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At least 757 records · Page 42

Galaxy bias from the Dark Energy Survey Science Verification data: Combining galaxy density maps and weak lensing maps

We measure the redshift evolution of galaxy bias for a magnitude-limited galaxy sample by combining the galaxy density maps and weak lensing shear maps for a ~116 deg 2 area of the Dark Energy Survey (DES) Science Verification (SV) data. This method was first developed in Amara et al. and later re-examined in a companion paper with rigorous simulation tests and analytical treatment of tomographic measurements. In this work we apply this method to the DES SV data and measure the galaxy bias for a i < 22.5 galaxy sample. We find the galaxy bias and 1σ error bars in four photometric redshift bins to be 1.12 ± 0.19 (z = 0.2–0.4), 0.97 ± 0.15 (z = 0.4–0.6), 1.38 ± 0.39 (z = 0.6–0.8), and 1.45 ± 0.56 (z = 0.8–1.0). These measurements are consistent at the 2σ level with measurements on the same data set using galaxy clustering and cross-correlation of galaxies with cosmic microwave background lensing, with most of the redshift bins consistent within the 1σ error bars. In addition, our method provides the only σ8 independent constraint among the three. We forward model the main observational effects using mock galaxy catalogues by including shape noise, photo-z errors, and masking effects. We show that our bias measurement from the data is consistent with that expected from simulations. With the forthcoming full DES data set, we expect this method to provide additional constraints on the galaxy bias measurement from more traditional methods. Moreover, in the process of our measurement, we build up a 3D mass map that allows further exploration of the dark matter distribution and its relation to galaxy evolution.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Dark photon and dark Z mediated B meson decays

We study flavor changing neutral current decays of B and K mesons in the dark U(1) D model, with the dark photon/dark Z mass between 10 MeV and 2 GeV. Although the model provides an improved fit (compared to the standard model) to the differential decay distributions of B → K ($\ast$) ℓ + ℓ – , with ℓ = μ, e, and B s → $\phi$μ + μ – , the allowed parameter space is ruled out by measurements of atomic parity violation, K + → μ + + invisible decay, and ${B}_s-{\overline{B}}_s$ mixing, among others. To evade constraints from low energy data, we extend the model to allow for (1) additional invisible Z D decay, (2) a direct vector coupling of Z D to muons, and (3) a direct coupling of Z D to both muons and electrons, with the electron coupling fine-tuned to cancel the Z D coupling to electrons via mixing. We find that only the latter case survives all constraints.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

A minimal supersymmetric E6 unified theory

We show explicitly that supersymmetric E 6 Grand Unified Theory with a Higgs sector consisting of {27+$\overline{27}$ + 351+ $\overline{351}$ + 78} fields provides a realistic scenario for symmetry breaking and fermion mass generation. While gauge symmetry breaking can be achieved without the 78 field, its presence is critical for a successful doublet-triplet mass splitting. The Yukawa sector of the model consists of only two symmetric matrices describing all of quark, lepton and neutrino masses and mixings. The fermion mass matrices are computed at low energy and a fit to the second and third generation masses and mixings is performed. Here, we find a good numerical fit to the low-energy data. Thus, this model, having 11 superpotential parameters, alongside the two symmetric Yukawa matrices, seems to be the best realistic candidate for a minimal renormalizable supersymmetric E 6 unified theory.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Causality constraints on corrections to Einstein gravity

We study constraints from causality and unitarity on 2 → 2 graviton scattering in four-dimensional weakly-coupled effective field theories. Together, causality and unitarity imply dispersion relations that connect low-energy observables to high-energy data. Using such dispersion relations, we derive two-sided bounds on gravitational Wilson coefficients in terms of the mass M of new higher-spin states. Our bounds imply that gravitational interactions must shut off uniformly in the limit G → 0, and prove the scaling with M expected from dimensional analysis (up to an infrared logarithm). We speculate that causality, together with the non-observation of gravitationally-coupled higher spin states at colliders, severely restricts modifications to Einstein gravity that could be probed by experiments in the near future.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Transition probabilities and radiative lifetimes of levels in F I

The electric dipole transition probabilities and the lifetimes of excited levels have been calculated using the weakest bound electron potential model theory (WBEPMT) and the quantum defect orbital theory (QDOT) in atomic fluorine. In the calculations, many of transition arrays included both multiplet and fine-structure transitions are considered. We employed Numerical Coulomb Approximation (NCA) wave functions and numerical non-relativistic Hartree-Fock (NRHF) wave functions for expectation values of radii in determination of parameters. The necessary energy values have been taken from experimental energy data in the literature. The calculated transition probabilities and lifetimes have been compared with available theoretical and experimental results. A good agreement with results in literature has been obtained. Moreover, some transition probability and the lifetime values not existing in the literature for some highly excited levels have been obtained using these methods.

