Xenon isotopes in nanodiamonds and other presolar grains

pdf freely available cb 18/07/0

Turismo, urbanismo y colonialismo en Tánger, 1880-1939

This article examines leisure, travel, and tourism during the period of rapid urban expansion of Tangier. Several factors favored Tangier’s prospects to develop an urban economy based on travel and leisure, including climate, location, the availability of a labor force from Morocco and southern Andalucía, and the city’s role as the seat of Euro-Moroccan investment, commerce, and diplomacy. It was known to thousands of travelers and residential tourists by the late nineteenth century, fuelling considerable optimism for further growth in this area. By the 1930s, however, a range of municipal and inter-imperial political problems impeded the city’s consolidation as a major resort destination.Este artículo examina el ocio, los viajes y el turismo durante el período de mayor expansión urbana de Tánger. Varios factores favorecieron las posibilidades de Tánger para desarrollar una economía basada en los viajes y el ocio, entre ellas, el clima, su localización geográfica, la disponibilidad de una masa laboral procedente de Marruecos y el sur de Andalucía y el papel de la ciudad como sede euro-marroquí para la inversión, el comercio y la diplomacia. La ciudad era conocida por miles de viajeros y turistas residenciales desde finales del siglo XIX, lo que fomentó un optimismo considerable por lograr un mayor crecimiento de esta zona. Sin embargo, durante los años treinta una sucesión de problemas políticos locales e internacionales impidieron la consolidación de la ciudad como un gran destino turístico

A revised inventory of Antarctic subglacial lakes

The locations and details of 145 Antarctic subglacial lakes are presented. The inventory is based on a former catalogue of lake-type features, which has been subsequently reanalysed, and on the results from three additional datasets. The first is from Italian radio-echo sounding (RES) of the Dome C region of East Antarctica, from which 14 new lakes are identified. These data also show that, in a number of occasions, multiple take-type reflectors thought previously to be individual lakes are in fact reflections from the same relatively large take. This reduces the former total of lake-type reflectors by six, but also adds a significant level of information to these particular lakes. The second dataset is from a Russian survey of the Dome A and Dome F regions of East Antarctica, which provides evidence of 18 new lakes and extends the coverage of the inventory considerably. The third dataset comprises three airborne RES surveys under-taken by the US in East Antarctica over the last five years, from which forty three new lakes have been identified. Reference to information on Lake Vostok, from Italian and US surveys taken in the last few years, is now included

The Palomar Kernel Phase Experiment: Testing Kernel Phase Interferometry for Ground-based Astronomical Observations

At present, the principal limitation on the resolution and contrast of astronomical imaging instruments comes from aberrations in the optical path, which may be imposed by the Earth's turbulent atmosphere or by variations in the alignment and shape of the telescope optics. These errors can be corrected physically, with active and adaptive optics, and in post-processing of the resulting image. A recently-developed adaptive optics post-processing technique, called kernel phase interferometry, uses linear combinations of phases that are self-calibrating with respect to small errors, with the goal of constructing observables that are robust against the residual optical aberrations in otherwise well-corrected imaging systems. Here we present a direct comparison between kernel phase and the more established competing techniques, aperture masking interferometry, point spread function (PSF) fitting and bispectral analysis. We resolve the alpha Ophiuchi binary system near periastron, using the Palomar 200-Inch Telescope. This is the first case in which kernel phase has been used with a full aperture to resolve a system close to the diffraction limit with ground-based extreme adaptive optics observations. Excellent agreement in astrometric quantities is found between kernel phase and masking, and kernel phase significantly outperforms PSF fitting and bispectral analysis, demonstrating its viability as an alternative to conventional non-redundant masking under appropriate conditions.Comment: Accepted to MNRA

Ground-based detections of thermal emission from CoRoT-1b and WASP-12b

We report a new detection of the H-band thermal emission of CoRoT-1b and two confirmation detections of the Ks-band thermal emission of WASP-12b at secondary eclipses. The H-band measurement of CoRoT-1b shows an eclipse depth of 0.145%\pm0.049% with a 3-{\sigma} percentile between 0.033% - 0.235%. This depth is consistent with the previous conclusions that the planet has an isother- mal region with inefficient heat transport from dayside to nightside, and has a dayside thermal inversion layer at high altitude. The two Ks band detections of WASP-12b show a joint eclipse depth of 0.299%\pm0.065%. This result agrees with the measurement of Croll & collaborators, providing independent confirmation of their measurement. The repeatability of the WASP-12b measurements also validates our data analysis method. Our measurements, in addition to a number of previous results made with other telescopes, demonstrate that ground-based observations are becoming widely available for characterization of atmospheres of hot Jupiters.Comment: 20 pages, including 8 figures and 1 table. Accepted for publication in Ap

A Direct Imaging Survey of Spitzer detected debris disks: Occurrence of giant planets in dusty systems

We describe a joint high contrast imaging survey for planets at Keck and VLT of the last large sample of debris disks identified by the Spitzer Space Telescope. No new substellar companions were discovered in our survey of 30 Spitzer-selected targets. We combine our observations with data from four published surveys to place constraints on the frequency of planets around 130 debris disk single stars, the largest sample to date. For a control sample, we assembled contrast curves from several published surveys targeting 277 stars which do not show infrared excesses. We assumed a double power law distribution in mass and semi-major axis of the form f(m,a) = $Cm^{\alpha}a^{\beta}$, where we adopted power law values and logarithmically flat values for the mass and semi-major axis of planets. We find that the frequency of giant planets with masses 5-20 $M_{\rm Jup}$ and separations 10-1000 AU around stars with debris disks is 6.27% (68% confidence interval 3.68 - 9.76%), compared to 0.73% (68% confidence interval 0.20 - 1.80%) for the control sample of stars without disks. These distributions differ at the 88% confidence level, tentatively suggesting distinctness of these samples.Comment: Accepted to A

