304 research outputs found
HyRec: A fast and highly accurate primordial hydrogen and helium recombination code
We present a state-of-the-art primordial recombination code, HyRec, including
all the physical effects that have been shown to significantly affect
recombination. The computation of helium recombination includes simple analytic
treatments of hydrogen continuum opacity in the He I 2 1P - 1 1S line, the He
I] 2 3P - 1 1S line, and treats feedback between these lines within the
on-the-spot approximation. Hydrogen recombination is computed using the
effective multilevel atom method, virtually accounting for an infinite number
of excited states. We account for two-photon transitions from 2s and higher
levels as well as frequency diffusion in Lyman-alpha with a full radiative
transfer calculation. We present a new method to evolve the radiation field
simultaneously with the level populations and the free electron fraction. These
computations are sped up by taking advantage of the particular sparseness
pattern of the equations describing the radiative transfer. The computation
time for a full recombination history is ~2 seconds. This makes our code well
suited for inclusion in Monte Carlo Markov chains for cosmological parameter
estimation from upcoming high-precision cosmic microwave background anisotropy
measurements.Comment: Version accepted by PRD. Numerical integration switches adapted to be
well behaved for a wide range of cosmologies (Sec. V E). HyRec is available
at http://www.tapir.caltech.edu/~yacine/hyrec/hyrec.htm
Antiangular Ordering of Gluon Radiation in QCD Media
We investigate angular and energy distributions of medium-induced gluon
emission off a quark-antiquark antenna in the framework of perturbative QCD as
an attempt toward understanding, from first principles, jet evolution inside
the quark-gluon plasma. In-medium color coherence between emitters, neglected
in all previous calculations, leads to a novel mechanism of soft-gluon
radiation. The structure of the corresponding spectrum, in contrast with known
medium-induced radiation, retains some properties of the vacuum case; in
particular, it exhibits a soft divergency. However, as opposed to the vacuum,
the collinear singularity is regulated by the pair opening angle, leading to a
strict angular separation between vacuum and medium-induced radiation, denoted
as antiangular ordering. We comment on the possible consequences of this new
contribution for jet observables in heavy-ion collisions.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures; v2. a number of minor improvements, figures
updated, accepted for publication in PR
Ultrafast effective multi-level atom method for primordial hydrogen recombination
Cosmological hydrogen recombination has recently been the subject of renewed
attention because of its importance for predicting the power spectrum of cosmic
microwave background anisotropies. It has become clear that it is necessary to
account for a large number n >~ 100 of energy shells of the hydrogen atom,
separately following the angular momentum substates in order to obtain
sufficiently accurate recombination histories. However, the multi-level atom
codes that follow the populations of all these levels are computationally
expensive, limiting recent analyses to only a few points in parameter space. In
this paper, we present a new method for solving the multi-level atom
recombination problem, which splits the problem into a computationally
expensive atomic physics component that is independent of the cosmology, and an
ultrafast cosmological evolution component. The atomic physics component
follows the network of bound-bound and bound-free transitions among excited
states and computes the resulting effective transition rates for the small set
of "interface" states radiatively connected to the ground state. The
cosmological evolution component only follows the populations of the interface
states. By pre-tabulating the effective rates, we can reduce the recurring cost
of multi-level atom calculations by more than 5 orders of magnitude. The
resulting code is fast enough for inclusion in Markov Chain Monte Carlo
parameter estimation algorithms. It does not yet include the radiative transfer
or high-n two-photon processes considered in some recent papers. Further work
on analytic treatments for these effects will be required in order to produce a
recombination code usable for Planck data analysis.Comment: Version accepted by Phys. Rev. D. Proof of equivalence of effective
and standard MLA methods moved to the main text. Some rewording
Giant diffusion of nanomechanical rotors in a tilted washboard potential
We present an experimental realization of a biased optical periodic potential
in the low friction limit. The noise-induced bistability between locked
(torsional) and running (spinning) states in the rotational motion of a
nanodumbbell is driven by an elliptically polarized light beam tilting the
angular potential. By varying the gas pressure around the point of maximum
intermittency, the rotational effective diffusion coefficient increases by more
than 3 orders of magnitude over free-space diffusion. These experimental
results are in agreement with a simple two-state model that is derived from the
Langevin equation through using timescale separation. Our work provides a new
experimental platform to study the weak thermal noise limit for diffusion in
this system
