1,577 research outputs found
Cosmic Neutrino Bound on the Dark Matter Annihilation Rate in the Late Universe
How large can the dark matter self-annihilation rate in the late universe be?
This rate depends on (rho_DM/m_chi)^2 , where rho_DM/m_chi is the
number density of dark matter, and the annihilation cross section is averaged
over the velocity distribution. Since the clustering of dark matter is known,
this amounts to asking how large the annihilation cross section can be.
Kaplinghat, Knox, and Turner proposed that a very large annihilation cross
section could turn a halo cusp into a core, improving agreement between
simulations and observations; Hui showed that unitarity prohibits this for
large dark matter masses. We show that if the annihilation products are
Standard Model particles, even just neutrinos, the consequent fluxes are ruled
out by orders of magnitude, even at small masses. Equivalently, to invoke such
large annihilation cross sections, one must now require that essentially no
Standard Model particles are produced.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures; to appear in the proceedings of the TeV Particle
Astrophysics II Workshop, Madison, Wisconsin, 28-31 Aug 200
Detecting Dark Matter Annihilation with CMB Polarization : Signatures and Experimental Prospects
Dark matter (DM) annihilation during hydrogen recombination (z ~ 1000) will
alter the recombination history of the Universe, and affect the observed CMB
temperature and polarization fluctuations. Unlike other astrophysical probes of
DM, this is free of the significant uncertainties in modelling galactic
physics, and provides a method to detect and constrain the cosmological
abundances of these particles. We parametrize the effect of DM annihilation as
an injection of ionizing energy at a rate e_{dm}, and argue that this simple
"on the spot'' modification is a good approximation to the complicated
interaction of the annihilation products with the photon-electron plasma.
Generic models of DM do not change the redshift of recombination, but change
the residual ionization after recombination. This broadens the surface of last
scattering, suppressing the temperature fluctuations and enhancing the
polarization fluctuations. We use the temperature and polarization angular
power spectra to measure these deviations from the standard recombination
history, and therefore, indirectly probe DM annihilation. (abridged)Comment: 13 pages, 8 figures, submitted to PR
Realizing Omega-regular Hyperproperties
We studied the hyperlogic HyperQPTL, which combines the concepts of trace
relations and -regularity. We showed that HyperQPTL is very expressive,
it can express properties like promptness, bounded waiting for a grant,
epistemic properties, and, in particular, any -regular property. Those
properties are not expressible in previously studied hyperlogics like HyperLTL.
At the same time, we argued that the expressiveness of HyperQPTL is optimal in
a sense that a more expressive logic for -regular hyperproperties would
have an undecidable model checking problem. We furthermore studied the
realizability problem of HyperQPTL. We showed that realizability is decidable
for HyperQPTL fragments that contain properties like promptness. But still, in
contrast to the satisfiability problem, propositional quantification does make
the realizability problem of hyperlogics harder. More specifically, the
HyperQPTL fragment of formulas with a universal-existential propositional
quantifier alternation followed by a single trace quantifier is undecidable in
general, even though the projection of the fragment to HyperLTL has a decidable
realizability problem. Lastly, we implemented the bounded synthesis problem for
HyperQPTL in the prototype tool BoSy. Using BoSy with HyperQPTL specifications,
we have been able to synthesize several resource arbiters. The synthesis
problem of non-linear-time hyperlogics is still open. For example, it is not
yet known how to synthesize systems from specifications given in branching-time
hyperlogics like HyperCTL.Comment: International Conference on Computer Aided Verification (CAV 2020
On the Complexity of Temporal-Logic Path Checking
Given a formula in a temporal logic such as LTL or MTL, a fundamental problem
is the complexity of evaluating the formula on a given finite word. For LTL,
the complexity of this task was recently shown to be in NC. In this paper, we
present an NC algorithm for MTL, a quantitative (or metric) extension of LTL,
and give an NCC algorithm for UTL, the unary fragment of LTL. At the time of
writing, MTL is the most expressive logic with an NC path-checking algorithm,
and UTL is the most expressive fragment of LTL with a more efficient
path-checking algorithm than for full LTL (subject to standard
complexity-theoretic assumptions). We then establish a connection between LTL
path checking and planar circuits, which we exploit to show that any further
progress in determining the precise complexity of LTL path checking would
immediately entail more efficient evaluation algorithms than are known for a
certain class of planar circuits. The connection further implies that the
complexity of LTL path checking depends on the Boolean connectives allowed:
adding Boolean exclusive or yields a temporal logic with P-complete
path-checking problem
Synthesizing Finite-state Protocols from Scenarios and Requirements
Scenarios, or Message Sequence Charts, offer an intuitive way of describing
the desired behaviors of a distributed protocol. In this paper we propose a new
way of specifying finite-state protocols using scenarios: we show that it is
possible to automatically derive a distributed implementation from a set of
scenarios augmented with a set of safety and liveness requirements, provided
the given scenarios adequately \emph{cover} all the states of the desired
implementation. We first derive incomplete state machines from the given
scenarios, and then synthesis corresponds to completing the transition relation
of individual processes so that the global product meets the specified
requirements. This completion problem, in general, has the same complexity,
PSPACE, as the verification problem, but unlike the verification problem, is
NP-complete for a constant number of processes. We present two algorithms for
solving the completion problem, one based on a heuristic search in the space of
possible completions and one based on OBDD-based symbolic fixpoint computation.
We evaluate the proposed methodology for protocol specification and the
effectiveness of the synthesis algorithms using the classical alternating-bit
protocol.Comment: This is the working draft of a paper currently in submission.
(February 10, 2014
Detection of novel astroviruses in urban brown rats and previously known astroviruses in humans
Several novel astroviruses have been recently discovered in humans and in other animals. Here, we report results from our surveillance of astroviruses in human and rodent faecal samples in Hong Kong. Classical human astroviruses (n=9) and a human MLB1 astrovirus were detected in human faecal samples (n=622). Novel astroviruses were detected from 1.6 % of the faecal samples of urban brown rat (Rattus norvegicus) (n=441), indicating the prevalence of astrovirus infection in rats might be much lower than that recently observed in bats. These rat astroviruses were phylogenetically related to recently discovered human astroviruses MLB1 and MLB2, suggesting that the MLB viruses and these novel rat astroviruses may share a common ancestor
Model Checking Branching Properties on Petri Nets with Transits (Full Version)
To model check concurrent systems, it is convenient to distinguish between
the data flow and the control. Correctness is specified on the level of data
flow whereas the system is configured on the level of control. Petri nets with
transits and Flow-LTL are a corresponding formalism. In Flow-LTL, both the
correctness of the data flow and assumptions on fairness and maximality for the
control are expressed in linear time. So far, branching behavior cannot be
specified for Petri nets with transits. In this paper, we introduce Flow-CTL*
to express the intended branching behavior of the data flow while maintaining
LTL for fairness and maximality assumptions on the control. We encode physical
access control with policy updates as Petri nets with transits and give
standard requirements in Flow-CTL*. For model checking, we reduce the model
checking problem of Petri nets with transits against Flow-CTL* via automata
constructions to the model checking problem of Petri nets against LTL. Thereby,
physical access control with policy updates under fairness assumptions for an
unbounded number of people can be verified.Comment: 23 pages, 5 figure
- …