4,938 research outputs found
Stellar Populations in the Outskirts of the Small Magellanic Cloud: No Outer Edge Yet
We report the detection of intermediate-age and old stars belonging to the
SMC at 6.5 kpc from the SMC center in the southern direction. We show, from the
analysis of three high quality 34\arcmin 33\arcmin CMDs, that the age
composition of the stellar population is similar at galactocentric distances of
4.7 kpc, 5.6 kpc, and 6.5 kpc. The surface
brightness profile of the SMC follows an exponential law, with no evidence of
truncation, all the way out to 6.5 kpc. These results, taken together, suggest
that the SMC `disk' population is dominating over a possible old Milky Way-like
stellar halo, and that the SMC may be significantly larger than previously
thought.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ Letters. High resolution figures are
available at ftp://ftp.iac.es/out/noe
Theory of the Ramsey spectroscopy and anomalous segregation in ultra-cold rubidium
The recent anomalous segregation experiment of Lewandowski et al. (PRL, 88,
070403, 2002) shows dramatic, rapid internal state segregation for two
hyperfine levels of rubidium. We simulate an effective one dimensional model of
the system for experimental parameters and find reasonable agreement with the
data. The Ramsey frequency is found to be insensitive to the decoherence of the
superposition, and is only equivalent to the interaction energy shift for a
pure superposition. A Quantum Boltzmann equation describing collisions is
derived using Quantum Kinetic Theory, taking into account the different
scattering lengths of the internal states. As spin-wave experiments are likely
to be attempted at lower temperatures we examine the effect of degeneracy on
decoherence by considering the recent experiment of Lewandowski et al. where
degeneracy is around 10%. We also find that the segregation effect is only
possible when transport terms are included in the equations of motion, and that
the interactions only directly alter the momentum distributions of the states.
The segregation or spin wave effect is thus entirely due to coherent atomic
motion as foreseen in the experimental reportComment: 26 pages, 4 figures, to be published in J. Phys.
The Morphologies of the Small Magellanic Cloud
We compare the distribution of stars of different spectral types, and hence
mean age, within the central SMC and find that the asymmetric structures are
almost exclusively composed of young main sequence stars. Because of the
relative lack of older stars in these features, and the extremely regular
distribution of red giant and clump stars in the SMC central body, we conclude
that tides alone are not responsible for the irregular appearance of the
central SMC. The dominant physical mechanism in determining the current-day
appearance of the SMC must be star formation triggered by a hydrodynamic
interaction between gaseous components. These results extend the results of
population studies (cf. Gardiner and Hatzidimitriou) inward in radius and also
confirm the suggestion of the spheroidal nature of the central SMC based on
kinematic arguments (Dopita et al; Hardy, Suntzeff & Azzopardi). Finally, we
find no evidence in the underlying older stellar population for a ``bar'' or
``outer arm'', again supporting our classification of the central SMC as a
spheroidal body with highly irregular recent star formation.Comment: 8 pages, accepted for publication in ApJ Letters (higher quality
figures available at http://ngala.as.arizona.edu/dennis/mcsurvey.html
Are food exposures obtained through commercial market panels representative of the general population? Implications for outbreak investigations
Current methods of control recruitment for case-control studies can be slow (a particular issue for outbreak investigations), resource-intensive and subject to a range of biases. Commercial market panels are a potential source of rapidly recruited controls. Our study evaluated food exposure data from these panel controls, compared with an established reference dataset. Market panel data were collected from two companies using retrospective internet-based surveys; these were compared with reference data from the National Diet and Nutrition Survey (NDNS). We used logistic regression to calculate adjusted odds ratios to compare exposure to each of the 71 food items between the market panel and NDNS participants. We compared 2103 panel controls with 2696 reference participants. Adjusted for socio-demographic factors, exposure to 90% of foods was statistically different between both panels and the reference data. However, these differences were likely to be of limited practical importance for 89% of Panel A foods and 79% of Panel B foods. Market panel food exposures were comparable with reference data for common food exposures but more likely to be different for uncommon exposures. This approach should be considered for outbreak investigation, in conjunction with other considerations such as population at risk, timeliness of response and study resources
Theory of the cold collision frequency shift in 1S--2S spectroscopy of Bose-Einstein-condensed and non-condensed hydrogen
We show that a correct formulation of the cold collision frequency shift for
two photon spectroscopy of Bose-condensed and cold non-Bose-condensed hydrogen
is consistent with experimental data. Our treatment includes transport and
inhomogeneity into the theory of a non-condensed gas, which causes substantial
changes in the cold collision frequency shift for the ordinary thermal gas, as
a result of the very high frequency (3.9kHz) of transverse trap mode. For the
condensed gas, we find substantial corrections arise from the inclusion of
quasiparticles, whose number is very large because of the very low frequency
(10.2Hz) of the longitudinal trap mode. These two effects together account for
the apparent absence of a "factor of two" between the two possibilities.
