Supercritical biharmonic equations with power-type nonlinearity

The biharmonic supercritical equation $\Delta^2u=|u|^{p-1}u$, where $n>4$ and $p>(n+4)/(n-4)$, is studied in the whole space $\mathbb{R}^n$ as well as in a modified form with $\lambda(1+u)^p$ as right-hand-side with an additional eigenvalue parameter $\lambda>0$ in the unit ball, in the latter case together with Dirichlet boundary conditions. As for entire regular radial solutions we prove oscillatory behaviour around the explicitly known radial {\it singular} solution, provided $p\in((n+4)/(n-4),p_c)$, where $p_c\in ((n+4)/(n-4),\infty]$ is a further critical exponent, which was introduced in a recent work by Gazzola and the second author. The third author proved already that these oscillations do not occur in the complementing case, where $p\ge p_c$. Concerning the Dirichlet problem we prove existence of at least one singular solution with corresponding eigenvalue parameter. Moreover, for the extremal solution in the bifurcation diagram for this nonlinear biharmonic eigenvalue problem, we prove smoothness as long as $p\in((n+4)/(n-4),p_c)$

The mediating role of the venules between smoking and ischemic stroke

A potential mechanism by which smoking affects ischemic stroke is through wider venules, but this mediating role of wider venules has never been quantified. Here, we aimed to estimate to what extent the effect of smoking on ischemic stroke is possibly mediated by the venules via the recently developed four-way effect decomposition. This study was part of a population-based study including 9109 stroke-free persons participated in the study in 1990, 2004, or 2006 (mean age: 63.7 years; 58% women). Smoking behavior (smoking versus non-smoking) was identified by interview. Retinal venular calibers were measured semi-automatically on retinal photographs. Incident strokes were assessed until January 2016. A regression-based approach was used with venular calibers as mediator to decompose the total effect of smoking compared to non-smoking into four components: controlled direct effect (neither mediation nor interaction), pure indirect effect (mediation only), reference interaction effect (interaction only) and mediated interaction effect (both mediation and interaction). During a mean follow-up of 12.5 years, 665 persons suffered an ischemic stroke. Smoking increased the risk of developing ischemic stroke compared to non-smoking with an excess risk of 0.41 (95% confidence interval 0.10; 0.67). With retinal venules as a potential mediator, the excess relative risk could be decomposed into 77% controlled direct effect, 4% mediation only, 4% interaction only, and 15% mediated interaction. To conclude, in the pathophysiology of ischemic stroke, the effect of smoking on ischemic stroke may partly explained by changes in the venules, where there is both pure mediation and mediated interaction

The PHENIX Experiment at RHIC

The physics emphases of the PHENIX collaboration and the design and current status of the PHENIX detector are discussed. The plan of the collaboration for making the most effective use of the available luminosity in the first years of RHIC operation is also presented.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure. Further details of the PHENIX physics program available at http://www.rhic.bnl.gov/phenix

DES13S2cmm: the first superluminous supernova from the Dark Energy Survey

We present DES13S2cmm, the first spectroscopically-confirmed superluminous supernova (SLSN) from the Dark Energy Survey (DES). We briefly discuss the data and search algorithm used to find this event in the first year of DES operations, and outline the spectroscopic data obtained from the European Southern Observatory (ESO) Very Large Telescope to confirm its redshift (z = 0.663 +/- 0.001 based on the host-galaxy emission lines) and likely spectral type (type I). Using this redshift, we find M_U_peak = -21.05 +0.10 -0.09 for the peak, rest-frame U-band absolute magnitude, and find DES13S2cmm to be located in a faint, low metallicity (sub-solar), low stellar-mass host galaxy (log(M/M_sun) = 9.3 +/- 0.3); consistent with what is seen for other SLSNe-I. We compare the bolometric light curve of DES13S2cmm to fourteen similarly well-observed SLSNe-I in the literature and find it possesses one of the slowest declining tails (beyond +30 days rest frame past peak), and is the faintest at peak. Moreover, we find the bolometric light curves of all SLSNe-I studied herein possess a dispersion of only 0.2-0.3 magnitudes between +25 and +30 days after peak (rest frame) depending on redshift range studied; this could be important for 'standardising' such supernovae, as is done with the more common type Ia. We fit the bolometric light curve of DES13S2cmm with two competing models for SLSNe-I - the radioactive decay of 56Ni, and a magnetar - and find that while the magnetar is formally a better fit, neither model provides a compelling match to the data. Although we are unable to conclusively differentiate between these two physical models for this particular SLSN-I, further DES observations of more SLSNe-I should break this degeneracy, especially if the light curves of SLSNe-I can be observed beyond 100 days in the rest frame of the supernova.Comment: Accepted by MNRAS (2015 January 23), 13 pages, 6 figures, 2 table

