5,275 research outputs found
Evidence for nonhadronic degrees of freedom in the transverse mass spectra of kaons from relativistic nucleus-nucleus collisions?
We investigate transverse hadron spectra from relativistic nucleus-nucleus
collisions which reflect important aspects of the dynamics - such as the
generation of pressure - in the hot and dense zone formed in the early phase of
the reaction. Our analysis is performed within two independent transport
approaches (HSD and UrQMD) that are based on quark, diquark, string and
hadronic degrees of freedom. Both transport models show their reliability for
elementary as well as light-ion (C+C, Si+Si) reactions. However, for
central Au+Au (Pb+Pb) collisions at bombarding energies above 5
AGeV the measured transverse mass spectra have a larger
inverse slope parameter than expected from the calculation. Thus the pressure
generated by hadronic interactions in the transport models above 5
AGeV is lower than observed in the experimental data. This finding shows
that the additional pressure - as expected from lattice QCD calculations at
finite quark chemical potential and temperature - is generated by strong
partonic interactions in the early phase of central Au+Au (Pb+Pb) collisions.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures,discussions extended, references added, to be
published in Phys. Rev. Let
Adiabatic Formation of Rydberg Crystals with Chirped Laser Pulses
Ultracold atomic gases have been used extensively in recent years to realize
textbook examples of condensed matter phenomena. Recently, phase transitions to
ordered structures have been predicted for gases of highly excited, 'frozen'
Rydberg atoms. Such Rydberg crystals are a model for dilute metallic solids
with tunable lattice parameters, and provide access to a wide variety of
fundamental phenomena. We investigate theoretically how such structures can be
created in four distinct cold atomic systems, by using tailored
laser-excitation in the presence of strong Rydberg-Rydberg interactions. We
study in detail the experimental requirements and limitations for these
systems, and characterize the basic properties of small crystalline Rydberg
structures in one, two and three dimensions.Comment: 23 pages, 10 figures, MPIPKS-ITAMP Tandem Workshop, Cold Rydberg
Gases and Ultracold Plasmas (CRYP10), Sept. 6-17, 201
Why are the K dwarfs in the Pleiades so Blue?
The K dwarfs in the Pleiades fall nearly one half magnitude below a main
sequence isochrone when plotted in a color-magnitude diagram utilizing V
magnitude as the luminosity index and B-V as the color index. This peculiarity
has been known for forty years but has gone unexplained and mostly ignored.
When compared to Praesepe members, the Pleiades K dwarfs again are subluminous
(or blue) in a color-magnitude diagram using B-V as the color index. However,
using V-I as the color index, stars in the two clusters are coincident to M_V ~
10; using V-K as the color index, Pleiades late K and M stars fall above the
main sequence locus defined by Praesepe members. We believe that the anomalous
spectral energy distributions for the Pleiades K dwarfs, as compared to older
clusters, are a consequence of rapid stellar rotation and may be primarily due
to spottedness. If so, the required areal filling factor for the cool component
has to be very large (=> 50%). Weak-lined T Tauri stars have similar color
anomalies, and we suspect this is a common feature of all very young K dwarfs
(sp. type > K3). The peculiar spectral energy distribution needs to be
considered in deriving accurate pre-main sequence isochrone-fitting ages for
clusters like the Pleiades since the age derived will depend on the temperature
index used.Comment: 41 pages, 15 figures, AASTeX5.0. Accepted 05 May 2003; Scheduled for
publication in the Astronomical Journal (August 2003
Building the cosmic distance scale: from Hipparcos to Gaia
Hipparcos, the first ever experiment of global astrometry, was launched by
ESA in 1989 and its results published in 1997 (Perryman et al., Astron.
Astrophys. 323, L49, 1997; Perryman & ESA (eds), The Hipparcos and Tycho
catalogues, ESA SP-1200, 1997). A new reduction was later performed using an
improved satellite attitude reconstruction leading to an improved accuracy for
stars brighter than 9th magnitude (van Leeuwen & Fantino, Astron. Astrophys.