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS↗

Radiogenic and muon-induced backgrounds in the LUX dark matter detector

The Large Underground Xenon (LUX) dark matter experiment aims to detect rare low-energy interactions from Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs). The radiogenic backgrounds in the LUX detector have been measured and compared with Monte Carlo simulation. Measurements of LUX high-energy data have provided direct constraints on all background sources contributing to the background model. The expected background rate from the background model for the 85.3 day WIMP search run is (2.6±0.2 stat ±0.4 sys ) ×10 -3 events keV$ ee\atop{-1}$ kg -1 day -1 in a 118 kg fiducial volume. The observed background rate is (3.6±0.4 stat )×10 -3 events keV$ ee\atop{-1}$ kg -1 day -1 , consistent with model projections. The expectation for the radiogenic background in a subsequent one-year run is presented.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Comparison of three-dimensional morphologies of abnormally growing grains between Monte Carlo simulations and experiments of Fe-3% Si steel

Highlights: • Grains with sub-boundaries grew abnormally in the MC simulation with realistic grain boundary energy. • The experimental 3-D morphology of Goss grain was reconstructed from serially sectioned images. • 2-D sectioned microstructures of the MC simulation and experiment have highly irregular shape. • Both simulated and experimental 3-D morphologies of AGG have similar complicated shapes. - Abstract: Three-dimensional (3-D) Monte Carlo simulations of grain growth with sub-boundaries in the presence of precipitates were performed based on the distribution of realistic grain boundary energy data. The simulated grains with sub-boundaries grew abnormally. The simulated and experimental morphologies of the abnormally growing grains in Fe-3%Si steel were compared. The experimental 3-D morphology was reconstructed from serially sectioned images. Both the simulated and experimental 3-D morphologies of abnormally growing grains have highly irregular and complicated shapes whereas both the simulated and experimental 3-D morphologies of normally growing grains have relatively regular and simple shapes. Growth by wetting is responsible for the highly irregular shape of the experimental abnormally growing grains of Fe-3%Si steel as well as for the highly irregular shape of the simulated abnormally growing grains.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Seeing the whole picture: Methods for getting the most from micro X-ray computed tomography of TRISO nuclear fuel particles

Tristructural isotropic (TRISO) coated fuel particles are a nuclear fuel form under extensive study for use in advanced nuclear reactor concepts. TRISO fuels are subjected to high temperature neutron irradiations and then examined to assess their performance by determining fission product retention and studying morphological changes. Micro X-ray computed tomography is one method of nondestructively studying the effects of TRISO performance. This work addresses the need for image processing to remove X-ray tomographic reconstruction artifacts that prevent the study of TRISO features, as the TRISO particles’ high Z kernel can introduce metal artifacts that degrade the image quality in the surrounding low Z coating layers. These metal artifacts were reduced by imaging the TRISO particles with both high- and low-energy X-rays and applying a mask to the radiographs obtained with low-energy X-rays to digitally remove the dense fuel kernel region. These masked radiographs were then used to produce a tomographic reconstruction which was combined with the tomographic reconstruction of the high-energy data. This enabled the relatively-low-density TRISO buffer layer to be examined in more detail, providing information on irradiation induced dimensional changes of the coatings. This methodology, which helps see the full picture of a TRISO particle, is not limited to nuclear fuels but can be applied to systems that contain highly attenuating material surrounded by less dense materials.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Stable lithium electrodeposition in liquid and nanoporous solid electrolytes

Rechargeable lithium, sodium and aluminium metal-based batteries are among the most versatile platforms for high-energy, cost effective electrochemical energy storage. Non-uniform metal deposition and dendrite formation on the negative electrode during repeated cycles of charge and discharge are major hurdles to commercialization of energy-storage devices based on each of these chemistries. A long-held view is that unstable electrodeposition is a consequence of inherent characteristics of these metals and their inability to form uniform electrodeposits on surfaces with inevitable defects. Here, we report on electrodeposition of lithium in simple liquid electrolytes reinforced with halogenated salt blends exhibit stable long-term cycling at room temperature, often with no signs of deposition instabilities over hundreds of cycles of charge and discharge and thousands of operating hours. We rationalize these observations with the help of surface energy data for the electrolye/lithium interface and impedance analysis of the interface during different stages of cell operation. Our finding provide support for an important and recent theoretical prediction that the surface mobility of lithium is significantly enhanced in the presence of lithium halide salts. Finally, our results also show that a high electrolyte modulus is unnecessary for stable electrodeposition of lithium.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Renormalization of one meson exchange potentials and their currents

