The Impact of Radio AGN Bubble Composition on the Dynamics and Thermal Balance of the Intracluster Medium

Feeding and feedback of active galactic nuclei (AGN) are critical for understanding the dynamics and thermodynamics of the intracluster medium (ICM) within the cores of galaxy clusters. While radio bubbles inflated by AGN jets could be dynamically supported by cosmic rays (CRs), the impact of CR-dominated jets are not well understood. In this work, we perform three-dimensional simulations of CR-jet feedback in an isolated cluster atmosphere; we find that CR jets impact the multiphase gas differently than jets dominated by kinetic energy. In particular, CR bubbles can more efficiently uplift the cluster gas and cause an outward expansion of the hot ICM. Due to adiabatic cooling from the expansion and less efficient heating from CR bubbles by direct mixing, the ICM is more prone to local thermal instabilities, which will later enhance chaotic cold accretion onto the AGN. The amount of cold gas formed during the bubble formation and its late-time evolution sensitively depend on whether CR transport processes are included or not. We also find that low-level, subsonic driving of turbulence by AGN jets holds for both kinetic and CR jets; nevertheless, the kinematics is consistent with the Hitomi measurements. Finally, we carefully discuss the key observable signatures of each bubble model, focusing on gamma-ray emission (and related comparison with Fermi), as well as thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich constraints.Comment: accepted to Ap

Spin relaxation in diluted magnetic semiconductor quantum dots

Electron spin relaxation induced by phonon-mediated s-d exchange interaction in a II-VI diluted magnetic semiconductor quantum dot is investigated theoretically. The electron-acoustic phonon interaction due to piezoelectric coupling and deformation potential is included. The resulting spin lifetime is typically on the order of microseconds. The effectiveness of the phonon-mediated spin-flip mechanism increases with increasing Mn concentration, electron spin splitting, vertical confining strength and lateral diameter, while it shows non-monotonic dependence on the magnetic field and temperature. An interesting finding is that the spin relaxation in a small quantum dot is suppressed for strong magnetic field and low Mn concentration at low temperature.Comment: 11 pages, 11 figures, to be published in Phys. Rev.

Electroluminescence and photoluminescence of Ge-implanted Si/SiO_2/Si structures

Electroluminescent devices were fabricated in SiO_2 films containing Ge nanocrystals formed by ion implantation and precipitation during annealing at 900 °C, and the visible room‐temperature electroluminescence and photoluminescence spectra were found to be broadly similar. The electroluminescent devices have an onset for emission in reverse bias of approximately −10 V, suggesting that the mechanism for carrier excitation may be an avalanche breakdown caused by injection of hot carriers into the oxide. The electroluminescent emission was stable for periods exceeding 6 h

Renormalizability of the nuclear many-body problem with the Skyrme interaction beyond mean field

Phenomenological effective interactions like Skyrme forces are currently used in mean--field calculations in nuclear physics. Mean--field models have strong analogies with the first order of the perturbative many--body problem and the currently used effective interactions are adjusted at the mean--field level. In this work, we analyze the renormalizability of the nuclear many--body problem in the case where the effective Skyrme interaction is employed in its standard form and the perturbative problem is solved up to second order. We focus on symmetric nuclear matter and its equation of state, which can be calculated analytically at this order. It is shown that only by applying specific density dependence and constraints to the interaction parameters could renormalizability be guaranteed in principle. This indicates that the standard Skyrme interaction does not in general lead to a renormalizable theory. For achieving renormalizability, other terms should be added to the interaction and employed perturbatively only at first order.Comment: Revised versio

Rainfall frequency analysis for ungauged regions using remotely sensed precipitation information

Rainfall frequency analysis, which is an important tool in hydrologic engineering, has been traditionally performed using information from gauge observations. This approach has proven to be a useful tool in planning and design for the regions where sufficient observational data are available. However, in many parts of the world where ground-based observations are sparse and limited in length, the effectiveness of statistical methods for such applications is highly limited. The sparse gauge networks over those regions, especially over remote areas and high-elevation regions, cannot represent the spatiotemporal variability of extreme rainfall events and hence preclude developing depth-duration-frequency curves (DDF) for rainfall frequency analysis. In this study, the PERSIANN-CDR dataset is used to propose a mechanism, by which satellite precipitation information could be used for rainfall frequency analysis and development of DDF curves. In the proposed framework, we first adjust the extreme precipitation time series estimated by PERSIANN-CDR using an elevation-based correction function, then use the adjusted dataset to develop DDF curves. As a proof of concept, we have implemented our proposed approach in 20 river basins in the United States with different climatic conditions and elevations. Bias adjustment results indicate that the correction model can significantly reduce the biases in PERSIANN-CDR estimates of annual maximum series, especially for high elevation regions. Comparison of the extracted DDF curves from both the original and adjusted PERSIANN-CDR data with the reported DDF curves from NOAA Atlas 14 shows that the extreme percentiles from the corrected PERSIANN-CDR are consistently closer to the gauge-based estimates at the tested basins. The median relative errors of the frequency estimates at the studied basins were less than 20% in most cases. Our proposed framework has the potential for constructing DDF curves for regions with limited or sparse gauge-based observations using remotely sensed precipitation information, and the spatiotemporal resolution of the adjusted PERSIANN-CDR data provides valuable information for various applications in remote and high elevation areas

A plausible mechanism for the evolution of helical forms in nanostructure growth

The observation of helices and coils in nano-tube/-fiber (NT/NF) syntheses is explained on the basis of the interactions between specific catalyst particles and the growing nanostructure. In addition to rationalizing nonlinear structure, the proposed model probes the interplay between thermodynamic quantities and predicts conditions for optimal growth. Experimental results on the effect of indium catalyst on affecting the coil pitch in NTs and NFs are presented

The role of quantum-confined excitons vs defects in the visible luminescence of SiO2 films containing Ge nanocrystals

Synthesis of Ge nanocrystals in SiO2 films is carried out by precipitation from a supersaturated solid solution of Ge in SiO2 made by Ge ion implantation. The films exhibit strong room-temperature visible photoluminescence. The measured photoluminescence peak energy and lifetimes show poor correlations with nanocrystal size compared to calculations involving radiative recombination of quantum-confined excitons in Ge quantum dots. In addition, the photoluminescence spectra and lifetime measurements show only a weak temperature dependence. These observations strongly suggest that the observed visible luminescence in our samples is not due to the radiative recombination of quantum-confined excitons in Ge nanocrystals. Instead, observations of similar luminescence in Xe+ -implanted samples and reversible PL quenching by hydrogen or deuterium suggest that radiative defect centers in the SiO2 matrix are responsible for the observed luminescence

Defect-related versus excitonic visible light emission from ion beam synthesized Si nanocrystals in SiO2

Two sources of room temperature visible luminescence are identified from SiO2 films containing ion beam synthesized Si nanocrystals. From a comparison of luminescence spectra and photoluminescence decay lifetime measurements between Xe + -implanted SiO2 films and SiO2 films containing Si nanocrystals, a luminescence feature attributable to defects in the SiO2 matrix is unambiguously identified. Hydrogen passivation of the films selectively quenches the matrix defect luminescence, after which luminescence attributable to Si nanocrystals is evident, with a lifetime on the order of milliseconds. The peak energy of the remaining luminescence attributable to Si nanocrystals ``redshifts'' as a function of different processing parameters that might lead to increased nanocrystal size and the intensity is directly correlated to the formation of Si nanocrystals. Upon further annealing hydrogen-passivated samples at low temperatures (< 500 °C), the intensity of nanocrystal luminescence increases by more than a factor of 10