Vanishing of Gravitational Particle Production in the Formation of Cosmic Strings

We consider the gravitationally induced particle production from the quantum vacuum which is defined by a free, massless and minimally coupled scalar field during the formation of a gauge cosmic string. Previous discussions of this topic estimate the power output per unit length along the string to be of the order of $10^{68}$ ergs/sec/cm in the s-channel. We find that this production may be completely suppressed. A similar result is also expected to hold for the number of produced photons.Comment: 10 pages, Plain LaTex. Minor improvements. To appear in PR

Quiescence: a mechanism for escaping the effects of drug on cell populations

We point out that a simple and generic strategy to lower the risk for extinction consists in the developing a dormant stage in which the organism is unable to multiply but may die. The dormant organism is protected against the poisonous environment. The result is to increase the survival probability of the entire population by introducing a type of zero reproductive fitness. This is possible, because the reservoir of dormant individuals act as a buffer that can cushion fatal fluctuations in the number of births and deaths which without the dormant population would have driven the entire population to extinction.Comment: 18 pages and 9 figure

Longitudinal dependence of middle and low latitude zonal plasma drifts measured by DE-2

We used ion drift observations from the DE-2 satellite to study for the first time the longitudinal variations of middle and low latitude <i>F</i> region zonal plasma drifts during quiet and disturbed conditions. The quiet-time middle latitude drifts are predominantly westward; the low latitude drifts are westward during the day and eastward at night. The daytime quiet-time drifts do not change much with longitude; the nighttime drifts have strong season dependent longitudinal variations. In the dusk-premidnight period, the equinoctial middle latitude westward drifts are smallest in the European sector and the low latitude eastward drifts are largest in the American-Pacific sector. The longitudinal variations of the late night-early morning drifts during June and December solstice are anti-correlated. During geomagnetically active times, there are large westward perturbation drifts in the late afternoon-early night sector at upper middle latitudes, and in the midnight sector at low latitudes. The largest westward disturbed drifts during equinox occur in European sector, and the smallest in the Pacific region. These results suggest that during equinox SAPS events occur most often at European longitudes. The low latitude perturbation drifts do not show significant longitudina

Precise calculation of the threshold of various directed percolation models on a square lattice

Using Monte Carlo simulations on different system sizes we determine with high precision the critical thresholds of two families of directed percolation models on a square lattice. The thresholds decrease exponentially with the degree of connectivity. We conjecture that $p_{c}$ decays exactly as the inverse of the coodination number.Comment: 2 pages, 2 figures and 1 tabl

The Infrared Surface Brightness Fluctuation Distances to the Hydra and Coma Clusters

We present IR surface brightness fluctuation (SBF) distance measurements to NGC 4889 in the Coma cluster and to NGC 3309 and NGC 3311 in the Hydra cluster. We explicitly corrected for the contributions to the fluctuations from globular clusters, background galaxies, and residual background variance. We measured a distance of 85 +/- 10 Mpc to NGC 4889 and a distance of 46 +/- 5 Mpc to the Hydra cluster. Adopting recession velocities of 7186 +/- 428 km/s for Coma and 4054 +/- 296 km/s for Hydra gives a mean Hubble constant of H_0 = 87 +/- 11 km/s/Mpc. Corrections for residual variances were a significant fraction of the SBF signal measured, and, if underestimated, would bias our measurement towards smaller distances and larger values of H_0. Both NICMOS on the Hubble Space Telescope and large-aperture ground-based telescopes with new IR detectors will make accurate SBF distance measurements possible to 100 Mpc and beyond.Comment: 24 pages, 4 PostScript figures, 2 JPEG images; accepted for publication in Ap

Low-density series expansions for directed percolation IV. Temporal disorder

We introduce a model for temporally disordered directed percolation in which the probability of spreading from a vertex $(t,x)$, where $t$ is the time and $x$ is the spatial coordinate, is independent of $x$ but depends on $t$. Using a very efficient algorithm we calculate low-density series for bond percolation on the directed square lattice. Analysis of the series yields estimates for the critical point $p_c$ and various critical exponents which are consistent with a continuous change of the critical parameters as the strength of the disorder is increased.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figure

Transverse Asymmetry A_T′ from the Quasielastic ^3He(e,e′) Process and the Neutron Magnetic Form Factor

We have measured the transverse asymmetry A_T′ in ^3He(e,e′) quasielastic scattering in Hall A at Jefferson Laboratory with high precision for Q^2 values from 0.1 to 0.6 (GeV/c)^2. The neutron magnetic form factor GMn was extracted based on Faddeev calculations for Q^2 = 0.1 and 0.2 (GeV/c)^2 with an experimental uncertainty of less than 2%

Precision Measurement of the Spin-Dependent Asymmetry in the Threshold Region of ^3He(e, e')

We present the first precision measurement of the spin-dependent asymmetry in the threshold region of ^3He(e,e′) at Q^2 values of 0.1 and 0.2(GeV/c)^2. The agreement between the data and nonrelativistic Faddeev calculations which include both final-state interactions and meson-exchange current effects is very good at Q^2 = 0.1(GeV/c)^2, while a small discrepancy at Q^2 = 0.2(GeV/c)^2 is observed

Darwinian Selection and Non-existence of Nash Equilibria

We study selection acting on phenotype in a collection of agents playing local games lacking Nash equilibria. After each cycle one of the agents losing most games is replaced by a new agent with new random strategy and game partner. The network generated can be considered critical in the sense that the lifetimes of the agents is power law distributed. The longest surviving agents are those with the lowest absolute score per time step. The emergent ecology is characterized by a broad range of behaviors. Nevertheless, the agents tend to be similar to their opponents in terms of performance.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure

1/fα1/f^\alpha spectra in elementary cellular automata and fractal signals

We systematically compute the power spectra of the one-dimensional elementary cellular automata introduced by Wolfram. On the one hand our analysis reveals that one automaton displays $1/f$ spectra though considered as trivial, and on the other hand that various automata classified as chaotic/complex display no $1/f$ spectra. We model the results generalizing the recently investigated Sierpinski signal to a class of fractal signals that are tailored to produce $1/f^{\alpha}$ spectra. From the widespread occurrence of (elementary) cellular automata patterns in chemistry, physics and computer sciences, there are various candidates to show spectra similar to our results.Comment: 4 pages (3 figs included