439, 791, 2005; van Leeuwen, Astron. Astrophys. 474, 653, 2007).
The Hipparcos Catalogue provided an extended dataset of very accurate
astrometric data (positions, trigonometric parallaxes and proper motions),
enlarging by two orders of magnitude the quantity and quality of distance
determinations and luminosity calibrations. The availability of more than 20000
stars with a trigonometric parallax known to better than 10% opened the way to
a drastic revision of our 3-D knowledge of the solar neighbourhood and to a
renewal of the calibration of many distance indicators and age estimations. The
prospects opened by Gaia, the next ESA cornerstone, planned for launch in June
2013 (Perryman et al., Astron. Astrophys. 369, 339, 2001), are still much more
dramatic: a billion objects with systematic and quasi simultaneous astrometric,
spectrophotometric and spectroscopic observations, about 150 million stars with
expected distances to better than 10%, all over the Galaxy. All stellar
distance indicators, in very large numbers, will be directly measured,
providing a direct calibration of their luminosity and making possible detailed
studies of the impacts of various effects linked to chemical element
abundances, age or cluster membership. With the help of simulations of the data
expected from Gaia, obtained from the mission simulator developed by DPAC, we
will illustrate what Gaia can provide with some selected examples.Comment: 16 pages, 16 figures, Conference "The Fundamental Cosmic Distance
scale: State of the Art and the Gaia perspective, 3-6 May 2011, INAF,
Osservatorio Astronomico di Capodimonte, Naples. Accepted for publication in
Astrophysics & Space Scienc
Hipparcos period-luminosity relations for Miras and semiregular variables
We present period-luminosity diagrams for nearby Miras and semiregulars,
selecting stars with parallaxes better than 20 per cent and well-determined
periods. Using K-band magnitudes, we find two well-defined P-L sequences, one
corresponding to the standard Mira P-L relation and the second shifted to
shorter periods by a factor of about 1.9. The second sequence only contains
semiregular variables, while the Mira sequence contains both Miras and
semiregulars. Several semiregular stars show double periods in agreement with
both relations. The Whitelock evolutionary track is shown to fit the data,
indicating that the semiregulars are Mira progenitors. The transition between
the two sequences may correspond to a change in pulsation mode or to a change
in the stellar structure. Large amplitude pulsations leading to classical Mira
classification occur mainly near the tip of the local AGB luminosity function.Comment: 10 pages with figures, accepted by ApJ Letter
Proof for an upper bound in fixed-node Monte Carlo for lattice fermions
We justify a recently proposed prescription for performing Green Function
Monte Carlo calculations on systems of lattice fermions, by which one is able
to avoid the sign problem. We generalize the prescription such that it can also
be used for problems with hopping terms of different signs. We prove that the
effective Hamiltonian, used in this method, leads to an upper bound for the
ground-state energy of the real Hamiltonian, and we illustrate the
effectiveness of the method on small systems.Comment: 14 pages in revtex v3.0, no figure
MSX, 2MASS, and the LMC: A Combined Near and Mid Infrared View
The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) has been observed by both the Midcourse
Space Experiment (MSX) in the mid-infrared and the Two Micron All Sky Survey
(2MASS) in the near-infrared. We have performed a cross-correlation of the 1806
MSX catalog sources and nearly 1.4 million 2MASS catalogued point and extended
sources and find 1664 matches. Using the available color information, we
identify a number of stellar populations and nebulae, including main sequence
stars, giant stars, red supergiants, carbon- and oxygen-rich asymptotic giant
branch (AGB) stars, planetary nebulae, H II regions, and other dusty objects
likely associated with early-type stars. 731 of these sources have no previous
identification. We compile a listing of all objects, which includes photometry
and astrometry. The 8.3 micron MSX sensitivity is the limiting factor for
object detection: only the brighter red objects, specifically the red
