958 research outputs found
Long-time properties of MHD turbulence and the role of symmetries
We investigate long-time properties of three-dimensional MHD turbulence in
the absence of forcing and examine in particular the role played by the
quadratic invariants of the system and by the symmetries of the initial
configurations. We observe that, when sufficient accuracy is used, initial
conditions with a high degree of symmetries, as in the absence of helicity, do
not travel through parameter space over time whereas by perturbing these
solutions either explicitly or implicitly using for example single precision
for long times, the flows depart from their original behavior and can become
either strongly helical, or have a strong alignment between the velocity and
the magnetic field. When the symmetries are broken, the flows evolve towards
different end states, as predicted by statistical arguments for non-dissipative
systems with the addition of an energy minimization principle, as already
analyzed in \cite{stribling_90} for random initial conditions using a moderate
number of Fourier modes. Furthermore, the alignment properties of these flows,
between velocity, vorticity, magnetic potential, induction and current,
correspond to the dominance of two main regimes, one helically dominated and
one in quasi-equipartition of kinetic and magnetic energy. We also contrast the
scaling of the ratio of magnetic energy to kinetic energy as a function of
wavenumber to the ratio of eddy turn-over time to Alfv\'en time as a function
of wavenumber. We find that the former ratio is constant with an approximate
equipartition for scales smaller than the largest scale of the flow whereas the
ratio of time scales increases with increasing wavenumber.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figure
Biased gene conversion and GC-content evolution in the coding sequences of reptiles and vertebrates.
Mammalian and avian genomes are characterized by a substantial spatial heterogeneity of GC-content, which is often interpreted as reflecting the effect of local GC-biased gene conversion (gBGC), a meiotic repair bias that favors G and C over A and T alleles in high-recombining genomic regions. Surprisingly, the first fully sequenced nonavian sauropsid (i.e., reptile), the green anole Anolis carolinensis, revealed a highly homogeneous genomic GC-content landscape, suggesting the possibility that gBGC might not be at work in this lineage. Here, we analyze GC-content evolution at third-codon positions (GC3) in 44 vertebrates species, including eight newly sequenced transcriptomes, with a specific focus on nonavian sauropsids. We report that reptiles, including the green anole, have a genome-wide distribution of GC3 similar to that of mammals and birds, and we infer a strong GC3-heterogeneity to be already present in the tetrapod ancestor. We further show that the dynamic of coding sequence GC-content is largely governed by karyotypic features in vertebrates, notably in the green anole, in agreement with the gBGC hypothesis. The discrepancy between third-codon positions and noncoding DNA regarding GC-content dynamics in the green anole could not be explained by the activity of transposable elements or selection on codon usage. This analysis highlights the unique value of third-codon positions as an insertion/deletion-free marker of nucleotide substitution biases that ultimately affect the evolution of proteins
Biased gene conversion and GC-content evolution in the coding sequences of reptiles and vertebrates.
Mammalian and avian genomes are characterized by a substantial spatial heterogeneity of GC-content, which is often interpreted as reflecting the effect of local GC-biased gene conversion (gBGC), a meiotic repair bias that favors G and C over A and T alleles in high-recombining genomic regions. Surprisingly, the first fully sequenced nonavian sauropsid (i.e., reptile), the green anole Anolis carolinensis, revealed a highly homogeneous genomic GC-content landscape, suggesting the possibility that gBGC might not be at work in this lineage. Here, we analyze GC-content evolution at third-codon positions (GC3) in 44 vertebrates species, including eight newly sequenced transcriptomes, with a specific focus on nonavian sauropsids. We report that reptiles, including the green anole, have a genome-wide distribution of GC3 similar to that of mammals and birds, and we infer a strong GC3-heterogeneity to be already present in the tetrapod ancestor. We further show that the dynamic of coding sequence GC-content is largely governed by karyotypic features in vertebrates, notably in the green anole, in agreement with the gBGC hypothesis. The discrepancy between third-codon positions and noncoding DNA regarding GC-content dynamics in the green anole could not be explained by the activity of transposable elements or selection on codon usage. This analysis highlights the unique value of third-codon positions as an insertion/deletion-free marker of nucleotide substitution biases that ultimately affect the evolution of proteins
Pulse contrast enhancement via non-collinear sum-frequency generation with the signal and idler of an optical parametric amplifier
We outline an approach for improving the temporal contrast of a
high-intensity laser system by 8 orders of magnitude using non-collinear
sum-frequency generation with the signal and idler of an optical parametric
amplifier. We demonstrate the effectiveness of this technique by cleaning
pulses from a millijoule-level chirped-pulse amplification system to provide
10 intensity contrast relative to all pre-pulses and amplified
spontaneous emission 5~ps prior to the main pulse. The output maintains
