We present and discuss the results of the Herschel Gould Belt survey observations in a ~11 deg^2 area of the Aquila molecular cloud complex at d~260 pc, imaged with the SPIRE/PACS cameras from 70 to 500 micron. We identify a complete sample of starle
ss dense cores and embedded protostars in this region, and analyze their global properties and spatial distributions. We find a total of 651 starless cores, ~60% of which are gravitationally bound prestellar cores, and they will likely form stars in the future. We also detect 58 protostellar cores. The core mass function (CMF) derived for the prestellar cores is very similar in shape to the stellar initial mass function (IMF), supporting the earlier view that there is a close physical link between the IMF and the CMF. The global shift in mass scale observed between the CMF and the IMF is consistent with a typical star formation efficiency of ~40%. By comparing the numbers of starless cores to the number of young stellar objects, we estimate that the lifetime of prestellar cores is ~1 Myr. We find a strong correlation between the spatial distribution of prestellar cores and the densest filaments. About 90% of the Herschel-identified prestellar cores are located above a background column density corresponding to A_V~7, and ~75% of them lie within filamentary structures with supercritical masses per unit length >~16 M_sun/pc. These findings support a picture wherein the cores making up the peak of the CMF (and probably responsible for the base of the IMF) result primarily from the gravitational fragmentation of marginally supercritical filaments. Given that filaments appear to dominate the mass budget of dense gas at A_V>7, our findings also suggest that the physics of prestellar core formation within filaments is responsible for a characteristic efficiency SFR/M_dense ~5+-2 x 10^-8 yr^-1 for the star formation process in dense gas.
The ANTARES experiment consists of an array of photomultipliers distributed along 12 lines and located deep underwater in the Mediterranean Sea. It searches for astrophysical neutrinos collecting the Cherenkov light induced by the charged particles,
mainly muons, produced in neutrino interactions around the detector. Since at energies of $sim$10 TeV the muon and the incident neutrino are almost collinear, it is possible to use the ANTARES detector as a neutrino telescope and identify a source of neutrinos in the sky starting from a precise reconstruction of the muon trajectory. To get this result, the arrival times of the Cherenkov photons must be accurately measured. A to perform time calibrations with the precision required to have optimal performances of the instrument is described. The reconstructed tracks of the atmospheric muons in the ANTARES detector are used to determine the relative time offsets between photomultipliers. Currently, this method is used to obtain the time calibration constants for photomultipliers on different lines at a precision level of 0.5 ns. It has also been validated for calibrating photomultipliers on the same line, using a system of LEDs and laser light devices.
We investigate the potential for the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) to probe the existence and effects of a fourth neutrino mass-eigenstate. We study the mixing of the fourth mass-eigenstate with the three active neutrinos of the Standar
d Model, including the effects of new sources of CP-invariance violation, for a wide range of new mass-squared differences, from lower than 10^-5 eV^2 to higher than 1 eV^2. DUNE is sensitive to previously unexplored regions of the mixing angle - mass-squared difference parameter space. If there is a fourth neutrino, in some regions of the parameter space, DUNE is able to measure the new oscillation parameters (some very precisely) and clearly identify two independent sources of CP-invariance violation. Finally, we use the hypothesis that there are four neutrino mass-eigenstates in order to ascertain how well DUNE can test the limits of the three-massive-neutrinos paradigm. In this way, we briefly explore whether light sterile neutrinos can serve as proxies for other, in principle unknown, phenomena that might manifest themselves in long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiments.
We propose that all light fermionic degrees of freedom, including the Standard Model (SM) fermions and all possible light beyond-the-standard-model fields, are chiral with respect to some spontaneously broken abelian gauge symmetry. Hypercharge, for
example, plays this role for the SM fermions. We introduce a new symmetry, $U(1)_{ u}$, for all new light fermionic states. Anomaly cancellations mandate the existence of several new fermion fields with nontrivial $U(1)_{ u}$ charges. We develop a concrete model of this type, for which we show that (i) some fermions remain massless after $U(1)_{ u}$ breaking -- similar to SM neutrinos -- and (ii) accidental global symmetries translate into stable massive particles -- similar to SM protons. These ingredients provide a solution to the dark matter and neutrino mass puzzles assuming one also postulates the existence of heavy degrees of freedom that act as mediators between the two sectors. The neutrino mass mechanism described here leads to parametrically small Dirac neutrino masses, and the model also requires the existence of at least four Dirac sterile neutrinos. Finally, we describe a general technique to write down chiral-fermions-only models that are at least anomaly-free under a $U(1)$ gauge symmetry.
