1,010 research outputs found
Possible direct method to determine the radius of a star from the spectrum of gravitational wave signals
We computed the spectrum of gravitational waves from a dust disk star of
radius R inspiraling into a Kerr black hole of mass M and specific angular
momentum a. We found that when R is much larger than the wave length of the
quasinormal mode, the spectrum has several peaks and the separation of peaks
is proportional to irrespective of M and a. This
suggests that the radius of the star in coalescing binary black hole - star
systems may be determined directly from the observed spectrum of gravitational
wave. This also suggests that the spectrum of the radiation may give us
important information in gravitational wave astronomy as in optical astronomy.Comment: 4 pages with 3 eps figures, revtex.sty, accepted for publication in
Phys. Rev. Let
Scalar GW detection with a hollow spherical antenna
We study the response and cross sections for the absorption of GW energy in a
Jordan-Brans-Dicke theory by a resonant mass detector shaped as a hollow
sphere.Comment: latex file, 9 page
Regulation of caspase-3 processing by cIAP2 controls the switch between pro-inflammatory activation and cell death in microglia.
Cell Death and Disease is an open-access journal published by Nature Publishing Group. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons licence, users will need to obtain permission from the licence holder to reproduce the material.The activation of microglia, resident immune cells of the central nervous system, and inflammation-mediated neurotoxicity are typical features of neurodegenerative diseases, for example, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases. An unexpected role of caspase-3, commonly known to have executioner role for apoptosis, was uncovered in the microglia activation process. A central question emerging from this finding is what prevents caspase-3 during the microglia activation from killing those cells? Caspase-3 activation occurs as a two-step process, where the zymogen is first cleaved by upstream caspases, such as caspase-8, to form intermediate, yet still active, p19/p12 complex; thereafter, autocatalytic processing generates the fully mature p17/p12 form of the enzyme. Here, we show that the induction of cellular inhibitor of apoptosis protein 2 (cIAP2) expression upon microglia activation prevents the conversion of caspase-3 p19 subunit to p17 subunit and is responsible for restraining caspase-3 in terms of activity and subcellular localization. We demonstrate that counteracting the repressive effect of cIAP2 on caspase-3 activation, using small interfering RNA targeting cIAP2 or a SMAC mimetic such as the BV6 compound, reduced the pro-inflammatory activation of microglia cells and promoted their death. We propose that the different caspase-3 functions in microglia, and potentially other cell types, reside in the active caspase-3 complexes formed. These results also could indicate cIAP2 as a possible therapeutic target to modulate microglia pro-inflammatory activation and associated neurotoxicity observed in neurodegenerative disorders
On the Shear Instability in Relativistic Neutron Stars
We present new results on instabilities in rapidly and differentially
rotating neutron stars. We model the stars in full general relativity and
describe the stellar matter adopting a cold realistic equation of state based
on the unified SLy prescription. We provide evidence that rapidly and
differentially rotating stars that are below the expected threshold for the
dynamical bar-mode instability, beta_c = T/|W| ~ 0.25, do nevertheless develop
a shear instability on a dynamical timescale and for a wide range of values of
beta. This class of instability, which has so far been found only for small
values of beta and with very small growth rates, is therefore more generic than
previously found and potentially more effective in producing strong sources of
gravitational waves. Overall, our findings support the phenomenological
predictions made by Watts, Andersson and Jones on the nature of the low-T/|W|.Comment: 20 pages; accepted to the Classical and Quantum Gravity special issue
for MICRA200
Black Holes, Mergers, and the Entropy Budget of the Universe
Vast amounts of entropy are produced in black hole formation, and the amount
of entropy stored in supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies is now
much greater than the entropy free in the rest of the universe. Either mergers
involved in forming supermassive black holes are rare,or the holes must be very
efficient at capturing nearly all the entropy generated in the process.
We argue that this information can be used to constrain supermassive black
hole production, and may eventually provide a check on numerical results for
mergers involving black holes
Ultrarelativistic circular orbits of spinning particles in a Schwarzschild field
Ultrarelativistic circular orbits of spinning particles in a Schwarzschild
field described by the Mathisson-Papapetrou equations are considered. The
preliminary estimates of the possible synchrotron electromagnetic radiation of
highly relativistic protons and electrons on these orbits in the gravitational
field of a black hole are presentedComment: 9 page
Various features of quasiequilibrium sequences of binary neutron stars in general relativity
Quasiequilibrium sequences of binary neutron stars are numerically calculated
in the framework of the Isenberg-Wilson-Mathews (IWM) approximation of general
relativity. The results are presented for both rotation states of synchronized
spins and irrotational motion, the latter being considered as the realistic one
for binary neutron stars just prior to the merger. We assume a polytropic
equation of state and compute several evolutionary sequences of binary systems
composed of different-mass stars as well as identical-mass stars with adiabatic
indices gamma=2.5, 2.25, 2, and 1.8. From our results, we propose as a
conjecture that if the turning point of binding energy (and total angular
momentum) locating the innermost stable circular orbit (ISCO) is found in
Newtonian gravity for some value of the adiabatic index gamma_0, that of the
ADM mass (and total angular momentum) should exist in the IWM approximation of
general relativity for the same value of the adiabatic index.Comment: Text improved, some figures changed or deleted, new table, 38 pages,
31 figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.
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