6,867 research outputs found
Expansion-induced contribution to the precession of binary orbits
We point out the existence of new effects of global spacetime expansion on
local binary systems. In addition to a possible change of orbital size, there
is a contribution to the precession of elliptic orbits, to be added to the
well-known general relativistic effect in static spacetimes, and the
eccentricity can change. Our model calculations are done using geodesics in a
McVittie metric, representing a localized system in an asymptotically
Robertson-Walker spacetime; we give a few numerical estimates for that case,
and indicate ways in which the model should be improved.Comment: revtex, 7 pages, no figures; revised for publication in Classical and
Quantum Gravity, with minor changes in response to referees' comment
Stress and adolescent hippocampal neurogenesis: diet and exercise as cognitive modulators
Adolescence is a critical period for brain maturation. Deciphering how disturbances to the central nervous system at this time affect structure, function and behavioural outputs is important to better understand any long-lasting effects. Hippocampal neurogenesis occurs during development and continues throughout life. In adulthood, integration of these new cells into the hippocampus is important for emotional behaviour, cognitive function and neural plasticity. During the adolescent period, maturation of the hippocampus and heightened levels of hippocampal neurogenesis are observed, making alterations to neurogenesis at this time particularly consequential. As stress negatively affects hippocampal neurogenesis, and adolescence is a particularly stressful time of life, it is important to investigate the impact of stressor exposure at this time on hippocampal neurogenesis and cognitive function. Adolescence may represent not only a time for which stress can have long-lasting effects, but is also a critical period during which interventions, such as exercise and diet, could ameliorate stress-induced changes to hippocampal function. In addition, intervention at this time may also promote life-long behavioural changes that would aid in fostering increased hippocampal neurogenesis and cognitive function. This review addresses both the acute and long-term stress-induced alterations to hippocampal neurogenesis and cognition during the adolescent period, as well as changes to the stress response and pubertal hormones at this time which may result in differential effects than are observed in adulthood. We hypothesise that adolescence may represent an optimal time for healthy lifestyle changes to have a positive and long-lasting impact on hippocampal neurogenesis, and to protect against stress-induced deficits. We conclude that future research into the mechanisms underlying the susceptibility of the adolescent hippocampus to stress, exercise and diet and the consequent effect on cognition may provide insight into why adolescence may be a vital period for correct conditioning of future hippocampal function
A Characterisation of Strong Wave Tails in Curved Space-Times
A characterisation of when wave tails are strong is proposed. The existence
of a curvature induced tail (i.e. a Green's function term whose support
includes the interior of the light-cone) is commonly understood to cause
backscattering of the field governed by the relevant wave equation. Strong
tails are characterised as those for which the purely radiative part of the
field is backscattered. With this definition, it is shown that electromagnetic
waves in asymptotically flat space-times and fields governed by tail-free
propagation have weak tails, but minimally coupled scalar fields in a
cosmological scenario have strong tails.Comment: 17 pages, Revtex, to appear in Classical and Quantum Gravit
Bulk and surface energetics of lithium hydride crystal: benchmarks from quantum Monte Carlo and quantum chemistry
We show how accurate benchmark values of the surface formation energy of
crystalline lithium hydride can be computed by the complementary techniques of
quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) and wavefunction-based molecular quantum chemistry.
To demonstrate the high accuracy of the QMC techniques, we present a detailed
study of the energetics of the bulk LiH crystal, using both pseudopotential and
all-electron approaches. We show that the equilibrium lattice parameter agrees
with experiment to within 0.03 %, which is around the experimental uncertainty,
and the cohesive energy agrees to within around 10 meV per formula unit. QMC in
periodic slab geometry is used to compute the formation energy of the LiH (001)
surface, and we show that the value can be accurately converged with respect to
slab thickness and other technical parameters. The quantum chemistry
calculations build on the recently developed hierarchical scheme for computing
the correlation energy of a crystal to high precision. We show that the
hierarchical scheme allows the accurate calculation of the surface formation
energy, and we present results that are well converged with respect to basis
set and with respect to the level of correlation treatment. The QMC and
hierarchical results for the surface formation energy agree to within about 1
%.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figure
Social networks and labour productivity in Europe: An empirical investigation
This paper uses firm-level data recorded in the AMADEUS database to
investigate the distribution of labour productivity in different European
countries. We find that the upper tail of the empirical productivity
distributions follows a decaying power-law, whose exponent is obtained
by a semi-parametric estimation technique recently developed by Clementi et al.
(2006). The emergence of "fat tails" in productivity distribution has already
been detected in Di Matteo et al. (2005) and explained by means of a model of
social network. Here we show that this model is tested on a broader sample of
countries having different patterns of social network structure. These
different social attitudes, measured using a social capital indicator, reflect
in the power-law exponent estimates, verifying in this way the existence of
linkages among firms' productivity performance and social network.Comment: LaTeX2e; 18 pages with 3 figures; Journal of Economic Interaction and
Coordination, in pres
On isotropic cylindrically symmetric stellar models
We attempt to match the most general cylindrically symmetric vacuum
space-time with a Robertson-Walker interior. The matching conditions show that
the interior must be dust filled and that the boundary must be comoving.
Further, we show that the vacuum region must be polarized. Imposing the
condition that there are no trapped cylinders on an initial time slice, we can
apply a result of Thorne's and show that trapped cylinders never evolve. This
results in a simplified line element which we prove to be incompatible with the
dust interior. This result demonstrates the impossibility of the existence of
an isotropic cylindrically symmetric star (or even a star which has a
cylindrically symmetric portion). We investigate the problem from a different
perspective by looking at the expansion scalars of invariant null geodesic
congruences and, applying to the cylindrical case, the result that the product
of the signs of the expansion scalars must be continuous across the boundary.
