758 research outputs found
Scale-Invariance and the Strong Coupling Problem
The effective theory of adiabatic fluctuations around arbitrary
Friedmann-Robertson-Walker backgrounds - both expanding and contracting -
allows for more than one way to obtain scale-invariant two-point correlations.
However, as we show in this paper, it is challenging to produce scale-invariant
fluctuations that are weakly coupled over the range of wavelengths accessible
to cosmological observations. In particular, requiring the background to be a
dynamical attractor, the curvature fluctuations are scale-invariant and weakly
coupled for at least 10 e-folds only if the background is close to de Sitter
space. In this case, the time-translation invariance of the background
guarantees time-independent n-point functions. For non-attractor solutions, any
predictions depend on assumptions about the evolution of the background even
when the perturbations are outside of the horizon. For the simplest such
scenario we identify the regions of the parameter space that avoid both
classical and quantum mechanical strong coupling problems. Finally, we present
extensions of our results to backgrounds in which higher-derivative terms play
a significant role.Comment: 17 pages + appendices, 3 figures; v2: typos fixe
Developing a rapid method for 3-dimensional urban morphology extraction using open-source data
Available and accessible three-dimensional (3D) urban morphology data have become essential for extensive academic research on built-up environments and urban climates. A rapid and consistent methodology for extracting urban morphology information is urgently needed for sustainable urban development in global cities, particularly given future trends of rapid urbanization. However, there is still a lack of generally applicable methods that use open-source data in this context. In this study, we developed a simple and highly efficient method for acquiring 3D urban morphology information using open-source data. Building footprints were acquired from the Maps Static application programming interface. Building heights were extracted from an open digital surface model, i.e., the ALOS World 3D model with a resolution of 30 m (AW3D30). Thereafter, urban morphological parameters, including the sky view factor, building coverage ratio, building volume density, and frontal area density, were calculated based on the retrieved building footprints and building heights. The proposed method was applied to extract the 3D urban morphology of Hong Kong, a city with a complex urban environment and a highly mixed geographical context. The results show a usable accuracy and wide applicability for the newly proposed method
A Field Range Bound for General Single-Field Inflation
We explore the consequences of a detection of primordial tensor fluctuations
for general single-field models of inflation. Using the effective theory of
inflation, we propose a generalization of the Lyth bound. Our bound applies to
all single-field models with two-derivative kinetic terms for the scalar
fluctuations and is always stronger than the corresponding bound for slow-roll
models. This shows that non-trivial dynamics can't evade the Lyth bound. We
also present a weaker, but completely universal bound that holds whenever the
Null Energy Condition (NEC) is satisfied at horizon crossing.Comment: 16 page
Taking Behavioralism Too Seriously? The Unwarranted Pessimism of the New Behavioral Analysis of Law
Intrinsic thermal vibrations of suspended doubly clamped single-wall carbon nanotubes
We report the observation of thermally driven mechanical vibrations of
suspended doubly clamped carbon nanotubes, grown by chemical vapor deposition
(CVD). Several experimental procedures are used to suspend carbon nanotubes.
The vibration is observed as a blurring in images taken with a scanning
electron microscope. The measured vibration amplitudes are compared with a
model based on linear continuum mechanics.Comment: pdf including figures, see:
http://www.unibas.ch/phys-meso/Research/Papers/2003/NT-Thermal-Vibrations.pd
WUDAPT: Facilitating advanced urban canopy modeling for weather, climate and air quality applications
Environmental issues and impacts to society will be exacerbated with increased population, diminishing resources and the prospects for extreme weather events and climate changes. Current community-based models available for weather, climate and air quaity applications are powerful state-of-science modeling systems, which, with careful considerations, can be employed to address the impact of these issues fo urban areas. Given the complex and high degree of spatial inhomogeneity of the underlying surface area we will review mesh size, appropriate multi-scale science and morphological descriptions and their data requirements including unique city specific gridded morphology and material composition for their forecasting and climate applications.