Enrichment of calcifying extracellular vesicles using density-based ultracentrifugation protocol

Calcifying extracellular vesicles (EVs) released from cells within atherosclerotic plaques have received increased attention for their role in mediating vascular calcification, a major predictor of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. However, little is known about the difference between this pathologic vesicle population and other EVs that contribute to physiological cellular processes. One major challenge that hinders research into these differences is the inability to selectively isolate calcifying EVs from other vesicle populations. In this study, we hypothesized that the formation of mineral within calcifying EVs would increase the density of the vesicles such that they would pellet at a faster rate during ultracentrifugation. We show that after 10 min of ultracentrifugation at 100,000×g, calcifying EVs are depleted from the conditioned media of calcifying coronary artery smooth muscle cells and are enriched in the pelleted portion. We utilized mass spectrometry to establish functional proteomic differences between the calcifying EVs enriched in the 10 min ultracentrifugation compared to other vesicle populations preferentially pelleted by longer ultracentrifugation times. The procedures established in this study will allow us to enrich the vesicle population of interest and perform advanced proteomic analyses to find subtle differences between calcifying EVs and other vesicle populations that may be translated into therapeutic targets for vascular calcification. Finally, we will show that the differences in ultracentrifugation times required to pellet the vesicle populations can also be used to estimate physical differences between the vesicles

Constraining mass ratio and extinction in the FU Orionis binary system with infrared integral field spectroscopy

We report low resolution near infrared spectroscopic observations of the eruptive star FU Orionis using the Integral Field Spectrograph Project 1640 installed at the Palomar Hale telescope. This work focuses on elucidating the nature of the faint source, located 0.5" south of FU Ori, and identified in 2003 as FU Ori S. We first use our observations in conjunction with published data to demonstrate that the two stars are indeed physically associated and form a true binary pair. We then proceed to extract J and H band spectro-photometry using the damped LOCI algorithm, a reduction method tailored for high contrast science with IFS. This is the first communication reporting the high accuracy of this technique, pioneered by the Project 1640 team, on a faint astronomical source. We use our low resolution near infrared spectrum in conjunction with 10.2 micron interferometric data to constrain the infrared excess of FU Ori S. We then focus on estimating the bulk physical properties of FU Ori S. Our models lead to estimates of an object heavily reddened, A_V =8-12, with an effective temperature of ~ 4000-6500 K . Finally we put these results in the context of the FU Ori N-S system and argue that our analysis provides evidence that FU Ori S might be the more massive component of this binary syste

Friends of Hot Jupiters II: No Correspondence Between Hot-Jupiter Spin-Orbit Misalignment and the Incidence of Directly Imaged Stellar Companions

Multi-star systems are common, yet little is known about a stellar companion's influence on the formation and evolution of planetary systems. For instance, stellar companions may have facilitated the inward migration of hot Jupiters towards to their present day positions. Many observed short period gas giant planets also have orbits that are misaligned with respect to their star's spin axis, which has also been attributed to the presence of a massive outer companion on a non-coplanar orbit. We present the results of a multi-band direct imaging survey using Keck NIRC2 to measure the fraction of short period gas giant planets found in multi-star systems. Over three years, we completed a survey of 50 targets ("Friends of Hot Jupiters") with 27 targets showing some signature of multi-body interaction (misaligned or eccentric orbits) and 23 targets in a control sample (well-aligned and circular orbits). We report the masses, projected separations, and confirmed common proper motion for the 19 stellar companions found around 17 stars. Correcting for survey incompleteness, we report companion fractions of $48\%\pm9\%$, $47\%\pm12\%$, and $51\%\pm13\%$ in our total, misaligned/eccentric, and control samples, respectively. This total stellar companion fraction is $2.8\,\sigma$ larger than the fraction of field stars with companions approximately $50-2000\,$AU. We observe no correlation between misaligned/eccentric hot Jupiter systems and the incidence of stellar companions. Combining this result with our previous radial velocity survey, we determine that $72\% \pm 16\%$ of hot Jupiters are part of multi-planet and/or multi-star systems.Comment: typos and references updated; 25 pages, 7 figures and 10 tables, accepted for publication in Ap

Low power field generation for magneto-optic fiber-based interferometric switches

A new fiber-based, magneto-optic switch is proposed with a novel approach for low power and efficient operation. The switch, with reasonable switching speed compared to competitive designs, operates at considerably reduced power levels, which makes it a practical deployable solution. The basic switch setup consists of a Faraday rotator in a Sagnac fiber-optic interferometer in which optical switching is controlled by an electronic driving circuit. The electronic system generates a magnetic field through the Faraday rotator by driving current through a specially designed two-coil system. The new coil system allows for sufficient field generation at low quiescent power levels while maintaining very short optical rise and fall times. The design and considerations as well as the effect of mutual inductance between the two coils and its influence on switching times are investigated. The optical system consists of a Sagnac interferometer with a Faraday rotator within the Sagnac loop. Appropriate phase shift for interference is achieved by the proposed field generating system designed for the magneto-optical element. The theory of operation, design, experimental results, and optical and electronic setup are presented and analyzed