100 research outputs found
Domestic Titus
Critical examinations of William Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus almost always
occlude questions of the domestic. Yet, a major portion of the play’s action takes place
in a house and the methods of the characters’ revenge can be construed as domestic.
More simply, in Titus, household properties and domestic rituals are transformed into
instruments of vengeance. With a particular focus on the cultural and historical
conditions governing literary production in early modern England, this thesis draws on
previous scholarly work and examines the intersection of domesticity and revenge in
Titus.
The thesis is divided into two sections, each of which addresses different, though
overlapping, ways in which domesticity – broadly speaking – operates in the play. The
first section examines the play’s two competing revenge plots, demonstrating that not
only are they domestic in nature, but also that many of the play’s features align closely
with generic traits and devices integral to plays classified as “Domestic Tragedies.” The
second section focuses on Titus Andronicus’ Senecan roots and examines carefully the
function(s) of the domestic setting in Titus as well as Seneca’s Thyestes, one of
Shakespeare’s sources. I explore the ways in which the play’s domestic setting is distinctly Senecan and discuss Shakespeare’s alterations to his Latin source. While the
house becomes a site of domestic and dynastic anxiety in both Seneca’s Thyestes and
Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, Shakespeare’s play evinces a concern with domestic
privacy that Seneca’s does not
Changes in Breath Trihalomethane Levels Resulting from Household Water-Use Activities
Common household water-use activities such as showering, bathing, drinking, and washing clothes or dishes are potentially important contributors to individual exposure to trihalomethanes (THMs), the major class of disinfection by-products of water treated with chlorine. Previous studies have focused on showering or bathing activities. In this study, we selected 12 common water-use activities and determined which may lead to the greatest THM exposures and result in the greatest increase in the internal dose. Seven subjects performed the various water-use activities in two residences served by water utilities with relatively high and moderate total THM levels. To maintain a consistent exposure environment, the activities, exposure times, air exchange rates, water flows, water temperatures, and extraneous THM emissions to the indoor air were carefully controlled. Water, indoor air, blood, and exhaled-breath samples were collected during each exposure session for each activity, in accordance with a strict, well-defined protocol. Although showering (for 10 min) and bathing (for 14 min), as well as machine washing of clothes and opening mechanical dishwashers at the end of the cycle, resulted in substantial increases in indoor air chloroform concentrations, only showering and bathing caused significant increases in the breath chloroform levels. In the case of bromodichloromethane (BDCM), only bathing yielded a significantly higher air level in relation to the preexposure concentration. For chloroform from showering, strong correlations were observed for indoor air and exhaled breath, blood and exhaled breath, indoor air and blood, and tap water and blood. Only water and breath, and blood and breath were significantly associated for chloroform from bathing. For BDCM, significant correlations were obtained for blood and air, and blood and water from showering. Neither dibromochloromethane nor bromoform gave measurable breath concentrations for any of the activities investigated because of their much lower tap-water concentrations. Future studies will address the effects that changes in these common water-use activities may have on exposure
Investigating the Atmospheric Mass Loss of the Kepler-105 Planets Straddling the Radius Gap
An intriguing pattern among exoplanets is the lack of detected planets
between approximately R and R. One proposed
explanation for this "radius gap" is the photoevaporation of planetary
atmospheres, a theory that can be tested by studying individual planetary
systems. Kepler-105 is an ideal system for such testing due to the ordering and
sizes of its planets. Kepler-105 is a sun-like star that hosts two planets
straddling the radius gap in a rare architecture with the larger planet closer
to the host star ( R, days, R, days). If photoevaporation sculpted the
atmospheres of these planets, then Kepler-105b would need to be much more
massive than Kepler-105c to retain its atmosphere, given its closer proximity
to the host star. To test this hypothesis, we simultaneously analyzed radial
velocities (RVs) and transit timing variations (TTVs) of the Kepler-105 system,
measuring disparate masses of M ( g cm) and M ( g cm). Based on these masses, the difference in gas
envelope content of the Kepler-105 planets could be entirely due to
photoevaporation (in 76\% of scenarios), although other mechanisms like
core-powered mass loss could have played a role for some planet albedos.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figures, 2 table
Giant Outer Transiting Exoplanet Mass (GOT 'EM) Survey. IV. Long-term Doppler Spectroscopy for 11 Stars Thought to Host Cool Giant Exoplanets
Discovering and characterizing exoplanets at the outer edge of the transit
method's sensitivity has proven challenging owing to geometric biases and the
practical difficulties associated with acquiring long observational baselines.
