920 research outputs found
The Core-like Nature of HST-1 in the M87 Jet
We investigate the total flux density, spectral, polarization, and Faraday
rotation variability of HST-1 in the M87 jet during the outburst from 2003 to
2007 through multi-epoch VLA observations at 8, 15, and 22 GHz. Contrary to the
general case for blazars, the flux densities of HST-1 rise earlier at lower
frequencies from radio to X-ray, and the spectra are softening with the growth
of outburst, indicating that the newly emerging subcomponents within HST-1 have
relatively steep spectra. In particular, the intrinsic EVPA varies
monotonically by at the 3 wavebands during the period, and all
but the stationary subcomponent in the eastern end of HST-1 move downstream
superluminally deviating divergently from the overall jet direction, with the
motion of the outmost subcomponent bending from one side of the jet axis to
another. These strongly argue for the presence of helical magnetic fields
around HST-1, which is also supported by the fact that the subcomponents might
be accelerated in this region. The fractional polarization is relatively low in
the rising stage, and in the decaying stage the polarization levels are almost
comparable at the 3 wavebands. In view of the quite large RM values, Faraday
rotation is expected to occur dominantly external to HST-1 in the decaying
stage, which is well supported by the presence of diffuse emission around
HST-1, and consistent with the scenario that RM decrease gets slower with time.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, Accepted for publication in MNRAS Lette
Flat galaxies with dark matter halos - existence and stability
We consider a model for a flat, disk-like galaxy surrounded by a halo of dark
matter, namely a Vlasov-Poisson type system with two particle species, the
stars which are restricted to the galactic plane and the dark matter particles.
These constituents interact only through the gravitational potential which
stars and dark matter create collectively. Using a variational approach we
prove the existence of steady state solutions and their nonlinear stability
under suitably restricted perturbations.Comment: 39 page
Multi-waveband polarimetric observations of NRAO 530 on parsec-scale
We report on multi-bands VLBA polarimetric observations of NRAO 530 in
February 1997. Total intensity, EVPA distributions at all these frequencies are
presented. Model fitting has been performed, from which the fitted southmost
component A is confirmed as the core of the radio structure with relatively
high brightness temperature and hard spectrum between 15 and 43 GHz in
comparison with the central component B of dominant flux. The relatively high
degree of polarization for the component A may arise from its complex radio
structure, which is resolvable at 86 GHz. As a contrast, the component B shows
a well fitted power-law spectrum with the spectral index of about -0.5, and a
linear correlation between EVPAs and wavelength square with the observed RM of
about -1062 rad m^{-2}, indicating its structural singleness. Assuming that the
component B has a comparable degree of polarization without depolarization at
these frequencies, the decrease in fractional polarization with wavelength
mainly results from opacity and Faraday rotation, in which the opacity plays
quite a large part of role. A spine-sheath like structure in fractional
polarization is detected covering almost the whole emission region at 5 and 8
GHz. The linear polarization at 5 GHz shows 3 separate polarized emission
regions with alternately aligned and orthogonal polarization vectors down the
jet. The polarization goes to zero between the top two regions, with the
highest polarization level occurring at the top and bottom. The 5 and 8 GHz
images show EVPA changes across the width of the jet as well as along the jet.
These complex polarimetric properties can be explained in terms of either the
presence of a large helical magnetic field or tangled magnetic fields
compressed and sheared down the jet.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA
Nontrival Cosmological Constant in Brane Worlds with Unorthodox Lagrangians
In self-tuning brane-world models with extra dimensions, large contributions
to the cosmological constant are absorbed into the curvature of extra
dimensions and consistent with flat 4d geometry. In models with conventional
Lagrangians fine-tuning is needed nevertheless to ensure a finite effective
Planck mass. Here, we consider a class of models with non conventional
Lagrangian in which known problems can be avoided. Unfortunately these models
are found to suffer from tachyonic instabilities. An attempt to cure these
instabilities leads to the prediction of a positive cosmological constant,
which in turn needs a fine-tuning to be consistent with observations.Comment: 17 pages, 1 figur
The velocity function in the local environment from LCDM and LWDM constrained simulations
Using constrained simulations of the local Universe for generic cold dark
matter and for 1keV warm dark matter, we investigate the difference in the
abundance of dark matter halos in the local environment. We find that the mass
function within 20 Mpc/h of the Local Group is ~2 times larger than the
universal mass function in the 10^9-10^13 M_odot/h mass range. Imposing the
field of view of the on-going HI blind survey ALFALFA in our simulations, we
predict that the velocity function in the Virgo-direction region exceeds the
universal velocity function by a factor of 3. Furthermore, employing a scheme
to translate the halo velocity function into a galaxy velocity function, we
compare the simulation results with a sample of galaxies from the early catalog
release of ALFALFA. We find that our simulations are able to reproduce the
velocity function in the 80-300 km/s velocity range, having a value ~10 times
larger than the universal velocity function in the Virgo-direction region. In
the low velocity regime, 35-80 km/s, the warm dark matter simulation reproduces
the observed flattening of the velocity function. On the contrary, the
simulation with cold dark matter predicts a steep rise in the velocity function
towards lower velocities; for V_max=35 km/s, it forecasts ~10 times more
sources than the ones observed. If confirmed by the complete ALFALFA survey,
our results indicate a potential problem for the cold dark matter paradigm or
for the conventional assumptions about energetic feedback in dwarf galaxies.Comment: 24 pages, 14 figures, 1 table, accepted for publication in Ap
