10,024 research outputs found
A Meandering Inflaton
If the cosmological inflationary scenario took place in the cosmic landscape
in string theory, the inflaton, the scalar mode responsible for inflation,
would have meandered in a complicated multi-dimensional potential. We show that
this meandering property naturally leads to many e-folds of inflation, a
necessary condition for a successful inflationary scenario. This behavior also
leads to fluctuations in the primordial power spectrum of the cosmic microwave
background radiation, which may be detected in a near future cosmic variance
limited experiment like PLANCK.Comment: minor additions, matched to published versio
Single Gate P-N Junctions in Graphene-Ferroelectric Devices
Graphene's linear dispersion relation and the attendant implications for
bipolar electronics applications have motivated a range of experimental efforts
aimed at producing p-n junctions in graphene. Here we report electrical
transport measurements of graphene p-n junctions formed via simple
modifications to a PbZrTiO substrate, combined with a
self-assembled layer of ambient environmental dopants. We show that the
substrate configuration controls the local doping region, and that the p-n
junction behavior can be controlled with a single gate. Finally, we show that
the ferroelectric substrate induces a hysteresis in the environmental doping
which can be utilized to activate and deactivate the doping, yielding an
`on-demand' p-n junction in graphene controlled by a single, universal
backgate
Observations of Diffuse Ultraviolet Emission from Draco
We have studied small scale (2 arcmin) spatial variation of the diffuse UV
radiation using a set of 11 GALEX deep observations in the constellation of
Draco. We find a good correlation between the observed UV background and the IR
100 micron flux, indicating that the dominant contributor of the diffuse
background in the field is the scattered starlight from the interstellar dust
grains. We also find strong evidence of additional emission in the FUV band
which is absent in the NUV band. This is most likely due to Lyman band emission
from molecular hydrogen in a ridge of dust running through the field and to
line emissions from species such as C IV (1550 A) and Si II (1533 A) in the
rest of the field. A strong correlation exists between the FUV/NUV ratio and
the FUV intensity in the excess emission regions in the FUV band irrespective
of the optical depth of the region. The optical depth increases more rapidly in
the UV than the IR and we find that the UV/IR ratio drops off exponentially
with increasing IR due to saturation effects in the UV. Using the positional
details of Spitzer extragalactic objects, we find that the contribution of
extragalactic light in the diffuse NUV background is 49 +/- 13 photon units and
is 30 +/- 10 photon units in the FUV band.Comment: 30 pages, 13 figures, Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical
Journal (ApJ), November 2010, v723 issu
Can simulations reproduce the observed temperature-mass relation for clusters of galaxies?
It has become increasingly apparent that traditional hydrodynamical
simulations of galaxy clusters are unable to reproduce the observed properties
of galaxy clusters, in particular overpredicting the mass corresponding to a
given cluster temperature. Such overestimation may lead to systematic errors in
results using galaxy clusters as cosmological probes, such as constraints on
the density perturbation normalization sigma_8. In this paper we demonstrate
that inclusion of additional gas physics, namely radiative cooling and a
possible preheating of gas prior to cluster formation, is able to bring the
temperature-mass relation in the innermost parts of clusters into good
agreement with recent determinations by Allen, Schmidt & Fabian using Chandra
data.Comment: 5 pages, submitted to MNRA
Primary Culture of Adult Rat Heart Myocytes
Cultured primary adult rodent heart cells are an important model system for cardiovascular research. Nevertheless, establishment of robust, viable cultured adult myocytes can be a technically challenging, rate-limiting step for many researchers. Here we described a protocol to obtain a high yield of adult rat heart myocytes that remain viable in culture for several days. The heart is isolated and perfused with collagenase and protease under low Ca2+ conditions to recover single myocytes. Ca2+-tolerant cells are obtained by stepwise increases in extracellular Ca2+ concentration in three subsequent wash steps. Cells are filtered, resuspended in culture medium, and plated on laminin coated slips. Cultured myocytes obtained using this protocol are viable for up to four days and are suitable for most experiments including electrophysiology, biochemistry, imaging and molecular biology
A Brachistochrone Approach to Reconstruct the Inflaton Potential
We propose a new way to implement an inflationary prior to a cosmological
dataset that incorporates the inflationary observables at arbitrary order. This
approach employs an exponential form for the Hubble parameter without
taking the slow-roll approximation. At lowest non-trivial order, this
has the unique property that it is the solution to the brachistochrone problem
for inflation.Comment: 13 pages, 2 figures, version matches published versio
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