Superluminous supernovae from the Dark Energy Survey

We present a sample of 21 hydrogen-free superluminous supernovae (SLSNe-I) and one hydrogen-rich SLSN (SLSN-II) detected during the five-year Dark Energy Survey (DES). These SNe, located in the redshift range 0.220 < z < 1.998, represent the largest homogeneously selected sample of SLSN events at high redshift. We present the observed g, r, i, z light curves for these SNe, which we interpolate using Gaussian processes. The resulting light curves are analysed to determine the luminosity function of SLSNe-I, and their evolutionary timescales. The DES SLSN-I sample significantly broadens the distribution of SLSN-I light-curve properties when combined with existing samples from the literature. We fit a magnetar model to our SLSNe, and find that this model alone is unable to replicate the behaviour of many of the bolometric light curves. We search the DES SLSN-I light curves for the presence of initial peaks prior to the main light-curve peak. Using a shock breakout model, our Monte Carlo search finds that 3 of our 14 events with pre-max data display such initial peaks. However, 10 events show no evidence for such peaks, in some cases down to an absolute magnitude of<−16, suggesting that such features are not ubiquitous to all SLSN-I events. We also identify a red pre-peak feature within the light curve of one SLSN, which is comparable to that observed within SN2018bsz

The XMM Cluster Survey: Exploring scaling relations and completeness of the Dark Energy Survey Year 3 redMaPPer cluster catalogue

We cross-match and compare characteristics of galaxy clusters identified in observations from two sky surveys using two completely different techniques. One sample is optically selected from the analysis of three years of Dark Energy Survey observations using the redMaPPer cluster detection algorithm. The second is X-ray selected from XMM observations analysed by the XMM Cluster Survey. The samples comprise a total area of 57.4 deg$^2$, bounded by the area of 4 contiguous XMM survey regions that overlap the DES footprint. We find that the X-ray selected sample is fully matched with entries in the redMaPPer catalogue, above $\lambda>$20 and within 0.1$< z <$0.9. Conversely, only 38\% of the redMaPPer catalogue is matched to an X-ray extended source. Next, using 120 optically clusters and 184 X-ray selected clusters, we investigate the form of the X-ray luminosity-temperature ($L_{X}-T_{X}$), luminosity-richness ($L_{X}-\lambda$) and temperature-richness ($T_{X}-\lambda$) scaling relations. We find that the fitted forms of the $L_{X}-T_{X}$ relations are consistent between the two selection methods and also with other studies in the literature. However, we find tentative evidence for a steepening of the slope of the relation for low richness systems in the X-ray selected sample. When considering the scaling of richness with X-ray properties, we again find consistency in the relations (i.e., $L_{X}-\lambda$ and $T_{X}-\lambda$) between the optical and X-ray selected samples. This is contrary to previous similar works that find a significant increase in the scatter of the luminosity scaling relation for X-ray selected samples compared to optically selected samples.Comment: Accepted for publication to MNRA

The first Hubble diagram and cosmological constraints using superluminous supernovae

