177 research outputs found
On astrophysical solution to ultra high energy cosmic rays
We argue that an astrophysical solution to UHECR problem is viable. The
pectral features of extragalactic protons interacting with CMB are calculated
in model-independent way. Using the power-law generation spectrum as the only assumption, we analyze four features of the proton
spectrum: the GZK cutoff, dip, bump and the second dip. We found the dip,
induced by electron-positron production on CMB, as the most robust feature,
existing in energy range eV. Its shape is
stable relative to various phenomena included in calculations. The dip is well
confirmed by observations of AGASA, HiRes, Fly's Eye and Yakutsk detectors. The
best fit is reached at , with the allowed range 2.55 - 2.75. The
dip is used for energy calibration of the detectors. After the energy
calibration the fluxes and spectra of all three detectors agree perfectly, with
discrepancy between AGASA and HiRes at eV being not
statistically significant. The agreement of the dip with observations should be
considered as confirmation of UHE proton interaction with CMB. The dip has two
flattenings. The high energy flattening at eV
automatically explains ankle. The low-energy flattening at eV provides the transition to galactic cosmic rays. This transition is
studied quantitatively. The UHECR sources, AGN and GRBs, are studied in a
model-dependent way, and acceleration is discussed. Based on the agreement of
the dip with existing data, we make the robust prediction for the spectrum at
eV to be measured in the nearest future by
Auger detector.Comment: Revised version as published in Phys.Rev. D47 (2006) 043005 with a
small additio
An upper limit on the electron-neutrino flux from the HiRes detector
Air-fluorescence detectors such as the High Resolution Fly's Eye (HiRes)
detector are very sensitive to upward-going, Earth-skimming ultrahigh energy
electron-neutrino-induced showers. This is due to the relatively large
interaction cross sections of these high-energy neutrinos and to the
Landau-Pomeranchuk-Migdal (LPM) effect. The LPM effect causes a significant
decrease in the cross sections for bremsstrahlung and pair production, allowing
charged-current electron-neutrino-induced showers occurring deep in the Earth's
crust to be detectable as they exit the Earth into the atmosphere. A search for
upward-going neutrino-induced showers in the HiRes-II monocular dataset has
yielded a null result. From an LPM calculation of the energy spectrum of
charged particles as a function of primary energy and depth for
electron-induced showers in rock, we calculate the shape of the resulting
profile of these showers in air. We describe a full detector Monte Carlo
simulation to determine the detector response to upward-going
electron-neutrino-induced cascades and present an upper limit on the flux of
electron-neutrinos.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figures. submitted to Astrophysical Journa
Search for Point Sources of Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays Above 40 EeV Using a Maximum Likelihood Ratio Test
We present the results of a search for cosmic ray point sources at energies
above 40 EeV in the combined data sets recorded by the AGASA and HiRes stereo
experiments. The analysis is based on a maximum likelihood ratio test using the
probability density function for each event rather than requiring an a priori
choice of a fixed angular bin size. No statistically significant clustering of
events consistent with a point source is found.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures. Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical
Journa
Search for Correlations between HiRes Stereo Events and Active Galactic Nuclei
We have searched for correlations between the pointing directions of
ultrahigh energy cosmic rays observed by the High Resolution Fly's Eye
experiment and Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) visible from its northern
hemisphere location. No correlations, other than random correlations, have been
found. We report our results using search parameters prescribed by the Pierre
Auger collaboration. Using these parameters, the Auger collaboration concludes
that a positive correlation exists for sources visible to their southern
hemisphere location. We also describe results using two methods for determining
the chance probability of correlations: one in which a hypothesis is formed
from scanning one half of the data and tested on the second half, and another
which involves a scan over the entire data set. The most significant
correlation found occurred with a chance probability of 24%.Comment: 13 pages, 1 table, 5 figure
First Observation of the Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin Suppression
The High Resolution Fly's Eye (HiRes) experiment has observed the
Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin suppression (called the GZK cutoff) with a statistical
significance of five standard deviations. HiRes' measurement of the flux of
ultrahigh energy (UHE) cosmic rays shows a sharp suppression at an energy of eV, consistent with the expected cutoff energy. We observe the
``ankle'' of the cosmic-ray energy spectrum as well, at an energy of eV. We describe the experiment, data collection, analysis, and