The Nucleon-Nucleon One Meson Exchange Potential, its wave functions and related Meson Exchange Currents are analyzed for point-like nucleons. The leading N{sub c} contributions generate a local and energy independent potential which presents 1/r{sup 3} singularities, requiring renormalization. We show how invoking suitable boundary conditions, neutron-proton phase shifts and deuteron properties become largely insensitive to the nucleon substructure and to the vector mesons. Actually, reasonable agreement with low energy data for realistic values of the coupling constants (e.g. SU(3) values) is found. The analysis along similar lines for the Meson Exchange Currents suggests that this renormalization scheme implies tremendous simplifications while complying with exact gauge invariance at any stage of the calculation.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Role of excited state photoionization in the 852.1 nm Cs laser pumped by Cs-Ar photoassociation

Photoionization of Cs (6p {sup 2}P{sub 3/2}) atoms during the operation of a Cs D{sub 2} line (852.1 nm: 6p {sup 2}P{sub 3/2}{yields}6s {sup 2}S{sub 1/2}) laser, pumped by free{yields}free transitions of thermal Cs-Ar ground state pairs, has been investigated experimentally and computationally. Photoexcitation of Cs vapor/Ar mixtures through the blue satellite of the D{sub 2} transition (peaking at 836.7 nm) selectively populates the {sup 2}P{sub 3/2} upper laser level by the dissociation of the CsAr excited complex. Comparison of laser output energy data, for instantaneous pump powers up to 3 MW, with the predictions of a numerical model sets an upper bound of 8 Multiplication-Sign 10{sup -26} cm{sup 4} W{sup -1} on the Cs (6p {sup 2}P{sub 3/2}) two photon ionization cross-section at 836.7 nm which corresponds to a single photon cross-section of 2.4 Multiplication-Sign 10{sup -19} cm{sup 2} for a peak pump intensity of 3 MW cm{sup -2}.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

{sup 12}C+{sup 12}C reactions at astrophysical energies: Tests of targets behaviour under beam bombardment

{sup 12}C({sup 12}C,α){sup 20}Ne and {sup 12}C({sup 12}C,p){sup 23}Na are the most important reactions during the carbon burning phase in stars. Direct measurements at the relevant astrophysical energy (E=1.5±0.3MeV) are very challenging because of the extremely small cross sections involved and of the high beam-induced background originating from impurities in the targets. In addition, persistent resonant structures at low energies are not well understood and make the extrapolation of the cross section from high energy data very uncertain. As a preliminary step towards the measurements of the {sup 12}C({sup 12}C,α){sup 20}Ne and {sup 12}C({sup 12}C,p){sup 23}Na reactions we intend to investigate the behaviour of targets under beam bombardment, specifically the quantitative measurement of hydrogen and deuterium content of highly pure stable carbon targets in relation to target temperature. Experiments are taking place at the CIRCE accelerator in Caserta, Italy and preliminary results are presented here.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

Multistate, multichannel coupled diabatic state representations of adiabatic states coupled by conical intersections. CH 2 OH photodissociation

In this work, a coupled diabatic state representation, H d , of the 1, 2, 3 2 A states of CH 2 OH suitable for the description of the three channel, three state photodissociation process CH 2 OH(1 2 A) + hv → CH 2 OH(2, 3 2 A) → CH 2 O(X, A) + H, cis-CHOH + H, trans-CHOH + H, is reported. The representation is based on electronic structure data (energies, energy gradients, and derivative couplings) obtained exclusively from multireference configuration interaction single and double excitation wave functions. Diabat shifting is employed to improve the representation’s agreement with accurate experimental energetics. A careful analysis of the numerous minima, saddle points, and conical intersection seams is reported. The computed T 0 (3 2 A) ~ 35 220 cm -1 is in excellent agreement with the experimental estimate of 35 053 cm -1 , and the computed channel dissociation energies, D 0 , for CH 2 O 9453 (10 160), cis-HCOH 30 310.2 (29 923), and trans-HCOH 28 799 (28 391) cm -1 are in good accord with the measured values given parenthetically. Lastly, these accurate energetics over a wide range of nuclear configurations strongly support the ability of this H d to enable quality simulations of nonadiabatic dynamics.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Measurement of ion temperature and toroidal flow during magnetic reconnection with a large guide field

Here, ion temperature and toroidal flow along the guide field direction are measured using a new ion tomographic diagnostic on the Magnetic Reconnection eXperiment (MRX) during magnetic reconnection with a guide field strength of about 1.4 and 2.1 times the strength of the reconnecting component. Strong toroidal flows, beyond what has been measured in anti-parallel and lower guide field conditions on MRX, are observed. Sustained ion heating with no discernible structure within the measurement region is also observed. Probe measurements including Langmuir and Mach probe measurements are made to support the tomographic inversion of line-integrated measurements, as well as to provide local measurements of plasma parameters. Measurements of toroidal velocity and ion temperature are supported with time series data. Energy flow into and out of the X-line region is estimated using a guiding center framework and presented in the Appendix of this manuscript, suggesting an outsized role played by parallel electric field in energizing ions. The guiding center approximation is not well satisfied in the region of interest; however, the estimates provide a springboard for future, further experimentation.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Resonance Scattering Treatment with the Windowed Multipole Formalism