This paper has gone through internal review by the DES collaboration. It has Fermilab preprint number 19-115-AE and DES publication number 13387. We acknowledge support from EU/FP7- ERC grant 615929. RCN would like to acknowledge support from STFC grant ST/N000688/1 and the Faculty of Technology at the University of Portsmouth. LG was funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Framework Programme under the Marie Skłodowska- Curie grant agreement no. 839090. This work has been partially supported by the Spanish grant PGC2018-095317-B-C21 within the European Funds for Regional Development (FEDER). Funding for the DES Projects has been provided by the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. National Science Foundation, the Ministry of Science and Education of Spain, the Science and Technology Facilities Council of the United Kingdom, the Higher Education Funding Council for England, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the Kavli Institute of Cosmological Physics at the University of Chicago, the Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics at the Ohio State University, the Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy at Texas A&M University, Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos, Fundac¸ ˜ao Carlos Chagas Filho de Amparo `a Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cient´ıfico e Tecnol´ogico and the Minist´erio da Ciˆencia, Tecnologia e Inovac¸ ˜ao, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, and the Collaborating Institutions in the Dark Energy Survey. The Collaborating Institutions are Argonne National Laboratory, the University of California at Santa Cruz, the University of Cambridge, Centro de Investigaciones Energ´eticas, Medioambientales y Tecnol ´ogicas-Madrid, the University of Chicago, University College London, the DES-Brazil Consortium, the University of Edinburgh, the Eidgen¨ossische Technische Hochschule (ETH) Z¨urich, Fermi NationalAccelerator Laboratory, theUniversity of Illinois atUrbana- Champaign, the Institut de Ci`encies de l’Espai (IEEC/CSIC), the Institut de F´ısica d’Altes Energies, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the Ludwig-Maximilians Universit¨at M¨unchen and the associated Excellence Cluster Universe, the University of Michigan, the National Optical Astronomy Observatory, the University of Nottingham, The Ohio State University, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Portsmouth, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford University, the University of Sussex, Texas A&M University, and the OzDES Membership Consortium. Based in part on observations at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, National Optical Astronomy Observatory, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. The DES data management system is supported by the National Science Foundation under grant numbers AST-1138766 and AST-1536171. The DES participants from Spanish institutions are partially supported by MINECO under grants AYA2015- 71825, ESP2015-66861, FPA2015-68048, SEV-2016-0588, SEV- 2016-0597, and MDM-2015-0509, some of which include ERDF funds from the European Union. IFAE is partially funded by the CERCA program of the Generalitat de Catalunya. Research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) including ERC grant agreements 240672, 291329, and 306478.We acknowledge support from the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for All-skyAstrophysics (CAASTRO), through project number CE110001020, and the Brazilian Instituto Nacional de Ciˆencia e Tecnologia (INCT) e-Universe (CNPq grant 465376/2014-2). This paper has been authored by Fermi Research Alliance, LLC under Contract No.DE-AC02-07CH11359 with theU.S.Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of High Energy Physics. The United States Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the paper for publication, acknowledges that the United States Government retains a non-exclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this paper, or allow others to do so, for United States Government purposes.We present the first Hubble diagram of superluminous supernovae (SLSNe) out to a redshift of two, together with constraints on the matter density, M, and the dark energy equation-of-state parameter, w(≡p/ρ). We build a sample of 20 cosmologically useful SLSNe I based on light curve and spectroscopy quality cuts. We confirm the robustness of the peak–decline SLSN I standardization relation with a larger data set and improved fitting techniques than previous works. We then solve the SLSN model based on the above standardization via minimization of the χ2 computed from a covariance matrix that includes statistical and systematic uncertainties. For a spatially flat cold dark matter ( CDM) cosmological model, we find M = 0.38+0.24 −0.19, with an rms of 0.27 mag for the residuals of the distance moduli. For a w0waCDM cosmological model, the addition of SLSNe I to a ‘baseline’ measurement consisting of Planck temperature together with Type Ia supernovae, results in a small improvement in the constraints of w0 and wa of 4 per cent.We present simulations of future surveys with 868 and 492 SLSNe I (depending on the configuration used) and show that such a sample can deliver cosmological constraints in a flat CDM model with the same precision (considering only statistical uncertainties) as current surveys that use Type Ia supernovae, while providing a factor of 2–3 improvement in the precision of the constraints on the time variation of dark energy, w0 and wa. This paper represents the proof of concept for superluminous supernova cosmology, and demonstrates they can provide an independent test of cosmology in the high-redshift (z > 1) universe.EU/FP7-ERC grant 615929STFC grant ST/N000688/1Faculty of Technology at the University of PortsmouthEuropean Union’s Horizon 2020 Framework Programme under the Marie Skłodowska- Curie grant agreement no. 839090Spanish grant PGC2018-095317-B-C21 within the European Funds for Regional Development (FEDER)U.S. Department of EnergyU.S. National Science FoundationMinistry of Science and Education of SpainScience and Technology Facilities Council of the United KingdomHigher Education Funding Council for EnglandNational Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,Kavli Institute of Cosmological Physics at the University of ChicagoCenter for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics at the Ohio State UniversityMitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy at Texas A&M University, Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos, Fundacão Carlos Chagas Filho de Amparo `a Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico and the Ministério da Ciencia, Tecnologia e InovacãoDeutsche ForschungsgemeinschaftCollaborating Institutions in the Dark Energy Survey.National Science Foundation under grant numbers AST-1138766 and AST-1536171.T MINECO under grants AYA2015- 71825, ESP2015-66861, FPA2015-68048, SEV-2016-0588, SEV- 2016-0597, and MDM-2015-0509, some of which include ERDF funds from the European Union.CERCA program of the Generalitat de Catalunya.European Research Council under the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) including ERC grant agreements 240672, 291329, and 306478.Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for All-skyAstrophysics (CAASTRO), through project number CE110001020Brazilian Instituto Nacional de Ciˆencia e Tecnologia (INCT) e-Universe (CNPq grant 465376/2014-2)Fermi Research Alliance, LLC under Contract No.DE-AC02-07CH11359 with theU.S.Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of High Energy Physic

Search for the Xb and other hidden-beauty states in the π+π−ϒ(1S) channel at ATLAS

This Letter presents a search for a hidden-beauty counterpart of the X(3872) in the mass ranges of 10.05–10.31 GeV and 10.40–11.00 GeV, in the channel Xb→π+π−ϒ(1S)(→μ+μ−), using 16.2 fb−1 of pp   collision data collected by the ATLAS detector at the LHC. No evidence for new narrow states is found, and upper limits are set on the product of the Xb cross section and branching fraction, relative to those of the ϒ(2S), at the 95% confidence level using the CLS approach. These limits range from 0.8% to 4.0%, depending on mass. For masses above 10.1 GeV, the expected upper limits from this analysis are the most restrictive to date. Searches for production of the ϒ(13DJ), , and states also reveal no significant signals