19,293 research outputs found
Surface differential rotation and prominences of the Lupus post T Tauri star RX J1508.6-4423
We present in this paper a spectroscopic monitoring of the Lupus post T Tauri star RX J1508.6-4423 carried out at two closely separated epochs (1998 May 06 and 10) with the UCL Echelle Spectrograph on the 3.9-m Anglo-Australian Telescope. Applying least-squares convolution and maximum entropy image reconstruction techniques to our sets of spectra, we demonstrate that this star features on its surface a large cool polar cap with several appendages extending to lower latitudes, as well as one spot close to the equator. The images reconstructed at both epochs are in good overall agreement, except for a photospheric shear that we interpret in terms of latitudinal differential rotation. Given the spot distribution at the epoch of our observations, differential rotation could only be investigated between latitudes 15° and 60°. We find in particular that the observed differential rotation is compatible with a solar-like law (i.e., with rotation rate decreasing towards high latitudes proportionally to sin 2l, where l denotes the latitude) in this particular latitude range. Assuming that such a law can be extrapolated to all latitudes, we find that the equator of RX J1508.6-4423 does one more rotational cycle than the pole every 50 ±10 d, implying a photospheric shear 2 to 3 times stronger than that of the Sun. We also discover that the Hα emission profile of RX J1508.6-4423 is most of the time double-peaked and strongly modulated with the rotation period of the star. We interpret this rotationally modulated emission as being caused by a dense and complex prominence system, the circumstellar distribution of which is obtained through maximum entropy Doppler tomography. These maps show in particular that prominences form a complete and inhomogeneous ring around the star, precisely at the corotation radius. We use the total Hα and Hβ emission flux to estimate that the mass of the whole prominence system is about 10 20g. From our observation that the whole cloud system surrounding the star is regenerated in less than 4 d, we conclude that the braking time-scale of RX J1508.6-4423 is shorter than 1 Gyr, and that prominence expulsion is thus likely to contribute significantly to the rotational spindown of young low-mass stars
A search for starlight reflected from HD 75289 b
We have used a doppler tomographic analysis to conduct a deep search for the
starlight reflected from the planetary companion to HD 75289. In 4 nights on
VLT2/UVES in January 2003, we obtained 684 high resolution echelle spectra with
a total integration time of 26 hours. We establish an upper limit on the
planet's geometric albedo p < 0.12 (to the 99.9% significance level) at the
most probable orbital inclination i ~ 60 degrees, assuming a grey albedo, a
Venus-like phase function and a planetary radius R_p = 1.6 R_Jup. We are able
to rule out some combinations of the predicted planetary radius and atmospheric
albedo models with high, reflective cloud decks.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, MNRAS accepted 12 Oct 200
Rotational modulation of X-ray emission in Orion Nebula young stars
We investigate the spatial distribution of X-ray emitting plasma in a sample
of young Orion Nebula Cluster stars by modulation of their X-ray light-curves
due to stellar rotation. The study, part of the Chandra Orion Ultradeep Project
(COUP), is made possible by the exceptional length of the observation: 10 days
of ACIS integration during a time span of 13 days, yielding a total of 1616
detected sources in the 17x17 arcmin field of view. We here focus on a
subsample of 233 X-ray-bright stars with known rotational periods. We search
for X-ray modulation using the Lomb Normalized Periodogram method.
X-ray modulation related to the rotation period is detected in at least 23
stars with periods between 2 and 12 days and relative amplitudes ranging from
20% to 70%. In 16 cases, the X-ray modulation period is similar to the stellar
rotation period while in seven cases it is about half that value, possibly due
to the presence of X-ray emitting structures at opposite stellar longitudes.
These results constitute the largest sample of low mass stars in which X-ray
rotational modulation has been observed. The detection of rotational modulation
indicates that the X-ray emitting regions are distributed inhomogeneneously in
longitude and do not extend to distances significantly larger than the stellar
radius. Modulation is observed in stars with saturated activity levels
(L_X/L_bol ~ 10^(-3)) showing that saturation is not due to the filling of the
stellar surface with X-ray emitting regions.Comment: 41 pages, 15 figures, ApJS in press. Figure 15 (34 panels) is an
on-line only figure and is not included. A pdf file which includes figure 15
as well as full resolution versions of figure 10 and 11 is available at:
http://www.astropa.unipa.it/~ettoref/COUP_RotMod.pd
Chiropractic & Osteopathy. A new journal
Both chiropractic and osteopathy are over a century old. They are now regarded as complementary health professions. There is an imperative for both professions to research the principles and claims that underpin them, and the new journal Chiropractic & Osteopathy provides a scientific forum for the publication of such research
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Informing early intervention: preschool predictors of anxiety disorders in middle childhood
Background: To inform early intervention practice, the present research examines how child anxiety, behavioural inhibition, maternal overinvolvement, maternal negativity, mother-child attachment and maternal anxiety, as assessed at age four, predict anxiety at age nine.
