The structure of the central disk of NGC 1068: a clumpy disk model

NGC 1068 is one of the best studied Seyfert II galaxies, for which the blackhole mass has been determined from the Doppler velocities of water maser. We show that the standard $\alpha$-disk model of NGC 1068 gives disk mass between the radii of 0.65 pc and 1.1 pc (the region from which water maser emission is detected) to be about 7x10$^7$ M$_\odot$ (for $\alpha=0.1$), more than four times the blackhole mass, and a Toomre Q-parameter for the disk is $\sim$0.001. This disk is therefore highly self-gravitating and is subject to large-amplitude density fluctuations. We conclude that the standard $\alpha$-viscosity description for the structure of the accretion disk is invalid for NGC 1068. In this paper we develop a new model for the accretion disk. The disk is considered to be composed of gravitationally bound clumps; accretion in this clumped disk model arises because of gravitational interaction of clumps with each other and the dynamical frictional drag exerted on clumps from the stars in the central region of the galaxy. The clumped disk model provides a self-consistent description of the observations of NGC 1068. The computed temperature and density are within the allowed parameter range for water maser emission, and the rotational velocity in the disk falls off as $r^{-0.35}$.Comment: To appear in Ap

The Discovery of the Antarctic Ozone Hole

The author Nassim Taleb has coined the term Black Swan event to describe a very low probability event that come as a surprise and has a major effect in the field in which it occurs. He suggests that such events have occurred in history, finance, science, and technology more frequently than one can expect from stochastic theory. The discovery of the Antarctic Ozone Hole fits this description well. In this paper, we describe the events surrounding this discovery and the role of NASA satellite data before and soon after the seminal paper by Farman et al., in May 1985 that first brought this phenomenon to the attention of the broader science community

Differential rotation enhanced dissipation of tides in the PSR J0045-7319 Binary

Recent observations of PSR J0045-7319, a radio pulsar in a close eccentric orbit with a massive B-star companion, indicate that the system's orbital period is decreasing on a timescale of $\approx 5 \times10^{5}$ years, which is much shorter than the timescale of $\approx$ 10^9 years given by the standard theory of tidal dissipation in radiative stars. Observations also provide strong evidence that the B-star is rotating rapidly, perhaps at nearly its break up speed. We show that the dissipation of the dynamical tide in a star rotating in the same direction as the orbital motion of its companion (prograde rotation) with a speed greater than the orbital angular speed of the star at periastron results in an increase in the orbital period of the binary system with time. Thus, since the observed time derivative of the orbital period is large and negative, the B-star in the PSR J0045-7319 binary must have retrograde rotation if tidal effects are to account for the orbital decay. We also show that the time scale for the synchronization of the B-star's spin with the orbital angular speed of the star at periastron is comparable to the orbital evolution time. From the work of Goldreich and Nicholson (1989) we therefore expect that the B-star should be rotating differentially, with the outer layers rotating more slowly than the interior. We show that the dissipation of the dynamical tide in such a differentially rotating B-star is enhanced by almost three orders of magnitude leading to an orbital evolution time for the PSR J0045-7319 Binary that is consistent with the observations.Comment: 8 pages, tex. Submitted to Ap

A study on ground water quality of industrial area at Gajraula (U.P.), India

The present study aims to identify the ground water contamination problem in villages located in the close vicinity of Gajraula industrial area at Gajraula (U.P.), India. Ground water samples were collected from different villages at the depth of 40 and 120 feet from earth’s surface layer. Analytical techniques as described in the standard methods for examination of water and waste water were adopted for physico-chemical analysis of ground water samples and the results compared with the standards given by WHO and BIS guidelines for drinking water. Water quality index was calculated for quality standard of ground water for drinking purposes. The present investigation revealed that the water quality is moderately degraded due to high range of seven water quality parameters such as Temperature (18.33-32.36 0C), conductivity (925.45-1399.59 ?mho/cm), TDS (610.80-923.73 mgL-1), Alkalinity (260.17- 339.83 mgL-1), Ca-Hardness (129.68-181.17 mgL-1), Mg-Hardness (94.07-113.50 mgLÉ1) and COD (13.99-25.62 mgL-1). The water quality index (WQI) also indicated the all the water quality rating comes under the standard marginal values (45-64) i.e. water quality is frequently threatened or impaired and conditions usually depart from natural or desirable levels

Calculations of electronic band structure and optical properties of HgTe under pressure

