5,554 research outputs found
Testing Contextual and Design Effects on Inter-Urban Motoristsâ Responses to Time Savings
In the context of inter-urban motorists' route choices and the travel time savings offered by the UK's first toll motorway, a range of SP exercises tested various contextual and design effects. The design aspects relate to how the marginal benefit of time savings is influenced by the size and sign of the time saving, task complexity, presentation format, and whether the choice context is real. The contextual factors cover the impact of journey duration, attribute credibility, and where in the journey the time savings occur. The conclusions are largely credible but in some cases challenge established views and contribute significantly to understanding in this area
Non-axisymmetric relativistic Bondi-Hoyle accretion onto a Schwarzschild black hole
We present the results of an exhaustive numerical study of fully relativistic
non-axisymmetric Bondi-Hoyle accretion onto a moving Schwarzschild black hole.
We have solved the equations of general relativistic hydrodynamics with a
high-resolution shock-capturing numerical scheme based on a linearized Riemann
solver. The numerical code was previously used to study axisymmetric flow
configurations past a Schwarzschild hole. We have analyzed and discussed the
flow morphology for a sample of asymptotically high Mach number models. The
results of this work reveal that initially asymptotic uniform flows always
accrete onto the hole in a stationary way which closely resembles the previous
axisymmetric patterns. This is in contrast with some Newtonian numerical
studies where violent flip-flop instabilities were found. As discussed in the
text, the reason can be found in the initial conditions used in the
relativistic regime, as they can not exactly duplicate the previous Newtonian
setups where the instability appeared. The dependence of the final solution
with the inner boundary condition as well as with the grid resolution has also
been studied. Finally, we have computed the accretion rates of mass and linear
and angular momentum.Comment: 21 pages, 13 figures, Latex, MNRAS (in press
Galaxy clusters and microwave background anisotropy
Previous estimates of the microwave background anisotropies produced by
freely falling spherical clusters are discussed. These estimates are based on
the Swiss-Cheese and Tolman-Bondi models. It is proved that these models give
only upper limits to the anisotropies produced by the observed galaxy clusters.
By using spherically symmetric codes including pressureless matter and a hot
baryonic gas, new upper limits are obtained. The contributions of the hot gas
and the pressureless component to the total anisotropy are compared. The
effects produced by the pressure are proved to be negligible; hence,
estimations of the cluster anisotropies based on N-body simulations are
hereafter justified. After the phenomenon of violent relaxation, any realistic
rich cluster can only produce small anisotropies with amplitudes of order
. During the rapid process of violent relaxation, the anisotropies
produced by nonlinear clusters are expected to range in the interval
. The angular scales of these anisotropies are discussed.Comment: 31 pages, 3 postscript figures, accepted MNRA
Magneto-Acoustic Waves of Small Amplitude in Optically Thin Quasi-Isentropic Plasmas
The evolution of quasi-isentropic magnetohydrodynamic waves of small but
finite amplitude in an optically thin plasma is analyzed. The plasma is assumed
to be initially homogeneous, in thermal equilibrium and with a straight and
homogeneous magnetic field frozen in. Depending on the particular form of the
heating/cooling function, the plasma may act as a dissipative or active medium
for magnetoacoustic waves, while Alfven waves are not directly affected. An
evolutionary equation for fast and slow magnetoacoustic waves in the single
wave limit, has been derived and solved, allowing us to analyse the wave
modification by competition of weakly nonlinear and quasi-isentropic effects.
It was shown that the sign of the quasi-isentropic term determines the scenario
of the evolution, either dissipative or active. In the dissipative case, when
the plasma is first order isentropically stable the magnetoacoustic waves are
damped and the time for shock wave formation is delayed. However, in the active
case when the plasma is isentropically overstable, the wave amplitude grows,
the strength of the shock increases and the breaking time decreases. The
magnitude of the above effects depends upon the angle between the wave vector
and the magnetic field. For hot (T > 10^4 K) atomic plasmas with solar
abundances either in the interstellar medium or in the solar atmosphere, as
well as for the cold (T < 10^3 K) ISM molecular gas, the range of temperature
where the plasma is isentropically unstable and the corresponding time and
length-scale for wave breaking have been found.Comment: 14 pages, 10 figures. To appear in ApJ January 200
Legendre expansion of the neutrino-antineutrino annihilation kernel: Influence of high order terms
We calculate the Legendre expansion of the rate of the process up to 3rd order extending previous results
of other authors which only consider the 0th and 1st order terms. Using
different closure relations for the moment equations of the radiative transfer
equation we discuss the physical implications of taking into account quadratic
and cubic terms on the energy deposition outside the neutrinosphere in a
simplified model. The main conclusion is that 2nd order is necessary in the
semi-transparent region and gives good results if an appropriate closure
relation is used.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figures. To be published in A&A Supplement Serie
Leibniz algebroid associated with a Nambu-Poisson structure
The notion of Leibniz algebroid is introduced, and it is shown that each
Nambu-Poisson manifold has associated a canonical Leibniz algebroid. This fact
permits to define the modular class of a Nambu-Poisson manifold as an
appropiate cohomology class, extending the well-known modular class of Poisson
manifolds
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