A Chandra observation of GRO J1744-28: the bursting pulsar in quiescence

We present a Chandra/ACIS-I observation of GRO J1744-28. We detected a source at a position of R.A = 17h 44m 33.09s and Dec. = -28degr 44' 27.0'' (J2000.0; with a 1sigma error of ~0.8 arcseconds), consistent with both ROSAT and interplanetary network localizations of GRO J1744-28 when it was in outburst. This makes it likely that we have detected the quiescent X-ray counterpart of GRO J1744-28. Our Chandra position demonstrates that the previously proposed infrared counterpart is not related to GRO J1744-28. The 0.5-10 keV luminosity of the source is 2 - 4 x 10^{33} erg/s (assuming the source is near the Galactic center at a distance of 8 kpc). We discuss our results in the context of the quiescent X-ray emission of pulsating and non-pulsating neutron star X-ray transients.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ Letters, 20 February 200

Numerical Simulation on Shoreline Change in Western Region of Badung Regency, Bali, Indonesia

Shoreline change is considered the most dynamic processes in coastal region. Coastal erosion is a global problem where 70% beaches around the world are recessional. Almost all coastal area in Bali is potential to suffer from erosion. Badung Regency in Bali has many beaches that famous as tourism area where from about 64 km shoreline length, 11,5 km were recorded suffered by erosion in 1985 and 12,1 km erosion in 2007. This study aims to determine the value of shoreline changes that occur in western of Badung Regency from 2001 to 2010 based on the predicted wave data using monthly wind data from Ngurah Rai, Tuban, Badung, Bali meteorological station. Shoreline change simulation measured the forward (accretion) or backward (erosion) distance of the shoreline on the East-West direction. Bali has wind patterns that influenced by the Northwest monsoon from November-April and Southeast monsoon from May-October. In 2001-2010, dominant wind in this region was coming from east, southeast, and west. Geographically western coast of Badung influenced by incoming winds from the west, southwest, and south. Wind blow towards the coast in 2001-2010 are dominantly come from the west with wind speed range was about 1,7-4,7 m/s. Simulation indicated that generally shoreline tends to experience accretion in the north and erosion in the south. From 16000 m of study shoreline, along 7100 m of shoreline tend to suffer by erosion. Oppositely, along 8900 m of shoreline tend to have accretion

Numerical Simulation on Shoreline Change in Western Region of Badung Regency, Bali, Indonesia

Shoreline change is considered the most dynamic processes in coastal region. Coastal erosion is a global problem where 70% beaches around the world are recessional. Almost all coastal area in Bali is potential to suffer from erosion. Badung Regency in Bali has many beaches that famous as tourism area where from about 64 km shoreline length, 11,5 km were recorded suffered by erosion in 1985 and 12,1 km erosion in 2007. This study aims to determine the value of shoreline changes that occur in western of Badung Regency from 2001 to 2010 based on the predicted wave data using monthly wind data from Ngurah Rai, Tuban, Badung, Bali meteorological station. Shoreline change simulation measured the forward (accretion) or backward (erosion) distance of the shoreline on the East-West direction. Bali has wind patterns that influenced by the Northwest monsoon from November-April and Southeast monsoon from May-October. In 2001-2010, dominant wind in this region was coming from east, southeast, and west. Geographically western coast of Badung influenced by incoming winds from the west, southwest, and south. Wind blow towards the coast in 2001-2010 are dominantly come from the west with wind speed range was about 1,7-4,7 m/s. Simulation indicated that generally shoreline tends to experience accretion in the north and erosion in the south. From 16000 m of study shoreline, along 7100 m of shoreline tend to suffer by erosion. Oppositely, along 8900 m of shoreline tend to have accretion

The evolution of the high energy tail in the quiescent spectrum of the soft X-ray transient Aql X-1

