20,079 research outputs found
The GeV-TeV Connection in Galactic gamma-ray sources
Recent observations with atmospheric Cherenkov telescope systems such as
H.E.S.S. and MAGIC have revealed a large number of new sources of
very-high-energy (VHE) gamma-rays from 100 GeV - 100 TeV, mostly concentrated
along the Galactic plane. At lower energies (100 MeV - 10 GeV) the
satellite-based instrument EGRET revealed a population of sources clustering
along the Galactic Plane. Given their adjacent energy bands a systematic
correlation study between the two source catalogues seems appropriate. Here,
the populations of Galactic sources in both energy domains are characterised on
observational as well as on phenomenological grounds. Surprisingly few common
sources are found in terms of positional coincidence and spectral consistency.
These common sources and their potential counterparts and emission mechanisms
will be discussed in detail. In cases of detection only in one energy band, for
the first time consistent upper limits in the other energy band have been
derived. The EGRET upper limits are rather unconstraining due to the
sensitivity mismatch to current VHE instruments. The VHE upper limits put
strong constraints on simple power-law extrapolation of several of the EGRET
spectra and thus strongly suggest cutoffs in the unexplored energy range from
10 GeV - 100 GeV. Physical reasons for the existence of cutoffs and for
differences in the source population at GeV and TeV energies will be discussed.
Finally, predictions will be derived for common GeV - TeV sources for the
upcoming GLAST mission bridging for the first time the energy gap between
current GeV and TeV instruments.Comment: (1) Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (KIPAC),
Stanford, USA (2) Stanford University, W.W. Hansen Experimental Physics Lab
(HEPL) and KIPAC, Stanford, USA (3) ICREA & Institut de Ciencies de l'Espai
(IEEC-CSIC) Campus UAB, Fac. de Ciencies, Barcelona, Spain. (4) School of
Physics and Astronomy, University of Leeds, UK. Paper Submitted to Ap
SACY - a Search for Associations Containing Young stars
The scientific goal of the SACY (Search for Associations Containing
Young-stars) was to identify possible associations of stars younger than the
Pleiades Association among optical counterparts of the ROSAT X-ray bright
sources. High-resolution spectra for possible optical counterparts later than
G0 belonging to HIPPARCOS and/or TYCHO-2 catalogs were obtained in order to
assess both the youth and the spatial motion of each target. More than 1000
ROSAT sources were observed, covering a large area in the Southern Hemisphere.
The newly identified young stars present a patchy distribution in UVW and XYZ,
revealing the existence of huge nearby young associations. Here we present the
associations identified in this survey.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, to appear in the Proceedings of Open Issues in
Local Formation and Early Stellar Evolution, Ouro Preto, Brazi
Developmental perspectives of numerical thinking for the interpretation of physical quantities
This research reveals the perspectives in the teaching of numerical thinking through a documentary review. The representation of physical elements such as functions, vectors and operators, and their subsequent interpretation through numerical thinking gives meaning to the physical quantities that such elements represent. A documentary sample integrated for 40 sources on numerical thinking such as articles published in indexed journals, postgraduate dissertations, and books is considered. A qualitative content analysis method is used. First, an encoding procedure is applied for tagging the extracted information from the source documents. Then, a split and merge procedure is considered in order to establish from the tags the dimensions and categories that allow determining the conceptual relationships that support the developmental perspectives of numerical thinking. The method reveals that the numerical thinking can be developed in the global context from four perspectives, namely, historical, theoretical, curricular, and social perspectives. From these results, an incorporation of the such perspectives can be institutionalized for promoting curricular, didactic and evaluative new proposals for numerical thinking teaching
Functional Optimization in Complex Excitable Networks
We study the effect of varying wiring in excitable random networks in which
connection weights change with activity to mold local resistance or
facilitation due to fatigue. Dynamic attractors, corresponding to patterns of
activity, are then easily destabilized according to three main modes, including
one in which the activity shows chaotic hopping among the patterns. We describe
phase transitions to this regime, and show a monotonous dependence of critical
parameters on the heterogeneity of the wiring distribution. Such correlation
between topology and functionality implies, in particular, that tasks which
require unstable behavior --such as pattern recognition, family discrimination
and categorization-- can be most efficiently performed on highly heterogeneous
networks. It also follows a possible explanation for the abundance in nature of
scale--free network topologies.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figure
Spin precession and spin Hall effect in monolayer graphene/Pt nanostructures
Spin Hall effects have surged as promising phenomena for spin logics
operations without ferromagnets. However, the magnitude of the detected
electric signals at room temperature in metallic systems has been so far
underwhelming. Here, we demonstrate a two-order of magnitude enhancement of the
signal in monolayer graphene/Pt devices when compared to their fully metallic
counterparts. The enhancement stems in part from efficient spin injection and
the large resistivity of graphene but we also observe 100% spin absorption in
Pt and find an unusually large effective spin Hall angle of up to 0.15. The
large spin-to-charge conversion allows us to characterise spin precession in
graphene under the presence of a magnetic field. Furthermore, by developing an
analytical model based on the 1D diffusive spin-transport, we demonstrate that
the effective spin-relaxation time in graphene can be accurately determined
using the (inverse) spin Hall effect as a means of detection. This is a
necessary step to gather full understanding of the consequences of spin
absorption in spin Hall devices, which is known to suppress effective spin
lifetimes in both metallic and graphene systems.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figures. Accepted in 2D Materials.
https://doi.org/10.1088/2053-1583/aa882
Lifetimes of Confined Acoustic Phonons in Ultra-Thin Silicon Membranes
We study the relaxation of coherent acoustic phonon modes with frequencies up
to 500 GHz in ultra-thin free-standing silicon membranes. Using an ultrafast
pump-probe technique of asynchronous optical sampling, we observe that the
decay time of the first-order dilatational mode decreases significantly from
\sim 4.7 ns to 5 ps with decreasing membrane thickness from \sim 194 to 8 nm.
The experimental results are compared with theories considering both intrinsic
phonon-phonon interactions and extrinsic surface roughness scattering including
a wavelength-dependent specularity. Our results provide insight to understand
some of the limits of nanomechanical resonators and thermal transport in
nanostructures
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