7,351 research outputs found
A critical Mach number for electron injection in collisionless shocks
Electron acceleration in collisionless shocks with arbitrary magnetic field
orientations is discussed. It is shown that the injection of thermal electrons
into diffusive shock acceleration process is achieved by an electron beam with
a loss-cone in velocity space that is reflected back upstream from the shock
through shock drift acceleration mechanism. The electron beam is able to excite
whistler waves which can scatter the energetic electrons themselves when the
Alfven Mach number of the shock is sufficiently high. A critical Mach number
for the electron injection is obtained as a function of upstream parameters.
The application to supernova remnant shocks is discussed.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure, accepted for publication in Physical Review
Letter
X-Ray Study of the Outer Region of Abell 2142 with Suzaku
We observed outer regions of a bright cluster of galaxies A2142 with Suzaku.
Temperature and brightness structures were measured out to the virial radius
() with good sensitivity. We confirmed the temperature drop from 9 keV
around the cluster center to about 3.5 keV at , with the density
profile well approximated by the model with . Within
0.4\r_{200}, the entropy profile agrees with , as predicted by the
accretion shock model. The entropy slope becomes flatter in the outer region
and negative around . These features suggest that the intracluster
medium in the outer region is out of thermal equilibrium. Since the relaxation
timescale of electron-ion Coulomb collision is expected to be longer than the
elapsed time after shock heating at , one plausible reason of the low
entropy is the low electron temperature compared to that of ions. Other
possible explanations would be gas clumpiness, turbulence and bulk motions of
ICM\@. We also searched for a warm-hot intergalactic medium around
and set an upper limit on the oxygen line intensity. Assuming a line-of-sight
depth of 2 Mpc and oxygen abundance of 0.1 solar, the upper limit of an
overdensity is calculated to be 280 or 380, depending on the foreground
assumption.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figure
Electronic Orders Induced by Kondo Effect in Non-Kramers f-Electron Systems
This paper clarifies the microscopic nature of the staggered scalar order,
which is specific to even number of f electrons per site. In such systems,
crystalline electric field (CEF) can make a singlet ground state. As exchange
interaction with conduction electrons increases, the CEF singlet at each site
gives way to Kondo singlets. The collective Kondo singlets are identified with
itinerant states that form energy bands. Near the boundary of itinerant and
localized states, a new type of electronic order appears with staggered Kondo
and CEF singlets. We present a phenomenological three-state model that
qualitatively reproduces the characteristic phase diagram, which have been
obtained numerically with use of the continuous-time quantum Monte Carlo
combined with the dynamical mean-field theory. The scalar order observed in
PrFe_4P_{12} is ascribed to this staggered order accompanying charge density
wave (CDW) of conduction electrons. Accurate photoemission and tunneling
spectroscopy should be able to probe sharp peaks below and above the Fermi
level in the ordered phase.Comment: 7 pages, 8 figure
Non-collinear magnetism in Al-Mn topologically disordered systems
We have performed the first ab-initio calculations of a possible complex
non-collinear magnetic structure in aluminium-rich Al-Mn liquids within the
real-space tight-binding LMTO method. In our previous work we predicted the
existence of large magnetic moments in Al-Mn liquids [A.M. Bratkovsky, A.V.
Smirnov, D. N. Manh, and A. Pasturel, \prb {\bf 52}, 3056 (1995)] which has
been very recently confirmed experimentally. Our present calculations show that
there is a strong tendency for the moments on Mn to have a non-collinear
(random) order retaining their large value of about 3~. The d-electrons
on Mn demonstrate a pronounced non-rigid band behaviour which cannot be
reproduced within a simple Stoner picture. The origin of the magnetism in these
systems is a topological disorder which drives the moments formation and
frustrates their directions in the liquid phase.Comment: 10 pages, RevTex 3.0, 24kb. 3 PS figures available on request from
[email protected] The work has been presented at ERC
``Electronic Structire of Solids'' (Lunteren, The Netherlands, 9-14 September
1995
Exogenous Interferon-α and Interferon-γ Increase Lethality of Murine Inhalational Anthrax
Bacillus anthracis, the etiologic agent of inhalational anthrax, is a facultative intracellular pathogen. Despite appropriate antimicrobial therapy, the mortality from inhalational anthrax approaches 45%, underscoring the need for better adjuvant therapies. The variable latency between exposure and development of disease suggests an important role for the host's innate immune response. Type I and Type II Interferons (IFN) are prominent members of the host innate immune response and are required for control of intracellular pathogens. We have previously described a protective role for exogenous Type I and Type II IFNs in attenuating intracellular B.anthracis germination and macrophage cell death in vitro.We sought to extend these findings in an in vivo model of inhalational anthrax, utilizing the Sterne strain (34F2) of B.anthracis. Mice devoid of STAT1, a component of IFN-alpha and IFN-gamma signaling, had a trend towards increased mortality, bacterial germination and extrapulmonary spread of B.anthracis at 24 hrs. This was associated with impaired IL-6, IL-10 and IL-12 production. However, administration of exogenous IFN-gamma, and to a lesser extent IFN-alpha, at the time of infection, markedly increased lethality. While IFNs were able to reduce the fraction of germinated spores within the lung, they increased both the local and systemic inflammatory response manifest by increases in IL-12 and reductions in IL-10. This was associated with an increase in extrapulmonary dissemination. The mechanism of IFN mediated inflammation appears to be in part due to STAT1 independent signaling.In conclusion, while endogenous IFNs are essential for control of B.anthracis germination and lethality, administration of exogenous IFNs appear to increase the local inflammatory response, thereby increasing mortality
Massive Dirac fermions and the zero field quantum Hall effect
Through an explicit calculation for a Lagrangian in quantum electrodynamics
in (2+1)-space--time dimensions (QED), making use of the relativistic Kubo
formula, we demonstrate that the filling factor accompanying the quantized
electrical conductivity for massive Dirac fermions of a single species in two
spatial dimensions is a half (in natural units) when time reversal and parity
symmetries of the Lagrangian are explicitly broken by the fermion mass term. We
then discuss the most general form of the QED Lagrangian, both for
irreducible and reducible representations of the Dirac matrices in the plane,
with emphasis on the appearance of a Chern-Simons term. We also identify the
value of the filling factor with a zero field quantum Hall effect (QHE).Comment: 15 pages. Accepted in Jour. Phys.
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