Duality Invariance of Cosmological Perturbation Spectra

I show that cosmological perturbation spectra produced from quantum fluctuations in massless or self-interacting scalar fields during an inflationary era remain invariant under a two parameter family of transformations of the homogeneous background fields. This relates slow-roll inflation models to solutions which may be far from the usual slow-roll limit. For example, a scale-invariant spectrum of perturbations in a minimally coupled, massless field can be produced by an exponential expansion with $a\propto e^{Ht}$, or by a collapsing universe with $a\propto (-t)^{2/3}$.Comment: 5 pages, Latex with Revtex. Hamiltonian formulation added and discussion expanded. Version to appear in Phys Rev

Controls on winter ecosystem respiration in temperate and boreal ecosystems

Winter CO2 fluxes represent an important component of the annual carbon budget in northern ecosystems. Understanding winter respiration processes and their responses to climate change is also central to our ability to assess terrestrial carbon cycle and climate feedbacks in the future. However, the factors influencing the spatial and temporal patterns of winter ecosystem respiration (Reco) of northern ecosystems are poorly understood. For this reason, we analyzed eddy covariance flux data from 57 ecosystem sites ranging from ~35° N to ~70° N. Deciduous forests were characterized by the highest winter Reco rates (0.90 ± 0.39 g C m-2 d-1), when winter is defined as the period during which daily air temperature remains below 0 °C. By contrast, arctic wetlands had the lowest winter Reco rates (0.02 ± 0.02 g C m-2 d-1). Mixed forests, evergreen needle-leaved forests, grasslands, croplands and boreal wetlands were characterized by intermediate winter Reco rates (g C m-2 d-1) of 0.70(±0.33), 0.60(±0.38), 0.62(±0.43), 0.49(±0.22) and 0.27(±0.08), respectively. Our cross site analysis showed that winter air (Tair) and soil (Tsoil) temperature played a dominating role in determining the spatial patterns of winter Reco in both forest and managed ecosystems (grasslands and croplands). Besides temperature, the seasonal amplitude of the leaf area index (LAI), inferred from satellite observation, or growing season gross primary productivity, which we use here as a proxy for the amount of recent carbon available for Reco in the subsequent winter, played a marginal role in winter CO2 emissions from forest ecosystems. We found that winter Reco sensitivity to temperature variation across space (QS) was higher than the one over time (interannual, QT). This can be expected because QS not only accounts for climate gradients across sites but also for (positively correlated) the spatial variability of substrate quantity. Thus, if the models estimate future warming impacts on Reco based on QS rather than QT, this could overestimate the impact of temperature change

Comment on “Application of (G′/G)-expansion method to travelling-wave solutions of three nonlinear evolution equation" [Comput Fluids 2010;39;1957-63]

In a recent paper [Abazari R. Application of (G′ G )-expansion method to travelling wave solutions of three nonlinear evolution equation. Computers & Fluids 2010;39:1957–1963], the (G′/G)-expansion method was used to find travelling-wave solutions to three nonlinear evolution equations that arise in the mathematical modelling of fluids. The author claimed that the method delivers more general forms of solution than other methods. In this note we point out that not only is this claim false but that the delivered solutions are cumbersome and misleading. The extended tanh-function expansion method, for example, is not only entirely equivalent to the (G′/G)-expansion method but is more efficient and user-friendly, and delivers solutions in a compact and elegant form

A dynamical dark energy model with a given luminosity distance

It is assumed that the current cosmic acceleration is driven by a scalar field, the Lagrangian of which is a function of the kinetic term only, and that the luminosity distance is a given function of the red-shift. Upon comparison with Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAOs) and Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) data the parameters of the models are determined, and then the time evolution of the scalar field is determined by the dynamics using the cosmological equations. We find that the solution is very different than the corresponding solution when the non-relativistic matter is ignored, and that the universe enters the acceleration era at larger red-shift compared to the standard $\Lambda CDM$ model.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in GER

Moving-boundary problems solved by adaptive radial basis functions

The objective of this paper is to present an alternative approach to the conventional level set methods for solving two-dimensional moving-boundary problems known as the passive transport. Moving boundaries are associated with time-dependent problems and the position of the boundaries need to be determined as a function of time and space. The level set method has become an attractive design tool for tracking, modeling and simulating the motion of free boundaries in fluid mechanics, combustion, computer animation and image processing. Recent research on the numerical method has focused on the idea of using a meshless methodology for the numerical solution of partial differential equations. In the present approach, the moving interface is captured by the level set method at all time with the zero contour of a smooth function known as the level set function. A new approach is used to solve a convective transport equation for advancing the level set function in time. This new approach is based on the asymmetric meshless collocation method and the adaptive greedy algorithm for trial subspaces selection. Numerical simulations are performed to verify the accuracy and stability of the new numerical scheme which is then applied to simulate a bubble that is moving, stretching and circulating in an ambient flow to demonstrate the performance of the new meshless approach. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Nucleon-nucleon momentum correlation function for light nuclei

Nucleon-nucleon momentum correlation function have been presented for nuclear reactions with neutron-rich or proton-rich projectiles using a nuclear transport theory, namely Isospin-Dependent Quantum Molecular Dynamics model. The relationship between the binding energy of projectiles and the strength of proton-neutron correlation function at small relative momentum has been explored, while proton-proton correlation function shows its sensitivity to the proton density distribution. Those results show that nucleon-nucleon correlation function is useful to reflect some features of the neutron- or proton-halo nuclei and therefore provide a potential tool for the studies of radioactive beam physics.Comment: Talk given at the 18th International IUPAP Conference on Few-Body Problems in Physics (FB18), Santos, Brasil, August 21-26, 2006. To appear in Nucl. Phys.

On the resolution of cosmic coincidence problem and phantom crossing with triple interacting fluids

We here investigate a cosmological model in which three fluids interact with each other involving certain coupling parameters and energy exchange rates. The motivation of the problem stems from the puzzling `triple coincidence problem' which naively asks why the cosmic energy densities of matter, radiation and dark energy are almost of the same order of magnitude at the present time. In our model, we determine the conditions under triple interacting fluids will cross the phantom divide.Comment: 22 pages, 6 figures, to appear in Eur. Phys. J. C (2009

Nuclear Attenuation of high energy two-hadron system in the string model

Nuclear attenuation of the two-hadron system is considered in the string model. The two-scale model and its improved version with two different choices of constituent formation time and sets of parameters obtained earlier for the single hadron attenuation, are used to describe available experimental data for the $z$-dependence of subleading hadron, whereas satisfactory agreement with the experimental data has been observed. A model prediction for $\nu$-dependence of the nuclear attenuation of the two-hadron system is also presented.Comment: 8 page