Turbulent Disks are Never Stable: Fragmentation and Turbulence-Promoted Planet Formation

A fundamental assumption in our understanding of disks is that when the Toomre Q>>1, the disk is stable against fragmentation into self-gravitating objects (and so cannot form planets via direct collapse). But if disks are turbulent, this neglects a spectrum of stochastic density fluctuations that can produce rare, high-density mass concentrations. Here, we use a recently-developed analytic framework to predict the statistics of these fluctuations, i.e. the rate of fragmentation and mass spectrum of fragments formed in a turbulent Keplerian disk. Turbulent disks are never completely stable: we calculate the (always finite) probability of forming self-gravitating structures via stochastic turbulent density fluctuations in such disks. Modest sub-sonic turbulence above Mach number ~0.1 can produce a few stochastic fragmentation or 'direct collapse' events over ~Myr timescales, even if Q>>1 and cooling is slow (t_cool>>t_orbit). In trans-sonic turbulence this extends to Q~100. We derive the true Q-criterion needed to suppress such events, which scales exponentially with Mach number. We specify to turbulence driven by MRI, convection, or spiral waves, and derive equivalent criteria in terms of Q and the cooling time. Cooling times >~50*t_dyn may be required to completely suppress fragmentation. These gravoturbulent events produce mass spectra peaked near ~M_disk*(Q*M_disk/M_star)^2 (rocky-to-giant planet masses, increasing with distance from the star). We apply this to protoplanetary disk models and show that even minimum mass solar nebulae could experience stochastic collapse events, provided a source of turbulence.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figures (+appendix), accepted to ApJ (added clarifications and discussion to match accepted version

Discovery of TUG-770: a highly potent free fatty acid receptor 1 (FFA1/GPR40) agonist for treatment of type 2 diabetes

Free fatty acid receptor 1 (FFA1 or GPR40) enhances glucose-stimulated insulin secretion from pancreatic β-cells and currently attracts high interest as a new target for the treatment of type 2 diabetes. We here report the discovery of a highly potent FFA1 agonist with favorable physicochemical and pharmacokinetic properties. The compound efficiently normalizes glucose tolerance in diet-induced obese mice, an effect that is fully sustained after 29 days of chronic dosing

Curvature-induced symmetry breaking in nonlinear Schrodinger models

We consider a curved chain of nonlinear oscillators and show that the interplay of curvature and nonlinearity leads to a symmetry breaking when an asymmetric stationary state becomes energetically more favorable than a symmetric stationary state. We show that the energy of localized states decreases with increasing curvature, i.e. bending is a trap for nonlinear excitations. A violation of the Vakhitov-Kolokolov stability criterium is found in the case where the instability is due to the softening of the Peierls internal mode.Comment: 4 pages (LaTex) with 6 figures (EPS

Comparison of Two Plans for Administration Organization of the School Districts of Sanpete County

Educational administration exists to develop and guide the educational program. Every local public school system is a legal agency of the state for the conduct of public education. State laws usually set up the administrative units for school districts and places upon local boards of education the responsibility for the management of the local schools. Such boards represent the people of the state, and the district, and they perform a large number of legally designated function

Models for energy and charge transport and storage in biomolecules

Two models for energy and charge transport and storage in biomolecules are considered. A model based on the discrete nonlinear Schrodinger equation with long-range dispersive interactions (LRI's) between base pairs of DNA is offered for the description of nonlinear dynamics of the DNA molecule. We show that LRI's are responsible for the existence of an interval of bistability where two stable stationary states, a narrow, pinned state and a broad, mobile state, coexist at each value of the total energy. The possibility of controlled switching between pinned and mobile states is demonstrated. The mechanism could be important for controlling energy storage and transport in DNA molecules. Another model is offered for the description of nonlinear excitations in proteins and other anharmonic biomolecules. We show that in the highly anharmonic systems a bound state of Davydov and Boussinesq solitons can exist.Comment: 12 pages (latex), 12 figures (ps

The extra-tropical Northern Hemisphere temperature in the last two millennia: reconstructions of low-frequency variability

We present two new multi-proxy reconstructions of the extra-tropical Northern Hemisphere (30–90° N) mean temperature: a two-millennia long reconstruction reaching back to 1 AD and a 500-yr long reconstruction reaching back to 1500 AD. The reconstructions are based on compilations of 32 and 91 proxies, respectively, of which only little more than half pass a screening procedure and are included in the actual reconstructions. The proxies are of different types and of different resolutions (annual, annual-to-decadal, and decadal) but all have previously been shown to relate to local or regional temperature. We use a reconstruction method, LOCal (LOC), that recently has been shown to confidently reproduce low-frequency variability. Confidence intervals are obtained by an ensemble pseudo-proxy method that both estimates the variance and the bias of the reconstructions. The two-millennia long reconstruction shows a well defined Medieval Warm Period, with a peak warming ca. 950–1050 AD reaching 0.6 °C relative to the reference period 1880–1960 AD. The 500-yr long reconstruction confirms previous results obtained with the LOC method applied to a smaller proxy compilation; in particular it shows the Little Ice Age cumulating in 1580–1720 AD with a temperature minimum of −1.0 °C below the reference period. The reconstructed local temperatures, the magnitude of which are subject to wide confidence intervals, show a rather geographically homogeneous Little Ice Age, while more geographical inhomogeneities are found for the Medieval Warm Period. Reconstructions based on different subsets of proxies show only small differences, suggesting that LOC reconstructs 50-yr smoothed extra-tropical NH mean temperatures well and that low-frequency noise in the proxies is a relatively small problem