Non-Equilibrium Electrons and the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect of Galaxy Clusters

We present high-resolution cosmological hydrodynamic simulations of three galaxy clusters employing a two-temperature model for the intracluster medium. We show that electron temperatures in cluster outskirts are significantly lower than the mean gas temperature, because Coulomb collisions are insufficient to keep electrons and ions in thermal equilibrium. This deviation is larger in more massive and less relaxed systems, ranging from 5% in relaxed clusters to 30% for clusters undergoing major mergers. The presence of non-equilibrium electrons leads to significant suppression of the SZE signal at large cluster-centric radius. The suppression of the electron pressure also leads to an underestimate of the hydrostatic mass. Merger-driven, internal shocks may also generate significant populations of non-equilibrium electrons in the cluster core, leading to a 5% bias on the integrated SZ mass proxy during cluster mergers.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, Accepted for publication in ApJ

A possible nuclear effect on the NuTeV sin^2 theta_W anomaly

We investigate a possible explanation for the NuTeV anomaly in terms of a nuclear correction difference between u_v and d_v distributions. Analyzing deep elastic scattering and Drell-Yan data for nuclear targets, we try to determine the correction difference and its effect on the anomaly. We find that the difference cannot be precisely determined at this stage due to the lack of data which are sensitive to the difference. Therefore, it is difficult to draw a solid conclusion about its effect although the anomaly could be explained, at least partially, by this kind of nuclear correction.Comment: 3 pages, 1 figure, to be published in the proceedings of the XVIIth Particles and Nuclei International Conference (PANIC), Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA, October 24-28, 200

Long-range nematic order and anomalous fluctuations in suspensions of swimming filamentous bacteria

We study the collective dynamics of elongated swimmers in a very thin fluid layer by devising long, filamentous, non-tumbling bacteria. The strong confinement induces weak nematic alignment upon collision, which, for large enough density of cells, gives rise to global nematic order. This homogeneous but fluctuating phase, observed on the largest experimentally-accessible scale of millimeters, exhibits the properties predicted by standard models for flocking such as the Vicsek-style model of polar particles with nematic alignment: true long-range nematic order and non-trivial giant number fluctuations.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures. Supplemental Material: 6 pages, 3 figure

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

Vertex operator for the non-autonomous ultradiscrete KP equation

We propose an ultradiscrete analogue of the vertex operator in the case of the ultradiscrete KP equation--several other ultradiscrete equations--which maps N-soliton solutions to N+1-soliton ones.Comment: 9 page

ALMA polarization observations of the particle accelerators in the hot spot of the radio galaxy 3C 445

We present Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) polarization observations at 97.5 GHz of the southern hot spot of the radio galaxy 3C 445. The hot spot structure is dominated by two bright components enshrouded by diffuse emission. Both components show fractional polarization between 30 and 40 per cent, suggesting the presence of shocks. The polarized emission of the western component has a displacement of about 0.5 kpc outward with respect to the total intensity emission, and may trace the surface of a front shock. Strong polarization is observed in a thin strip marking the ridge of the hot spot structure visible from radio to optical. No significant polarization is detected in the diffuse emission between the main components, suggesting a highly disordered magnetic field likely produced by turbulence and instabilities in the downstream region that may be at the origin of the extended optical emission observed in this hot spot. The polarization properties support a scenario in which a combination of both multiple and intermittent shock fronts due to jet dithering, and spatially distributed stochastic second-order Fermi acceleration processes are present in the hot spot complex.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures; accepted for publication in MNRAS Lette