A moderate level of variability has been detected in the quiescent luminosity of several neutron star soft X-ray transients. Spectral variability was first revealed by Chandra observations of Aql X-1 in the four months that followed the 2000 X-ray outburst. By adopting the canonical model for quiescent spectrum of soft X-ray transients, i.e. an absorbed neutron star atmosphere model plus a power law tail, Rutledge et al. (2002a) concluded that the observed spectral variations can be ascribed to temperature variations of the neutron star atmosphere. These results can hardly be reconciled with the neutron star cooling that is expected to take place in between outbursts (after deep crustal heating in the accretion phase). Here we reanalyse the Chandra spectra of Aql X-1, together with a long BeppoSAX observation in the same period, and propose a different interpretation of the spectral variability: that this is due to correlated variations of the power law component and the column density (>5, a part of which might be intrinsic to the source), while the temperature and flux of the neutron star atmospheric component remained unchanged. This lends support to the idea that the power law component arises from emission at the shock between a radio pulsar wind and inflowing matter from the companion star.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures. Accepted for publication on Ap

Factors influencing the start of development in Daphnia pulex winter eggs [Translation from: Biological Reviews Vol. 13, 24-26, 1951]

The winter eggs of Daphnia pulex, after passing safely through the winter , develop and hatch in the spring, multiplying by themselves, while some males emerging among them with the changes in environment produce fertile eggs, which are universally known as winter eggs . This study researches the factors governing the development of winter eggs through experiments

On the Chandra X-ray Sources in the Galactic Center

Recent deep Chandra surveys of the Galactic center region have revealed the existence of a faint, hard X-ray source population. While the nature of this population is unknown, it is likely that several types of stellar objects contribute. For sources involving binary systems, accreting white dwarfs and accreting neutron stars with main sequence companions have been proposed. Among the accreting neutron star systems, previous studies have focused on stellar wind-fed sources. In this paper, we point out that binary systems in which mass transfer occurs via Roche lobe overflow (RLOF) can also contribute to this X-ray source population. A binary population synthesis study of the Galactic center region has been carried out, and it is found that evolutionary channels for neutron star formation involving the accretion induced collapse of a massive ONeMg white dwarf, in addition to the core collapse of massive stars, can contribute to this population. The RLOF systems would appear as transients with quiescent luminosities, above 2 keV, in the range from 10^31-10^32 ergs/s. The results reveal that RLOF systems primarily contribute to the faint X-ray source population in the Muno et al. (2003) survey and wind-fed systems can contribute to the less sensitive Wang et al. (2002) survey. However, our results suggest that accreting neutron star systems are not likely to be the major contributor to the faint X-ray source population in the Galactic center.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures, 1 table ApJ in press (Dec 2004). Substantial change

XMM-Newton observations of the neutron star X-ray transient KS 1731-260 in quiescence

We report on XMM-Newton observations performed on 2001 September 13-14 of the neutron star X-ray transient KS 1731-260 in quiescence. The source was detected at an unabsorbed 0.5-10 keV flux of only 4 - 8 x 10^{-14} erg/s, depending on the model used to fit the data, which for a distance of 7 kpc implies a 0.5-10 keV X-ray luminosity of approximately 2 - 5 x 10^{32} erg/s. The September 2001 quiescent flux of KS 1731-260 is lower than that observed during the Chandra observation in March 2001. In the cooling neutron star model for the quiescent X-ray emission of neutron star X-ray transients, this decrease in the quiescent flux implies that the crust of the neutron star in KS 1731-260 cooled down rapidly between the two epochs, indicating that the crust has a high conductivity. Furthermore, enhanced cooling in the neutron star core is also favored by our results.Comment: Accepter for publication in ApJ Letters, 22 May 200

Effects of antibodies against dynein and tubulin on the stiffness of flagellar axonemes

Antidynein antibodies, previously shown to inhibit flagellar oscillation and active sliding of axonemal microtubules, increase the bending resistance of axonemes measured under relaxing conditions, but not the bending resistance of axonemes measured under rigor conditions. These observations suggest that antidynein antibodies can stabilize rigor cross-bridges between outer-doublet microtubules, by interfering with ATP-induced cross-bridge detachment. Stabilization of a small number of cross-bridge appears to be sufficient to cause substantial inhibition of the frequency of flagellar oscillation. Antitubulin antibodies, previously shown to inhibit flagellar oscillation without inhibiting active sliding of axonemal microtubules, do not increase the static bending resistance of axonemes. However, we observed a viscoelastic effect, corresponding to a large increase in the immediate bending resistance. This immediate bending resistance increase may be sufficient to explain inhibition of flagellar oscillation; but several alternative explanations cannot yet be excluded