supergiants, AGB stars, planetary nebulae and HII regions, are detected in the
LMC. The remaining objects are likely in the Galactic foreground. The spatial
distribution of the infrared LMC sources may contribute to understanding
stellar formation and evolution and the overall galactic evolution. We
demonstrate that a combined mid- and near-infrared photometric baseline
provides a powerful means of identifying new objects in the LMC for future
ground-based and space-based follow-up observations.Comment: 23 pages, 10 figures, to appear in the AJ (2001 Oct issue). N.B:
Tables 2 & 3 corrected and available as html file
Population-based study of morbidity risk associated with pathological complete response after chemoradiotherapy for rectal cancer
BACKGROUND: Neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (nCRT) for locally advanced rectal cancer may induce a pathological complete response (pCR) but increase surgical morbidity due to radiation-induced fibrosis. In this study the association between pCR and postoperative surgical morbidity was investigated. METHODS: Patients in the Netherlands with rectal cancer who underwent nCRT followed by total mesorectal excision between 2009 and 2017 were included. Data were stratified into patients who underwent resection with creation of a primary anastomosis and those who had a permanent stoma procedure. The association between pCR and postoperative morbidity was investigated in univariable and multivariable logistic regression analyses. RESULTS: pCR was observed in 976 (12·2 per cent) of 8003 patients. In 3472 patients who had a primary anastomosis, the presence of pCR was significantly associated with surgical complications (122 of 443 (27·5 per cent) versus 598 of 3029 (19·7 per cent) in those without pCR) and anastomotic leak (35 of 443 (7·9 per cent) versus 173 of 3029 (5·7 per cent) respectively). Multivariable analysis also showed associations between pCR and surgical complications (adjusted odds ratio (OR) 1·53, 95 per cent c.i. 1·22 to 1·92) and pCR and anastomotic leak (adjusted OR 1·41, 1·03 to 2·05). Of 4531 patients with a permanent stoma, surgical complications were observed in 120 (22·5 per cent) of 533 patients with a pCR, compared with 798 (20·0 per cent) of 3998 patients with no pCR (adjusted OR 1·17, 0·94 to 1·46). CONCLUSION: Patients with a pCR in whom an anastomosis was created were at increased risk of developing an anastomotic leak
Representations of the exceptional and other Lie algebras with integral eigenvalues of the Casimir operator
The uniformity, for the family of exceptional Lie algebras g, of the
decompositions of the powers of their adjoint representations is well-known now
for powers up to the fourth. The paper describes an extension of this
uniformity for the totally antisymmetrised n-th powers up to n=9, identifying
(see Tables 3 and 6) families of representations with integer eigenvalues
5,...,9 for the quadratic Casimir operator, in each case providing a formula
(see eq. (11) to (15)) for the dimensions of the representations in the family
as a function of D=dim g. This generalises previous results for powers j and
Casimir eigenvalues j, j<=4. Many intriguing, perhaps puzzling, features of the
dimension formulas are discussed and the possibility that they may be valid for
a wider class of not necessarily simple Lie algebras is considered.Comment: 16 pages, LaTeX, 1 figure, 9 tables; v2: presentation improved, typos
correcte
Correlations in a confined magnetized free-electron gas
Equilibrium quantum statistical methods are used to study the pair
correlation function for a magnetized free-electron gas in the presence of a
hard wall that is parallel to the field. With the help of a path-integral
technique and a Green function representation the modifications in the
correlation function caused by the wall are determined both for a
non-degenerate and for a completely degenerate gas. In the latter case the
asymptotic behaviour of the correlation function for large position differences
in the direction parallel to the wall and perpendicular to the field, is found
to change from Gaussian in the bulk to algebraic near the wall.Comment: 24 pages, 10 figures, submitted to J. Phys. A: Math. Ge
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