Fully differential QCD corrections to single top quark final states

A new next-to-leading order Monte Carlo program for calculation of fully differential single top quark final states is described and first results presented. Both the s- and t-channel contributions are included.Comment: 3 pages, 3 figures, talk presented at DPF2000, August 9-12, 2000. To appear in International Journal of Modern Physics

Numerical study of surface-induced reorientation and smectic layering in a nematic liquid crystal

Surface-induced profiles of both nematic and smectic order parameters in a nematic liquid crystal, ranging from an orienting substrate to "infinity", were evaluated numerically on base of an extended Landau theory. In order to obtain a smooth behavior of the solutions at "infinity" a boundary energy functional was derived by linearizing the Landau energy around its equilibrium solutions. We find that the intrinsic wave number of the smectic structure, which plays the role of a coupling between nematic and smectic order, strongly influences the director reorientation. Whereas the smectic order is rapidly decaying when moving away from the surface, the uniaxial nematic order parameter shows an oscillatory behavior close to the substrate, accompanied by a non-zero local biaxiality.Comment: LaTeX, 17 pages, with 4 postscript figure

An extensive VLT/X-Shooter library of photospheric templates of pre-main sequence stars

Studies of the formation and evolution of young stars and their disks rely on the knowledge of the stellar parameters of the young stars. The derivation of these parameters is commonly based on comparison with photospheric template spectra. Furthermore, chromospheric emission in young active stars impacts the measurement of mass accretion rates, a key quantity to study disk evolution. Here we derive stellar properties of low-mass pre-main sequence stars without disks, which represent ideal photospheric templates for studies of young stars. We also use these spectra to constrain the impact of chromospheric emission on the measurements of mass accretion rates. The spectra in reduced, flux-calibrated, and corrected for telluric absorption form are made available to the community. We derive the spectral type for our targets by analyzing the photospheric molecular features present in their VLT/X-Shooter spectra by means of spectral indices and comparison of the relative strength of photospheric absorption features. We also measure effective temperature, gravity, projected rotational velocity, and radial velocity from our spectra by fitting them with synthetic spectra with the ROTFIT tool. The targets have negligible extinction and spectral type from G5 to M8. We perform synthetic photometry on the spectra to derive the typical colors of young stars in different filters. We measure the luminosity of the emission lines present in the spectra and estimate the noise due to chromospheric emission in the measurements of accretion luminosity in accreting stars. We provide a calibration of the photospheric colors of young PMS stars as a function of their spectral type in a set of standard broad-band optical and near-infrared filters. For stars with masses of ~ 1.5Msun and ages of ~1-5 Myr, the chromospheric noise converts to a limit of measurable mass accretion rates of ~ 3x10^-10 Msun/yr.Comment: Accepted for publication on Astronomy & Astrophysics. The spectra of the photospheric templates will be uploaded to Vizier, but are already available on request. Abstract shortened for arxiv constraints. Language edited versio

A statistical analysis of X-ray variability in pre-main sequence objects of the Taurus Molecular Cloud

This work is part of a systematic X-ray survey of the Taurus star forming complex with XMM-Newton. We study the time series of all X-ray sources associated with Taurus members, to statistically characterize their X-ray variability, and compare the results to those for pre-main sequence stars in the Orion Nebula Cluster and to expectations arising from a model where all the X-ray emission is the result of a large number of stochastically occurring flares. We find that roughly half of the detected X-ray sources show variability above our sensitivity limit, and in ~ 26 % of the cases this variability is recognized as flares. Variability is more frequently detected at hard than at soft energies. The variability statistics of cTTS and wTTS are undistinguishable, suggesting a common (coronal) origin for their X-ray emission. We have for the first time applied a rigorous maximum likelihood method in the analysis of the number distribution of flare energies on pre-main sequence stars. In its differential form this distribution follows a power-law with index alpha = 2.4 +- 0.5, in the range typically observed on late-type stars and the Sun. The flare energy distribution is probably steep enough to explain the heating of stellar coronae by nano-flares (alpha > 2), albeit associated with a rather large uncertainty that leaves some doubt on this conclusion.Comment: accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics; to appear in a Special Section dedicated to the XMM-Newton Extended Survey of the Taurus Molecular Cloud (XEST

X-Shooter spectroscopy of young stellar objects: V - Slow winds in T Tauri stars

Disks around T Tauri stars are known to lose mass, as best shown by the profiles of forbidden emission lines of low ionization species. At least two separate kinematic components have been identified, one characterised by velocity shifts of tens to hundreds km/s (HVC) and one with much lower velocity of few km/s (LVC). The HVC are convincingly associated to the emission of jets, but the origin of the LVC is still unknown. In this paper we analyze the forbidden line spectrum of a sample of 44 mostly low mass young stars in Lupus and $\sigma$-Ori observed with the X-Shooter ESO spectrometer. We detect forbidden line emission of [OI], [OII], [SII], [NI], and [NII], and characterize the line profiles as LVC, blue-shifted HVC and red-shifted HVC. We focus our study on the LVC. We show that there is a good correlation between line luminosity and both L$_{star}$ and the accretion luminosity (or the mass-accretion rate) over a large interval of values (L$_{star}$ $\sim 10^{-2} - 1$ L$_\odot$; L$_{acc}$ $\sim 10^{-5} - 10^{-1}$ L$_\odot$; $\dot M_{acc}$ $\sim 10^{-11} - 10^{-7}$ M$_\odot$/yr). The lines show the presence of a slow wind ($V_{peak}10^8$ cm$^{-3}$), warm (T$\sim 5000-10000$ K), mostly neutral. We estimate the mass of the emitting gas and provide a value for the maximum volume it occupies. Both quantities increase steeply with the stellar mass, from $\sim 10^{-12}$ M$_\odot$ and $\sim 0.01$ AU$^3$ for M$_{star}$$\sim 0.1$ M$_\odot$, to $\sim 3 \times 10^{-10}$ M$_\odot$ and $\sim 1$ AU$^3$ for M$_{star}$$\sim 1$ M$_\odot$, respectively. These results provide quite stringent constraints to wind models in low mass young stars, that need to be explored further

Education and Persuasion in Extension Forestry: Effects of Different Numerical Information Formats

We applied to forestry information a finding from cognitive psychology: Simple frequencies (1 in 100) and percentages (1%) are perceived as clearer than absolute frequencies (e.g., 28 million Americans), even as the latter are perceived to be larger quantities. We replicated these findings for numerical information about forestry issues, although the perception of greater value for absolute frequencies worked for low proportions of references class but not for large proportions (e.g., 3 out of 4, or 75%). These results illustrate a tension between the dual goals of education and persuasion in the communication of forestry information

First Occurrence of \u3ci\u3eHippodamia Variegata\u3c/i\u3e (Goeze) (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) in Ohio

(excerpt) Ladybird beetles, or coccinellids (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae), are significant arthropod predators in a variety of terrestrial ecosystems. Numerous classical biological control projects undertaken over the last 120 years in North America have involved importation of exotic ladybird beetle species for the control of invasive insect species in annual and perennial agricultural production systems