19,770 research outputs found
Dusty star forming galaxies at high redshift
The global star formation rate in high redshift galaxies, based on optical
surveys, shows a strong peak at a redshift of z=1.5, which implies that we have
already seen most of the formation. High redshift galaxies may, however, emit
most of their energy at submillimeter wavelengths if they contain substantial
amounts of dust. The dust would absorb the starlight and reradiate it as
far-infrared light, which would be redshifted to the submillimeter range. Here
we report a deep survey of two blank regions of sky performed at submillimeter
wavelengths (450 and 850-micron). If the sources we detect in the 850-micron
band are powered by star formation, then each must be converting more than 100
solar masses of gas per year into stars, which is larger than the maximum star
formation rates inferred for most optically-selected galaxies. The total amount
of high redshift star formation is essentially fixed by the level of background
light, but where the peak occurs in redshift for the submillimeter is not yet
established. However, the background light contribution from only the sources
detected at 850-micron is already comparable to that from the
optically-selected sources. Establishing the main epoch of star formation will
therefore require a combination of optical and submillimeter studies.Comment: 10 pages + 2 Postscript figures, under embargo at Natur
Diffuse Gamma Rays: Galactic and Extragalactic Diffuse Emission
"Diffuse" gamma rays consist of several components: truly diffuse emission
from the interstellar medium, the extragalactic background, whose origin is not
firmly established yet, and the contribution from unresolved and faint Galactic
point sources. One approach to unravel these components is to study the diffuse
emission from the interstellar medium, which traces the interactions of high
energy particles with interstellar gas and radiation fields. Because of its
origin such emission is potentially able to reveal much about the sources and
propagation of cosmic rays. The extragalactic background, if reliably
determined, can be used in cosmological and blazar studies. Studying the
derived "average" spectrum of faint Galactic sources may be able to give a clue
to the nature of the emitting objects.Comment: 32 pages, 28 figures, kapproc.cls. Chapter to the book "Cosmic
Gamma-Ray Sources," to be published by Kluwer ASSL Series, Edited by K. S.
Cheng and G. E. Romero. More details can be found at
http://www.gamma.mpe-garching.mpg.de/~aws/aws.htm
Linear-T resistivity and change in Fermi surface at the pseudogap critical point of a high-Tc superconductor
A fundamental question of high-temperature superconductors is the nature of
the pseudogap phase which lies between the Mott insulator at zero doping and
the Fermi liquid at high doping p. Here we report on the behaviour of charge
carriers near the zero-temperature onset of that phase, namely at the critical
doping p* where the pseudogap temperature T* goes to zero, accessed by
investigating a material in which superconductivity can be fully suppressed by
a steady magnetic field. Just below p*, the normal-state resistivity and Hall
coefficient of La1.6-xNd0.4SrxCuO4 are found to rise simultaneously as the
temperature drops below T*, revealing a change in the Fermi surface with a
large associated drop in conductivity. At p*, the resistivity shows a linear
temperature dependence as T goes to zero, a typical signature of a quantum
critical point. These findings impose new constraints on the mechanisms
responsible for inelastic scattering and Fermi surface transformation in
theories of the pseudogap phase.Comment: 24 pages, 6 figures. Published in Nature Physics. Online at
http://www.nature.com/nphys/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nphys1109.htm
Fermionic response from fractionalization in an insulating two-dimensional magnet
Conventionally ordered magnets possess bosonic elementary excitations, called
magnons. By contrast, no magnetic insulators in more than one dimension are
known whose excitations are not bosons but fermions. Theoretically, some
quantum spin liquids (QSLs) -- new topological phases which can occur when
quantum fluctuations preclude an ordered state -- are known to exhibit Majorana
fermions as quasiparticles arising from fractionalization of spins. Alas,
despite much searching, their experimental observation remains elusive. Here,
we show that fermionic excitations are remarkably directly evident in
experimental Raman scattering data across a broad energy and temperature range
in the two-dimensional material -RuCl. This shows the importance of
magnetic materials as hosts of Majorana fermions. In turn, this first
systematic evaluation of the dynamics of a QSL at finite temperature emphasizes
the role of excited states for detecting such exotic properties associated with
otherwise hard-to-identify topological QSLs.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure
Data Fusion of Objects Using Techniques Such as Laser Scanning, Structured Light and Photogrammetry for Cultural Heritage Applications
In this paper we present a semi-automatic 2D-3D local registration pipeline
capable of coloring 3D models obtained from 3D scanners by using uncalibrated
images. The proposed pipeline exploits the Structure from Motion (SfM)
technique in order to reconstruct a sparse representation of the 3D object and
