6,349 research outputs found
High Metallicity Mg II Absorbers in the z < 1 Lyman alpha Forest of PKS 0454+039: Giant LSB Galaxies?
We report the discovery of two iron-group enhanced high-metallicity Mg II
absorbers in a search through 28 Lyman Alpha forest clouds along the PKS
0454+039 sight line. Based upon our survey and the measured redshift number
densities of W_r(MgII) <= 0.3 A absorbers and Lyman Alpha absorbers at z ~ 1,
we suggest that roughly 5% of Lyman Alpha absorbers at z < 1 will exhibit
"weak" Mg II absorption to a 5-sigma W_r(2796) detection limit of 0.02 A. The
two discovered absorbers, at redshifts z = 0.6248 and z = 0.9315, have W_r(Lya)
= 0.33 and 0.15 A, respectively. Based upon photoionization modeling, the H I
column densities are inferred to be in the range 15.8 <= log N(HI) <= 16.8
cm^-2. For the z = 0.6428 absorber, if the abundance pattern is solar, then the
cloud has [Fe/H] > -1; if its gas-phase abundance follows that of depleted
clouds in our Galaxy, then [Fe/H] > 0 is inferred. For the z = 0.9315 absorber,
the metallicity is [Fe/H] > 0, whether the abundance pattern is solar or
suffers depletion. Imaging and spectroscopic studies of the PKS 0454+039 field
reveal no candidate luminous objects at these redshifts. We discuss the
possibility that these Mg II absorbers may arise in the class of "giant" low
surface brightness galaxies, which have [Fe/H] >= -1, and even [Fe/H] >= 0, in
their extended disks. We tentatively suggest that a substantial fraction of
these "weak" Mg II absorbers may select low surface brightness galaxies out to
z ~ 1.Comment: Accepted The Astrophysical Journal; 25 pages; 6 encapsulated figure
Communication in cross-cultural consultations in primary care in Europe: the case for improvement. The rationale for the RESTORE FP 7 project
The purpose of this paper is to substantiate the importance of research about barriers and levers to the implementation of supports for cross-cultural communication in primary care settings in Europe. After an overview of migrant health issues, with the focus on communication in cross-cultural consultations in primary care and the importance of language barriers, we highlight the fact that there are serious problems in routine practice that persist over time and across different European settings. Language and cultural barriers hamper communication in consultations between doctors and migrants, with a range of negative effects including poorer compliance and a greater propensity to access emergency services. It is well established that there is a need for skilled interpreters and for professionals who are culturally competent to address this problem. A range of professional guidelines and training initiatives exist that support the communication in cross-cultural consultations
in primary care. However, these are commonly not implemented in daily practice. It is as yet unknown why professionals do not accept or implement these guidelines and interventions, or under what circumstances they would do so. A new study involving six European countries, RESTORE (REsearch into implementation STrategies to support
patients of different ORigins and language background in a variety of European primary care settings), aims to address these gaps in knowledge. It uses a unique combination of a contemporary social theory, normalisation process theory (NPT) and participatory learning and action (PLA) research. This should enhance understanding of the levers and barriers to implementation, as well as providing stakeholders, with the opportunity to generate creative solutions to problems experienced with the implementation of such interventions
Simulation of Water Cerenkov Detectors Using {\sc geant4}
We present a detailed simulation of the performance of water Cerenkov
detectors suitable for use in the Pierre Auger Observatory. Using {\sc geant4},
a flexible object-oriented simulation program, including all known physics
processes, has been developed. The program also allows interactive
visualization, and can easily be modified for any experimental setup.Comment: Talk to be presented at the XI Symposium on Very High Energy Cosmic
Ray Interaction
The Effect of Clouds on Air Showers Observation from Space
Issues relating to extensive air showers observation by a space-borne
fluorescence detector and the effects of clouds on the observations are
investigated using Monte Carlo simulation. The simulations assume the presence
of clouds with varying altitudes and optical depths. Simulated events are
reconstructed assuming a cloud-free atmosphere. While it is anticipated that
auxiliary instruments, such as LIDAR (LIght Detection And Ranging), will be
employed to measure the atmospheric conditions during actual observation, it is
still possible that these instruments may fail to recognize the presence of a
cloud in a particular shower observation. The purpose of this study is to
investigate the effects on the reconstructed shower parameters in such cases.
Reconstruction results are shown for both monocular and stereo detectors and
for the two limiting cases of optically thin, and optically thick clouds.Comment: 31 pages, 13 figure
A catalogue of damped Lyman alpha absorption systems and radio flux densities of the background quasars
We present a catalogue of the 322 damped Lyman alpha absorbers taken from the
literature. All damped Lyman alpha absorbers are included, with no selection on
redshift or quasar magnitude. Of these, 123 are candidates and await
confirmation using high resolution spectroscopy. For all 322 objects we
catalogue the radio properties of the background quasars, where known. Around
60 quasars have radio flux densities above 0.1 Jy and approximately half of
these have optical magnitudes brighter than V = 18. This compilation should
prove useful in several areas of extragalactic/cosmological research.Comment: 26 Pages, 12 PS tables, 1 embedded table. Accepted by PASA.