Our treatment considers only the Doppler-free measurements, but could be
extended to Doppler-sensitive measurements. For Bose-condensed hydrogen, we
predict a characteristic "foot" extending into higher detunings than can arise
from the condensate alone, as a result of a correct treatment of the statistics
of thermal quasiparticles.Comment: 16 page J Phys B format plus 6 postscript figure
Levy Flights in Inhomogeneous Media
We investigate the impact of external periodic potentials on superdiffusive
random walks known as Levy flights and show that even strongly superdiffusive
transport is substantially affected by the external field. Unlike ordinary
random walks, Levy flights are surprisingly sensitive to the shape of the
potential while their asymptotic behavior ceases to depend on the Levy index
. Our analysis is based on a novel generalization of the Fokker-Planck
equation suitable for systems in thermal equilibrium. Thus, the results
presented are applicable to the large class of situations in which
superdiffusion is caused by topological complexity, such as diffusion on folded
polymers and scale-free networks.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Three-fold way to extinction in populations of cyclically competing species
Species extinction occurs regularly and unavoidably in ecological systems.
The time scales for extinction can broadly vary and inform on the ecosystem's
stability. We study the spatio-temporal extinction dynamics of a paradigmatic
population model where three species exhibit cyclic competition. The cyclic
dynamics reflects the non-equilibrium nature of the species interactions. While
previous work focusses on the coarsening process as a mechanism that drives the
system to extinction, we found that unexpectedly the dynamics to extinction is
much richer. We observed three different types of dynamics. In addition to
coarsening, in the evolutionary relevant limit of large times, oscillating
traveling waves and heteroclinic orbits play a dominant role. The weight of the
different processes depends on the degree of mixing and the system size. By
analytical arguments and extensive numerical simulations we provide the full
characteristics of scenarios leading to extinction in one of the most
surprising models of ecology
Quantum analysis of a nonlinear microwave cavity-embedded dc SQUID displacement detector
We carry out a quantum analysis of a dc SQUID mechanical displacement
detector, comprising a SQUID with mechanically compliant loop segment, which is
embedded in a microwave transmission line resonator. The SQUID is approximated
as a nonlinear, current dependent inductance, inducing an external flux
tunable, nonlinear Duffing self-interaction term in the microwave resonator
mode equation. Motion of the compliant SQUID loop segment is transduced
inductively through changes in the external flux threading SQUID loop, giving a
ponderomotive, radiation pressure type coupling between the microwave and
mechanical resonator modes. Expressions are derived for the detector signal
response and noise, and it is found that a soft-spring Duffing self-interaction
enables a closer approach to the displacement detection standard quantum limit,
as well as cooling closer to the ground state
Quantum walks in higher dimensions
We analyze the quantum walk in higher spatial dimensions and compare
classical and quantum spreading as a function of time. Tensor products of
Hadamard transformations and the discrete Fourier transform arise as natural
extensions of the quantum coin toss in the one-dimensional walk simulation, and
other illustrative transformations are also investigated. We find that
entanglement between the dimensions serves to reduce the rate of spread of the
quantum walk. The classical limit is obtained by introducing a random phase
variable.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures, published versio
Magnetic Collimation in PNe
Recent studies have focused on the the role of initially weak toroidal
magnetic fields embedded in a stellar wind as the agent for collimation in
planetary nebulae. In these models the wind is assumed to be permeated by a
helical magnetic field in which the poloidal component falls off faster than
the toroidal component. The collimation only occurs after the wind is shocked
at large distances from the stellar source. In this paper we re-examine
assumptions built into this ``Magnetized Wind Blown Bubble'' (MWBB) model. We
show that a self-consistent study of the model leads to a large parameter
regime where the wind is self-collimated before the shock wave is encountered.
We also explore the relation between winds in the MWBB model and those which
are produced via magneto-centrifugal processes. We conclude that a more
detailed examination of the role of self-collimation is needed in the context
of PNe studies
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