The electronic band structure and optical properties of HgTe have been reported using the full potential linearized augmented plane wave (FP-LAPW) method based on density functional theory. In this approach, generalized gradient approximation (GGA) and Engel-Vosko generalized gradient approximation (EV-GGA) have been used for the exchange correlation potential in the calculations. The electronic band structures have been calculated to discuss the electronic properties and optical properties of the compound. Moreover, optical properties including dielectric functions, absorption, optical conductivity, refractive index, reflectivity and energy loss spectrum have been obtained and analyzed in details within the energy range up to 14 eV. The obtained results have been compared with the previous calculations and available experimental data. Overall good agreement is found

An Extreme Learning Machine-Relevance Feedback Framework for Enhancing the Accuracy of a Hybrid Image Retrieval System

The process of searching, indexing and retrieving images from a massive database is a challenging task and the solution to these problems is an efficient image retrieval system. In this paper, a unique hybrid Content-based image retrieval system is proposed where different attributes of an image like texture, color and shape are extracted by using Gray level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM), color moment and various region props procedure respectively. A hybrid feature matrix or vector (HFV) is formed by an integration of feature vectors belonging to three individual visual attributes. This HFV is given as an input to an Extreme learning machine (ELM) classifier which is based on a solitary hidden layer of neurons and also is a type of feed-forward neural system. ELM performs efficient class prediction of the query image based on the pre-trained data. Lastly, to capture the high level human semantic information, Relevance feedback (RF) is utilized to retrain or reformulate the training of ELM. The advantage of the proposed system is that a combination of an ELM-RF framework leads to an evolution of a modified learning and intelligent classification system. To measure the efficiency of the proposed system, various parameters like Precision, Recall and Accuracy are evaluated. Average precision of 93.05%, 81.03%, 75.8% and 90.14% is obtained respectively on Corel-1K, Corel-5K, Corel-10K and GHIM-10 benchmark datasets. The experimental analysis portrays that the implemented technique outmatches many state-of-the-art related approaches depicting varied hybrid CBIR system

Electronic, mechanical, thermodynamic and optical properties of CdS under pressure

We report high pressure study of CdS using the full-potential linear augmented plane wave (FP-LAPW) method based on density functional theory approach. In this approach, generalized gradient approximation (GGA) and Engel- Vosko generalized gradient approximation (EV-GGA) have been used for the exchange correlation potential in the calculations. The equilibrium lattice constant, electronic band structure, elastic constants, Debye temperature and melting temperature of binary solid CdS have been calculated under ambient and high pressure. Furthermore, the linear optical properties such as dielectric function, absorption, optical conductivity reflectivity, refractive index and energy loss are computed and analyzed in detail within the energy range up to 14 eV. The obtained results are in good agreement with earlier reported experimental and other theoretical results

Tidal spin-up of stars in dense stellar cusps around massive black holes

We show that main-sequence stars in dense stellar cusps around massive black holes are likely to rotate at a significant fraction of the centrifugal breakup velocity due to spin-up by hyperbolic tidal encounters. We use realistic stellar structure models to calculate analytically the tidal spin-up in soft encounters, and extrapolate these results to close and penetrating collisions using smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations. We find that the spin-up falls off only slowly with distance from the black hole because the increased tidal coupling in slower collisions at larger distances compensates for the decrease in the stellar density. We apply our results to the stars near the massive black hole in the Galactic Center. Over their lifetime, ~1 Msol main sequence stars in the inner 0.3 pc of the Galactic Center are spun-up on average to ~10%--30% of the centrifugal breakup limit. Such rotation is ~20--60 times higher than is usual for such stars and may affect their subsequent evolution and their observed properties.Comment: 25 pages, 7 figures. Submitted to Ap

A general scheme for modeling gamma-ray burst prompt emission

We describe a general method for modeling gamma-ray burst prompt emission. We find that for the burst to be produced via the synchrotron process unphysical conditions are required -- the distance of the source from the center of the explosion ($R_\gamma$) must be larger than $\sim 10^{17}$cm and the source Lorentz factor \gta 10^3; for such a high Lorentz factor the deceleration radius ($R_d$) is less than $R_\gamma$ even if the number density of particles in the surrounding medium is as small as $\sim 0.1$ cm$^{-3}$. The result, $R_\gamma > R_d$, is in contradiction with the early x-ray and optical afterglow data. The synchrotron-self-Compton (SSC) process fares much better. There is a large solution space for a typical GRB prompt emission to be produced via the SSC process. The prompt optical emission accompanying the burst is found to be very bright (\lta 14 mag; for $z\sim2$) in the SSC model, which exceeds the observed flux (or upper limit) for most GRBs. Continuous acceleration of electrons can significantly reduce the optical flux and bring it down to the observed limits. (Abridged)Comment: Published in MNRAS Jan 2008, 56 page