969 research outputs found
Building the red sequence through gas-rich major mergers
Understanding the details of how the red sequence is built is a key question
in galaxy evolution. What are the relative roles of gas-rich vs. dry mergers,
major vs. minor mergers or galaxy mergers vs. gas accretion? In Wild et al.
2009 we compare hydrodynamic simulations with observations to show how gas-rich
major mergers result in galaxies with strong post-starburst spectral features,
a population of galaxies easily identified in the real Universe using optical
spectra. Using spectra from the VVDS deep survey with z~0.7, and a principal
component analysis technique to provide indices with high enough SNR, we find
that 40% of the mass flux onto the red-sequence could enter through a strong
post-starburst phase, and thus through gas-rich major mergers. The deeper
samples provided by next generation galaxy redshift surveys will allow us to
observe the primary physical processes responsible for the shut-down in
starformation and build-up of the red sequence.Comment: 4 pages, 7 figures, proceedings of IAU symposium 262 "Stellar
populations, planning for the next decade
Open mirror symmetry for Pfaffian Calabi-Yau 3-folds
We investigate the open mirror symmetry of certain non-complete intersection
Calabi- Yau 3-folds, so called pfaffian Calabi-Yau. We perform the prediction
of the number of disk invariants of several examples by using the direct
integration method proposed recently and the open mirror symmetry. We treat
several pfaffian Calabi-Yau 3-folds in and branes with two
discrete vacua. Some models have the two special points in its moduli space,
around both of which we can consider different A-model mirror partners. We
compute disc invariants for both cases. This study is the first application of
the open mirror symmetry to the compact non-complete intersections in toric
variety.Comment: 64 pages; v2: typos corrected, minor changes, references added; v3:
published version, minor corrections and improvement
A method to polarise antiprotons in storage rings and create polarised antineutrons
An intense circularely polarised photon beam interacts with a cooled
antiproton beam in a storage ring. Due to spin dependent absorption cross
sections for the reaction gamma+antiproton > pi- + antineutron a built-up of
polarisation of the stored antiprotons takes place. Figures-of-merit around 0.1
can be reached in principle over a wide range of antiproton energies. In this
process antineutrons with Polarisation > 70% emerge. The method is presented
for the case of 300 MeV/c cooled antiproton beam
In vivo monitoring of intracellular Ca2+ dynamics in the pancreatic β-cells of zebrafish embryos
Macdonald operators and homological invariants of the colored Hopf link
Using a power sum (boson) realization for the Macdonald operators, we
investigate the Gukov, Iqbal, Kozcaz and Vafa (GIKV) proposal for the
homological invariants of the colored Hopf link, which include
Khovanov-Rozansky homology as a special case. We prove the polynomiality of the
invariants obtained by GIKV's proposal for arbitrary representations. We derive
a closed formula of the invariants of the colored Hopf link for antisymmetric
representations. We argue that a little amendment of GIKV's proposal is
required to make all the coefficients of the polynomial non-negative integers.Comment: 31 pages. Published version with an additional appendi
Quenching of Star Formation
In the last decade we have seen an enormous increase in the size and quality
of spectroscopic galaxy surveys, both at low and high redshift. New statistical
techniques to analyse large portions of galaxy spectra are now finding favour
over traditional index based methods. Here we will review a new robust and
iterative Principal Component Analysis (PCA) algorithm, which solves several
common issues with classic PCA. Application to the 4000AA break region of
galaxies in the VIMOS VLT Deep Survey (VVDS) and Sloan Digital Sky Survey
(SDSS) gives new high signal-to-noise ratio spectral indices easily
interpretable in terms of recent star formation history. In particular, we
identify a sample of post-starburst galaxies at z~0.7 and z~0.07. We quantify
for the first time the importance of post-starburst galaxies, consistent with
being descendants of gas-rich major mergers, for building the red sequence.
