24,499 research outputs found
Helioseismic Holography of an Artificial Submerged Sound Speed Perturbation and Implications for the Detection of Pre-Emergence Signatures of Active Regions
We use a publicly available numerical wave-propagation simulation of Hartlep
et al. 2011 to test the ability of helioseismic holography to detect signatures
of a compact, fully submerged, 5% sound-speed perturbation placed at a depth of
50 Mm within a solar model. We find that helioseismic holography as employed in
a nominal "lateral-vantage" or "deep-focus" geometry employing quadrants of an
annular pupil is capable of detecting and characterizing the perturbation. A
number of tests of the methodology, including the use of a plane-parallel
approximation, the definition of travel-time shifts, the use of different
phase-speed filters, and changes to the pupils, are also performed. It is found
that travel-time shifts made using Gabor-wavelet fitting are essentially
identical to those derived from the phase of the Fourier transform of the
cross-covariance functions. The errors in travel-time shifts caused by the
plane-parallel approximation can be minimized to less than a second for the
depths and fields of view considered here. Based on the measured strength of
the mean travel-time signal of the perturbation, no substantial improvement in
sensitivity is produced by varying the analysis procedure from the nominal
methodology in conformance with expectations. The measured travel-time shifts
are essentially unchanged by varying the profile of the phase-speed filter or
omitting the filter entirely. The method remains maximally sensitive when
applied with pupils that are wide quadrants, as opposed to narrower quadrants
or with pupils composed of smaller arcs. We discuss the significance of these
results for the recent controversy regarding suspected pre-emergence signatures
of active regions
Reaffirming the connection between the Galactic stellar warp and the Canis Major overdensity
We perform a critical re-analysis and discussion of recent results presented
in the literature which interpret the CMa overdensity as the signature of an
accreting dwarf galaxy or a new substructure within the Galaxy. Several issues
are addressed. We show that arguments against the ``warp'' interpretation are
based on an erroneous perception of the Milky Way. There is nothing anomalous
with colour--magnitude diagrams on opposite sides of the average warp mid-plane
being different. We witnessed the rise and fall of the blue plume population,
first attributed to young stars in a disrupting dwarf galaxy and now discarded
as a normal disc population. Similarly, there is nothing anomalous in the outer
thin+thick disc metallicities being low (-1<[Fe/H]<-0.5), and spiral arms (as
part of the thin disc) should, and do, warp. Most importantly, we show
unambiguously that, contrary to previous claims, the warp produces a stellar
overdensity that is distance-compatible with that observed in CMa.The CMa
over-density remains fully accounted for in a first order approach by Galactic
models without new substructures. Given the intrinsic uncertainties (concerning
the properties of the warp, flare and disc cutoff, the role of extinction and
degeneracy), minor deviations with respect to these models are not enough to
support the hypothesis of an accreted dwarf galaxy or new substructure within
the Milky Way disc.Comment: A&A Letter, accepted, 4 pages, 3 figure
The oral-aboral axis of a sea urchin embryo is specified by first cleavage
Several lines of evidence suggest that the oral-aboral axis in Strongylocentrotus purpuratus embryos is specified at or before the 8-cell stage. Were the oral-aboral axis specified independently of the first cleavage plane, then a random association of this plane with the blastomeres of the four embryo quadrants in the oral-aboral plane (viz. oral, aboral, right and left) would be expected. Lineage tracer dye injection into one blastomere at the 2-cell stage and observation of the resultant labeling patterns demonstrates instead a strongly nonrandom association. In at least ninety percent of cases, the progeny of the aboral blastomeres are associated with those of the left lateral blastomeres and the progeny of the oral blastomeres with the right lateral ones, respectively. Thus, ninety percent of the time the oral pole of the future oral-aboral axis lies 45 degrees clockwise from the first cleavage plane as viewed from the animal pole. The nonrandom association of blastomeres after labeling of the 2-cell stage implies that there is a mechanistic relation between axis specification and the positioning of the first cleavage plane
Phenomenological Models for the Gap Anisotropy of Bi-2212 as Measured by ARPES
Recently, high resolution angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy has been
used to determine the detailed momentum dependence of the superconducting gap
in the high temperature superconductor Bi-2212. In this paper, we first
describe tight binding fits to the normal state dispersion and superlattice
modulation effects. We then discuss various theoretical models in light of the
gap measurements. We find that the simplest model which fits the data is the
anisotropic s-wave gap , which within a one-band BCS frame-
work suggests the importance of next near neighbor Cu-Cu interactions. Various
alternative interpretations of the observed gap are also discussed, along with
the implications for microscopic theories of high temperature superconductors.Comment: 14 pages, revtex, 9 uuencoded postscript figure
Methanol Masers as Tracers of Circumstellar Disks
We show that in many methanol maser sources the masers are located in lines,
with a velocity gradient along them which suggests that the masers are situated
in edge-on circumstellar, or protoplanetary, disks. We present VLBI
observations of the methanol maser source G309.92+0.48, in the 12.2 GHz
transition, which confirm previous observations that the masers in this source
lie along a line. We show that such sources are not only linear in space but,
in many cases, also have a linear velocity gradient. We then model these and
other data in both the 6.7 GHz and the 12.2 GHz transition from a number of
star formation regions, and show that the observed spatial and velocity
distribution of methanol masers, and the derived Keplerian masses, are
consistent with a circumstellar disk rotating around an OB star. We consider
this and other hypotheses, and conclude that about half of these methanol
masers are probably located in edge-on circumstellar disks around young stars.
This is of particular significance for studies of circumstellar disks because
of the detailed velocity information available from the masers.Comment: 38 pages, 13 figures accepted by Ap
Mapping the Asymmetric Thick Disk: The Hercules Thick Disk Cloud
The stellar asymmetry of faint thick disk/inner halo stars in the first
quadrant first reported by Larsen & Humphreys (1996) and investigated further
by Parker et al. (2003, 2004) has been recently confirmed by SDSS (Juric et al.
2008). Their interpretation of the excess in the star counts as a ringlike
structure, however, is not supported by critical complimentary data in the
fourth quadrant not covered by SDSS. We present stellar density maps from the
Minnesota Automated Plate Scanner (MAPS) Catalog of the POSS I showing that the
overdensity does not extend into the fourth quadrant. The overdensity is most
probably not a ring. It could be due to interaction with the disk bar, evidence
for a triaxial thick disk, or a merger remnant/stream. We call this feature the
Hercules Thick Disk Cloud.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures, to be published in Astrophysical Journal Letter
- …