348 research outputs found
Ecological studies on breeding, feeding and hunting of the Japanese tree sparrow, Passer montanus saturatus STElNEGER
Neutrino Mixing and Neutrino Telescopes
Measuring flux ratios of ultra-high energy neutrinos is an alternative method
to determine the neutrino mixing angles and the CP phase delta. We conduct a
systematic analysis of the neutrino mixing probabilities and of various flux
ratios measurable at neutrino telescopes. The considered cases are neutrinos
from pion, neutron and muon-damped sources. Explicit formulae in case of mu-tau
symmetry and its special case tri-bimaximal mixing are obtained, and the
leading corrections due to non-zero theta_{13} and non-maximal theta_{23} are
given. The first order correction is universal as it appears in basically all
ratios. We study in detail its dependence on theta_{13}, theta_{23} and the CP
phase, finding that the dependence on theta_{23} is strongest. The flavor
compositions for the considered neutrino sources are evaluated in terms of this
correction. A measurement of a flux ratio is a clean measurement of the
universal correction (and therefore of theta_{13}, theta_{23} and delta) if the
zeroth order ratio does not depend on theta_{12}. This favors pion sources over
the other cases, which in turn are good candidates to probe theta_{12}. The
only situations in which the universal correction does not appear are certain
ratios in case of a neutron and muon-damped source, which depend mainly on
theta_{12} and receive only quadratic corrections from the other parameters. We
further show that there are only two independent neutrino oscillation
probabilities, give the allowed ranges of the considered flux ratios and of all
probabilities, and show that none of the latter can be zero or one.Comment: 29 pages, 8 figures. Minor changes, to appear in JCA
A New Light on the Evolution and Propagation of Prehistoric Grain Pests: The World's Oldest Maize Weevils Found in Jomon Potteries, Japan
Three Sitophilus species (S. granarius L., S. oryzae L., and S. zeamais Mots.) are closely related based on DNA analysis of their endosymbionts. All are seed parasites of cereal crops and important economic pest species in stored grain. The Sitophilus species that currently exist, including these three species, are generally believed to be endemic to Asia's forested areas, suggesting that the first infestations of stored grain must have taken place near the forested mountains of southwestern Asia. Previous archaeological data and historical records suggest that the three species may have been diffused by the spread of Neolithic agriculture, but this hypothesis has only been established for granary weevils in European and southwestern Asian archaeological records. There was little archeological evidence for grain pests in East Asia before the discovery of maize weevil impressions in Jomon pottery in 2004 using the “impression replica” method. Our research on Jomon agriculture based on seed and insect impressions in pottery continued to seek additional evidence. In 2010, we discovered older weevil impressions in Jomon pottery dating to ca. 10 500 BP. These specimens are the oldest harmful insects in the world discovered at archaeological sites. Our results provide evidence of harmful insects living in the villages from the Earliest Jomon, when no cereals were cultivated. This suggests we must reconsider previous scenarios for the evolution and propagation of grain pest weevils, especially in eastern Asia. Although details of their biology or the foods they infested remain unclear, we hope future interdisciplinary collaborations among geneticists, entomologists, and archaeologists will provide the missing details
Observation by an Air-Shower Array in Tibet of the Multi-TeV Cosmic-Ray Anisotropy due to Terrestrial Orbital Motion Around the Sun
We report on the solar diurnal variation of the galactic cosmic-ray intensity
observed by the Tibet III air shower array during the period from 1999 to 2003.
In the higher-energy event samples (12 TeV and 6.2 TeV), the variations are
fairly consistent with the Compton-Getting anisotropy due to the terrestrial
orbital motion around the sun, while the variation in the lower-energy event
sample (4.0 TeV) is inconsistent with this anisotropy. This suggests an
additional anisotropy superposed at the multi-TeV energies, e.g. the solar
modulation effect. This is the highest-precision measurement of the
Compton-Getting anisotropy ever made.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, includes .bbl fil
Onsager-Machlup theory for nonequilibrium steady states and fluctuation theorems
A generalization of the Onsager-Machlup theory from equilibrium to
nonequilibrium steady states and its connection with recent fluctuation
theorems are discussed for a dragged particle restricted by a harmonic
potential in a heat reservoir. Using a functional integral approach, the
probability functional for a path is expressed in terms of a Lagrangian
function from which an entropy production rate and dissipation functions are
introduced, and nonequilibrium thermodynamic relations like the energy
conservation law and the second law of thermodynamics are derived. Using this
Lagrangian function we establish two nonequilibrium detailed balance relations,
which not only lead to a fluctuation theorem for work but also to one related
to energy loss by friction. In addition, we carried out the functional
integrals for heat explicitly, leading to the extended fluctuation theorem for
heat. We also present a simple argument for this extended fluctuation theorem
in the long time limit.Comment: 20 pages, 2 figure
The energy spectrum of all-particle cosmic rays around the knee region observed with the Tibet-III air-shower array
We have already reported the first result on the all-particle spectrum around
the knee region based on data from 2000 November to 2001 October observed by
the Tibet-III air-shower array. In this paper, we present an updated result
using data set collected in the period from 2000 November through 2004 October
in a wide range over 3 decades between eV and eV, in which
the position of the knee is clearly seen at around 4 PeV. The spectral index is
-2.68 0.02(stat.) below 1PeV, while it is -3.12 0.01(stat.) above 4
PeV in the case of QGSJET+HD model, and various systematic errors are under
study now.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures, accepted by Advances in space researc
Natural boundaries for the Smoluchowski equation and affiliated diffusion processes
The Schr\"{o}dinger problem of deducing the microscopic dynamics from the
input-output statistics data is known to admit a solution in terms of Markov
diffusions. The uniqueness of solution is found linked to the natural
boundaries respected by the underlying random motion. By choosing a reference
Smoluchowski diffusion process, we automatically fix the Feynman-Kac potential
and the field of local accelerations it induces. We generate the family of
affiliated diffusions with the same local dynamics, but different inaccessible
boundaries on finite, semi-infinite and infinite domains. For each diffusion
process a unique Feynman-Kac kernel is obtained by the constrained (Dirichlet
boundary data) Wiener path integration.As a by-product of the discussion, we
give an overview of the problem of inaccessible boundaries for the diffusion
and bring together (sometimes viewed from unexpected angles) results which are
little known, and dispersed in publications from scarcely communicating areas
of mathematics and physics.Comment: Latex file, Phys. Rev. E 49, 3815-3824, (1994
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