Nonetheless, a sample of giant exoplanets on orbits longer than 100 days has
been identified by transit hunting missions. We present long-term Doppler
spectroscopy for 11 such systems with observation baselines spanning a few
years to a decade. We model these radial velocity observations jointly with
transit photometry to provide initial characterizations of these objects and
the systems in which they exist. Specifically, we make new precise mass
measurements for four long-period giant exoplanets (Kepler-111 c, Kepler-553 c,
Kepler-849 b, and PH-2 b), we place new upper limits on mass for four others
(Kepler-421 b, KOI-1431.01, Kepler-1513 b, and Kepler-952 b), and we show that
several "confirmed" planets are in fact not planetary at all. We present these
findings to complement similar efforts focused on closer-in short-period giant
planets, and with the hope of inspiring future dedicated studies of cool giant
exoplanets.Comment: 35 pages, 24 figures, 11 tables. Accepted for publication in ApJ
Supplemen
The TESS-Keck Survey. XV. Precise Properties of 108 TESS Planets and Their Host Stars
We present the stellar and planetary properties for 85 TESS Objects of
Interest (TOIs) hosting 108 planet candidates which comprise the TESS-Keck
Survey (TKS) sample. We combine photometry, high-resolution spectroscopy, and
Gaia parallaxes to measure precise and accurate stellar properties. We then use
these parameters as inputs to a lightcurve processing pipeline to recover
planetary signals and homogeneously fit their transit properties. Among these
transit fits, we detect significant transit-timing variations among at least
three multi-planet systems (TOI-1136, TOI-1246, TOI-1339) and at least one
single-planet system (TOI-1279). We also reduce the uncertainties on
planet-to-star radius ratios across our sample, from a median
fractional uncertainty of 8.8 among the original TOI Catalog values to
3.0 among our updated results. With this improvement, we are able to
recover the Radius Gap among small TKS planets and find that the topology of
the Radius Gap among our sample is broadly consistent with that measured among
Kepler planets. The stellar and planetary properties presented here will
facilitate follow-up investigations of both individual TOIs and broader trends
in planet properties, system dynamics, and the evolution of planetary systems.Comment: Accepted at The Astronomical Journal; 21 pages, 9 figure
The TESS-Keck Survey XVII: Precise Mass Measurements in a Young, High Multiplicity Transiting Planet System using Radial Velocities and Transit Timing Variations
We present a radial velocity (RV) analysis of TOI-1136, a bright TESS system
with six confirmed transiting planets, and a seventh single-transiting planet
candidate. All planets in the system are amenable to transmission spectroscopy,
making TOI-1136 one of the best targets for intra-system comparison of
exoplanet atmospheres. TOI-1136 is young ( 700 Myr), and the system
exhibits transit timing variations (TTVs). The youth of the system contributes
to high stellar variability on the order of 50 m s, much larger than the
likely RV amplitude of any of the transiting exoplanets. Utilizing 359 HIRES
and APF RVs collected as a part of the TESS-Keck Survey (TKS), and 51 HARPS-N
RVs, we experiment with a joint TTV-RV fit. With seven possible transiting
planets, TTVs, more than 400 RVs, and a stellar activity model, we posit that
we may be presenting the most complex mass recovery of an exoplanet system in
the literature to date. By combining TTVs and RVs, we minimized GP overfitting
and retrieved new masses for this system: (m = 3.50,
6.32, 8.35, 6.07,
9.7, 5.6 M). We are unable to
significantly detect the mass of the seventh planet candidate in the RVs, but
we are able to loosely constrain a possible orbital period near 80 days. Future
TESS observations might confirm the existence of a seventh planet in the
system, better constrain the masses and orbital properties of the known
exoplanets, and generally shine light on this scientifically interesting
system.Comment: Accepted for publication in the Astronomical Journa
The TESS-Keck Survey. XII. A Dense 1.8 R ⊕ Ultra-short-period Planet Possibly Clinging to a High-mean-molecular-weight Atmosphere after the First Gigayear
