21,480 research outputs found
Limits to Transits of the Neptune-mass planet orbiting Gl 581
We have monitored the Neptune-mass exoplanet-hosting M-dwarf Gl 581 with the
1m Swope Telescope at Las Campanas Observatory over two predicted transit
epochs. A neutral density filter centered at 550nm was used during the first
epoch, yielding 6.33 hours of continuous light curve coverage with an average
photometric precision of 1.6 mmags and a cadence of 2.85 min. The second epoch
was monitored in B-band over 5.85 hours, with an average photometric precision
of 1.2 mmags and 4.28 min cadence. No transits are apparent on either night,
indicating that the orbital inclination is less than 88.1 deg for all planets
with radius larger than 0.38 R_Nep = 1.48 R_Earth. Because planets of most
reasonable interior composition have radii larger than 1.55 R_Earth we place an
inclination limit for the system of 88.1 deg. The corresponding minimum mass of
Gl 581b remains 0.97 M_Nep = 16.6 M_Earth.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, 1 table, to appear in PAS
Measuring surface-area-to-volume ratios in soft porous materials using laser-polarized xenon interphase exchange NMR
We demonstrate a minimally invasive nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR)
technique that enables determination of the surface-area-to-volume ratio (S/V)
of soft porous materials from measurements of the diffusive exchange of
laser-polarized 129Xe between gas in the pore space and 129Xe dissolved in the
solid phase. We apply this NMR technique to porous polymer samples and find
approximate agreement with destructive stereological measurements of S/V
obtained with optical confocal microscopy. Potential applications of
laser-polarized xenon interphase exchange NMR include measurements of in vivo
lung function in humans and characterization of gas chromatography columns.Comment: 14 pages of text, 4 figure
Jahn-Teller Spectral Fingerprint in Molecular Photoemission: C60
The h_u hole spectral intensity for C60 -> C60+ molecular photoemission is
calculated at finite temperature by a parameter-free Lanczos diagonalization of
the electron-vibration Hamiltonian, including the full 8 H_g, 6 G_g, and 2 A_g
mode couplings. The computed spectrum at 800 K is in striking agreement with
gas-phase data. The energy separation of the first main shoulder from the main
photoemission peak, 230 meV in C60, is shown to measure directly and rather
generally the strength of the final-state Jahn-Teller coupling.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure
Cross Pixel Optical Flow Similarity for Self-Supervised Learning
We propose a novel method for learning convolutional neural image
representations without manual supervision. We use motion cues in the form of
optical flow, to supervise representations of static images. The obvious
approach of training a network to predict flow from a single image can be
needlessly difficult due to intrinsic ambiguities in this prediction task. We
instead propose a much simpler learning goal: embed pixels such that the
similarity between their embeddings matches that between their optical flow
vectors. At test time, the learned deep network can be used without access to
video or flow information and transferred to tasks such as image
classification, detection, and segmentation. Our method, which significantly
simplifies previous attempts at using motion for self-supervision, achieves
state-of-the-art results in self-supervision using motion cues, competitive
results for self-supervision in general, and is overall state of the art in
self-supervised pretraining for semantic image segmentation, as demonstrated on
standard benchmarks
Estimation of Parameters in DNA Mixture Analysis
In Cowell et al. (2007), a Bayesian network for analysis of mixed traces of
DNA was presented using gamma distributions for modelling peak sizes in the
electropherogram. It was demonstrated that the analysis was sensitive to the
choice of a variance factor and hence this should be adapted to any new trace
analysed. In the present paper we discuss how the variance parameter can be
estimated by maximum likelihood to achieve this. The unknown proportions of DNA
from each contributor can similarly be estimated by maximum likelihood jointly
with the variance parameter. Furthermore we discuss how to incorporate prior
knowledge about the parameters in a Bayesian analysis. The proposed estimation
methods are illustrated through a few examples of applications for calculating
evidential value in casework and for mixture deconvolution
Four new planets around giant stars and the mass-metallicity correlation of planet-hosting stars
CONTEXT. Exoplanet searches have demonstrated that giant planets are
preferentially found around metal-rich stars and that their fraction increases
with the stellar mass. AIMS. During the past six years, we have conducted a
radial velocity follow-up program of 166 giant stars, to detect substellar
companions, and characterizing their orbital properties. Using this
information, we aim to study the role of the stellar evolution in the orbital
parameters of the companions, and to unveil possible correlations between the
stellar properties and the occurrence rate of giant planets. METHODS. Using
FEROS and CHIRON spectra, we have computed precision radial velocities and we
have derived atmospheric and physical parameters for all of our targets.
Additionally, velocities computed from UCLES spectra are presented here. By
studying the periodic radial velocity signals, we have detected the presence of
several substellar companions. RESULTS. We present four new planetary systems
around the giant stars HIP8541, HIP74890, HIP84056 and HIP95124. Additionally,
we find that giant planets are more frequent around metal-rich stars, reaching
a peak in the detection of = 16.7% around stars with
[Fe/H] 0.35 dex. Similarly, we observe a positive correlation of the
planet occurrence rate with the stellar mass, between M 1.0 -2.1
M, with a maximum of = 13.0%, at M = 2.1
M. CONCLUSIONS. We conclude that giant planets are preferentially
formed around metal-rich stars. Also, we conclude that they are more
efficiently formed around more massive stars, in the mass range of M
1.0 - 2.1 M. These observational results confirm previous
findings for solar-type and post-MS hosting stars, and provide further support
to the core-accretion formation model.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&
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