X-ray and Sunyaev-Zel'dovich scaling relations in galaxy clusters

[Abridged] We present an analysis of the scaling relations between X-ray properties and Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) parameters for a sample of 24 X-ray luminous galaxy clusters observed with Chandra and with measured SZ effect. These objects are in the redshift range 0.14--0.82 and have X-ray bolometric luminosity L>10^45 erg/s. We perform a spatially resolved spectral analysis and recover the density, temperature and pressure profiles of the ICM, just relying on the spherical symmetry of the cluster and the hydrostatic equilibrium hypothesis. We observe that the correlations among X-ray quantities only are in agreement with previous results obtained for samples of high-z X-ray luminous galaxy clusters. On the relations involving SZ quantities, we obtain that they correlate with the gas temperature with a logarithmic slope significantly larger than the predicted value from the self-similar model. The measured scatter indicates, however, that the central Compton parameter y_0 is a proxy of the gas temperature at the same level of other X-ray quantities like luminosity. Our results on the X-ray and SZ scaling relations show a tension between the quantities more related to the global energy of the system (e.g. gas temperature, gravitating mass) and the indicators of the structure of the ICM (e.g. gas density profile, central Compton parameter y_0), showing the most significant deviations from the values of the slope predicted from the self-similar model in the L-T, L-M_{tot}, M_{gas}-T, y_0-T relations. When the slope is fixed to the self-similar value, these relations consistently show a negative evolution suggesting a scenario in which the ICM at higher redshift has lower both X-ray luminosity and pressure in the central regions than the expectations from self-similar model.Comment: MNRAS in press - Minor revision to match published versio

Mesurer la stigmatisaion perçue chez les personnes souffrant de troubles psychiques : traduction française, validation et adaptation de la Stigma Scale

L'objectif de l'étude présentée est d'adapter et de valider une version française de la Stigma Scale (King, 2007) auprès d'une population de personnes souffrant de troubles psychiques. Dans une première phase, la stabilité temporelle (fidélité test-retest), la cohérence interne et la validité convergente de l'instrument original à 28 items traduit en français ont été évaluées auprès d'un échantillon de 183 patients. Les résultats d'analyses factorielles confirmatoires ne nous ont pas permis de confirmer la structure originale de l'instrument. Nous avons donc proposé, sur la base des résultats d'une analyse factorielle exploratoire, une version courte de l'échelle de stigmatisation (9 items) qui conserve la structure en trois facteurs du modèle original. Dans une deuxième phase, nous avons examiné les qualités psychométriques et validé cette version abrégée de l'échelle de stigmatisation auprès d'un second échantillon de 234 patients. Les indices d'ajustements de notre analyse factorielle confirmatoire confirme la structure en trois facteurs de la version abrégée de la Stigma Scale. Les résultats suggèrent que la version française abrégée de l'échelle de stigmatisation constitue un instrument utile, fiable et valide dans l'autoévaluation de la stigmatisation perçue par des personnes souffrant de troubles psychiques. - Aim People suffering from mental illness are exposed to stigma. However, only few tools are available to assess stigmatization as perceived from the patient's perspective. The aim of this study is to adapt and validate a French version of the Stigma Scale (King, 2007). This self-report questionnaire has a three-factor structure: discrimination, disclosure and positive aspects of mental illness. Discrimination subscale refers to perceived negative reactions by others. Disclosure subscale refers mainly to managing disclosure to avoid discrimination and finally positive aspects subscale taps into how patients are becoming more accepting, more understanding toward their illness. Method In the first step, internal consistency, convergent validity and test-retest reliability of the French adaptation of the 28-item scale have been assessed on a sample of 183 patients. Results of confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) did not confirm the hypothesized structure. In light of the failed attempts to validate the original version, an alternative 9-item short-form version of the Stigma Scale, maintaining the integrity of the original model, was developed based on results of exploratory factor analyses in the first sample and cross- validated in a new sample of 234 patients. Results Results of CFA did not confirm that the data fitted well to the three-factor model of the 28-item Stigma Scale (χ2/άί=2.02, GFI=0.77, AGFI=0.73, RMSEA=0.07, CFI=0.77 et NNFI=0.75). Cronbach's α are excellent for discrimination (0.84) and disclosure (0.83) subscales but poor for potential positive aspects (0.46). External validity is satisfactory. Overall Stigma Scale total score is negatively correlated with score on Rosenberg's Self-Esteem Scale (r = -0.49), and each sub-scale is significantly correlated with a visual analogue scale that refers to the specific aspect of stigma (0.43 < |r| < 0.60). Intraclass correlation coefficients between 0.68 and 0.89 indicate good test- retest reliability. Results of CFA demonstrate that the items chosen for the short version of the Stigma Scale have the expected fit properties fa2/df=1.02, GFI=0.98, AGFI=0.98, RMSEA=0.01, CFI=1.0 et NNFI=1.0). Considering the small number (3 items) of items in each subscales of the short version of the Stigma Scale, a coefficients for the discrimination (0.57), disclosure (0.80) and potential positive aspects subscales (0.62) are considered as good. Conclusion Our results suggest that the 9-item French short-version of the Stigma Scale is a useful, reliable and valid self-report questionnaire to assess perceived stigmatization in people suffering from mental illness. The time of completion is really short and questions are well understood and accepted by the patients