The ANTARES telescope is well-suited for detecting astrophysical transient neutrino sources as it can observe a full hemisphere of the sky at all times with a high duty cycle. The background due to atmospheric particles can be drastically reduced, an
d the point-source sensitivity improved, by selecting a narrow time window around possible neutrino production periods. Blazars, being radio-loud active galactic nuclei with their jets pointing almost directly towards the observer, are particularly attractive potential neutrino point sources, since they are among the most likely sources of the very high-energy cosmic rays. Neutrinos and gamma rays may be produced in hadronic interactions with the surrounding medium. Moreover, blazars generally show high time variability in their light curves at different wavelengths and on various time scales. This paper presents a time-dependent analysis applied to a selection of flaring gamma-ray blazars observed by the FERMI/LAT experiment and by TeV Cherenkov telescopes using five years of ANTARES data taken from 2008 to 2012. The results are compatible with fluctuations of the background. Upper limits on the neutrino fluence have been produced and compared to the measured gamma-ray spectral energy distribution.
The macroscopic magnetic moment of a superparamagnetic system has to overcome an energy barrier in order to switch its direction. This barrier is formed by magnetic anisotropies in the material and may be surmounted typically after 10^9 to 10^12 atte
mpts per second by thermal fluctuations. In a first step, the associated switching rate may be described by a Neel-Brown-Arrhenius law, in which the energy barrier is assumed as constant or a given temperature. Yet, magnetic anisotropies in general depend on temperature themselves which is known to modify the Neel-Brown-Arrhenius law. We illustrate quantitatively the implications of a temperature-dependent anisotropy on the switching rate and in particular for the interpretation of the prefactor as an attempt frequency. In particular, we show that realistic numbers for the attempt frequency are obtained when the temperature dependence of the anisotropy is taken into account.
We investigate the thermodynamics of a crystalline solid applying q-deformed algebra of Fibonacci oscillators through the generalized Fibonacci sequence of two real and independent deformation parameters q1 and q2. We based part of our study on both
Einstein and Debye models, exploring primarily (q1,q2)-deformed thermal and electric conductivities as a function of Debye specific heat. The results revealed that q-deformation acts as a factor of disorder or impurity, modifying the characteristics of a crystalline structure. Specially, one may find the possibility of adjusting the Fibonacci oscillators to describe the change of thermal and electrical conductivities of a given element as one inserts impurities. Each parameter can be associated to different types of deformations such as disorders and impurities.
Many Big Data applications in business and science require the management and analysis of huge amounts of graph data. Previous approaches for graph analytics such as graph databases and parallel graph processing systems (e.g., Pregel) either lack suf
ficient scalability or flexibility and expressiveness. We are therefore developing a new end-to-end approach for graph data management and analysis based on the Hadoop ecosystem, called Gradoop (Graph analytics on Hadoop). Gradoop is designed around the so-called Extended Property Graph Data Model (EPGM) supporting semantically rich, schema-free graph data within many distinct graphs. A set of high-level operators is provided for analyzing both single graphs and collections of graphs. Based on these operators, we propose a domain-specific language to define analytical workflows. The Gradoop graph store is currently utilizing HBase for distributed storage of graph data in Hadoop clusters. An initial version of Gradoop has been used to analyze graph data for business intelligence and social network analysis.
The reversal of the magnetization under the influence of a field pulse has been previously predicted to be an incoherent process with several competing phenomena such as domain wall relaxation, spin wave-mediated instability regions, and vortex-core
mediated reversal dynamics. However, there has been no study on the direct observation of the switching process with the aid of a microwave signal input. We report a time-resolved imaging study of magnetization reversal in patterned magnetic structures under the influence of a field pulse with microwave assistance. The microwave frequency is varied to demonstrate the effect of resonant microwave-assisted switching. We observe that the switching process is dominated by spin wave dynamics generated as a result of magnetic instabilities in the structures, and identify the frequencies that are most dominant in magnetization reversal.
A search for high-energy neutrinos coming from the direction of the Galactic Centre is performed using the data recorded by the ANTARES neutrino telescope from 2007 to 2012. The event selection criteria are chosen to maximise the sensitivity to possi
ble signals produced by the self-annihilation of weakly interacting massive particles accumulated around the centre of the Milky Way with respect to the atmospheric background. After data unblinding, the number of neutrinos observed in the line of sight of the Galactic Centre is found to be compatible with background expectations. The 90% C.L. upper limits in terms of the neutrino+anti-neutrino flux, $rm Phi_{ u_{mu}+bar{ u}_mu}$, and the velocity averaged annihilation cross-section, $rm <sigma_{A}v>$, are derived for the WIMP self-annihilation channels into $rm bbar{b},W^{+}W^{-},tau^{+}tau^{-},mu^{+}mu^{-}, ubar{ u}$. The ANTARES limits for $rm <sigma_{A}v>$ are shown to be the most stringent for a neutrino telescope over the WIMP masses $rm 25,GeV < M_{WIMP} < 10,TeV$.
