7,245 research outputs found
Long-Lived Double-Barred Galaxies: Critical Mass and Length Scales
A substantial fraction of disk galaxies is double-barred. We analyze the
dynamical stability of such nested bar systems by means of Liapunov
exponents,by fixing a generic model and varying the inner (secondary) bar mass.
We show that there exists a critical mass below which the secondary bar cannot
sustain its own orbital structure, and above which it progressively destroys
the outer (primary) bar-supporting orbits. In this critical state, a large
fraction of the trajectories (regular and chaotic) are aligned with either bar,
suggesting the plausibility of long-lived dynamical states when
secondary-to-primary bar mass ratio is of the order of a few percent.
Qualitatively similar results are obtained by varying the size of the secondary
bar, within certain limits, while keeping its mass constant. In both cases, an
important role appears to be played by chaotic trajectories which are trapped
around (especially) the primary bar for long periods of time.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure, to be published in Astrophysical Journal Letters
(Vol. 595, 9/20/03 issue). Replaced by revised figure and corrected typo
Monte Carlo Markov Chain parameter estimation in semi-analytic models of galaxy formation
We present a statistical exploration of the parameter space of the De Lucia and Blaizot version of the Munich semi-analytic (SA) model built upon the Millennium dark matter simulation. This is achieved by applying a Monte Carlo Markov Chain method to constrain the six free parameters that define the stellar and black hole mass functions at redshift zero. The model is tested against three different observational data sets, including the galaxy K-band luminosity function, B - V colours and the black hole-bulge mass relation, separately and combined, to obtain mean values, confidence limits and likelihood contours for the best-fitting model. Using each observational data set independently, we discuss how the SA model parameters affect each galaxy property and find that there are strong correlations between them. We analyse to what extent these are simply reflections of the observational constraints, or whether they can lead to improved understandings of the physics of galaxy formation.
When all the observations are combined, we find reasonable agreement between the majority of the previously published parameter values and our confidence limits. However, the need to suppress dwarf galaxy formation requires the strength of the supernova feedback to be significantly higher in our best-fitting solution than in previous work.
To balance this, we require the feedback to become ineffective in haloes of lower mass than before, so as to permit the formation of sufficient high-luminosity galaxies: unfortunately, this leads to an excess of galaxies around L*. Although the best fit is formally consistent with the data, there is no region of parameter space that reproduces the shape of galaxy luminosity function across the whole magnitude range.
For our best fit, we present the model predictions for the bJ-band luminosity and stellar mass functions. We find a systematic disagreement between the observed mass function and the predictions from the K-band constraint, which we explain in light of recent works that suggest uncertainties of up to 0.3 dex in the mass determination from stellar population synthesis models.
We discuss modifications to the SA model that might simultaneously improve the fit to the observed mass function and reduce the reliance on excessive supernova feedback in small haloes
Large Deviations of the Smallest Eigenvalue of the Wishart-Laguerre Ensemble
We consider the large deviations of the smallest eigenvalue of the
Wishart-Laguerre Ensemble. Using the Coulomb gas picture we obtain rate
functions for the large fluctuations to the left and the right of the hard
edge. Our findings are compared with known exact results for finding
good agreement. We also consider the case of almost square matrices finding new
universal rate functions describing large fluctuations.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure
SOURCE SPECIFIC QUANTIFICATION AND CHARACTERISATION OF SOLID WASTE ALONG A SANDY BEACH IN CAPE COAST, GHANA
Ghana is dealing with extensive urban periphery settlements due to the massive migration of rural inhabitants to the cities, especially to the political and economic capital, Accra and other regional capitals including Cape Coast. This phenomenon has culminated in indiscriminate solid waste disposal. With no effective municipal solid waste collection system in place, heaps of refuse have become ubiquitous in Cape Coast especially along the beaches. The quantity and composition of solid waste at two locations along a sandy beach in the Cape Coast municipality was investigated in this study. Using five permanent 20 x 4 quadrats over seven weeks in each of the two locations, the amount and composition of solid waste were assessed. The results indicated that paper, bottle, wood, leather, textile, metal, plastics, organic matter and styrofoam were the main categories of solid waste found at the sandy beach. The results also indicated that the quantity of solid waste generated at Duakor and West Gate was 514 kgha-1 and 374 kgha-1 respectively. This study suggests that source specific waste quantification and characterisation of solid waste at different scales should be a vital part of planning in municipal solid waste management systems.solid waste characterisation; quantification; sandy beach; Ghana.