Reconstructing mass profiles of simulated galaxy clusters by combining Sunyaev-Zeldovich and X-ray images

We present a method to recover mass profiles of galaxy clusters by combining data on thermal Sunyaev-Zeldovich (tSZ) and X-ray imaging, thereby avoiding to use any information on X-ray spectroscopy. This method, which represents a development of the geometrical deprojection technique presented in Ameglio et al. (2007), implements the solution of the hydrostatic equilibrium equation. In order to quantify the efficiency of our mass reconstructions, we apply our technique to a set of hydrodynamical simulations of galaxy clusters. We propose two versions of our method of mass reconstruction. Method 1 is completely model-independent, while Method 2 assumes instead the analytic mass profile proposed by Navarro et al. (1997) (NFW). We find that the main source of bias in recovering the mass profiles is due to deviations from hydrostatic equilibrium, which cause an underestimate of the mass of about 10 per cent at r_500 and up to 20 per cent at the virial radius. Method 1 provides a reconstructed mass which is biased low by about 10 per cent, with a 20 per cent scatter, with respect to the true mass profiles. Method 2 proves to be more stable, reducing the scatter to 10 per cent, but with a larger bias of 20 per cent, mainly induced by the deviations from equilibrium in the outskirts. To better understand the results of Method 2, we check how well it allows to recover the relation between mass and concentration parameter. When analyzing the 3D mass profiles we find that including in the fit the inner 5 per cent of the virial radius biases high the halo concentration. Also, at a fixed mass, hotter clusters tend to have larger concentration. Our procedure recovers the concentration parameter essentially unbiased but with a scatter of about 50 per cent.Comment: 13 pages, 11 figures, submitted to MNRA

Wigner distributions for finite dimensional quantum systems: An algebraic approach

We discuss questions pertaining to the definition of `momentum', `momentum space', `phase space', and `Wigner distributions'; for finite dimensional quantum systems. For such systems, where traditional concepts of `momenta' established for continuum situations offer little help, we propose a physically reasonable and mathematically tangible definition and use it for the purpose of setting up Wigner distributions in a purely algebraic manner. It is found that the point of view adopted here is limited to odd dimensional systems only. The mathematical reasons which force this situation are examined in detail.Comment: Latex, 13 page

Recurrent deficit irrigation and fruit harvest affect tree water relations and fruitlet growth in ‘Valencia’ orange