Method: 202 children (102 behaviourally inhibited and 100 behaviourally uninhibited) aged 3–4 years were initially recruited and the predictors outlined above were assessed. Diagnostic assessments, using the Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule, were then conducted five years later.
Results: Behavioural inhibition, maternal anxiety, and maternal overinvolvement were significant predictors of clinical anxiety, even after controlling for baseline anxiety (p,.05). No significant effect of negativity or attachment security was found over and above baseline anxiety (p..1).
Conclusions: Preschool children who show anxiety, are inhibited, have overinvolved mothers and mothers with anxiety disorders are at increased risk for anxiety in middle childhood. These factors can be used to identify suitable participants for early intervention and can be targeted within intervention programs
Steiner t-designs for large t
One of the most central and long-standing open questions in combinatorial
design theory concerns the existence of Steiner t-designs for large values of
t. Although in his classical 1987 paper, L. Teirlinck has shown that
non-trivial t-designs exist for all values of t, no non-trivial Steiner
t-design with t > 5 has been constructed until now. Understandingly, the case t
= 6 has received considerable attention. There has been recent progress
concerning the existence of highly symmetric Steiner 6-designs: It is shown in
[M. Huber, J. Algebr. Comb. 26 (2007), pp. 453-476] that no non-trivial
flag-transitive Steiner 6-design can exist. In this paper, we announce that
essentially also no block-transitive Steiner 6-design can exist.Comment: 9 pages; to appear in: Mathematical Methods in Computer Science 2008,
ed. by J.Calmet, W.Geiselmann, J.Mueller-Quade, Springer Lecture Notes in
Computer Scienc
Planets and Stellar Activity: Hide and Seek in the CoRoT-7 system
Since the discovery of the transiting super-Earth CoRoT-7b, several
investigations have yielded different results for the number and masses of
planets present in the system, mainly owing to the star's high level of
activity. We re-observed CoRoT-7 in January 2012 with both HARPS and CoRoT, so
that we now have the benefit of simultaneous radial-velocity and photometric
data. This allows us to use the off-transit variations in the star's light
curve to estimate the radial-velocity variations induced by the suppression of
convective blueshift and the flux blocked by starspots. To account for
activity-related effects in the radial-velocities which do not have a
photometric signature, we also include an additional activity term in the
radial-velocity model, which we treat as a Gaussian process with the same
covariance properties (and hence the same frequency structure) as the light
curve. Our model was incorporated into a Monte Carlo Markov Chain in order to
make a precise determination of the orbits of CoRoT-7b and CoRoT-7c. We measure
the masses of planets b and c to be 4.73 +/- 0.95 Mearth and 13.56 +/- 1.08
Mearth, respectively. The density of CoRoT-7b is (6.61 +/- 1.72)(Rp/1.58
Rearth)^(-3) g.cm^(-3), which is compatible with a rocky composition. We search
for evidence of an additional planet d, identified by previous authors with a
period close to 9 days. We are not able to confirm the existence of a planet
with this orbital period, which is close to the second harmonic of the stellar
rotation at around 7.9 days. Using Bayesian model selection we find that a
model with two planets plus activity-induced variations is most favoured.Comment: Accepted 2014 July 2. Received 2014 June 30; in original form 2013
May 30 (17 pages, 9 figures
On hyperovals of polar spaces
We derive lower and upper bounds for the size of a hyperoval of a finite polar space of rank 3. We give a computer-free proof for the uniqueness, up to isomorphism, of the hyperoval of size 126 of H(5, 4) and prove that the near hexagon E-3 has up to isomorphism a unique full embedding into the dual polar space DH(5, 4)
WASP-189b: an ultra-hot Jupiter transiting the bright A star HR 5599 in a polar orbit
We report the discovery of WASP-189b: an ultra-hot Jupiter in a 2.72-d
transiting orbit around the A star WASP-189 (HR 5599). We detected
periodic dimmings in the star's lightcurve, first with the WASP-South survey
facility then with the TRAPPIST-South telescope. We confirmed that a planet is
the cause of those dimmings via line-profile tomography and radial-velocity
measurements using the HARPS and CORALIE spectrographs. Those reveal WASP-189b
to be an ultra-hot Jupiter ( = 2.13 0.28 ;
= 1.374 0.082 ) in a polar orbit (; ) around a rapidly rotating
A6IV-V star ( = 8000 100 K; 100
km\, s). We calculate a predicted equilibrium temperature of = 2641 34 K, assuming zero albedo and efficient redistribution,
which is the third hottest for the known exoplanets. WASP-189 is the brightest
known host of a transiting hot Jupiter and the third-brightest known host of
any transiting exoplanet. We note that of the eight hot-Jupiter systems with
7000 K, seven have strongly misaligned orbits, and two of the
three systems with 8000 K have polar orbits (the third is
aligned).Comment: Submitted to MNRAS. 10 pages, 9 figures, 3 table
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