obtain the camera parameters from image feature matches. We then coarsely
register the reconstructed 3D model to the scanned one through the Scale
Iterative Closest Point (SICP) algorithm. SICP provides the global scale,
rotation and translation parameters, using minimal manual user intervention. In
the final processing stage, a local registration refinement algorithm optimizes
the color projection of the aligned photos on the 3D object removing the
blurring/ghosting artefacts introduced due to small inaccuracies during the
registration. The proposed pipeline is capable of handling real world cases
with a range of characteristics from objects with low level geometric features
to complex ones
Absence of a Spin Liquid Phase in the Hubbard Model on the Honeycomb Lattice
A spin liquid is a novel quantum state of matter with no conventional order
parameter where a finite charge gap exists even though the band theory would
predict metallic behavior. Finding a stable spin liquid in two or higher
spatial dimensions is one of the most challenging and debated issues in
condensed matter physics. Very recently, it has been reported that a model of
graphene, i.e., the Hubbard model on the honeycomb lattice, can show a spin
liquid ground state in a wide region of the phase diagram, between a semi-metal
(SM) and an antiferromagnetic insulator (AFMI). Here, by performing numerically
exact quantum Monte Carlo simulations, we extend the previous study to much
larger clusters (containing up to 2592 sites), and find, if any, a very weak
evidence of this spin liquid region. Instead, our calculations strongly
indicate a direct and continuous quantum phase transition between SM and AFMI.Comment: 15 pages with 7 figures and 9 tables including supplementary
information, accepted for publication in Scientific Report
Enhancement of the Nernst effect by stripe order in a high-Tc superconductor
The Nernst effect in metals is highly sensitive to two kinds of phase
transition: superconductivity and density-wave order. The large positive Nernst
signal observed in hole-doped high-Tc superconductors above their transition
temperature Tc has so far been attributed to fluctuating superconductivity.
Here we show that in some of these materials the large Nernst signal is in fact
caused by stripe order, a form of spin / charge modulation which causes a
reconstruction of the Fermi surface. In LSCO doped with Nd or Eu, the onset of
stripe order causes the Nernst signal to go from small and negative to large
and positive, as revealed either by lowering the hole concentration across the
quantum critical point in Nd-LSCO, or lowering the temperature across the
ordering temperature in Eu-LSCO. In the latter case, two separate peaks are
resolved, respectively associated with the onset of stripe order at high
temperature and superconductivity near Tc. This sensitivity to Fermi-surface
reconstruction makes the Nernst effect a promising probe of broken symmetry in
high-Tc superconductors
Decaying Dark Matter in Supersymmetric Model and Cosmic-Ray Observations
We study cosmic-rays in decaying dark matter scenario, assuming that the dark
matter is the lightest superparticle and it decays through a R-parity violating
operator. We calculate the fluxes of cosmic-rays from the decay of the dark
matter and those from the standard astrophysical phenomena in the same
propagation model using the GALPROP package. We reevaluate the preferred
parameters characterizing standard astrophysical cosmic-ray sources with taking
account of the effects of dark matter decay. We show that, if energetic leptons
are produced by the decay of the dark matter, the fluxes of cosmic-ray positron
and electron can be in good agreements with both PAMELA and Fermi-LAT data in
wide parameter region. It is also discussed that, in the case where sizable
number of hadrons are also produced by the decay of the dark matter, the mass
of the dark matter is constrained to be less than 200-300 GeV in order to avoid
the overproduction of anti-proton. We also show that the cosmic gamma-ray flux
can be consistent with the results of Fermi-LAT observation if the mass of the
dark matter is smaller than nearly 4 TeV.Comment: 24 pages, 5 figure
Molecular Gas in the Host Galaxy of a Quasar at Redshift z=6.42
Observations of the molecular gas phase in quasar host galaxies provide
fundamental constraints on galaxy evolution at the highest redshifts. Molecular
gas is the material out of which stars form; it can be traced by spectral line
emission of carbon--monoxide (CO). To date, CO emission has been detected in
more than a dozen quasar host galaxies with redshifts (z) larger 2, the record
holder being at z=4.69. At these distances the CO lines are shifted to longer
wavelengths, enabling their observation with sensitive radio and millimetre
interferometers. Here we present the discovery of CO emission toward the quasar
SDSS J114816.64+525150.3 (hereafter J1148+5251) at a redshift of z=6.42, when
the universe was only 1/16 of its present age. This is the first detection of
molecular gas at the end of cosmic reionization. The presence of large amounts
of molecular gas (M(H_2)=2.2e10 M_sun) in an object at this time demonstrates
that heavy element enriched molecular gas can be generated rapidly in the
earliest galaxies.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figures. To appear in Nature, July, 200
- …