Background. Partial rootzone drying is an irrigation strategy known for increasing water use efficiency without significantly affecting tree water status. ‘Valencia’ oranges have a very long development period and nearly mature fruit and new fruitlets may be present at the same time on the tree, competing for water and assimilates. Objectives. The present study investigates the effect of recurrent deficit irrigation and fruit harvest on tree water status and fruitlet growth of ‘Valencia’ orange. Methods. Forty-eight adult trees were exposed to three irrigation treatments for seven years (2007-2013): irrigation with 100% of ETc (CI), continuous deficit irrigation (DI, 50% of CI) and partial root-zone drying (PRD, 50% of CI on alternated sides of the root-zone). In spring 2014, stem water potential (Ψstem) and continuous measurements of sap flow and fruitlet growth were recorded before (May) and after (June) the harvest of mature fruit. Results. No differences in Ψstem were found among irrigation treatments, while Ψstem was lower in June than in May at midday. In both May and June, sap flow density (not sap flow per tree) was higher in DI than in CI and PRD trees suggesting more efficient water uptake/transport in the former. In May, DI and PRD fruit showed lower daily relative growth rate (RGR) than CI fruit due to a possible shortage of carbon and nutrients. After removing mature fruits, differences among irrigation treatments were canceled. Sap flow was directly related to fruit RGR at low sap flow rates, but inversely related to RGR at high sap flow rates. Conclusions. Our data show that the presence of maturing fruit does not impact the water status of ‘Valencia’ trees, while it may transiently limit fruitlet growth (by source limitation) in deficit irrigated trees

Phase-space descriptions of operators and the Wigner distribution in quantum mechanics II. The finite dimensional case

A complete solution to the problem of setting up Wigner distribution for N-level quantum systems is presented. The scheme makes use of some of the ideas introduced by Dirac in the course of defining functions of noncommuting observables and works uniformly for all N. Further, the construction developed here has the virtue of being essentially input-free in that it merely requires finding a square root of a certain N^2 x N^2 complex symmetric matrix, a task which, as is shown, can always be accomplished analytically. As an illustration, the case of a single qubit is considered in some detail and it is shown that one recovers the result of Feynman and Wootters for this case without recourse to any auxiliary constructs.Comment: 14 pages, typos corrected, para and references added in introduction, submitted to Jour. Phys.

Alternative linear structures for classical and quantum systems

The possibility of deforming the (associative or Lie) product to obtain alternative descriptions for a given classical or quantum system has been considered in many papers. Here we discuss the possibility of obtaining some novel alternative descriptions by changing the linear structure instead. In particular we show how it is possible to construct alternative linear structures on the tangent bundle TQ of some classical configuration space Q that can be considered as "adapted" to the given dynamical system. This fact opens the possibility to use the Weyl scheme to quantize the system in different non equivalent ways, "evading", so to speak, the von Neumann uniqueness theorem.Comment: 32 pages, two figures, to be published in IJMP

Ceramic traditions and technological choices revealed by early Iron Age vessels: the case of Vetulonia (southern Tuscany)

Early Iron Age pottery from central Italian regions has so far largely been studied with a particular emphasis on typological and stylistical features. However, an analytical approach to ancient ceramic technology can reveal a wealth of data on the know-how of early Iron Age central Italian craftspeople and their production choices. With this aim we conducted archaeometric analyses of forty vessels from one of the main protohistoric cemeteries of Vetulonia, coupled with geological surveys of the territory around the settlement and the collection of raw materials. The occurrence of a ceramic fabric marked by fragments of metasedimentary rocks, as opposed to a fabric tempered with flint fragments, indicates the existence of separate traditions, characterised by distinct processes and the addition of specific tempers, probably reflecting different technological practices. The significance of our findings is briefly discussed within the historical and social scenario of early Iron Age Vetulonia, at the dawn of urbanisation

Geometry of mixed states and degeneracy structure of geometric phases for multi-level quantum systems. A unitary group approach

We analyze the geometric aspects of unitary evolution of general states for a multilevel quantum system by exploiting the structure of coadjoint orbits in the unitary group Lie algebra. Using the same method in the case of SU(3) we study the effect of degeneracies on geometric phases for three-level systems. This is shown to lead to a highly nontrivial generalization of the result for two-level systems in which degeneracy results in a "monopole" structure in parameter space. The rich structures that arise are related to the geometry of adjoint orbits in SU(3). The limiting case of a two-level degeneracy in a three-level system is shown to lead to the known monopole structure.Comment: Latex, 27 p