Can the Bump be Observed in the Early Afterglow of GRBS with X-Ray Line Emission Features?

Extremely powerful emission lines are observed in the X-ray afterglow of several GRBs. The energy contained in the illuminating continuum which is responsible for the line production exceeds 10$^{51}$ erg, much higher than that of the collimated GRBs. It constrains the models which explain the production of X-ray emission lines. In this paper, We argue that this energy can come from a continuous postburst outflow. Focusing on a central engine of highly magnetized millisecond pulsar or magnetar we find that afterglow can be affected by the illuminating continuum, and therefore a distinct achromatic bump may be observed in the early afterglow lightcurves. With the luminosity of the continuous outflow which produces the line emission, we define the upper limit of the time when the bump feature appears. We argue that the reason why the achromatic bumps have not been detected so far is that the bumps should appear at the time too early to be observed.Comment: 13 pags, 2 tables, appear in v603 n1 pt1 ApJ March 1, 2004 issu

Effects of topological edge states on the thermoelectric properties of Bi nanoribbons

Using first-principles calculations combined with Boltzmann transport theory, we investigate the effects of topological edge states on the thermoelectric properties of Bi nanoribbons. It is found that there is a competition between the edge and bulk contributions to the Seebeck coefficients. However, the electronic transport of the system is dominated by the edge states because of its much larger electrical conductivity. As a consequence, a room temperature value exceeding 3.0 could be achieved for both p- and n-type systems when the relaxation time ratio between the edge and the bulk states is tuned to be 1000. Our theoretical study suggests that the utilization of topological edge states might be a promising approach to cross the threshold of the industrial application of thermoelectricity

Simulation Subsumption or Déjà vu on the Web

Simulation unification is a special kind of unification adapted to retrieving semi-structured data on the Web. This article introduces simulation subsumption, or containment, that is, query subsumption under simulation unification. Simulation subsumption is crucial in general for query optimization, in particular for optimizing pattern-based search engines, and for the termination of recursive rule-based web languages such as the XML and RDF query language Xcerpt. This paper first motivates and formalizes simulation subsumption. Then, it establishes decidability of simulation subsumption for advanced query patterns featuring descendant constructs, regular expressions, negative subterms (or subterm exclusions), and multiple variable occurrences. Finally, we show that subsumption between two query terms can be decided in O(n!n) where n is the sum of the sizes of both query terms

Tuning the carrier concentration to improve the thermoelectric performance of CuInTe2 compound

The electronic and transport properties of CuInTe2 chalcopyrite are investigated using density functional calculations combined with Boltzmann theory. The band gap predicted from hybrid functional is 0.92 eV, which agrees well with experimental data and leads to relatively larger Seebeck coefficient compared with those of narrow-gap thermoelectric materials. By fine tuning the carrier concentration, the electrical conductivity and power factor of the system can be significantly optimized. Together with the inherent low thermal conductivity, the ZT values of CuInTe2 compound can be enhanced to as high as 1.72 at 850 K, which is obviously larger than those measured experimentally and suggests there is still room to improve the thermoelectric performance of this chalcopyrite compound

Foldy-Wouthuysen transformation for a Dirac-Pauli dyon and the Thomas-Bargmann-Michel-Telegdi equation

The classical dynamics for a charged point particle with intrinsic spin is governed by a relativistic Hamiltonian for the orbital motion and by the Thomas-Bargmann-Michel-Telegdi equation for the precession of the spin. It is natural to ask whether the classical Hamiltonian (with both the orbital and spin parts) is consistent with that in the relativistic quantum theory for a spin-1/2 charged particle, which is described by the Dirac equation. In the low-energy limit, up to terms of the 7th order in $1/E_g$ ($E_g=2mc^2$ and $m$ is the particle mass), we investigate the Foldy-Wouthuysen (FW) transformation of the Dirac Hamiltonian in the presence of homogeneous and static electromagnetic fields and show that it is indeed in agreement with the classical Hamiltonian with the gyromagnetic ratio being equal to 2. Through electromagnetic duality, this result can be generalized for a spin-1/2 dyon, which has both electric and magnetic charges and thus possesses both intrinsic electric and magnetic dipole moments. Furthermore, the relativistic quantum theory for a spin-1/2 dyon with arbitrary values of the gyromagnetic and gyroelectric ratios can be described by the Dirac-Pauli equation, which is the Dirac equation with augmentation for the anomalous electric and anomalous magnetic dipole moments. The FW transformation of the Dirac-Pauli Hamiltonian is shown, up to the 7th order again, to be also in accord with the classical Hamiltonian.Comment: 18 page

Quantization of Gauge Field Theories on the Front-Form without Gauge Constraints I : The Abelian Case

Recently, we have proposed a new front-form quantization which treated both the $x^{+}$ and the $x^{-}$ coordinates as front-form 'times.' This quantization was found to preserve parity explicitly. In this paper we extend this construction to local Abelian gauge fields . We quantize this theory using a method proposed originally by Faddeev and Jackiw . We emphasize here the feature that quantizing along both $x^+$ and $x^-$ , gauge theories does not require extra constraints (also known as 'gauge conditions') to determine the solution uniquely.Comment: 18 pages, phyzz