Investigating the melt pool properties and thermal effects of multi-laser diode area melting
Diode area melting (DAM) is a new additive manufacturing process that utilises customised architectural arrays of low-power
laser diode emitters for high-speed parallel processing of metallic feedstock. The laser diodes operate at shorter laser wavelengths
(808 nm) than conventional SLM fibre lasers (1064 nm) theoretically enabling more efficient energy absorption for specific
materials. This investigation presents the first work investigating the melt pool properties and thermal effects of the multi-laser
DAM process, modelling generated melt pools the unique thermal profiles created along a powder bed during processing. Using
this approach process, optimisation can be improved by analysing this thermal temperature distribution, targeting processing
conditions that induce full melting for variable powder layer thicknesses. In this work, the developed thermal model simulates the
DAM processing of 316L stainless steel and is validated with experimental trials. The simulation indicates that multi-laser DAM
methodology can reduce residual stress formation compared to the single point laser scanning methods used during selective laser
melting
Faraday rotation in the MOJAVE blazars: 3C 273 a case study
Radio polarimetric observations of Active Galactic Nuclei can reveal the
magnetic field structure in the parsec-scale jets of these sources. We have
observed the gamma-ray blazar 3C 273 as part of our multi-frequency survey with
the Very Long Baseline Array to study Faraday rotation in a large sample of
jets. Our observations re-confirm the transverse rotation measure gradient in
3C 273. For the first time the gradient is seen to cross zero which is further
indication for a helical magnetic field and spine-sheath structure in the jet.
We believe the difference to previous epochs is due to a different part of the
jet being illuminated in our observations.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures. To appear in the proceedings of "Beamed and
Unbeamed Gamma-rays from Galaxies", held in Muonio, Finland, April 11-15,
2011. Journal of Physics: Conference Serie
General Axisymmetric Solutions and Self-Tuning in 6D Chiral Gauged Supergravity
We re-examine the properties of the axially-symmetric solutions to chiral
gauged 6D supergravity, recently found in refs. hep-th/0307238 and
hep-th/0308064. Ref. hep-th/0307238 finds the most general solutions having two
singularities which are maximally-symmetric in the large 4 dimensions and which
are axially-symmetric in the internal dimensions. We show that not all of these
solutions have purely conical singularities at the brane positions, and that
not all singularities can be interpreted as being the bulk geometry sourced by
neutral 3-branes. The subset of solutions for which the metric singularities
are conical precisely agree with the solutions of ref. hep-th/0308064.
Establishing this connection between the solutions of these two references
resolves a minor conflict concerning whether or not the tensions of the
resulting branes must be negative. The tensions can be both negative and
positive depending on the choice of parameters. We discuss the physical
interpretation of the non-conical solutions, including their significance for
the proposal for using 6-dimensional self-tuning to understand the small size
of the observed vacuum energy. In passing we briefly comment on a recent paper
by Garriga and Porrati which criticizes the realization of self-tuning in 6D
supergravity.Comment: 27 pages, 1 figure; JHEP3 style; Some references added, and
discussion of tension constraints and unwarped solutions made more explici
MOJAVE: Monitoring of Jets in AGN with VLBA Experiments. VII. Blazar Jet Acceleration
We discuss acceleration measurements for a large sample of extragalactic
radio jets from the MOJAVE program which studies the parsec-scale jet structure
and kinematics of a complete, flux-density-limited sample of Active Galactic
Nuclei (AGN). Accelerations are measured from the apparent motion of individual
jet features or "components" which may represent patterns in the jet flow. We
find that significant accelerations are common both parallel and perpendicular
to the observed component velocities. Parallel accelerations, representing
changes in apparent speed, are generally larger than perpendicular acceleration
that represent changes in apparent direction. The trend for larger parallel
accelerations indicates that a significant fraction of these changes in
apparent speed are due to changes in intrinsic speed of the component rather
than changes in direction to the line of sight. We find an overall tendency for
components with increasing apparent speed to be closer to the base of their
jets than components with decreasing apparent speed. This suggests a link
between the observed pattern motions and the underlying flow which, in some
cases, may increase in speed close to the base and decrease in speed further
out; however, common hydro-dynamical processes for propagating shocks may also
play a role. About half of the components show "non-radial" motion, or a
misalignment between the component's structural position angle and its velocity
direction, and these misalignments generally better align the component motion
with the downstream emission. Perpendicular accelerations are closely linked
with non-radial motion. When observed together, perpendicular accelerations are
usually in the correct direction to have caused the observed misalignment.Comment: 17 pages, 11 figures, 1 table, accepted by the Astrophysical Journa
Optics-less smart sensors and a possible mechanism of cutaneous vision in nature
Optics-less cutaneous (skin) vision is not rare among living organisms,
though its mechanisms and capabilities have not been thoroughly investigated.
This paper demonstrates, using methods from statistical parameter estimation
theory and numerical simulations, that an array of bare sensors with a natural
cosine-law angular sensitivity arranged on a flat or curved surface has the
ability to perform imaging tasks without any optics at all. The working
principle of this type of optics-less sensor and the model developed here for
determining sensor performance may be used to shed light upon possible
mechanisms and capabilities of cutaneous vision in nature
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