For this presentation, we discuss, describe and show examples from an ongoing but preliminary prototypic collaborative effort, whose design bases is to provide the experience and recommendations toward extending the scope of the National Urban Database and Access Portal Tools (NUDAPT) to worldwide coverage (WUDAPT). WUDAPT would thus provide requisite gridded data for urban applications of advanced forecast and climate models throughout the world. Strategically, the prototypic efforts will be designed to provide proven protocols for the facilitaton of the data gathering and processing based on available remote sensing and ground-based sampling. Tactically, we employ an iterative approach first obtaining coarse gridded Local Climate Zone (LCZ) classification derived from available Web-based products such as Google-Earth, and Landsat satellite magery. Further sub-class discretization of LCZs and the application of GeoWiki technology facilitates further refinements and ground truthing to yield the desired gridded building morphological distribution parameters and their material composition. Local experts would be encouraged to become involved to ensure factors unique to their area in the world would be incorporated. Finally, given that model applications may require data with different grid resolution we present an outline that employs the new and powerful Multiple Resolution Analyses scheme that can address this need within the scope of WUDAPT
Off-Forward Parton Distributions
Recently, there have been some interesting developments involving off-forward
parton distributions of the nucleon, deeply virtual Compton scattering, and
hard diffractive vector-meson production. These developments are triggered by
the realization that the off-forward distributions contain information about
the internal spin structure of the nucleon and that diffractive
electroproduction of vector mesons depends on these unconventional
distributions. This paper gives a brief overview of the recent developments
PPPC 4 DM ID: A Poor Particle Physicist Cookbook for Dark Matter Indirect Detection
We provide ingredients and recipes for computing signals of TeV-scale Dark
Matter annihilations and decays in the Galaxy and beyond. For each DM channel,
we present the energy spectra of electrons and positrons, antiprotons,
antideuterons, gamma rays, neutrinos and antineutrinos e, mu, tau at
production, computed by high-statistics simulations. We estimate the Monte
Carlo uncertainty by comparing the results yielded by the Pythia and Herwig
event generators. We then provide the propagation functions for charged
particles in the Galaxy, for several DM distribution profiles and sets of
propagation parameters. Propagation of electrons and positrons is performed
with an improved semi-analytic method that takes into account
position-dependent energy losses in the Milky Way. Using such propagation
functions, we compute the energy spectra of electrons and positrons,
antiprotons and antideuterons at the location of the Earth. We then present the
gamma ray fluxes, both from prompt emission and from Inverse Compton scattering
in the galactic halo. Finally, we provide the spectra of extragalactic gamma
rays. All results are available in numerical form and ready to be consumed.Comment: 57 pages with many figures and tables. v4: updated to include a 125
higgs boson, computation and discussion of extragalactic spectra corrected,
some other typos fixed; all these corrections and updates are reflected on
the numerical ingredients available at
http://www.marcocirelli.net/PPPC4DMID.html they correspond to Release 2.
Accounting uncertainty for spatial modeling of greenhouse gas emissions in the residential sector: fuel combustion and heat production.
Energy consumption in households has a great potential for energy savings as well as for greenhouse gas emission reduction. As national inventory reports provide estimates at only a country or regional level, we have developed a new GIS approach that increases the resolution of emission inventories. We consider stationary emission sources, such as fossil fuel combustion and heat production for household energy needs that cover energy demand for cooking, water and space heating. We estimate the spatial emissions of greenhouse gases based on IPCC guidelines using official statistics on fuel consumption and spatial data about population density. The heating degree-day method was then used to determine the climatic conditions and spatial variability in energy demand. The results of the spatial inventory are obtained for settlements that are presented as area-type emission sources in a geospatial database. The uncertainties in the inventory results are estimated using a Monte Carlo method. The results show that uncertainties in greenhouse gas emissions at the regional level are significantly higher than at the country level although the uncertainty of emissions in CO2-equivalent does not exceed 17.0%
Direct, Indirect and Collider Detection of Neutralino Dark Matter In SUSY Models with Non-universal Higgs Masses
In supersymmetric models with gravity-mediated SUSY breaking, universality of
soft SUSY breaking sfermion masses m_0 is motivated by the need to suppress
unwanted flavor changing processes. The same motivation, however, does not
apply to soft breaking Higgs masses, which may in general have independent
masses from matter scalars at the GUT scale. We explore phenomenological
implications of both the one-parameter and two-parameter non-universal Higgs
mass models (NUHM1 and NUHM2), and examine the parameter ranges compatible with
Omega_CDM h^2, BF(b --> s,gamma) and (g-2)_mu constraints. In contrast to the
mSUGRA model, in both NUHM1 and NUHM2 models, the dark matter A-annihilation
funnel can be reached at low values of tan(beta), while the higgsino dark
matter annihilation regions can be reached for low values of m_0. We show that
there may be observable rates for indirect and direct detection of neutralino
cold dark matter in phenomenologically aceptable ranges of parameter space. We
also examine implications of the NUHM models for the Fermilab Tevatron, the
CERN LHC and a Sqrt(s)=0.5-1 TeV e+e- linear collider. Novel possibilities
include: very light s-top_R, s-charm_R squark and slepton_L masses as well as
light charginos and neutralinos and H, A and H^+/- Higgs bosons.Comment: LaTeX, 48pages, 26 Figures. The version with high resolution Figures
is available at http://hep.pa.msu.edu/belyaev/public/projects/nuhm/nuhm.p
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