estimate the systematic uncertainties. The results are presented and the
calculation of the statistical significance of our observation is described.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, accepted by and to appear in PR
Flexible modelling of spatial variation in agricultural field trials with the R package INLA
The objective of this paper was to fit different established spatial models for analysing agricultural field trials using the open-source R package INLA. Spatial variation is common in field trials, and accounting for it increases the accuracy of estimated genetic effects. However, this is still hindered by the lack of available software implementations. We compare some established spatial models and show possibilities for flexible modelling with respect to field trial design and joint modelling over multiple years and locations. We use a Bayesian framework and for statistical inference the integrated nested Laplace approximations (INLA) implemented in the R package INLA. The spatial models we use are the well-known independent row and column effects, separable first-order autoregressive ( AR1⊗AR1 ) models and a Gaussian random field (Matérn) model that is approximated via the stochastic partial differential equation approach. The Matérn model can accommodate flexible field trial designs and yields interpretable parameters. We test the models in a simulation study imitating a wheat breeding programme with different levels of spatial variation, with and without genome-wide markers and with combining data over two locations, modelling spatial and genetic effects jointly. The results show comparable predictive performance for both the AR1⊗AR1 and the Matérn models. We also present an example of fitting the models to a real wheat breeding data and simulated tree breeding data with the Nelder wheel design to show the flexibility of the Matérn model and the R package INLA
Distinct adhesion-independent functions of β-catenin control stage-specific sensory neurogenesis and proliferation
Molecular Characterization of a Strawberry FaASR Gene in Relation to Fruit Ripening
BACKGROUND: ABA-, stress- and ripening-induced (ASR) proteins have been reported to act as a downstream component involved in ABA signal transduction. Although much attention has been paid to the roles of ASR in plant development and stress responses, the mechanisms by which ABA regulate fruit ripening at the molecular level are not fully understood. In the present work, a strawberry ASR gene was isolated and characterized (FaASR), and a polyclonal antibody against FaASR protein was prepared. Furthermore, the effects of ABA, applied to two different developmental stages of strawberry, on fruit ripening and the expression of FaASR at transcriptional and translational levels were investigated. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: FaASR, localized in the cytoplasm and nucleus, contained 193 amino acids and shared common features with other plant ASRs. It also functioned as a transcriptional activator in yeast with trans-activation activity in the N-terminus. During strawberry fruit development, endogenous ABA content, levels of FaASR mRNA and protein increased significantly at the initiation of ripening at a white (W) fruit developmental stage. More importantly, application of exogenous ABA to large green (LG) fruit and W fruit markedly increased endogenous ABA content, accelerated fruit ripening, and greatly enhanced the expression of FaASR transcripts and the accumulation of FaASR protein simultaneously. CONCLUSIONS: These results indicate that FaASR may be involved in strawberry fruit ripening. The observed increase in endogenous ABA content, and enhanced FaASR expression at transcriptional and translational levels in response to ABA treatment might partially contribute to the acceleration of strawberry fruit ripening
Studies of systematic uncertainties in the estimation of the monocular aperture of the HiRes experiment
We have studied several sources of systematic uncertainty in calculating the aperture of the High Resolution Fly's Eye experiment (HiRes) in monocular mode, primarily as they affect the HiRes-II site. The energy dependent aperture is determined with detailed Monte Carlo simulations of the air showers and the detector response. We have studied the effects of changes to the input energy spectrum and composition used in the simulation. A realistic shape of the input spectrum is used in our analysis in order to avoid biases in the aperture estimate due to the limited detector resolution. We have examined the effect of exchanging our input spectrum with a simple E^{-3} power law in the "ankle" region. Uncertainties in the input composition are shown to be significant for energies below about 10^{18} eV for data from the HiRes-II detector. Another source of uncertainties is the choice of the hadronic interaction model in the air shower generator. We compare the aperture estimate for two different models: QGSJet01 and SIBYLL 2.1. We also describe the implications of employing an atmospheric database with hourly measurements of the aerosol component, instead of using an average as has been used in our previously published measurements of the monocular spectra
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