1,108 research outputs found
Orbital Foregrounds for Ultra-Short Duration Transients
Reflections from objects in Earth orbit can produce sub-second, star-like
optical flashes similar to astrophysical transients. Reflections have
historically caused false alarms for transient surveys, but the population has
not been systematically studied. We report event rates for these orbital
flashes using the Evryscope Fast Transient Engine, a low-latency transient
detection pipeline for the Evryscopes. We select single-epoch detections likely
caused by Earth satellites and model the event rate as a function of both
magnitude and sky position. We measure a rate of
sky hour, peaking at , for flashes morphologically
degenerate with real astrophysical signals in surveys like the Evryscopes. Of
these, sky hour are bright enough to be
visible to the naked eye in typical suburban skies with a visual limiting
magnitude of . These measurements place the event rate of orbital
flashes orders of magnitude higher than the combined rate of public alerts from
all active all-sky fast-timescale transient searches, including neutrino,
gravitational-wave, gamma-ray, and radio observatories. Short-timescale orbital
flashes form a dominating foreground for un-triggered searches for fast
transients in low-resolution, wide-angle surveys. However, events like fast
radio bursts (FRBs) with arcminute-scale localization have a low probability
() of coincidence with an orbital flash, allowing optical surveys
to place constraints on their potential optical counterparts in single images.
Upcoming satellite internet constellations, like SpaceX Starlink, are unlikely
to contribute significantly to the population of orbital flashes in normal
operations.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure
The Complete Star Formation History of the Universe
The determination of the star-formation history of the Universe is a key goal
of modern cosmology, as it is crucial to our understanding of how structure in
the Universe forms and evolves. A picture has built up over recent years,
piece-by-piece, by observing young stars in distant galaxies at different times
in the past.
These studies indicated that the stellar birthrate peaked some 8 billion
years ago, and then declined by a factor of around ten to its present value.
Here we report on a new study which obtains the complete star formation history
by analysing the fossil record of the stellar populations of 96545 nearby
galaxies. Broadly, our results support those derived from high-redshift
galaxies elsewhere in the Universe. We find, however, that the peak of star
formation was more recent - around 5 billion years ago. Our study also shows
that the bigger the stellar mass of the galaxy, the earlier the stars were
formed. This striking result indicates a very different formation history for
high- and low-mass formation.Comment: Accepted by Nature. Press embargo until publishe
Constraints from Solar and Reactor Neutrinos on Unparticle Long-Range Forces
We have investigated the impact of long-range forces induced by unparticle
operators of scalar, vector and tensor nature coupled to fermions in the
interpretation of solar neutrinos and KamLAND data. If the unparticle couplings
to the neutrinos are mildly non-universal, such long-range forces will not
factorize out in the neutrino flavour evolution. As a consequence large
deviations from the observed standard matter-induced oscillation pattern for
solar neutrinos would be generated. In this case, severe limits can be set on
the infrared fix point scale, Lambda_u, and the new physics scale, M, as a
function of the ultraviolet (d_UV) and anomalous (d) dimension of the
unparticle operator. For a scalar unparticle, for instance, assuming the
non-universality of the lepton couplings to unparticles to be of the order of a
few per mil we find that, for d_UV=3 and d=1.1, M is constrained to be M >
O(10^9) TeV (M > O(10^10) TeV) if Lambda_u= 1 TeV (10 TeV). For given values of
Lambda_u and d, the corresponding bounds on M for vector [tensor] unparticles
are approximately 100 [3/Sqrt(Lambda_u/TeV)] times those for the scalar case.
Conversely, these results can be translated into severe constraints on
universality violation of the fermion couplings to unparticle operators with
scales which can be accessible at future colliders.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figures. Minor changes due to precision in numerical
factors and correction in figure labels. References added. Conclusions remain
unchange
EvryFlare. III. Temperature Evolution and Habitability Impacts of Dozens of Superflares Observed Simultaneously by Evryscope and TESS
Superflares may provide the dominant source of biologically relevant UV radiation to rocky habitable-zone M-dwarf planets (M-Earths), altering planetary atmospheres and conditions for surface life. The combined line and continuum flare emission has usually been approximated by a 9000 K blackbody. If superflares are hotter, then the UV emission may be 10 times higher than predicted from the optical. However, it is unknown for how long M-dwarf superflares reach temperatures above 9000 K. Only a handful of M-dwarf superflares have been recorded with multiwavelength high-cadence observations. We double the total number of events in the literature using simultaneous Evryscope and Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite observations to provide the first systematic exploration of the temperature evolution of M-dwarf superflares. We also increase the number of superflaring M dwarfs with published time-resolved blackbody evolution by ∼10×. We measure temperatures at 2 minutes cadence for 42 superflares from 27 K5–M5 dwarfs. We find superflare peak temperatures (defined as the mean of temperatures corresponding to flare FWHM) increase with flare energy and impulse. We find the amount of time flares emit at temperatures above 14,000 K depends on energy. We discover that 43% of the flares emit above 14,000 K, 23% emit above 20,000 K and 5% emit above 30,000 K. The largest and hottest flare briefly reached 42,000 K. Some do not reach 14,000 K. During superflares, we estimate M-Earths orbiting <200 Myr stars typically receive a top-of-atmosphere UV-C flux of ∼120 W m−2 and up to 103 W m−2, 100–1000 times the time-averaged X-ray and UV flux from Proxima Cen
A new upper limit on the reflected starlight from Tau Bootis b
Using improved doppler tomographic signal-analysis techniques we have carried
out a deep search for starlight reflected from the giant planet orbiting the
star Tau Bootis. We combined echelle spectra secured at the 4.2 m William
Herschel telescope in 1998 and 1999 (which yielded a tentative detection of a
reflected starlight component from the orbiting companion) with new data
obtained in 2000 (which failed to confirm the detection). The combined dataset
comprises 893 high resolution spectra with a total integration time of 75 hr 32
min spanning 17 nights. We establish an upper limit on the planet's geometric
albedo p<0.39 (at the 99.9 % significance level) at the most probable orbital
inclination i=36 degrees, assuming a grey albedo, a Venus-like phase function
and a planetary radius R_p=1.2 R_Jup. We are able to rule out some combinations
of the predicted planetary radius and atmospheric albedo models with high,
reflective cloud decks. Although a weak candidate signal appears near to the
most probable radial velocity amplitude, its statistical significance is
insufficient for us to claim a detection with any confidence.Comment: 13 pages, 18 figures, MNRAS accepted 12 June 200
A single dose of antibody-drug conjugate cures a stage 1 model of African trypanosomiasis.
Infections of humans and livestock with African trypanosomes are treated with drugs introduced decades ago that are not always fully effective and often have severe side effects. Here, the trypanosome haptoglobin-haemoglobin receptor (HpHbR) has been exploited as a route of uptake for an antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) that is completely effective against Trypanosoma brucei in the standard mouse model of infection. Recombinant human anti-HpHbR monoclonal antibodies were isolated and shown to be internalised in a receptor-dependent manner. Antibodies were conjugated to a pyrrolobenzodiazepine (PBD) toxin and killed T. brucei in vitro at picomolar concentrations. A single therapeutic dose (0.25 mg/kg) of a HpHbR antibody-PBD conjugate completely cured a T. brucei mouse infection within 2 days with no re-emergence of infection over a subsequent time course of 77 days. These experiments provide a demonstration of how ADCs can be exploited to treat protozoal diseases that desperately require new therapeutics
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