The result may also be understood in relation to recent results about the
impossibility of the static axially symmetric analogue of the Einstein-Straus
model.Comment: 13 pages. To appear in Classical and Quantum Gravit
The Migmatitic Complex of Mundão (Viseu, northern Portugal)
A presença de rochas migmatíticas (metatexitos e diatexitos) na região de Mundão (Zona
Centro-Ibérica) mostra que as condições de fusão parcial foram atingidas durante o metamorfismo
regional varisco neste sector. Com base nas relações com a deformação, foi possível identificar várias
gerações de leucossomas e demonstrar que o processo de anatexia começou relativamente cedo, durante
os estádios finais do engrossamento crustal (D1) e continuou durante a tectónica extensional (D2) e
transcorrente (D3) subsequentes.The occurrence of migmatites (metatexites and diatexites) in the Mundão region (Central
Iberian Zone) shows that the Variscan regional metamorphism reached the partial melting conditions in
this sector. According to the relationships with the deformation, it was possible to identify several
generations of leucosomes and demonstrate that crustal anatexis started relatively early, during the last
stages of crustal thickening (D1) and continued during subsequent extensional (D2) and transcurrent
(D3) tectonics
New U-Pb zircon ages for Early Ordovician magmatism in Central Portugal
The Mundão anatectic complex is located in the axial zone of the Iberian massif of Central Northern Portugal
(Central Iberian Zone). It consists of lenticular bodies of felsic gneisses and stromatic metatexites derived from
metasedimentary protoliths of Neoproterozoic-Lower Cambrian age, both showing evidence of incipient to
extensive partial melting during the Variscan orogeny. Although the precise age of the migmatization event is still
unknown, field and structural evidence show that the partial melting conditions were reached in the last stages
of crustal thickening (D1), continued during subsequent extensional deformation (D2) and culminated with the
emplacement of large volumes of S-type granite magmas in a transcurrent tectonic regime (D3). The upper limit
for crustal melting is provided by the Late Carboniferous age of the S-type granitoids (312.4 2.7 Ma) intruding
the Mundão anatectic complex.
Due to their transitional contacts with the stromatic metatexites, the felsic gneisses were previously interpreted as
diatexites resulting from anatexis of the same pelitic and/or metagreywacke protolith. However, new U–Pb dating
by ID-TIMS show that the zircon fractions from one sample of the leucocratic gneisses are concordant and yield
a 206Pb/238U weighted average age of 474.5 1.5 Ma. The results obtained reveal that these rocks correspond
to orthogneisses instead of sedimentary-derived diatexites and provide a good estimate for the crystallization
age of their magmatic protolith. In contrast, the monazite fractions show distinct 207Pb/235U ages of 341.8
2.1 Ma and 453.4 2.0 Ma and may therefore have lost Pb to different extent during Variscan deformation and
metamorphism.
The preservation of inherited ages of the igneous protolith in the Mundão leucocratic gneisses suggests that zircon
was mainly incorporated as restitic material, with only minor precipitation and/or recrystallization during crustal
anatexis.
The new age of the Mundão orthogneiss brackets the so-called Early Ordovician Sardic unconformity, characteristic
of the Central Iberian Zone
The Central Singularity in Spherical Collapse
The gravitational strength of the central singularity in spherically
symmetric space-times is investigated. Necessary conditions for the singularity
to be gravitationally weak are derived and it is shown that these are violated
in a wide variety of circumstances. These conditions allow conclusions to be
drawn about the nature of the singularity without having to integrate the
geodesic equations. In particular, any geodesic with a non-zero amount of
angular momentum which impinges on the singularity terminates in a strong
curvature singularity.Comment: 17 pages; revised and corrected with improved result
Collision lifetimes and impact statistics of near-Earth asteroids
We have examined the lifetimes of Near-Earth asteroids (NEA's) by directly computing the collision probabilities with other asteroids and with the terrestrial planets. We compare these to the dynamical lifetimes, and to collisional lifetimes assumed by other workers. We discuss the implications of the differences. The lifetimes of NEA's are important because, along with the statistics of craters on the Earth and Moon, they help us to compute the number of NEA's and the rate at which new NEA's are brought to the vicinity of the Earth. Assuming that the NEA population is in steady-state, the lifetimes determine the flux of new bodies needed to replenish the population. Earlier estimates of the lifetimes ignored (or incompletely accounted for) the differences in the velocities of asteroids as they move in their orbits, so our results differ from (for example) Greenberg and Chapman (1983, Icarus 55, 455) and Wetherill (1988, Icarus 76, 1) by factors of 2 to 10. We have computed the collision rates and relative velocities of NEA's with each other, the main-belt asteroids, and the terrestrial planets, using the corrected method described by Bottke et. al. (1992, GRL, in press). We find that NEA's typically have shorter collisional lifetimes than do main-belt asteroids of the same size, due to their high eccentricities, which typically give them aphelia in the main belt. Consequently, they spend a great deal of time in the main belt, and are moving much slower than the bodies around them, making them 'sitting ducks' for impacts with other asteroids. They cross the paths of many objects, and their typical collision velocities are much higher (10-15 km/s) than the collision velocities (5 km/s) among objects within the main belt. These factors combine to give them substantially shorter lifetimes than had been previously estimated
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