Continuously updated online catalogue available at
http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/~sjc/dl
Pure Samples of Quark and Gluon Jets at the LHC
Having pure samples of quark and gluon jets would greatly facilitate the
study of jet properties and substructure, with many potential standard model
and new physics applications. To this end, we consider multijet and jets+X
samples, to determine the purity that can be achieved by simple kinematic cuts
leaving reasonable production cross sections. We find, for example, that at the
7 TeV LHC, the pp {\to} {\gamma}+2jets sample can provide 98% pure quark jets
with 200 GeV of transverse momentum and a cross section of 5 pb. To get 10 pb
of 200 GeV jets with 90% gluon purity, the pp {\to} 3jets sample can be used.
b+2jets is also useful for gluons, but only if the b-tagging is very efficient.Comment: 19 pages, 16 figures; v2 section on formally defining quark and gluon
jets has been adde
Quantum baker maps with controlled-NOT coupling
The characteristic stretching and squeezing of chaotic motion is linearized
within the finite number of phase space domains which subdivide a classical
baker map. Tensor products of such maps are also chaotic, but a more
interesting generalized baker map arises if the stacking orders for the factor
maps are allowed to interact. These maps are readily quantized, in such a way
that the stacking interaction is entirely attributed to primary qubits in each
map, if each subsystem has power-of-two Hilbert space dimension. We here study
the particular example of two baker maps that interact via a controlled-not
interaction. Numerical evidence indicates that the control subspace becomes an
ideal Markovian environment for the target map in the limit of large Hilbert
space dimension.Comment: 8 page
Entanglement purification of unknown quantum states
A concern has been expressed that ``the Jaynes principle can produce fake
entanglement'' [R. Horodecki et al., Phys. Rev. A {\bf 59}, 1799 (1999)]. In
this paper we discuss the general problem of distilling maximally entangled
states from copies of a bipartite quantum system about which only partial
information is known, for instance in the form of a given expectation value. We
point out that there is indeed a problem with applying the Jaynes principle of
maximum entropy to more than one copy of a system, but the nature of this
problem is classical and was discussed extensively by Jaynes. Under the
additional assumption that the state of the copies of the
quantum system is exchangeable, one can write down a simple general expression
for . We show how to modify two standard entanglement purification
protocols, one-way hashing and recurrence, so that they can be applied to
exchangeable states. We thus give an explicit algorithm for distilling
entanglement from an unknown or partially known quantum state.Comment: 20 pages RevTeX 3.0 + 1 figure (encapsulated Postscript) Submitted to
Physical Review
A major electronics upgrade for the H.E.S.S. Cherenkov telescopes 1-4
The High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.) is an array of imaging
atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes (IACTs) located in the Khomas Highland in
Namibia. It consists of four 12-m telescopes (CT1-4), which started operations
in 2003, and a 28-m diameter one (CT5), which was brought online in 2012. It is
the only IACT system featuring telescopes of different sizes, which provides
sensitivity for gamma rays across a very wide energy range, from ~30 GeV up to
~100 TeV. Since the camera electronics of CT1-4 are much older than the one of
CT5, an upgrade is being carried out; first deployment was in 2015, full
operation is planned for 2016. The goals of this upgrade are threefold:
reducing the dead time of the cameras, improving the overall performance of the
array and reducing the system failure rate related to aging. Upon completion,
the upgrade will assure the continuous operation of H.E.S.S. at its full
sensitivity until and possibly beyond the advent of CTA. In the design of the
new components, several CTA concepts and technologies were used and are thus
being evaluated in the field: The upgraded read-out electronics is based on the
NECTAR readout chips; the new camera front- and back-end control subsystems are
based on an FPGA and an embedded ARM computer; the communication between
subsystems is based on standard Ethernet technologies. These hardware solutions
offer good performance, robustness and flexibility. The design of the new
cameras is reported here.Comment: Proceedings of the 34th International Cosmic Ray Conference, 30 July-
6 August, 2015, The Hague, The Netherland
Hubble Space Telescope Observations of Element Abundances in Low-redshift Damped Lyman-alpha Galaxies and Implications for the Global Metallicity-Redshift Relation
Most models of cosmic chemical evolution predict that the mass-weighted mean
interstellar metallicity of galaxies should rise with time from a low value
solar at to a nearly solar value at . In the
absence of any selection effects, the damped Lyman-alpha absorbers (DLAs) in
quasar spectra are expected to show such a rise in global metallicity. However,
it has been difficult to determine whether or not DLAs show this effect,
primarily because of the very small number of DLA metallicity measurements at
low redshifts. In an attempt to put tighter constraints on the low-redshift end
of the DLA metallicity-redshift relation, we have observed Zn II and Cr II
lines in four DLAs at , using the Space Telescope Imaging
Spectrograph (STIS) onboard the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). These
observations have provided the first constraints on Zn abundances in DLAs with
. In all the three DLAs for which our observations offer meaningful
constraints on the metallicity, the data suggest that the metallicities are
much lower than the solar value. These results are consistent with recent
imaging studies indicating that these DLAs may be associated with dwarf or low
surface brightness galaxies. We combine our results with higher redshift data
from the literature to estimate the global mean metallicity-redshift relation
for DLAs. We find that the global mean metallicity shows at most a slow
increase with decreasing redshift. ...(Please see the paper for the complete
abstract).Comment: 56 pages, including 13 figures. Accepted for publication in the
Astrophysical Journa
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