A Heitler model of extensive air showers

A simple, semi-empirical model is used to develop the hadronic portion of air showers in a manner analogous to the well-known Heitler splitting approximation of electromagnetic cascades. Various characteristics of EAS are plainly exhibited with numerical predictions in good accord with detailed Monte Carlo simulations and with data. Results for energy reconstruction, muon and electron sizes, the elongation rate, and for the effects of the atomic number of the primary are discussed.     

Bianchi type-IX cosmic strings in a scalar-tensor theory of gravitation

Bianchi type-IX space-time is considered in the presence of cosmic string source in the frame work of a scalar- tensor theory of gravitation proposed by Saez and Ballester (Phys. Lett. A 113:467, 1985). Exact cosmological models representing geometric (Nambu) string, p string and baratropic string are discussed in this theory. Some physical and kinematical properties of the models are also studied.     

On the energy density of the cosmic microwave background

Starting from the assumption that the radiation source at the origin of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) could not have a luminosity larger than the maximum energy in ordinary matter divided by the minimum time allowed by causality, one arrives at an expression that gives the energy density of CMB as a function of the main cosmological parameters. Also, by defining a radiation charge as the hypothetical charge that opposes the congregation of a cloud of particles around a source of electromagnetic radiation, on arrives at another expression for the energy density of CMB that agrees exactly with the measured value for a value of the Hubble constant equal to 72.09 km s⁻¹ Mpc⁻¹. Both expressions are independent of the redshift.     

Diffusion in momentum space as a picture of second-order Fermi acceleration

Energetic particles in a turbulent medium can be subject to second-order Fermi acceleration due to scattering on moving plasma waves. This mechanism leads to growing particle momentum dispersion and, at the same time, increases the mean particle energy. In the most frequently met situations both processes can be represented by a single momentum diffusion term in the particle kinetic equation. In the present paper we discuss the conditions allowing the additional term for regular acceleration to arise. For forward-backward asymmetric scattering centres, besides the diffusive term one should explicitly consider the regular acceleration term in momentum space, which can consist of the first-order (∝ V), as well as the second-order (∝ V²) part in the wave velocity V. We derive the condition for the scattering probability in the wave rest frame requied for vanishing the regular acceleration term and provide a simple mechanical example illustrating the theoretical concepts. Finally, we address its possible role in cosmic ray acceleration processes.     

Primary proton spectrum around the knee deduced from the emulsion-chamber data obtained at Mts. Fuji and Kanbala

We have done extensive Monte Carlo simulations using the new simulation codes of CORSIKA and COSMOS to compare with the gamma-family data obtained at Mts. Fuji (3750 m above sea level) and Kanbala (5500 m above sea level). Then, we estimated the primary proton and helium spectra around the knee energy region using a multiple-layered feed-forward neural network as a classifier of primary particle kind. The selection efficiency of proton-induced family events is estimated to be 82%. The flux value of protons at 2×10¹⁵ eV is (5.5±1.5)×10⁻¹⁴ (m⁻² s⁻¹ sr⁻¹ GeV⁻¹). The result suggests heavy-enriched primary composition around the knee region.     

APEX-SZ a Sunyaev–Zel’dovich galaxy cluster survey

The APEX-SZ experiment is a sky survey designed to discover galaxy clusters via the Sunyaev–Zel’dovich effect at millimeter wavelengths. We describe the components of the instrument, including the 12 m Atacama Pathfinder Experiment telescope, optics, Transition-edge sensor bolometer array and SQUID readout. APEX-SZ will begin observations in 2004.     

Modelling the effect of an assumed cosmic ray-modulated global cloud cover on the terrestrial surface temperature

We have used the thermodynamic model of the climate to estimate the effect of variations in the oceanic cloud cover on the surface temperature of the Earth in the North Hemisphere (NH) during the period 1984–1990. We assume that the variations in the cloud cover are proportional to the variation of the cosmic ray flux measured during the same period. The results indicate that the effect in the temperature is slightly noticeable when we consider the surface hemispheric temperature on July 1987, finding an average temperature anomaly between −0.06°C and −0.14°C, along a latitudinal band between 20° and 40°. The surface temperature averaged globally in the NH presents a decrease of 0.01°C in average, which is almost the same for continents and oceans. However, these values are not significant when compared to the overall variability of the time series with and without forcing.     

kSZ from patchy reionization: The view from the simulations

We present the first calculation of the kinetic Sunyaev–Zel’dovich (kSZ) effect due to the inhomogeneus reionization of the universe based on detailed large-scale radiative transfer simulations of reionization. The resulting sky power spectra peak at ℓ = 2000–8000 with maximum values of [ℓ(ℓ + 1)C_ℓ/(2π)]_max  4–7 × 10 ⁻¹³. The scale roughly corresponds to the typical ionized bubble sizes observed in our simulations, of 5–20 Mpc. The kSZ anisotropy signal from reionization dominates the primary CMB signal above ℓ = 3000. At large-scales the patchy kSZ signal depends only on the source efficiencies. It is higher when sources are more efficient at producing ionizing photons, since such sources produce larger ionized regions, on average, than less efficient sources. The introduction of sub-grid gas clumping in the radiative transfer simulations produce significantly more power at small-scales, but has little effect at large-scales. The patchy reionization kSZ signal is dominated by the post-reionization signal from fully-ionized gas, but the two contributions are of similar order at scales ℓ  3000 − 10⁴, indicating that the kSZ anisotropies from reionization are an important component of the total kSZ signal at these scales.     

Strange quark matter attached to string cloud in Bianchi type-III space time

We have obtained Bianchi type-III cosmological model with strange quark matter attached to the string cloud in general relativity. For solving the Einstein’s field equations the relation [C=A ⁿ ] between metric coefficients C and A is used. Also, some physical and kinematic properties of the model are discussed.The results are analogous to results obtained by Yilmaz (Gen. Rel. Grav. 38:1397–1406, 2006).     

Non-existence of five dimensional string cosmological models in Riemannian and Lyra geometries

In this paper, we have attempted to construct five dimensional string cosmological models in Riemannian and Lyra geometries. It is found that cosmic string models do not survive in both the theories. Subsequently, the vacuum cosmological models are constructed and discussed.