725 research outputs found
Exact Baryon, Strangeness and Charge Conservation in Hadronic Gas Models
Relativistic heavy ion collisions are studied assuming that particles can be
described by a hadron gas in thermal and chemical equilibrium. The exact
conservation of baryon number, strangeness and charge are explicitly taken into
account. For heavy ions the effect arising from the neutron surplus becomes
important and leads to a substantial increase in e.g. the ratio.
A method is developed which is very well suited for the study of small systems.Comment: 5 pages, 5 Postscript figure
On the Relation between Solar Activity and Clear-Sky Terrestrial Irradiance
The Mauna Loa Observatory record of direct-beam solar irradiance measurements
for the years 1958-2010 is analysed to investigate the variation of clear-sky
terrestrial insolation with solar activity over more than four solar cycles.
The raw irradiance data exhibit a marked seasonal cycle, extended periods of
lower irradiance due to emissions of volcanic aerosols, and a long-term
decrease in atmospheric transmission independent of solar activity. After
correcting for these effects, it is found that clear-sky terrestrial irradiance
typically varies by about 0.2 +/- 0.1% over the course of the solar cycle, a
change of the same order of magnitude as the variations of the total solar
irradiance above the atmosphere. An investigation of changes in the clear-sky
atmospheric transmission fails to find a significant trend with sunspot number.
Hence there is no evidence for a yet unknown effect amplifying variations of
clear-sky irradiance with solar activity.Comment: 16 pages, 7 figures, in press at Solar Physics; minor changes to the
text to match final published versio
The Reliability of Red Flags in Spinal Cord Compression
Background: Acute low back pain is a common cause for presentation to the emergency department (ED). Since benign etiologies account for 95% of cases, red flags are used to identify sinister causes that require prompt management.
Objectives: We assessed the effectiveness of red flag signs used in the ED to identify spinal cord and cauda equine compression.
Patients and Methods: It was a retrospective cohort study of 206 patients with acute back pain admitted from the ED. The presence or absence of the red flag symptoms was assessed against evidence of spinal cord or cauda equina compression on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
Results: Overall, 32 (15.5%) patients had compression on MRI. Profound lower limb neurologic examination did not demonstrate a statistically significant association with this finding. The likelihood ratio (LR) for bowel and bladder dysfunction (sensitivity of 0.65 and specificity of 0.73) was 2.45. Saddle sensory disturbance (sensitivity of 0.27 and specificity of 0.87) had a LR of 2.11. When both symptoms were taken together (sensitivity of 0.27 and specificity of 0.92), they gave a LR of 3.46.
Conclusions: The predictive value of the two statistically significant red flags only marginally raises the clinical suspicion of spinal cord or cauda equina compression. Effective risk stratification of patients presenting to the ED with acute back pain is crucial; however, this study did not support the use of these red flags in their current form
First upper limit analysis and results from LIGO science data: stochastic background
I describe analysis of correlations in the outputs of the three LIGO
interferometers from LIGO's first science run, held over 17 days in August and
September of 2002, and the resulting upper limit set on a stochastic background
of gravitational waves. By searching for cross-correlations between the LIGO
detectors in Livingston, LA and Hanford, WA, we are able to set a 90%
confidence level upper limit of h_{100}^2 Omega_0 < 23 +/- 4.6.Comment: 7 pages; 1 eps figures; proceeding from 2003 Edoardo Amaldi Meeting
on Gravitational Wave
The Primordial Gravitational Wave Background in String Cosmology
We find the spectrum P(w)dw of the gravitational wave background produced in
the early universe in string theory. We work in the framework of String Driven
Cosmology, whose scale factors are computed with the low-energy effective
string equations as well as selfconsistent solutions of General Relativity with
a gas of strings as source. The scale factor evolution is described by an early
string driven inflationary stage with an instantaneous transition to a
radiation dominated stage and successive matter dominated stage. This is an
expanding string cosmology always running on positive proper cosmic time. A
careful treatment of the scale factor evolution and involved transitions is
made. A full prediction on the power spectrum of gravitational waves without
any free-parameters is given. We study and show explicitly the effect of the
dilaton field, characteristic to this kind of cosmologies. We compute the
spectrum for the same evolution description with three differents approachs.
Some features of gravitational wave spectra, as peaks and asymptotic
behaviours, are found direct consequences of the dilaton involved and not only
of the scale factor evolution. A comparative analysis of different treatments,
solutions and compatibility with observational bounds or detection perspectives
is made.Comment: LaTeX, 50 pages with 2 figures. Uses epsfig and psfra
Effective action and semiclassical limit of spin foam models
We define an effective action for spin foam models of quantum gravity by
adapting the background field method from quantum field theory. We show that
the Regge action is the leading term in the semi-classical expansion of the
spin foam effective action if the vertex amplitude has the large-spin
asymptotics which is proportional to an exponential function of the vertex
Regge action. In the case of the known three-dimensional and four-dimensional
spin foam models this amounts to modifying the vertex amplitude such that the
exponential asymptotics is obtained. In particular, we show that the ELPR/FK
model vertex amplitude can be modified such that the new model is finite and
has the Einstein-Hilbert action as its classical limit. We also calculate the
first-order and some of the second-order quantum corrections in the
semi-classical expansion of the effective action.Comment: Improved presentation, 2 references added. 15 pages, no figure
Long term study of the seismic environment at LIGO
The LIGO experiment aims to detect and study gravitational waves using ground
based laser interferometry. A critical factor to the performance of the
interferometers, and a major consideration in the design of possible future
upgrades, is isolation of the interferometer optics from seismic noise. We
present the results of a detailed program of measurements of the seismic
environment surrounding the LIGO interferometers. We describe the experimental
configuration used to collect the data, which was acquired over a 613 day
period. The measurements focused on the frequency range 0.1-10 Hz, in which the
secondary microseismic peak and noise due to human activity in the vicinity of
the detectors was found to be particularly critical to interferometer
performance. We compare the statistical distribution of the data sets from the
two interferometer sites, construct amplitude spectral densities of seismic
noise amplitude fluctuations with periods of up to 3 months, and analyze the
data for any long term trends in the amplitude of seismic noise in this
critical frequency range.Comment: To be published in Classical and Quantum Gravity. 24 pages, 15
figure
Do Quarks Obey D-Brane Dynamics?
The potential between two D0-branes at rest is calculated to be a linear.
Also the potential between two fast decaying D0-branes is found in agreement
with phenomenological heavy-quark potentials.Comment: 7 pages, no figures, LaTe
Global structure of exact cosmological solutions in the brane world
We find the explicit coordinate transformation which links two exact
cosmological solutions of the brane world which have been recently discovered.
This means that both solutions are exactly the same with each other. One of two
solutions is described by the motion of a domain wall in the well-known
5-dimensional Schwarzshild-AdS spacetime. Hence, we can easily understand the
region covered by the coordinate used by another solution.Comment: Latex, 9 pages including 5 figures; references add, accepted for
publication in Physical Review
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