Cosmology with two compactification scales

We consider a (4+d)-dimensional spacetime broken up into a (4-n)-dimensional Minkowski spacetime (where n goes from 1 to 3) and a compact (n+d)-dimensional manifold. At the present time the n compactification radii are of the order of the Universe size, while the other d compactification radii are of the order of the Planck length.Comment: 16 pages, Latex2e, 7 figure

The HH34 outflow as seen in [FeII]1.64um by LBT-LUCI

Dense atomic jets from young stars copiously emit in [FeII] IR lines, which can, therefore, be used to trace the immediate environments of embedded protostars. We want to investigate the morphology of the bright [FeII] 1.64um line in the jet of the source HH34 IRS and compare it with the most commonly used optical tracer [SII]. We analyse a 1.64um narrow-band filter image obtained with the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) LUCI instrument, which covers the HH34 jet and counterjet. A Point Spread Function (PSF) deconvolution algorithm was applied to enhance spatial resolution and make the IR image directly comparable to a [SII] HST image of the same source. The [FeII] emission is detected from both the jet, the (weak) counter-jet, and from the HH34-S and HH34-N bow shocks. The deconvolved image allows us to resolve jet knots close to about 1\arcsec from the central source. The morphology of the [FeII] emission is remarkably similar to that of the [SII] emission, and the relative positions of [FeII] and [SII] peaks are shifted according to proper motion measurements, which were previously derived from HST images. An analysis of the [FeII]/[SII] emission ratio shows that Fe gas abundance is much lower than the solar value with up to 90% of Fe depletion in the inner jet knots. This confirms previous findings on dusty jets, where shocks are not efficient enough to remove refractory species from grains.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, note accepted by A&

On thin-shell wormholes evolving in flat FRW spacetimes

We analize the stability of a class of thin-shell wormholes with spherical symmetry evolving in flat FRW spacetimes. The wormholes considered here are supported at the throat by a perfect fluid with equation of state $\mathcal{P}=w\sigma$ and have a physical radius equal to $aR$, where $a$ is a time-dependent function describing the dynamics of the throat and $R$ is the background scale factor. The study of wormhole stability is done by means of the stability analysis of dynamic systems.Comment: 8 pages; to appear in MPL

Geometrical features of (4+d) gravity

We obtain the vacuum spherical symmetric solutions for the gravitational sector of a (4+d)-dimensional Kaluza-Klein theory. In the various regions of parameter space, the solutions can describe either naked singularities or black-holes or wormholes. We also derive, by performing a conformal rescaling, the corresponding picture in the four-dimensional space-time.Comment: 10 pages, LateX2e, to appear in Phys.Rev.

Possible black universes in a brane world

A black universe is a nonsingular black hole where, beyond the horizon, there is an expanding, asymptotically isotropic universe. Such spherically symmetric configurations have been recently found as solutions to the Einstein equations with phantom scalar fields (with negative kinetic energy) as sources of gravity. They have a Schwarzschild-like causal structure but a de Sitter infinity instead of a singularity. It is attempted to obtain similar configurations without phantoms, in the framework of an RS2 type brane world scenario, considering the modified Einstein equations that describe gravity on the brane. By building an explicit example, it is shown that black-universe solutions can be obtained there in the presence of a scalar field with positive kinetic energy and a nonzero potential.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, gc styl

A convergent blind deconvolution method for post-adaptive-optics astronomical imaging

In this paper we propose a blind deconvolution method which applies to data perturbed by Poisson noise. The objective function is a generalized Kullback-Leibler divergence, depending on both the unknown object and unknown point spread function (PSF), without the addition of regularization terms; constrained minimization, with suitable convex constraints on both unknowns, is considered. The problem is nonconvex and we propose to solve it by means of an inexact alternating minimization method, whose global convergence to stationary points of the objective function has been recently proved in a general setting. The method is iterative and each iteration, also called outer iteration, consists of alternating an update of the object and the PSF by means of fixed numbers of iterations, also called inner iterations, of the scaled gradient projection (SGP) method. The use of SGP has two advantages: first, it allows to prove global convergence of the blind method; secondly, it allows the introduction of different constraints on the object and the PSF. The specific constraint on the PSF, besides non-negativity and normalization, is an upper bound derived from the so-called Strehl ratio, which is the ratio between the peak value of an aberrated versus a perfect wavefront. Therefore a typical application is the imaging of modern telescopes equipped with adaptive optics systems for partial correction of the aberrations due to atmospheric turbulence. In the paper we describe the algorithm and we recall the results leading to its convergence. Moreover we illustrate its effectiveness by means of numerical experiments whose results indicate that the method, pushed to convergence, is very promising in the reconstruction of non-dense stellar clusters. The case of more complex astronomical targets is also considered, but in this case regularization by early stopping of the outer iterations is required

Intrinsic gain modulation and adaptive neural coding

In many cases, the computation of a neural system can be reduced to a receptive field, or a set of linear filters, and a thresholding function, or gain curve, which determines the firing probability; this is known as a linear/nonlinear model. In some forms of sensory adaptation, these linear filters and gain curve adjust very rapidly to changes in the variance of a randomly varying driving input. An apparently similar but previously unrelated issue is the observation of gain control by background noise in cortical neurons: the slope of the firing rate vs current (f-I) curve changes with the variance of background random input. Here, we show a direct correspondence between these two observations by relating variance-dependent changes in the gain of f-I curves to characteristics of the changing empirical linear/nonlinear model obtained by sampling. In the case that the underlying system is fixed, we derive relationships relating the change of the gain with respect to both mean and variance with the receptive fields derived from reverse correlation on a white noise stimulus. Using two conductance-based model neurons that display distinct gain modulation properties through a simple change in parameters, we show that coding properties of both these models quantitatively satisfy the predicted relationships. Our results describe how both variance-dependent gain modulation and adaptive neural computation result from intrinsic nonlinearity.Comment: 24 pages, 4 figures, 1 supporting informatio

Non-monotonic current-to-rate response function in a novel integrate-and-fire model neuron

A novel integrate-and-fire model neuron is proposed to account for a non-monotonic f-I response function, as experimentally observed. As opposed to classical forms of adaptation, the present integrate- and-fire model the spike-emission process incorporates a state - dependent inactivation that makes the probability of emitting a spike decreasing as a function of the mean depolarization level instead of the mean firing rate. \ua9 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2002

A Fokker-Planck formalism for diffusion with finite increments and absorbing boundaries

Gaussian white noise is frequently used to model fluctuations in physical systems. In Fokker-Planck theory, this leads to a vanishing probability density near the absorbing boundary of threshold models. Here we derive the boundary condition for the stationary density of a first-order stochastic differential equation for additive finite-grained Poisson noise and show that the response properties of threshold units are qualitatively altered. Applied to the integrate-and-fire neuron model, the response turns out to be instantaneous rather than exhibiting low-pass characteristics, highly non-linear, and asymmetric for excitation and inhibition. The novel mechanism is exhibited on the network level and is a generic property of pulse-coupled systems of threshold units.Comment: Consists of two parts: main article (3 figures) plus supplementary text (3 extra figures

On the classical confinement of test particles to a thin 3-brane in the absence of non-gravitational forces

The classical confinement condition of test particles to a brane universe in the absence of non-gravitational forces is transformed using the Hamilton-Jacobi formalism. The transformed condition provides a direct criterion for selecting in a cosmological scenario 5D bulk manifolds wherein it is possible to obtain confinement of trajectories to 4D hypersurfaces purely due to classical gravitational effects.Comment: 12 pages, version to appear in MPL