ON THE GEOMETRY OF THE X-RAY EMITTING REGION IN SEYFERT GALAXIES

For the first time, detailed radiative transfer calculations of Comptonized X-ray and gamma-ray radiation in a hot pair plasma above a cold accretion disk are performed using two independent codes and methods. The simulations include both energy and pair balance as well as reprocessing of the X- and gamma-rays by the cold disk. We study both plane-parallel coronae as well as active dissipation regions having shapes of hemispheres and pill boxes located on the disk surface. It is shown, contrary to earlier claims, that plane-parallel coronae in pair balance have difficulties in selfconsistently reproducing the ranges of 2-20 keV spectral slopes, high energy cutoffs, and compactnesses inferred from observations of type 1 Seyfert galaxies. Instead, the observations are consistent with the X-rays coming from a number of individual active regions located on the surface of the disk. A number of effects such as anisotropic Compton scattering, the reflection hump, feedback to the soft photon source by reprocessing, and an active region in pair equilibrium all conspire to produce the observed ranges of X-ray slopes, high energy cutoffs, and compactnesses. The spread in spectral X-ray slopes can be due to a spread in the properties of the active regions such as their compactnesses and their elevations above the disk surface. Simplified models invoking isotropic Comptonization in spherical clouds are no longer sufficient when interpreting the data.Comment: 9 pages, 3 postscript figures, figures can be obtained from the authors via e-mail: [email protected]

InAs nanowire transistors with multiple, independent wrap-gate segments

We report a method for making horizontal wrap-gate nanowire transistors with up to four independently controllable wrap-gated segments. While the step up to two independent wrap-gates requires a major change in fabrication methodology, a key advantage to this new approach, and the horizontal orientation more generally, is that achieving more than two wrap-gate segments then requires no extra fabrication steps. This is in contrast to the vertical orientation, where a significant subset of the fabrication steps needs to be repeated for each additional gate. We show that cross-talk between adjacent wrap-gate segments is negligible despite separations less than 200 nm. We also demonstrate the ability to make multiple wrap-gate transistors on a single nanowire using the exact same process. The excellent scalability potential of horizontal wrap-gate nanowire transistors makes them highly favourable for the development of advanced nanowire devices and possible integration with vertical wrap-gate nanowire transistors in 3D nanowire network architectures.Comment: 18 pages, 5 figures, In press for Nano Letters (DOI below

Pareto Optimal Matchings in Many-to-Many Markets with Ties

We consider Pareto-optimal matchings (POMs) in a many-to-many market of applicants and courses where applicants have preferences, which may include ties, over individual courses and lexicographic preferences over sets of courses. Since this is the most general setting examined so far in the literature, our work unifies and generalizes several known results. Specifically, we characterize POMs and introduce the \emph{Generalized Serial Dictatorship Mechanism with Ties (GSDT)} that effectively handles ties via properties of network flows. We show that GSDT can generate all POMs using different priority orderings over the applicants, but it satisfies truthfulness only for certain such orderings. This shortcoming is not specific to our mechanism; we show that any mechanism generating all POMs in our setting is prone to strategic manipulation. This is in contrast to the one-to-one case (with or without ties), for which truthful mechanisms generating all POMs do exist

Money in monetary policy design: monetary cross-checking in the New-Keynesian model

In the New-Keynesian model, optimal interest rate policy under uncertainty is formulated without reference to monetary aggregates as long as certain standard assumptions on the distributions of unobservables are satisfied. The model has been criticized for failing to explain common trends in money growth and inflation, and that therefore money should be used as a cross-check in policy formulation (see Lucas (2007)). We show that the New-Keynesian model can explain such trends if one allows for the possibility of persistent central bank misperceptions. Such misperceptions motivate the search for policies that include additional robustness checks. In earlier work, we proposed an interest rate rule that is near-optimal in normal times but includes a cross-check with monetary information. In case of unusual monetary trends, interest rates are adjusted. In this paper, we show in detail how to derive the appropriate magnitude of the interest rate adjustment following a significant cross-check with monetary information, when the New-Keynesian model is the central bank’s preferred model. The cross-check is shown to be effective in offsetting persistent deviations of inflation due to central bank misperceptions. Keywords: Monetary Policy, New-Keynesian Model, Money, Quantity Theory, European Central Bank, Policy Under Uncertaint

Labeling Uncertainty in Multitarget Tracking

In multitarget tracking, the problem of track labeling (assigning labels to tracks) is an ongoing research topic. The existing literature, however, lacks an appropriate measure of uncertainty related to the assigned labels that has a sound mathematical basis as well as clear practical meaning to the user. This is especially important in a situation where well separated targets move in close proximity with each other and thereafter separate again; in such a situation, it is well known that there will be confusion on target identities, also known as "mixed labeling." In this paper, we specify comprehensively the necessary assumptions for a Bayesian formulation of the multitarget tracking and labeling (MTTL) problem to be meaningful. We provide a mathematical characterization of the labeling uncertainties with clear physical interpretation. We also propose a novel labeling procedure that can be used in combination with any existing (unlabeled) MTT algorithm to obtain a Bayesian solution to the MTTL problem. One advantage of the resulting solution is that it readily provides the labeling uncertainty measures. Using the mixed labeling phenomenon in the presence of two targets as our test bed, we show with simulation results that an unlabeled multitarget sequential Monte Carlo (M-SMC) algorithm that employs sequential importance resampling (SIR) augmented with our labeling procedure performs much better than its "naive" extension, the labeled SIR M-SMC filter

Neutrino production through hadronic cascades in AGN accretion disks

We consider the production of neutrinos in active galactic nuclei (AGN) through hadronic cascades. The initial, high energy nucleons are accelerated in a source above the accretion disk around the central black hole. From the source, the particles diffuse back to the disk and initiate hadronic cascades. The observable output from the cascade are electromagnetic radiation and neutrinos. We use the observed diffuse background X-ray luminosity, which presumably results {}from this process, to predict the diffuse neutrino flux close to existing limits from the Frejus experiment. The resulting neutrino spectrum is $E^{-2}$ down to the \GeV region. We discuss modifications of this scenario which reduce the predicted neutrino flux.Comment: 12 Pages, LaTeX, TK 92 0