Searching Signals in Chinese Ancient Records for the 14^{14}C Increases in AD 774-775 and in AD 992-993

According to the analysis of the $^{14}$C content of two Japanese trees over a period of approximately 3000 years at high time resolution, Miyake (2012) found a rapid increase at AD 774-775 and later on at AD 992-993 (Miyake 2013). This corresponds to a high-energy event happened within one year that input $\gamma$-ray energy about 7$\times{}$10$^{24}$erg to the Earth, leaving the origin a mystery. Such strong event should have an unusual optical counterpart, and have been recorded in historical literature. We searched Chinese historical materials around AD 744-775 and AD 992-993, but no remarkable event was found except a violent thunderstorm in AD 775. However, the possibility of a thunderstorm containing so much energy is still unlikely. We conclude the event caused the $^{14}$C increase is still unclear. This event most probably has no optical counterpart, and short gamma-ray burst, giant flare of a soft gamma-ray repeater and terrestrial $\gamma$-ray flash may all be the candidates.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figure

Constraining the Mass of the Photon with Gamma-Ray Bursts

One of the cornerstones of modern physics is Einstein's special relativity, with its constant speed of light and zero photon mass assumptions. Constraint on the rest mass m_{\gamma} of photons is a fundamental way to test Einstein's theory, as well as other essential electromagnetic and particle theories. Since non-zero photon mass can give rise to frequency-(or energy-) dependent dispersions, measuring the time delay of photons with different frequencies emitted from explosive astrophysical events is an important and model-independent method to put such a constraint. The cosmological gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), with short time scales, high redshifts as well as broadband prompt and afterglow emissions, provide an ideal testbed for m_{\gamma} constraints. In this paper we calculate the upper limits of the photon mass with GRB early time radio afterglow observations as well as multi-band radio peaks, thus improve the results of Schaefer (1999) by nearly half an order of magnitude.Comment: 25 pages, 2 tables, Accepted by Journal of High Energy Astrophysic

New Generalizations of Cosmography Inspired by the Pade Approximant

The current accelerated expansion of the universe has been one of the most important fields in physics and astronomy since 1998. Many cosmological models have been proposed in the literature to explain this mysterious phenomenon. Since the nature and cause of the cosmic acceleration are still unknown, model-independent approaches to study the evolution of the universe are welcome. One of the powerful model-independent approaches is the so-called cosmography. It only relies on the cosmological principle, without postulating any underlying theoretical model. However, there are several shortcomings in the usual cosmography. For instance, it is plagued with the problem of divergence (or an unacceptably large error), and it fails to predict the future evolution of the universe. In the present work, we try to overcome or at least alleviate these problems, and we propose two new generalizations of cosmography inspired by the Pad\'e approximant. One is to directly parameterize the luminosity distance based on the Pad\'e approximant, while the other is to generalize cosmography with respect to a so-called $y_\beta$-shift $y_\beta=z/(1+\beta z)$, which is also inspired by the Pad\'e approximant. Then, we confront them with the observational data with the help of the Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) code emcee, and find that they work fairly well.Comment: 16 pages, 3 tables, 5 figures, revtex4; v2: discussions added, Eur. Phys. J. C in press; v3: published versio

Orbital density wave induced by electron-lattice coupling in orthorhombic iron pnictides

In this paper we explore the magnetic and orbital properties closely related to a tetragonal-orthorhombic structural phase transition in iron pnictides based on both two- and five-orbital Hubbard models. The electron-lattice coupling, which interplays with electronic interaction, is self-consistently treated. Our results reveal that the orbital polarization stabilizes the spin density wave (SDW) order in both tetragonal and orthorhombic phases. However, the ferro-orbital density wave (F-ODW) only occurs in the orthorhombic phase rather than in the tetragonal one. Magnetic moments of Fe are small in the intermediate Coulomb interaction region for the striped antiferromangnetic phase in the realistic five orbital model. The anisotropic Fermi surface in the SDW/ODW orthorhombic phase is well in agreement with the recent angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy experiments. These results suggest a scenario that the magnetic phase transition is driven by the ODW order mainly arising from the electron-lattice coupling.Comment: 21 pages, 10 figure

Relationship between Human Body Anthropometric Measurements and Basal Metabolic Rate

Through the use of 3D body measurement technology and cardiopulmonary function test equipment, obtaining the body size data and basal metabolic rate of 116 young healthy subjects, this study aims to find the relationship between the size of human body and basal metabolic rate. Factor analysis, univariate analysis, and linear regression analysis were performed on 13 observed items (selected from 152 human data) by SPSS data analysis software. The 13 observed items include the largest abdominal circumference, waist circumference, chest circumference (horizontal), thigh circumference, hip circumference, weight, total shoulder width, neck circumference, height, waist height, high cervical point, hip height, and chest height. The results indicate that girth and height factors are correlated with the predicted basal metabolic rate as well as the measured basal metabolic rate. The predicted basal metabolic rate is significantly correlated with weight, height, hip circumference, and neck circumference. The measured basal metabolic rate is significantly correlated with the neck circumference as well as height

On the measurement of the Hubble constant in a local low-density universe

Astrophysical observations indicate that the ``Local Universe" has a relatively lower matter density ($\Omega_0$) than the predictions of the standard inflation cosmology and the large-scale motions of galaxies which provide a mean mass density to be very close to unity. In such a local underdense region the Hubble expansion may not be representative of the global behaviour. Utilizing an underdense sphere embedded in a flat universe as the model of our ``Local Universe", we show that the local Hubble constant would be 1.2 -- 1.4 times larger than the global value on scale of $\sim80$ Mpc, depending on the variation of $\Omega_0$. This may account for the recent measurements of the unpleasantly large Hubble constant of $\sim$80 km/s/Mpc using the Cepheid variables in the Virgo cluster and the relative distance between Virgo and Coma cluster and removes the resulted apparent paradox of the age of our universe.Comment: 9 pages, Latex file, 3 figures available by reques