A new method for directly sampling the resonance upscattering effect is presented. Alternatives have relied on inefficient rejection sampling techniques or large tabular storage of relative velocities. None of these approaches, which require pointwise energy data, are particularly well suited to the windowed multipole cross-section representation. The new method, called multipole analytic resonance scattering, overcomes these limitations by inverse transform sampling from the target relative velocity distribution where the cross section is expressed in the multipole formalism. The closed-form relative speed distribution contains a novel special function we deem the incomplete Faddeeva function, and we present the first results on its efficient numerical evaluation.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

ACCOUNTING FOR CALIBRATION UNCERTAINTIES IN X-RAY ANALYSIS: EFFECTIVE AREAS IN SPECTRAL FITTING

While considerable advance has been made to account for statistical uncertainties in astronomical analyses, systematic instrumental uncertainties have been generally ignored. This can be crucial to a proper interpretation of analysis results because instrumental calibration uncertainty is a form of systematic uncertainty. Ignoring it can underestimate error bars and introduce bias into the fitted values of model parameters. Accounting for such uncertainties currently requires extensive case-specific simulations if using existing analysis packages. Here, we present general statistical methods that incorporate calibration uncertainties into spectral analysis of high-energy data. We first present a method based on multiple imputation that can be applied with any fitting method, but is necessarily approximate. We then describe a more exact Bayesian approach that works in conjunction with a Markov chain Monte Carlo based fitting. We explore methods for improving computational efficiency, and in particular detail a method of summarizing calibration uncertainties with a principal component analysis of samples of plausible calibration files. This method is implemented using recently codified Chandra effective area uncertainties for low-resolution spectral analysis and is verified using both simulated and actual Chandra data. Our procedure for incorporating effective area uncertainty is easily generalized to other types of calibration uncertainties.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Dark energy from dark radiation in strongly coupled cosmologies with no fine tuning

A dual component made of non-relativistic particles and a scalar field, exchanging energy, naturally falls onto an attractor solution, making them a (sub)dominant part of the cosmic energy during the radiation dominated era, provided that the constant β, measuring the coupling, is strong enough. The density parameters of both components are then constant, as they expand as a{sup −4}. If the field energy is then prevalently kinetic, as is expected, its energy is exactly half of the pressureless component; the dual component as a whole, then, has a density parameter Ω{sub cd} = 3/4β{sup 2} (e.g., for β ≅ 2.5, Ω{sub cd} ≅ 0.1, in accordance with Dark Radiation expectations). The stationary evolution can only be broken by the rising of other component(s), expanding as a{sup −3}. In a realistic scenario, this happens when z ∼ 3–5 × 10{sup 3}. When such extra component(s) become(s) dominant, the densities of the dual components also rise above radiation. The scalar field behavior can be easily tuned to fit Dark Energy data, while the coupled DM density parameter becomes O(10{sup −3}). This model however requires that, at present, two different DM components exist. The one responsible for the break of the stationary regime could be made, e.g., by thermally distributed particles with mass even >> 1–2 keV (or non-thermal particles with analogous average speed) so accounting for the size of observed galactic cores; in fact, a fair amount of small scale objects is however produced by fluctuation re-generated by the coupled DM component, in spite of its small density parameter, after the warm component has become non-relativistic.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

The fate of ultrahigh energy nuclei in the immediate environment of young fast-rotating pulsars

Young, fast-rotating neutron stars are promising candidate sources for the production of ultrahigh energy cosmic rays (UHECRs). The interest in this model has recently been boosted by the latest chemical composition measurements of cosmic rays, that seem to show the presence of a heavy nuclear component at the highest energies. Neutrons stars, with their metal-rich surfaces, are potentially interesting sources of such nuclei, but some open issues remain: 1) is it possible to extract these nuclei from the star's surface? 2) Do the nuclei survive the severe conditions present in the magnetosphere of the neutron star? 3) What happens to the surviving nuclei once they enter the wind that is launched outside the light cylinder? In this paper we address these issues in a quantitative way, proving that for the most reasonable range of neutron star surface temperatures (T<10{sup 7} K), a large fraction of heavy nuclei survive photo-disintegration losses. These processes, together with curvature losses and acceleration in the star's electric potential, lead to injection of nuclei with a chemical composition that is mixed, even if only iron is extracted from the surface. We show that under certain conditions the chemical composition injected into the wind region is compatible with that required in previous work based on purely phenomenological arguments (typically ∼50% protons, ∼30% CNO and ∼20% Fe), and provides a reasonable explanation of the mass abundance inferred from ultra high energy data.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