Baryon Asymmetry and Gravitational Waves from Pseudoscalar Inflation

In models of inflation driven by an axion-like pseudoscalar field, the inflaton, a, may couple to the standard model hypercharge via a Chern-Simons-type interaction, $L \subset a/(4\Lambda) F\tilde{F}$. This coupling results in explosive gauge field production during inflation, especially at its last stage, which has interesting phenomenological consequences: For one thing, the primordial hypermagnetic field is maximally helical. It is thus capable of sourcing the generation of nonzero baryon number, via the standard model chiral anomaly, around the time of electroweak symmetry breaking. For another thing, the gauge field production during inflation feeds back into the primordial tensor power spectrum, leaving an imprint in the stochastic background of gravitational waves (GWs). In this paper, we focus on the correlation between these two phenomena. Working in the approximation of instant reheating, we (1) update the investigation of baryogenesis via hypermagnetic fields from pseudoscalar inflation and (2) examine the corresponding implications for the GW spectrum. We find that successful baryogenesis requires a suppression scale Lambda of around Lambda ~ 3 x 10^17 GeV, which corresponds to a relatively weakly coupled axion. The gauge field production at the end of inflation is then typically accompanied by a peak in the GW spectrum at frequencies in the MHz range or above. The detection of such a peak is out of reach of present-day technology; but in the future, it may serve as a smoking-gun signal for baryogenesis from pseudoscalar inflation. Conversely, models that do yield an observable GW signal suffer from the overproduction of baryon number, unless the reheating temperature is lower than the electroweak scale.Comment: 37 pages + references, 9 figures, 1 tabl

Confidence in assessing the effectiveness of bath treatments for the control of sea lice on Norwegian salmon farms

The salmon louse Lepeophtheirus salmonis is the most important ectoparasite of farmed salmonids in the Northern hemisphere, having a major economic and ecological impact on the sustainability of this sector of the aquaculture industry. To a large extent, control of L. salmonis relies on the use of topical delousing chemical treatments in the form of baths. Improvements in methods for the administration and assessment of bathtreatments have not kept pace with the rapid modernization and intensification of the salmon industry. Bathtreatments present technical and biological challenges, including best practice methods for the estimation of the effect of licetreatment interventions. In this communication, we compare and contrast methods to calculate and interpret treatmenteffectiveness at pen and site level. The methods are illustrated for the calculation of the percentage reduction in mean abundance of mobile lice with a measure of confidence. Six different methods for the calculation of confidence intervals across different probability levels were compared. We found the quasi-Poisson method with a 90% confidence interval to be informative and robust for the measurement of bathtreatment performance

A Primal-Dual Framework for Real-Time Dense RGB-D Scene Flow

This paper presents the first method to compute dense scene flow in real-time for RGB-D cameras. It is based on a variational formulation where brightness constancy and geometric consistency are imposed. Accounting for the depth data provided by RGB-D cameras, regularization of the flow field is imposed on the 3D surface (or set of surfaces) of the observed scene instead of on the image plane, leading to more geometrically consistent results. The minimization problem is efficiently solved by a primal-dual algorithm which is implemented on a GPU, achieving a previously unseen temporal performance. Several tests have been conducted to compare our approach with a state-of-the-art work (RGB-D flow) where quantitative and qualitative results are evaluated. Moreover, an additional set of experiments have been carried out to show the applicability of our work to estimate motion in realtime. Results demonstrate the accuracy of our approach, which outperforms the RGB-D flow, and which is able to estimate heterogeneous and non-rigid motions at a high frame rate.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech. Research supported by the Spanish Government under project DPI1011-25483 and the Spanish grant program FPI-MICINN 2012

SPATIAL EFFECTS: 3D MOVEMENT OF A VIRTUAL SOUND SOURCE

This document intends to explain the audio development project proposed to emulate the spatial effect of having a sound source moving in a 3D sonic environment. Throughout this document the reader will see a detailed explanation of how the problem was approached, the specific requirements needed to achieve the result, how this requirements were implemented using MatLab coding and how the end product was tested to evaluate the effectiveness of the solution provided. MatLab files will also be provided so that the reader can associate the concepts being described in order to have a better understanding of the process followed to develop this application.Architecture & Allied Art

SPATIAL EFFECTS: 3D MOVEMENT OF A VIRTUAL SOUND SOURCE

This document intends to give the reader a first approach into the spatial effects aimed to recreate three dimensional sound atmospheres using a set of headphones as the auditory source for the listener. Throughout this document the reader will find an introductory approach to the spatial audio effects that will directly affect the results expected of a well-designed simulated 3D sound environment. The analysis of these effects will allow the reader a better understanding of the expected outcome of their application in recreating such environment through a set of headphones.Architecture & Allied Art