Surprises in the RHIC Data

The data from RHIC have produced many unanticipated results. I will describe a few of the surprises that occur in the soft spectra while my colleagues at this conference will summarize the hard spectra. One particularly important discovery is that properties of the initial state have an impact on the final state in relativistic heavy ion collisions. Another important discovery is that the collision zone is opaque to the passage of hadrons and perhaps even partons. And finally, the data tell us very precisely where the colliding systems hadronize on the phase diagram for nuclear matter.Comment: 13 pages, 10 figures, Proceedings of the Seventh Workshop on Quantum Chromodynamics, Villefranche sur Mer, 6-10 Jan 200

Quantum spill out in few-nanometer metal gaps: Effect on gap plasmons and reflectance from ultrasharp groove arrays

Plasmons in ultranarrow metal gaps are highly sensitive to the electron density profile at the metal surfaces. Using a fully quantum mechanical approach, we study the effects of electron spill-out on gap plasmons and reflectance from ultrasharp metal grooves. We demonstrate that the mode index of ultranarrow gap plasmons converges to the bulk refractive index in the limit of vanishing gap and, thereby, rectify the unphysical divergence found in classical models. Surprisingly, spill-out also significantly increases the plasmonic absorption for few-nanometer gaps and lowers the reflectance from arrays of ultrasharp metal grooves. These findings are explained in terms of enhanced gap plasmon absorption taking place inside the gap 1-2 {\AA} from the walls and delocalization near the groove bottom. Reflectance calculations taking spill-out into account are shown to be in much better agreement with measurements compared with classical models

Quantum spill-out in nanometer-thin gold slabs: Effect on plasmon mode index and plasmonic absorption

A quantum mechanical approach and local response theory are applied to study plasmons propagating in nanometer-thin gold slabs sandwiched between different dielectrics. The metal slab supports two different kinds of modes, classified as long-range and short-range plasmons. Quantum spill-out is found to significantly increase the imaginary part of their mode indices, and, surprisingly, even for slabs wide enough to approach bulk the increase is 20%. This is explained in terms of enhanced plasmonic absorption, which mainly takes place at narrow peaks located near the slab surface

The X-ray Variability of AGN and its Implications for Observations of Galaxy Clusters

The detection of new clusters of galaxies or the study of known clusters of galaxies in X-rays can be complicated by the presence of X-ray point sources, the majority of which will be active galactic nuclei (AGN). This can be addressed by combining observations from a high angular resolution observatory (such as Chandra) with deeper data from a more sensitive observatory that may not be able to resolve the AGN (like XMM). However, this approach is undermined if the AGN varies in flux between the epochs of the observations. To address this we measure the characteristic X-ray variability of serendipitously detected AGN in 70 pairs of Chandra observations, separated by intervals of between one month and thirteen years. After quality cuts, the full sample consists of 1511 sources, although the main analysis uses a subset of 416 sources selected on the geometric mean of their flux in the pairs of observations, which eliminates selection biases. We find a fractional variability that increases with increasing interval between observations, from about 0.25 for observations separated by tens of days up to about 0.45 for observations separated by $\sim 10$ years. As a rule of thumb, given the precise X-ray flux of a typical AGN at one epoch, its flux at a second epoch some years earlier or later can be predicted with a precision of about $60\%$ due to its variability (ignoring any statistical noise). This is larger than the characteristic variability of the population by a factor of $\sqrt{2}$ due to the uncertainty on the mean flux of the AGN due to a single prior measurement. The precision can thus be improved with multiple prior flux measurements (reducing the $\sqrt{2}$ factor), or by reducing the interval between observations to reduce the characteristic variability.Comment: 13 pages, 7 figures; accepted for publication in the Open Journal of Astrophysics; full data table included with source files; comments welcom

Two-Body T-Matrices without Angular Momentum Decomposition: Energy and Momentum Dependencies

The two-body t-matrix is calculated directly as function of two vector momenta for different Malfliet-Tjon type potentials. At a few hundred MeV projectile energy the total amplitude is quite a smooth function showing only a strong peak in forward direction. In contrast the corresponding partial wave contributions, whose number increases with increasing energy, become more and more oscillatory with increasing energy. The angular and momentum dependence of the full amplitude is studied and displayed on as well as off the energy shell as function of positive and negative energies. The behavior of the t-matrix in the vicinity of bound state poles and resonance poles in the second energy sheet is studied. It is found that the angular dependence of T exhibits a very characteristic behavior in the vicinity of those poles, which is given by the Legendre function corresponding to the quantum number either of the bound state or the resonance (or virtual) state. This behavior is illustrated with numerical examples.Comment: 19 pages (revtex), 15 figure

Geochelone carbonaria

Number of Pages: 7Integrative BiologyGeological Science