Radiative transfer effects in primordial hydrogen recombination
The calculation of a highly accurate cosmological recombination history has
been the object of particular attention recently, as it constitutes the major
theoretical uncertainty when predicting the angular power spectrum of Cosmic
Microwave Background anisotropies. Lyman transitions, in particular the
Lyman-alpha line, have long been recognized as one of the bottlenecks of
recombination, due to their very low escape probabilities. The Sobolev
approximation does not describe radiative transfer in the vicinity of Lyman
lines to a sufficient degree of accuracy, and several corrections have already
been computed in other works. In this paper, the impact of some previously
ignored radiative transfer effects is calculated. First, the effect of Thomson
scattering in the vicinity of the Lyman-alpha line is evaluated, using a full
redistribution kernel incorporated into a radiative transfer code. The effect
of feedback of distortions generated by the optically thick deuterium
Lyman-alpha line blueward of the hydrogen line is investigated with an analytic
approximation. It is shown that both effects are negligible during cosmological
hydrogen recombination. Secondly, the importance of high-lying, non overlapping
Lyman transitions is assessed. It is shown that escape from lines above
Ly-gamma and frequency diffusion in Ly-beta and higher lines can be neglected
without loss of accuracy. Thirdly, a formalism generalizing the Sobolev
approximation is developed to account for the overlap of the high-lying Lyman
lines, which is shown to lead to negligible changes to the recombination
history. Finally, the possibility of a cosmological hydrogen recombination
maser is investigated. It is shown that there is no such maser in the purely
radiative treatment presented here.Comment: 23 pages, 4 figures, to be submitted to PR
Jet coherence in QCD media: the antenna radiation spectrum
We study the radiation of a highly energetic partonic antenna in a colored
state traversing a dense QCD medium. Resumming multiple scatterings of all
involved constituents with the medium we derive the general gluon spectrum
which encompasses both longitudinal color coherence between scattering centers
in the medium, responsible for the well known Landau-Pomeranchuk-Migdal (LPM)
effect, and transverse color coherence between partons inside a jet, leading,
in vacuum, to angular ordering of the parton shower. We discuss shortly the
onset of transverse decoherence which is reached in opaque media. In this
regime, the spectrum consists of independent radiation off the antenna
constituents.Comment: 15 pages, 2 figures, paper shortened and partly rewritten, references
added, results unchange
Mass effect and coherence in medium-induced QCD radiation off a antenna
The medium-induced one-gluon radiation spectrum off a massive quark-antiquark
() antenna traversing a colored QCD medium is calculated in this
contribution. The gluon spectrum off the antenna computed at first order in the
opacity expansion is collinear finite but infrared divergent, which is
different from the result obtained from an independent emitter which is both
infrared and collinear finite. The interference between emitters dominates the
soft gluon radiation when the antenna opening angle is small and the emitted
gluon is soft, whereas the antenna behaves like a superposition of independent
emitters when the opening angle is large and the radiated gluon is hard. As a
phenomenological consequence, we investigate the energy lost by the projectiles
due to the radiation. In general, the size of the mass effects is similar in
both cases.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, Proceedings of Quark Matter 2011, Annecy, Franc
Finite-size left-passage probability in percolation
We obtain an exact finite-size expression for the probability that a
percolation hull will touch the boundary, on a strip of finite width. Our
calculation is based on the q-deformed Knizhnik--Zamolodchikov approach, and
the results are expressed in terms of symplectic characters. In the large size
limit, we recover the scaling behaviour predicted by Schramm's left-passage
formula. We also derive a general relation between the left-passage probability
in the Fortuin--Kasteleyn cluster model and the magnetisation profile in the
open XXZ chain with diagonal, complex boundary terms.Comment: 21 pages, 8 figure
Should a Sentinel Node Biopsy Be Performed in Patients with High-Risk Breast Cancer?
A negative sentinel lymph node (SLN) biopsy spares many breast cancer patients the complications associated with lymph node irradiation or additional surgery. However, patients at high risk for nodal involvement based on clinical characteristics may remain at unacceptably high risk of axillary disease even after a negative SLN biopsy result. A Bayesian nomogram was designed to combine the probability of axillary disease prior to nodal biopsy with customized test characteristics for an SLN biopsy and provides the probability of axillary disease despite a negative SLN biopsy. Users may individualize the sensitivity of an SLN biopsy based on factors known to modify the sensitivity of the procedure. This tool may be useful in identifying patients who should have expanded upfront exploration of the axilla or comprehensive axillary irradiation
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