the quadruple perovskite (NaMn3_3)Mn4_4O12_{12}

By means of synchrotron x-ray and electron diffraction, we studied the structural changes at the charge order transition $T_{CO}$=176 K in the mixed-valence quadruple perovskite (NaMn$_3$)Mn$_4$O$_{12}$. Below $T_{CO}$ we find satellite peaks indicating a commensurate structural modulation with the same propagation vector q =(1/2,0,-1/2) of the CE magnetic order that appears at low temperature, similarly to the case of simple perovskites like La$_{0.5}$Ca$_{0.5}$MnO$_3$. In the present case, the modulated structure together with the observation of a large entropy change at $T_{CO}$ gives evidence of a rare case of full Mn$^{3+}$/Mn$^{4+}$ charge and orbital order consistent with the Goodenough-Kanamori model.Comment: Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. B Rapid Communication