A subarcsecond resolution near-infrared study of Seyfert and `normal' galaxies: II. Morphology
We present a detailed study of the bar fraction in the CfA sample of Seyfert
galaxies, and in a carefully selected control sample of non-active galaxies, to
investigate the relation between the presence of bars and of nuclear activity.
To avoid the problems related to bar classification in the RC3, e.g.,
subjectivity, low resolution and contamination by dust, we have developed an
objective bar classification method, which we conservatively apply to our new
sub-arcsecond resolution near-infrared imaging data set (Peletier et al. 1999).
We are able to use stringent criteria based on radial profiles of ellipticity
and major axis position angle to determine the presence of a bar and its axial
ratio. Concentrating on non-interacting galaxies in our sample for which
morphological information can be obtained, we find that Seyfert hosts are
barred more often (79% +/- 7.5%) than the non-active galaxies in our control
sample (59% +/- 9%), a result which is at the 2.5 sigma significance level. The
fraction of non-axisymmetric hosts becomes even larger when interacting
galaxies are taken into account. We discuss the implications of this result for
the fueling of central activity by large-scale bars. This paper improves on
previous work by means of imaging at higher spatial resolution and by the use
of a set of stringent criteria for bar presence, and confirms that the use of
NIR is superior to optical imaging for detection of bars in disk galaxies.Comment: Latex, 3 figures, includes aaspptwo.sty, accepted for publication in
the Astrophysical Journa
Graph Concatenation for Quantum Codes
Graphs are closely related to quantum error-correcting codes: every
stabilizer code is locally equivalent to a graph code, and every codeword
stabilized code can be described by a graph and a classical code. For the
construction of good quantum codes of relatively large block length,
concatenated quantum codes and their generalizations play an important role. We
develop a systematic method for constructing concatenated quantum codes based
on "graph concatenation", where graphs representing the inner and outer codes
are concatenated via a simple graph operation called "generalized local
complementation." Our method applies to both binary and non-binary concatenated
quantum codes as well as their generalizations.Comment: 26 pages, 12 figures. Figures of concatenated [[5,1,3]] and [[7,1,3]]
are added. Submitted to JM
Encoding One Logical Qubit Into Six Physical Qubits
We discuss two methods to encode one qubit into six physical qubits. Each of
our two examples corrects an arbitrary single-qubit error. Our first example is
a degenerate six-qubit quantum error-correcting code. We explicitly provide the
stabilizer generators, encoding circuit, codewords, logical Pauli operators,
and logical CNOT operator for this code. We also show how to convert this code
into a non-trivial subsystem code that saturates the subsystem Singleton bound.
We then prove that a six-qubit code without entanglement assistance cannot
simultaneously possess a Calderbank-Shor-Steane (CSS) stabilizer and correct an
arbitrary single-qubit error. A corollary of this result is that the Steane
seven-qubit code is the smallest single-error correcting CSS code. Our second
example is the construction of a non-degenerate six-qubit CSS
entanglement-assisted code. This code uses one bit of entanglement (an ebit)
shared between the sender and the receiver and corrects an arbitrary
single-qubit error. The code we obtain is globally equivalent to the Steane
seven-qubit code and thus corrects an arbitrary error on the receiver's half of
the ebit as well. We prove that this code is the smallest code with a CSS
structure that uses only one ebit and corrects an arbitrary single-qubit error
on the sender's side. We discuss the advantages and disadvantages for each of
the two codes.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figures, 4 table
Statistical analysis of the owl:sameAs network for aligning concepts in the linking open data cloud
The massively distributed publication of linked data has brought to the attention of scientific community the limitations of classic methods for achieving data integration and the opportunities of pushing the boundaries of the field by experimenting this collective enterprise that is the linking open data cloud. While reusing existing ontologies is the choice of preference, the exploitation of ontology alignments still is a required step for easing the burden of integrating heterogeneous data sets. Alignments, even between the most used vocabularies, is still poorly supported in systems nowadays whereas links between instances are the most widely used means for bridging the gap between different data sets. We provide in this paper an account of our statistical and qualitative analysis of the network of instance level equivalences in the Linking Open Data Cloud (i.e. the sameAs network) in order to automatically compute alignments at the conceptual level. Moreover, we explore the effect of ontological information when adopting classical Jaccard methods to the ontology alignment task. Automating such task will allow in fact to achieve a clearer conceptual description of the data at the cloud level, while improving the level of integration between datasets. <br/
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