6,343 research outputs found
Keck Pencil-Beam Survey for Faint Kuiper Belt Objects
We present the results of a pencil-beam survey of the Kuiper Belt using the
Keck 10-m telescope. A single 0.01 square degree field is imaged 29 times for a
total integration time of 4.8 hr. Combining exposures in software allows the
detection of Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs) having visual magnitude V < 27.9. Two
new KBOs are discovered. One object having V = 25.5 lies at a probable
heliocentric distance d = 33 AU. The second object at V = 27.2 is located at d
= 44 AU. Both KBOs have diameters of about 50 km, assuming comet-like albedos
of 4%.
Data from all surveys are pooled to construct the luminosity function from
red magnitude R = 20 to 27. The cumulative number of objects per square degree,
N (< R), is fitted to a power law of the form log_(10) N = 0.52 (R - 23.5).
Differences between power laws reported in the literature are due mainly to
which survey data are incorporated, and not to the method of fitting. The
luminosity function is consistent with a power-law size distribution for
objects having diameters s = 50 to 500 km; dn ~ s^(-q) ds, where the
differential size index q = 3.6 +/- 0.1. The distribution is such that the
smallest objects possess most of the surface area, but the largest bodies
contain the bulk of the mass. Though our inferred size index nearly matches
that derived by Dohnanyi (1969), it is unknown whether catastrophic collisions
are responsible for shaping the size distribution. Implications of the absence
of detections of classical KBOs beyond 50 AU are discussed.Comment: Accepted to AJ. Final proof-edited version: references added,
discussion of G98 revised in sections 4.3 and 5.
Anomalous Noise in the Pseudogap Regime of YBaCuO
An unusual noise component is found near and below about 250 K in the normal
state of underdoped YBCO and Ca-YBCO films. This noise regime, unlike the more
typical noise above 250 K, has features expected for a symmetry-breaking
collective electronic state. These include large individual fluctuators, a
magnetic sensitivity, and aging effects. A possible interpretation in terms of
fluctuating charge nematic order is presented.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Aging in the Relaxor Ferroelectric PMN/PT
The relaxor ferroelectric
(PbMnNbO)(PbTiO), ,
(PMN/PT(90/10)) is found to exhibit several regimes of complicated aging
behavior. Just below the susceptibility peak there is a regime exhibiting
rejuvenation but little memory. At lower temperature, there is a regime with
mainly cumulative aging, expected for simple domain-growth. At still lower
temperature, there is a regime with both rejuvenation and memory, reminiscent
of spin glasses. PMN/PT (88/12) is also found to exhibit some of these aging
regimes. This qualitative aging behavior is reminiscent of that seen in
reentrant ferromagnets, which exhibit a crossover from a domain-growth
ferromagnetic regime into a reentrant spin glass regime at lower temperatures.
These striking parallels suggest a picture of competition in PMN/PT (90/10)
between ferroelectric correlations formed in the domain-growth regime with
glassy correlations formed in the spin glass regime. PMN/PT (90/10) is also
found to exhibit frequency-aging time scaling of the time-dependent part of the
out-of-phase susceptibility for temperatures 260 K and below. The stability of
aging effects to thermal cycles and field perturbations is also reported.Comment: 8 pages RevTeX4, 11 figures; submitted to Phys. Rev.
Identification of a lineage of multipotent hematopoietic progenitors
All multipotent hematopoietic progenitors in C57BL-Thy-1.1 bone marrow are divided among three subpopulations of Thy-1.1^(lo) Sca-1^+ Lin^(-/lo) c-kit^+ cells: long-term reconstituting Mac-1^-CD4^-c-kit^+ cells and transiently reconstituting Mac-1^(lo)CD4^-or Mac-1^(lo) CD4^(lo) cells. This study shows that the same populations, with similar functional activities, exist in mice whose hematopoietic systems were reconstituted by hematopoietic stem cells after lethal irradiation. We demonstrate that these populations form a lineage of multipotent progenitors from long-term self-renewing stem cells to the most mature multipotent progenitor population. In reconstituted mice, Mac-1- CD4^-c-kit^+ cells gave rise to Mac-1^(lo)CD4^- cells, which gave rise to Mac-1^(lo)CD4^(lo) cells. Mac-1^- CD4^-c-kit^+ cells had long-term self-renewal potential, with each cell being capable of giving rise to more than 10^4 functionally similar Mac-1^-CD4^-c-kit^+ cells. At least half of Mac-1^(lo)CD4^- cells had transient self-renewal potential, detected in the spleen 7 days after reconstitution. Mac-1^(lo)CD4^(lo) cells did not have detectable self-renewal potential. The identification of a lineage of multipotent progenitors provides an important tool for identifying genes that regulate self-renewal and lineage commitment
Edwards-Wilkinson surface over a spherical substrate: noise in the height fluctuations
We study the steady state fluctuations of an Edwards-Wilkinson type surface
with the substrate taken to be a sphere. We show that the height fluctuations
on circles at a given latitude has the effective action of a perfect Gaussian
noise, just as in the case of fixed radius circles on an infinite planar
substrate. The effective surface tension, which is the overall coefficient of
the action, does not depend on the latitude angle of the circles.Comment: 6 page
Triton's surface age and impactor population revisited in light of Kuiper Belt fluxes: Evidence for small Kuiper Belt objects and recent geological activity
Neptune's largest satellite, Triton, is one of the most fascinating and
enigmatic bodies in the solar system. Among its numerous interesting traits,
Triton appears to have far fewer craters than would be expected if its surface
was primordial. Here we combine the best available crater count data for Triton
with improved estimates of impact rates by including the Kuiper Belt as a
source of impactors. We find that the population of impactors creating the
smallest observed craters on Triton must be sub-km in scale, and that this
small-impactor population can be best fit by a differential power-law size
index near -3. Such results provide interesting, indirect probes of the unseen
small body population of the Kuiper Belt. Based on the modern, Kuiper Belt and
Oort Cloud impactor flux estimates, we also recalculate estimated ages for
several regions of Triton's surface imaged by Voyager 2, and find that Triton
was probably active on a time scale no greater than 0.1-0.3 Gyr ago (indicating
Triton was still active after some 90% to 98% of the age of the solar system),
and perhaps even more recently. The time-averaged volumetric resurfacing rate
on Triton implied by these results, 0.01 km yr or more, is likely
second only to Io and Europa in the outer solar system, and is within an order
of magnitude of estimates for Venus and for the Earth's intraplate zones. This
finding indicates that Triton likely remains a highly geologically active world
at present, some 4.5 Gyr after its formation. We briefly speculate on how such
a situation might obtain.Comment: 14 pages (TeX), plus 2 postscript figures Stern & McKinnon, 2000, AJ,
in pres
On the existence of exotic and non-exotic multiquark meson states
To obtain an exact solution of a four-body system containing two quarks and
two antiquarks interacting through two-body terms is a cumbersome task that has
been tackled with more or less success during the last decades. We present an
exact method for the study of four-quark systems based on the hyperspherical
harmonics formalism that allows us to solve it without resorting to further
approximations, like for instance the existence of diquark components. We apply
it to systems containing two heavy and two light quarks using different
quark-quark potentials. While states may be stable in nature,
the stability of states would imply the existence of quark
correlations not taken into account by simple quark dynamical models.Comment: 3 pages. Contribution to the 20th European Conference on Few-Body
Problems in Physics, Pisa, Italy. To be published in Few-Body system
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