percent-level energy stability on the time scales of a typical user experiment
at our facility, highlighting the method's reliability and operational
efficiency. After temporal cleansing, the pulses are stretched in time before
seeding two multi-pass, Ti:sapphire-based amplifiers. After re-compression, the
1~J, 40~fs (25~TW) laser pulses maintain a 10 intensity contrast
30~ps prior to the main pulse. This technique is both energy-scalable and
appropriate for preparing seed pulses for a TW- or PW-level chirped-pulse
amplification laser system
Intermittent turbulent dynamo at very low and high magnetic Prandtl numbers
Context: Direct numerical simulations have shown that the dynamo is efficient
even at low Prandtl numbers, i.e., the critical magnetic Reynolds number Rm_c
necessary for the dynamo to be efficient becomes smaller than the hydrodynamic
Reynolds number Re when Re -> infinity. Aims: We test the conjecture (Iskakov
et al. 2007) that Rm_c actually tends to a finite value when Re -> infinity,
and we study the behavior of the dynamo growth factor \gamma\ at very low and
high magnetic Prandtl numbers. Methods: We use local and nonlocal shell-models
of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence with parameters covering a much wider
range of Reynolds numbers than direct numerical simulations, but of
astrophysical relevance. Results: We confirm that Rm_c tends to a finite value
when Re -> infinity. The limit for Rm -> infinity of the dynamo growth factor
\gamma\ in the kinematic regime behaves like Re^\beta, and, similarly, the
limit for Re -> infinity of \gamma\ behaves like Rm^{\beta'}, with
\beta=\beta'=0.4. Conclusion: Comparison with a phenomenology based on an
intermittent small-scale turbulent dynamo, together with the differences
between the growth rates in the different local and nonlocal models, indicate a
weak contribution of nonlocal terms to the dynamo effect.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figure
Influence of the definition of dissipative events on their statistics
A convenient and widely used way to study the turbulent plasma in the solar
corona is to do statistics of properties of events (or structures), associated
with flares, that can be found in observations or in numerical simulations.
Numerous papers have followed such a methodology, using different definitions
of an event, but the reasons behind the choice of a particular definition (and
not another one) is very rarely discussed. We give here a comprehensive set of
possible event definitions starting from a one-dimensional data set such as a
time-series of energy dissipation. Each definition is then applied to a
time-series of energy dissipation issued from simulations of a shell-model of
magnetohydrodynamic turbulence as defined in Giuliani and Carbone (1998), or
from a new model of coupled shell-models designed to represent a magnetic loop
in the solar corona. We obtain distributions of the peak dissipation power,
total energy, duration and waiting-time associated to each definition. These
distributions are then investigated and compared, and the influence of the
definition of an event on statistics is discussed. In particular, power-law
distributions are more likely to appear when using a threshold. The sensitivity
of the distributions to the definition of an event seems also to be weaker for
events found in a highly intermittent time series. Some implications on
statistical results obtained from observations are discussed.Comment: 8 pages, 13 figures. Submitted to Astronomy&Astrophysic
Parallel electric field generation by Alfven wave turbulence
{This work aims to investigate the spectral structure of the parallel
electric field generated by strong anisotropic and balanced Alfvenic turbulence
in relation with the problem of electron acceleration from the thermal
population in solar flare plasma conditions.} {We consider anisotropic Alfvenic
fluctuations in the presence of a strong background magnetic field. Exploiting
this anisotropy, a set of reduced equations governing non-linear, two-fluid
plasma dynamics is derived. The low- limit of this model is used to
follow the turbulent cascade of the energy resulting from the non-linear
interaction between kinetic Alfven waves, from the large magnetohydrodynamics
(MHD) scales with down to the small "kinetic" scales
with , being the ion sound gyroradius.}
{Scaling relations are obtained for the magnitude of the turbulent
electromagnetic fluctuations, as a function of and ,
showing that the electric field develops a component parallel to the magnetic
field at large MHD scales.} {The spectrum we derive for the parallel electric
field fluctuations can be effectively used to model stochastic resonant
acceleration and heating of electrons by Alfven waves in solar flare plasma
conditions
A simplified numerical model of coronal energy dissipation based on reduced MHD
A 3D model intermediate between cellular automata (CA) models and the reduced
magnetohydrodynamic (RMHD) equations is presented to simulate solar impulsive
events generated along a coronal magnetic loop. The model consists of a set of
planes distributed along a magnetic loop between which the information
propagates through Alfven waves. Statistical properties in terms of power-laws
for energies and durations of dissipative events are obtained, and their
agreement with X-ray and UV flares observations is discussed. The existence of
observational biases is also discussed.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figures Accepted for publication in Astronomy &
Astrophysic
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