1,493 research outputs found
How large are present-day heat flux variations across the surface of Mars?
International audienc
Charged Particle with Magnetic Moment in the Aharonov-Bohm Potential
We considered a charged quantum mechanical particle with spin
and gyromagnetic ratio in the field af a magnetic string. Whereas the
interaction of the charge with the string is the well kown Aharonov-Bohm effect
and the contribution of magnetic moment associated with the spin in the case
is known to yield an additional scattering and zero modes (one for each
flux quantum), an anomaly of the magnetic moment (i.e. ) leads to bound
states. We considered two methods for treating the case . \\ The first is
the method of self adjoint extension of the corresponding Hamilton operator. It
yields one bound state as well as additional scattering. In the second we
consider three exactly solvable models for finite flux tubes and take the limit
of shrinking its radius to zero. For finite radius, there are bound
states ( is the number of flux quanta in the tube).\\ For the bound
state energies tend to infinity so that this limit is not physical unless along with . Thereby only for fluxes less than unity the results of
the method of self adjoint extension are reproduced whereas for larger fluxes
bound states exist and we conclude that this method is not applicable.\\ We
discuss the physically interesting case of small but finite radius whereby the
natural scale is given by the anomaly of the magnetic moment of the electron
.Comment: 16 pages, Latex, NTZ-93-0
Multiplying unitary random matrices - universality and spectral properties
In this paper we calculate, in the large N limit, the eigenvalue density of
an infinite product of random unitary matrices, each of them generated by a
random hermitian matrix. This is equivalent to solving unitary diffusion
generated by a hamiltonian random in time. We find that the result is universal
and depends only on the second moment of the generator of the stochastic
evolution. We find indications of critical behavior (eigenvalue spacing scaling
like ) close to for a specific critical evolution time
.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figure
Seismic Efficiency for Simple Crater Formation in the Martian Top Crust Analog
The first seismometer operating on the surface of another planet was deployed by the NASA InSight (Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) mission to Mars. It gives us an opportunity to investigate the seismicity of Mars, including any seismic activity caused by small meteorite bombardment. Detectability of impact generated seismic signals is closely related to the seismic efficiency, defined as the fraction of the impactor's kinetic energy transferred into the seismic energy in a target medium. This work investigated the seismic efficiency of the Martian near surface associated with small meteorite impacts on Mars. We used the iSALE‐2D (Impact‐Simplified Arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian) shock physics code to simulate the formation of the meter‐size impact craters, and we used a recently formed 1.5 m diameter crater as a case study. The Martian crust was simulated as unfractured nonporous bedrock, fractured bedrock with 25% porosity, and highly porous regolith with 44% and 65% porosity. We used appropriate strength and porosity models defined in previous works, and we identified that the seismic efficiency is very sensitive to the speed of sound and elastic threshold in the target medium. We constrained the value of the impact‐related seismic efficiency to be between the order of ∼10‐7 to 10‐6 for the regolith and ∼10‐4 to 10‐3 for the bedrock. For new impacts occurring on Mars, this work can help understand the near‐surface properties of the Martian crust, and it contributes to the understanding of impact detectability via seismic signals as a function of the target media
High-sensitivity troponin I concentrations are a marker of an advanced hypertrophic response and adverse outcomes in patients with aortic stenosis
Aims:
High-sensitivity cardiac troponin I (cTnI) assays hold promise in detecting the transition from hypertrophy to heart failure in aortic stenosis. We sought to investigate the mechanism for troponin release in patients with aortic stenosis and whether plasma cTnI concentrations are associated with long-term outcome.
Methods and results:
Plasma cTnI concentrations were measured in two patient cohorts using a high-sensitivity assay. First, in the Mechanism Cohort, 122 patients with aortic stenosis (median age 71, 67% male, aortic valve area 1.0 ± 0.4 cm2) underwent cardiovascular magnetic resonance and echocardiography to assess left ventricular (LV) myocardial mass, function, and fibrosis. The indexed LV mass and measures of replacement fibrosis (late gadolinium enhancement) were associated with cTnI concentrations independent of age, sex, coronary artery disease, aortic stenosis severity, and diastolic function. In the separate Outcome Cohort, 131 patients originally recruited into the Scottish Aortic Stenosis and Lipid Lowering Trial, Impact of REgression (SALTIRE) study, had long-term follow-up for the occurrence of aortic valve replacement (AVR) and cardiovascular deaths. Over a median follow-up of 10.6 years (1178 patient-years), 24 patients died from a cardiovascular cause and 60 patients had an AVR. Plasma cTnI concentrations were associated with AVR or cardiovascular death HR 1.77 (95% CI, 1.22 to 2.55) independent of age, sex, systolic ejection fraction, and aortic stenosis severity.
