4,063 research outputs found

    Evolution and nucleosynthesis of extremely metal-poor and metal-free low- and intermediate-mass stars II. s-process nucleosynthesis during the core He flash

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    Models of primordial and hyper-metal-poor stars with masses similar to the Sun experience an ingestion of protons into the hot core during the core helium flash phase at the end of their red giant branch evolution. This produces a concurrent secondary flash powered by hydrogen burning that gives rise to further nucleosynthesis in the core. We perform post-process nucleosynthesis calculations on a one-dimensional stellar evolution calculation of a star of 1 solar mass and metallicity [Fe/H] = -6.5 that suffers a proton ingestion episode. Our network includes 320 nuclear species and 2,366 reactions and treats mixing and burning simultaneously. The mixing and burning of protons into the hot convective core leads to the production of 13C, which then burns via the 13C(alpha,n)16O reaction releasing a large number of free neutrons. During the first two years of neutron production the neutron poison 14N abundance is low, allowing the prodigious production of heavy elements such as strontium, barium, and lead via slow neutron captures (the s process). These nucleosynthetic products are later mixed to the stellar surface and ejected via stellar winds. We compare our results with observations of the hyper-metal-poor halo star HE 1327-2326, which shows a strong Sr overabundance. Our model provides the possibility of self-consistently explaining the Sr overabundance in HE 1327-2326 together with its C, N, and O overabundances (all within a factor of ~4) if the material were heavily diluted, for example, via mass transfer in a wide binary system. The model produces at least 18 times too much Ba than observed, but this may be within the large modelling uncertainties. In this scenario, binary systems of low mass must have formed in the early Universe. If true then this puts constraints on the primordial initial mass function.Comment: Accepted for publication on Astronomy & Astrophysics Letter

    A Novel Protocol-Authentication Algorithm Ruling Out a Man-in-the-Middle Attack in Quantum Cryptography

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    In this work we review the security vulnerability of Quantum Cryptography with respect to "man-in-the-middle attacks" and the standard authentication methods applied to counteract these attacks. We further propose a modified authentication algorithm which features higher efficiency with respect to consumption of mutual secret bits.Comment: 4 pages, submitted to the International Journal of Quantum Information, Proceedings of the meeting "Foundations of Quantum Information", Camerino, April 200

    Learning Financial Shocks and the Great Recession

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    This paper develops a simple business-cycle model in which financial shocks have large macroeconomic effects when private agents are gradually learning the uncertain environment. When agents update their beliefs about the parameters that govern the unobserved process driving financial shocks to the leverage ratio, the responses of output, investment, and other aggregates under adaptive learning are significantly larger than under rational expectations. In our benchmark case calibrated using US data on leverage, debt-to-GDP and land value-to- GDP ratios for 1996Q1-2008Q4, learning amplifies leverage shocks by a factor of about three, relative to rational expectations. When fed with actual leverage innovations observed over that period, the learning model predicts that the persistence of leverage shocks is increasingly overestimated after 2002 and that a sizeable recession occurs in 2008-10, while its rational expectations counterpart predicts a counter-factual expansion. In addition, we show that procyclical leverage reinforces the amplification due to learning and, accordingly, that macro-prudential policies that enforce countercyclical leverage dampen the effects of leverage shocks

    Electron-induced proton knockout from neutron rich nuclei

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    We study the evolution of the \eep cross section on nuclei with increasing asymmetry between the number of neutrons and protons. The calculations are done within the framework of the nonrelativistic and relativistic distorted-wave impulse approximation. In the nonrelativistic model phenomenological Woods-Saxon and Hartree-Fock wave functions are used for the proton bound-state wave functions, in the relativistic model the wave functions are solutions of Dirac-Hartree equations. The models are first tested against experimental data on 40^{40}Ca and 48^{48}Ca nuclei, and then they are applied to a set of spherical calcium isotopes.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures. contribution to the XIX International School on Nuclear Physics, Neutron Physics and Applications, Varna (Bulgaria) September 19-25, 201

    Electron scattering in isotonic chains as a probe of the proton shell structure of unstable nuclei

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    Electron scattering on unstable nuclei is planned in future facilities of the GSI and RIKEN upgrades. Motivated by this fact, we study theoretical predictions for elastic electron scattering in the N=82, N=50, and N=14 isotonic chains from very proton-deficient to very proton-rich isotones. We compute the scattering observables by performing Dirac partial-wave calculations. The charge density of the nucleus is obtained with a covariant nuclear mean-field model that accounts for the low-energy electromagnetic structure of the nucleon. For the discussion of the dependence of scattering observables at low-momentum transfer on the gross properties of the charge density, we fit Helm model distributions to the self-consistent mean-field densities. We find that the changes shown by the electric charge form factor along each isotonic chain are strongly correlated with the underlying proton shell structure of the isotones. We conclude that elastic electron scattering experiments in isotones can provide valuable information about the filling order and occupation of the single-particle levels of protons.Comment: 13 pages; 19 figure

    Si/Ge hole-tunneling double-barrier resonant tunneling diodes formed on sputtered flat Ge layers

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    We have demonstrated Si/Ge hole-tunneling double-barrier resonant tunneling diodes (RTDs) formed on flat Ge layers with a relaxation rate of 89% by our proposed method; in this method, the flat Ge layers can be directly formed on highly B-doped Si(001) substrates using our proposed sputter epitaxy method. The RTDs exhibit clear negative differential resistance effects in the static current–voltage (I–V) curves at room temperature. The quantized energy level estimation suggests that resonance peaks that appeared in the I–V curves are attributed to hole tunneling through the first heavy- and light-hole energy levels

    Quantum Interference between a Single-Photon Fock State and a Coherent State

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    We derive analytical expressions for the single mode quantum field state at the individual output ports of a beam splitter when a single-photon Fock state and a coherent state are incident on the input ports. The output states turn out to be a statistical mixture between a displaced Fock state and a coherent state. Consequently we are able to find an analytical expression for the corresponding Wigner function. Because of the generality of our calculations the obtained results are valid for all passive and lossless optical four port devices. We show further how the results can be adapted to the case of the Mach-Zehnder interferometer. In addition we consider the case for which the single-photon Fock state is replaced with a general input state: a coherent input state displaces each general quantum state at the output port of a beam splitter with the displacement parameter being the amplitude of the coherent state.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figure
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