A change in the optical polarization associated with a gamma-ray flare in the blazar 3C 279

It is widely accepted that strong and variable radiation detected over all accessible energy bands in a number of active galaxies arises from a relativistic, Doppler-boosted jet pointing close to our line of sight. The size of the emitting zone and the location of this region relative to the central supermassive black hole are, however, poorly known, with estimates ranging from light-hours to a light-year or more. Here we report the coincidence of a gamma-ray flare with a dramatic change of optical polarization angle. This provides evidence for co-spatiality of optical and gamma-ray emission regions and indicates a highly ordered jet magnetic field. The results also require a non-axisymmetric structure of the emission zone, implying a curved trajectory for the emitting material within the jet, with the dissipation region located at a considerable distance from the black hole, at about 10^5 gravitational radii.Comment: Published in Nature issued on 18 February 2010. Corresponding authors: Masaaki Hayashida and Greg Madejsk

Trends in template/fragment-free protein structure prediction

Predicting the structure of a protein from its amino acid sequence is a long-standing unsolved problem in computational biology. Its solution would be of both fundamental and practical importance as the gap between the number of known sequences and the number of experimentally solved structures widens rapidly. Currently, the most successful approaches are based on fragment/template reassembly. Lacking progress in template-free structure prediction calls for novel ideas and approaches. This article reviews trends in the development of physical and specific knowledge-based energy functions as well as sampling techniques for fragment-free structure prediction. Recent physical- and knowledge-based studies demonstrated that it is possible to sample and predict highly accurate protein structures without borrowing native fragments from known protein structures. These emerging approaches with fully flexible sampling have the potential to move the field forward

One- and two-phonon wobbling excitations in triaxial Lu-165

High-spin states in Lu-165 have been investigated by in-beam gamma-ray coincidence spectroscopy using the EUROBALL spectrometer array. Two new excited rotational bands have been discovered with features similar to a previously known triaxial superdeformed band in that nucleus. Comparison of the decay pattern of these bands, in particular the unusually large E2 transition strength from the first excited to the yrast superdeformed band, to theoretical calculations shows that they belong to a family of wobbling excitations with phonon numbers n(w) = 0, 1 and 2. These results, together with evidence for nuclear wobbling in the neighbouring isotopes Lu-163 and Lu-167, firmly establish this mode of excitation in the A = 165 mass region. The observation of wobbling is a unique signature of stable nuclear triaxiality. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved

Coexisting normal and triaxial superdeformed structures in Lu-165

High-spin states in Lu-165 were populated in the La-139(Si-30, 4n) reaction at a beam energy of 152 MeV and gamma-ray coincidences were measured with the EUROBALL spectrometer array. Nine new rotational bands were discovered, known band structures were considerably extended and many inter-band transitions were found. Structures with normal deformation coexist with bands associated with the strongly deformed triaxial energy minima found in calculations. Three of these triaxial bands form a family of wobbling excitations with phonon quanta n(w) = 0, 1 and 2. The wobbling mode is a unique signature of nuclear triaxiality. Configuration assignments are discussed for the observed band structures. An exchange of configuration between two of the new bands due to mixing is observed, resulting in different signature partnerships at low and high spins