Finally, we present a comparison with new low and high redshift "mock
spectroscopic surveys" derived from a Millennium Run semi-analytic model.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures. Conference proceedings in "Classification and
Discovery in Large Astronomical Surveys", 2008, C.A.L. Bailer-Jones (ed.
KMOS view of the Galactic Centre I. Young stars are centrally concentrated
The Galactic centre hosts a crowded, dense nuclear star cluster with a
half-light radius of 4 pc. Most of the stars in the Galactic centre are cool
late-type stars, but there are also >100 hot early-type stars in the central
parsec of the Milky Way. These stars are only 3-8 Myr old. Our knowledge of the
number and distribution of early-type stars in the Galactic centre is
incomplete. Only a few spectroscopic observations have been made beyond a
projected distance of 0.5 pc of the Galactic centre. The distribution and
kinematics of early-type stars are essential to understand the formation and
growth of the nuclear star cluster. We cover the central >4pc^2 of the Galactic
centre using the integral-field spectrograph KMOS. We extracted more than 1,000
spectra from individual stars and identified early-type stars based on their
spectra. Our data set contains 114 bright early-type stars: 6 have narrow
emission lines, 23 are Wolf-Rayet stars, 9 stars have featureless spectra, and
76 are O/B type stars. Our wide-field spectroscopic data confirm that the
distribution of young stars is compact, with 90% of the young stars identified
within 0.5 pc of the nucleus. We identify 24 new O/B stars primarily at large
radii. We estimate photometric masses of the O/B stars and show that the total
mass in the young population is >12,000M_sun. The O/B stars all appear to be
bound to the Milky Way nuclear star cluster, while less than 30% belong to the
clockwise rotating disk. The central concentration of the early-type stars is a
strong argument that they have formed in situ. A large part of the young O/B
stars is not on the disk, which either means that the early-type stars did not
all form on the same disk or that the disk is dissolving rapidly. [abridged]Comment: 27 pages, 17 figures, matches journal version: Corrected typos,
corrected Notes in Table B.
A surprising method for polarising antiprotons
We propose a method for polarising antiprotons in a storage ring by means of
a polarised positron beam moving parallel to the antiprotons. If the relative
velocity is adjusted to the cross section for spin-flip is
as large as about barn as shown by new QED-calculations of
the triple spin-cross sections. Two possibilities for providing a positron
source with sufficient flux density are presented. A polarised positron beam
with a polarisation of 0.70 and a flux density of approximately /(mm s) appears to be feasible by means of a radioactive C
dc-source. A more involved proposal is the production of polarised positrons by
pair production with circularly polarised photons. It yields a polarisation of
0.76 and requires the injection into a small storage ring. Such polariser
sources can be used at low (100 MeV) as well as at high (1 GeV) energy storage
rings providing a time of about one hour for polarisation build-up of about
antiprotons to a polarisation of about 0.18. A comparison with other
proposals show a gain in the figure-of-merit by a factor of about ten.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figures; v2: minor language and signification corrections
v3: (14 pages, 12 figures) major error, nonapplicable polarisation transfer
cross sections replaced by the mandatory spin-flip cross section
ABCD of Beta Ensembles and Topological Strings
We study beta-ensembles with Bn, Cn, and Dn eigenvalue measure and their
relation with refined topological strings. Our results generalize the familiar
connections between local topological strings and matrix models leading to An
measure, and illustrate that all those classical eigenvalue ensembles, and
their topological string counterparts, are related one to another via various
deformations and specializations, quantum shifts and discrete quotients. We
review the solution of the Gaussian models via Macdonald identities, and
interpret them as conifold theories. The interpolation between the various
models is plainly apparent in this case. For general polynomial potential, we
calculate the partition function in the multi-cut phase in a perturbative
fashion, beyond tree-level in the large-N limit. The relation to refined
topological string orientifolds on the corresponding local geometry is
discussed along the way.Comment: 33 pages, 1 figur
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