Axisymmetric stability criterion for two gravitationally coupled singular isothermal discs

Using the two-fluid formalism with the polytropic approximation, we examine the axisymmetric stability criterion for a composite system of gravitationally coupled stellar and gaseous singular isothermal discs (SIDs).Comment: 12 pages, 11 figures, accepted by MNRA

GARLIC: GAmma Reconstruction at a LInear Collider experiment

The precise measurement of hadronic jet energy is crucial to maximise the physics reach of a future Linear Collider. An important ingredient required to achieve this is the efficient identification of photons within hadronic showers. One configuration of the ILD detector concept employs a highly granular silicon-tungsten sampling calorimeter to identify and measure photons, and the GARLIC algorithm described in this paper has been developed to identify photons in such a calorimeter. We describe the algorithm and characterise its performance using events fully simulated in a model of the ILD detector

Metastable SUSY Breaking and Supergravity at Finite Temperature

We study how coupling to supergravity affects the phase structure of a system exhibiting dynamical supersymmetry breaking in a metastable vacuum. More precisely, we consider the Seiberg dual of SQCD coupled to supergravity at finite temperature. We show that the gravitational interactions decrease the critical temperature for the second order phase transition in the quark direction, that is also present in the global case. Furthermore, we find that, due to supergravity, a new second order phase transition occurs in the meson direction, whenever there is a nonvanishing constant term in the superpotential. Notably, this phase transition is a necessary condition for the fields to roll, as the system cools down, towards the metastable susy breaking vacuum, because of the supergravity-induced shift of the metastable minimum away from zero meson vevs. Finally, we comment on the phase structure of the KKLT model with uplifting sector given by the Seiberg dual of SQCD.Comment: 38 pages; Section 6 amended and expanded, references adde

Extraction Method of Fine Granular Performance from Scintillator Strip Electromagnetic Calorimeter

We describe an algorithm which has been developed to extract fine granularity information from an electromagnetic calorimeter with strip-based readout. Such a calorimeter, based on scintillator strips, is being developed to apply particle flow reconstruction to future experiments in high energy physics. Tests of this algorithm in full detector simulations, using strips of size 45 x 5 mm^2 show that the performance is close to that of a calorimeter with true 5 x 5 mm^2 readout granularity. The performance can be further improved by the use of 10 x 10 mm^2 tile- shaped layers interspersed between strip layers.Comment: 11 pages, 10 figure

Roundabout relaxation: collective excitation requires a detour to equilibrium

Relaxation to equilibrium after strong and collective excitation is studied, by using a Hamiltonian dynamical system of one dimensional XY model. After an excitation of a domain of $K$ elements, the excitation is concentrated to fewer elements, which are made farther away from equilibrium, and the excitation intensity increases logarithmically with $K$. Equilibrium is reached only after taking this ``roundabout'' route, with the time for relaxation diverging asymptotically as $K^\gamma$ with $\gamma \approx 4.2$.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure

Women's Reading Habits and Gendered Genres, c.1600 - 1700

The history of early modern reading has long been based on narratives of long-term change, tracing the move from scholarly, humanist reading habits to the leisured reading of the eighteenth century. These narratives are normatively masculine, and leave little room for women and non-elite men. The studies of women readers that have emerged have largely been based on case studies of exceptional women. This thesis, then, provides the first diachonic study of women’s reading habits in the seventeenth century, offering a fresh perspective on the chronology of early modern reading. This encompasses an exploration of women’s participation in certain reading habits or cultures, such as ‘active reading’ methods and the rise of news culture. Moreover, there is an examination of the connections between reading and gender. This thesis proposes that reading was often used as a signifier of gender, and that by discussing their reading women entered into a discourse about femininity and identity. The sources, drawn largely from archival research across the UK and the USA, are wide-ranging, and piece together examples of reading, and representations thereof, from a variety of different seventeenth-century Englishwomen. This is a both a recovery project, and a reimagining of the field, complicating chronologies and approaches common to previous studies of reading. Ultimately, this thesis investigates both the practice and act of reading, and the nature of the ‘woman reader’ herself. It argues that our categories of analysis need to be complicated and nuanced when discussing the history of both reading and women, and proposes that the ‘woman reader’ is far more complex and varied than is often realised

Form perception and neural feedback: insights from V1 and V2

In the brain, every cortical inter-area feedforward projection shares a reciprocal feedback connection. Despite its pervasive nature in the brain, our understanding of the functional role of neural feedback in form perception remains incomplete, particularly in behaving animals. This problem is addressed in humans with a novel form completion paradigm. Seven subjects (5 female) had their EEG waveforms analysed using three linear models showing non-significant differences between stimulus conditions designed to produce differences by manipulating neural feedback to V1. Two of these subjects (one female), in addition to EEG waveforms, had combined magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and functional MRI (fMRI) cortical maps that allowed anatomically close areas such as V1 and V2 to have their signals decomposed and neural feedback inferred. Differences between stimulus conditions arose once signals had been divided into V1 and V2. Significant differences (p < .05) for one subject in V1 and V2 suggests cortical interactions at 100ms and 350ms. This suggests the form completion paradigm has utility at investigating the influence of the V2 far receptive field surround on V1, given future given signal to noise issues are resolved