The extreme environments of ultra-short-period planets (USPs) make excellent laboratories to study how exoplanets obtain, lose, retain, and/or regain gaseous atmospheres. We present the confirmation and characterization of the USP TOI-1347 b, a 1.8±0.1 R⊕ planet on a 0.85 day orbit that was detected with photometry from the TESS mission. We measured radial velocities of the TOI-1347 system using Keck/HIRES and HARPS-N and found the USP to be unusually massive at 11.1±1.2 M⊕. The measured mass and radius of TOI-1347 b imply an Earth-like bulk composition. A thin H/He envelope (>0.01% by mass) can be ruled out at high confidence. The system is between 1 and 1.8 Gyr old; therefore, intensive photoevaporation should have concluded. We detected a tentative phase curve variation (3σ) and a secondary eclipse (2σ) in TESS photometry, which if confirmed could indicate the presence of a high-mean-molecular-weight atmosphere. We recommend additional optical and infrared observations to confirm the presence of an atmosphere and investigate its composition
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The TESS-Keck Survey. XXII. A Sub-Neptune Orbiting TOI-1437
Exoplanet discoveries have revealed a dramatic diversity of planet sizes across a vast array of orbital architectures. Sub-Neptunes are of particular interest; due to their absence in our own solar system, we rely on demographics of exoplanets to better understand their bulk composition and formation scenarios. Here, we present the discovery and characterization of TOI-1437 b, a sub-Neptune with a 18.84 day orbit around a near-solar analog (M⋆ = 1.10 ± 0.10 M☉, R⋆=1.17 ± 0.12 R☉). The planet was detected using photometric data from the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) mission and radial velocity (RV) follow-up observations were carried out as a part of the TESS-Keck Survey using both the HIRES instrument at Keck Observatory and the Levy Spectrograph on the Automated Planet Finder telescope. A combined analysis of these data reveal a planet radius of Rp = 2.24 ± 0.23 R⊕ and a mass measurement of Mp = 9.6 ± 3.9 M⊕). TOI-1437 b is one of few (∼50) known transiting sub-Neptunes orbiting a solar-mass star that has a RV mass measurement. As the formation pathway of these worlds remains an unanswered question, the precise mass characterization of TOI-1437 b may provide further insight into this class of planet
Light Microsopy Module, International Space Station Premier Automated Microscope
The Light Microscopy Module (LMM) was launched to the International Space Station (ISS) in 2009 and began science operations in 2010. It continues to support Physical and Biological scientific research on ISS. During 2015, if all goes as planned, five experiments will be completed: [1] Advanced Colloids Experiments with a manual sample base -3 (ACE-M-3), [2] the Advanced Colloids Experiment with a Heated Base -1 (ACE-H-1), [3] (ACE-H-2), [4] the Advanced Plant Experiment -03 (APEX-03), and [5] the Microchannel Diffusion Experiment (MDE). Preliminary results, along with an overview of present and future LMM capabilities will be presented; this includes details on the planned data imaging processing and storage system, along with the confocal upgrade to the core microscope. [1] New York University: Paul Chaikin, Andrew Hollingsworth, and Stefano Sacanna, [2] University of Pennsylvania: Arjun Yodh and Matthew Gratale, [3] a consortium of universities from the State of Kentucky working through the Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR): Stuart Williams, Gerold Willing, Hemali Rathnayake, et al., [4] from the University of Florida and CASIS: Anna-Lisa Paul and Rob Ferl, and [5] from the Methodist Hospital Research Institute from CASIS: Alessandro Grattoni and Giancarlo Canavese
The TESS-Keck Survey. XVI. Mass Measurements for 12 Planets in Eight Systems
With JWST's successful deployment and unexpectedly high fuel reserves,
measuring the masses of sub-Neptunes transiting bright, nearby stars will soon
become the bottleneck for characterizing the atmospheres of small exoplanets
via transmission spectroscopy. Using a carefully curated target list and more
than two years' worth of APF-Levy and Keck-HIRES Doppler monitoring, the
TESS-Keck Survey is working toward alleviating this pressure. Here we present
mass measurements for 11 transiting planets in eight systems that are
particularly suited to atmospheric follow-up with JWST. We also report the
discovery and confirmation of a temperate super-Jovian-mass planet on a
moderately eccentric orbit. The sample of eight host stars, which includes one
subgiant, spans early-K to late-F spectral types ( 5200--6200
K). We homogeneously derive planet parameters using a joint photometry and
radial velocity modeling framework, discuss the planets' possible bulk
compositions, and comment on their prospects for atmospheric characterization.Comment: Accepted for publication in The Astronomical Journal on 2023-Jun-22.
60 pages, 17 Tables, 28 Figure
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