Conclusions:
In patients with aortic stenosis, plasma cTnI concentration is associated with advanced hypertrophy and replacement myocardial fibrosis as well as AVR or cardiovascular death
Compressive Sensing of Signals Generated in Plastic Scintillators in a Novel J-PET Instrument
The J-PET scanner, which allows for single bed imaging of the whole human
body, is currently under development at the Jagiellonian University. The dis-
cussed detector offers improvement of the Time of Flight (TOF) resolution due
to the use of fast plastic scintillators and dedicated electronics allowing for
sam- pling in the voltage domain of signals with durations of few nanoseconds.
In this paper we show that recovery of the whole signal, based on only a few
samples, is possible. In order to do that, we incorporate the training signals
into the Tikhonov regularization framework and we perform the Principal
Component Analysis decomposition, which is well known for its compaction
properties. The method yields a simple closed form analytical solution that
does not require iter- ative processing. Moreover, from the Bayes theory the
properties of regularized solution, especially its covariance matrix, may be
easily derived. This is the key to introduce and prove the formula for
calculations of the signal recovery error. In this paper we show that an
average recovery error is approximately inversely proportional to the number of
acquired samples
Application of the Compress Sensing Theory for Improvement of the TOF Resolution in a Novel J-PET Instrument
Nowadays, in Positron Emission Tomography (PET) systems, a Time of Flight
information is used to improve the image reconstruction process. In Time of
Flight PET (TOF-PET), fast detectors are able to measure the difference in the
arrival time of the two gamma rays, with the precision enabling to shorten
significantly a range along the line-of-response (LOR) where the annihilation
occurred. In the new concept, called J-PET scanner, gamma rays are detected in
plastic scintillators. In a single strip of J-PET system, time values are
obtained by probing signals in the amplitude domain. Owing to Compress Sensing
theory, information about the shape and amplitude of the signals is recovered.
In this paper we demonstrate that based on the acquired signals parameters, a
better signal normalization may be provided in order to improve the TOF
resolution. The procedure was tested using large sample of data registered by a
dedicated detection setup enabling sampling of signals with 50 ps intervals.
Experimental setup provided irradiation of a chosen position in the plastic
scintillator strip with annihilation gamma quanta
Analysis framework for the J-PET scanner
J-PET analysis framework is a flexible, lightweight, ROOT-based software
package which provides the tools to develop reconstruction and calibration
procedures for PET tomography. In this article we present the implementation of
the full data-processing chain in the J-PET framework which is used for the
data analysis of the J-PET tomography scanner. The Framework incorporates
automated handling of PET setup parameters' database as well as high level
tools for building data reconstruction procedures. Each of these components is
briefly discussed.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figur
Test of a single module of the J-PET scanner based on plastic scintillators
Time of Flight Positron Emission Tomography scanner based on plastic
scintillators is being developed at the Jagiellonian University by the J-PET
collaboration. The main challenge of the conducted research lies in the
elaboration of a method allowing application of plastic scintillators for the
detection of low energy gamma quanta. In this article we report on tests of a
single detection module built out from BC-420 plastic scintillator strip (with
dimensions of 5x19x300mm^3) read out at two ends by Hamamatsu R5320
photomultipliers. The measurements were performed using collimated beam of
annihilation quanta from the 68Ge isotope and applying the Serial Data Analyzer
(Lecroy SDA6000A) which enabled sampling of signals with 50ps intervals. The
time resolution of the prototype module was established to be better than 80ps
(sigma) for a single level discrimination. The spatial resolution of the
determination of the hit position along the strip was determined to be about
0.93cm (sigma) for the annihilation quanta. The fractional energy resolution
for the energy E deposited by the annihilation quanta via the Compton
scattering amounts to sigma(E)/E = 0.044/sqrt(E[MeV]) and corresponds to the
sigma(E)/E of 7.5% at the Compton edge.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures; Updated with editorial corrections related to
publication in NIM
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