A direct approach to the ultradiscrete KdV equation with negative

A generalisation of the ultra-discrete KdV equation is investigated using a direct approach. We show that evolution through one time step serves to reveal the entire solitonic content of the system

Bilinear Equations and B\"acklund Transformation for Generalized Ultradiscrete Soliton Solution

Ultradiscrete soliton equations and B\"acklund transformation for a generalized soliton solution are presented. The equations include the ultradiscrete KdV equation or the ultradiscrete Toda equation in a special case. We also express the solution by the ultradiscrete permanent, which is defined by ultradiscretizing the signature-free determinant, that is, the permanent. Moreover, we discuss a relation between B\"acklund transformations for discrete and ultradiscrete KdV equations.Comment: 11 page

Noise-Induced Synchronization of a Large Population of Globally Coupled Nonidentical Oscillators

We study a large population of globally coupled phase oscillators subject to common white Gaussian noise and find analytically that the critical coupling strength between oscillators for synchronization transition decreases with an increase in the intensity of common noise. Thus, common noise promotes the onset of synchronization. Our prediction is confirmed by numerical simulations of the phase oscillators as well as of limit-cycle oscillators

Magnetic phases in the correlated Kondo-lattice model

We study magnetic ordering of an extended Kondo-lattice model including an additional on-site Coulomb interaction between the itinerant states. The model is solved in the dynamical mean-field theory using Wilson's numerical renormalization group approach as impurity solver. For a bipartite lattice we find at half filling the expected antiferromagnetic phase. Upon doping this phase is gradually suppressed and hints towards phase separation are observed. For large doping the model exhibits ferromagnetism, the appearance of which can at first sight be explained by Rudermann-Kittel-Kasuya-Yosida interaction. However, for large values of the Kondo coupling $J$ significant differences to a simple Rudermann-Kittel-Kasuya-Yosida picture can be found. We furthermore observe signs of quantum critical points for antiferromagnetic Kondo coupling between the local spins and band states

Discovery of a wandering radio jet base after a large X-ray flare in the blazar Markarian 421

We investigate the location of the radio jet bases ("radio cores") of blazars in radio images, and their stationarity by means of dense very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) observations. In order to measure the position of a radio core, we conducted 12 epoch astrometric observation of the blazar Markarian 421 with the VLBI Exploration of Radio Astrometry at 22 GHz immediately after a large X-ray flare, which occurred in the middle of 2011 September. For the first time, we find that the radio core is not stationary but rather changes its location toward 0.5 mas downstream. This angular scale corresponds to the de-projected length of a scale of $10^5$ Schwarzschild radii (Rs) at the distance of Markarian~421. This radio-core wandering may be a new type of manifestation associated with the phenomena of large X-ray flares.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, 1 table, has been published in ApJ Letter

Engaging non-alumni advisory board members in hospitality education

Hospitality education programs within higher education institutions often rely upon members of the hospitality industry to serve as volunteer advisory board members. A common role for volunteers of an academic program advisory board is to serve as a credible link between the formal education and degree earning process to the hospitality industry, provide insight and advice on current issues and trends, assist in developing industry relationships, and share their time and resources to help promote the program (Edwards, 2008; Merrill, 2003). While volunteer advisory boards within higher education are often made up of both alumni and non-alumni, this study focused on the non-alumni volunteers. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the self-reported motivations, experiences, and engagement levels of non-alumni volunteers to a hospitality education program. The participants were drawn from those who were executives in the hospitality industry and served as current volunteers on the International Advisory Board for the College of Hotel Administration at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. In-depth interviews were conducted with participants both in-person and by phone. Participants were grouped into two cases of five people each; Case 1 consisted of newer advisory board members and Case 2 consisted of longer-serving advisory board members. A within-case comparison as well as a cross-case analysis was applied to the participant responses to better understand their motivations for volunteering and motivations to continue as volunteers. The results of the study found that non-alumni volunteers, through their involvement with their fellow advisory board members, college administrators, and perhaps most importantly, interaction with students, developed emotional connections and pride in serving the institution. This led most volunteers to have a level of engagement that was meaningful to them and resulted in their desire to continue as volunteers. The participants acknowledged a variety of factors related to their experiences that influenced their overall feelings of engagement, factors that either contributed toward or hindered their satisfaction levels, emotional attachment, and identification with the advisory board. Implications of these findings for theory, practice and future research are discussed in the final chapter

Quantifying properties of ICM inhomogeneities

We present a new method to identify and characterize the structure of the intracluster medium (ICM) in simulated galaxy clusters. The method uses the median of gas properties, such as density and pressure, which we show to be very robust to the presence of gas inhomogeneities. In particular, we show that the radial profiles of median gas properties are smooth and do not exhibit fluctuations at locations of massive clumps in contrast to mean and mode properties. It is shown that distribution of gas properties in a given radial shell can be well described by a log-normal PDF and a tail. The former corresponds to a nearly hydrostatic bulk component, accounting for ~99% of the volume, while the tail corresponds to high density inhomogeneities. We show that this results in a simple and robust separation of the diffuse and clumpy components of the ICM. The FWHM of the density distribution grows with radius and varies from ~0.15 dex in cluster centre to ~0.5 dex at 2r_500 in relaxed clusters. The small scatter in the width between relaxed clusters suggests that the degree of inhomogeneity is a robust characteristic of the ICM. It broadly agrees with the amplitude of density perturbations in the Coma cluster. We discuss the origin of ICM density variations in spherical shells and show that less than 20% of the width can be attributed to the triaxiality of the cluster gravitational potential. As a link to X-ray observations of real clusters we evaluated the ICM clumping factor with and without high density inhomogeneities. We argue that these two cases represent upper and lower limits on the departure of the observed X-ray emissivity from the median value. We find that the typical value of the clumping factor in the bulk component of relaxed clusters varies from ~1.1-1.2 at r_500 up to ~1.3-1.4 at r_200, in broad agreement with recent observations.Comment: 16 pages, 12 figure, accepted to MNRA

Effects of Galaxy Formation on Thermodynamics of the Intracluster Medium

We present detailed comparisons of the intracluster medium (ICM) in cosmological Eulerian cluster simulations with deep Chandra observations of nearby relaxed clusters. To assess the impact of galaxy formation, we compare two sets of simulations, one performed in the non-radiative regime and another with radiative cooling and several physical processes critical to various aspects of galaxy formation: star formation, metal enrichment and stellar feedback. We show that the observed ICM properties outside cluster cores are well-reproduced in the simulations that include cooling and star formation, while the non-radiative simulations predict an overall shape of the ICM profiles inconsistent with observations. In particular, we find that the ICM entropy in our runs with cooling is enhanced to the observed levels at radii as large as half of the virial radius. We also find that outside cluster cores entropy scaling with the mean ICM temperature in both simulations and Chandra observations is consistent with being self-similar within current error bars. We find that the pressure profiles of simulated clusters are also close to self-similar and exhibit little cluster-to-cluster scatter. The X-ray observable-total mass relations for our simulated sample agree with the Chandra measurements to \~10%-20% in normalization. We show that this systematic difference could be caused by the subsonic gas motions, unaccounted for in X-ray hydrostatic mass estimates. The much improved agreement of simulations and observations in the ICM profiles and scaling relations is encouraging and the existence of tight relations of X-ray observables, such as Yx, and total cluster mass and the simple redshift evolution of these relations hold promise for the use of clusters as cosmological probes.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figures. Matches version accepted to Ap