2,593 research outputs found
O2 signature in thin and thick O2-H2O ices
Aims. In this paper we investigate the detectability of the molecular oxygen
in icy dust grain mantles towards astronomical objects. Methods. We present a
systematic set of experiments with O2-H2O ice mixtures designed to disentangle
how the molecular ratio affects the O2 signature in the mid- and near-infrared
spectral regions. All the experiments were conducted in a closed-cycle helium
cryostat coupled to a Fourier transform infrared spectrometer. The ice mixtures
comprise varying thicknesses from 8 10 to 3 m. The
absorption spectra of the O2-H2O mixtures are also compared to the one of pure
water. In addition, the possibility to detect the O2 in icy bodies and in the
interstellar medium is discussed. Results. We are able to see the O2 feature at
1551 cm even for the most diluted mixture of H2O : O2 = 9 : 1,
comparable to a ratio of O2/H2O = 10 % which has already been detected in situ
in the coma of the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. We provide an estimate for
the detection of O2 with the future mission of the James Webb Space Telescope
(JWST).Comment: 11 pages, 10 figures, article in press, to appear in A&A 201
The observed chemical structure of L1544
Prior to star formation, pre-stellar cores accumulate matter towards the
centre. As a consequence, their central density increases while the temperature
decreases. Understanding the evolution of the chemistry and physics in this
early phase is crucial to study the processes governing the formation of a
star. We aim at studying the chemical differentiation of a prototypical
pre-stellar core, L1544, by detailed molecular maps. In contrast with single
pointing observations, we performed a deep study on the dependencies of
chemistry on physical and external conditions. We present the emission maps of
39 different molecular transitions belonging to 22 different molecules in the
central 6.25 arcmin of L1544. We classified our sample in five families,
depending on the location of their emission peaks within the core. Furthermore,
to systematically study the correlations among different molecules, we have
performed the principal component analysis (PCA) on the integrated emission
maps. The PCA allows us to reduce the amount of variables in our dataset.
Finally, we compare the maps of the first three principal components with the
H column density map, and the T map of the core. The results of
our qualitative analysis is the classification of the molecules in our dataset
in the following groups: (i) the -CH family (carbon chain
molecules), (ii) the dust peak family (nitrogen-bearing species), (iii) the
methanol peak family (oxygen-bearing molecules), (iv) the HNCO peak family
(HNCO, propyne and its deuterated isotopologues). Only HCO and
CS do not belong to any of the above mentioned groups. The principal
component maps allow us to confirm the (anti-)correlations among different
families that were described in a first qualitative analysis, but also points
out the correlation that could not be inferred before.Comment: 29 pages, 19 figures, 2 appendices, accepted for publication in A&A,
arXiv abstract has been slightly modifie
Investigation of HNCO isomers formation in ice mantles by UV and thermal processing: an experimental approach
Current gas phase models do not account for the abundances of HNCO isomers
detected in various environments, suggesting a formation in icy grain mantles.
We attempted to study a formation channel of HNCO and its possible isomers by
vacuum-UV photoprocessing of interstellar ice analogues containing HO,
NH, CO, HCN, CHOH, CH, and N followed by warm-up, under
astrophysically relevant conditions. Only the HO:NH:CO and HO:HCN
ice mixtures led to the production of HNCO species. The possible isomerization
of HNCO to its higher energy tautomers following irradiation or due to ice
warm-up has been scrutinized. The photochemistry and thermal chemistry of
HO:NH:CO and HO:HCN ices was simulated using the Interstellar
Astrochemistry Chamber (ISAC), a state-of-the-art ultra-high-vacuum setup. The
ice was monitored in situ by Fourier transform mid-infrared spectroscopy in
transmittance. A quadrupole mass spectrometer (QMS) detected the desorption of
the molecules in the gas phase. UV-photoprocessing of
HO:NH:CO/HO:HCN ices lead to the formation of OCN as main
product in the solid state and a minor amount of HNCO. The second isomer HOCN
has been tentatively identified. Despite its low efficiency, the formation of
HNCO and the HOCN isomers by UV-photoprocessing of realistic simulated ice
mantles, might explain the observed abundances of these species in PDRs, hot
cores, and dark clouds
Robust and efficient generator of almost maximal multipartite entanglement
Quantum chaotic maps can efficiently generate pseudo-random states carrying
almost maximal multipartite entanglement, as characterized by the probability
distribution of bipartite entanglement between all possible bipartitions of the
system. We show that such multipartite entanglement is robust, in the sense
that, when realistic noise is considered, distillable entanglement of
bipartitions remains almost maximal up to a noise strength that drops only
polynomially with the number of qubits.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures. Published versio
A study of the -/- ratio in low-mass star forming regions
We use the deuteration of - to probe the physical
parameters of starless and protostellar cores, related to their evolutionary
states, and compare it to the -deuteration in order to
study possible differences between the deuteration of C- and N-bearing species.
We observed the main species -, the singly and doubly
deuterated species - and -, as
well as the isotopologue - toward 10 starless
cores and 5 protostars in the Taurus and Perseus Complexes. We examined the
correlation between the
(-)/(-) ratio and the dust
temperature along with the column density and the CO depletion
factor. The resulting
(-)/(-) ratio is within the
error bars consistent with in all starless cores with detected
-. This also accounts for the protostars except for the
source HH211, where we measure a high deuteration level of . The
deuteration of follows the same trend but is considerably
higher in the dynamically evolved core L1544. Toward the protostellar cores the
coolest objects show the largest deuterium fraction in
-. We show that the deuteration of
- can trace the early phases of star formation and is
comparable to that of . However, the largest
- deuteration level is found toward protostellar cores,
suggesting that while - is mainly frozen onto dust
grains in the central regions of starless cores, active deuteration is taking
place on ice
Form factors of descendant operators in the massive Lee-Yang model
The form factors of the descendant operators in the massive Lee-Yang model
are determined up to level 7. This is first done by exploiting the conserved
quantities of the integrable theory to generate the solutions for the
descendants starting from the lowest non-trivial solutions in each operator
family. We then show that the operator space generated in this way, which is
isomorphic to the conformal one, coincides, level by level, with that implied
by the -matrix through the form factor bootstrap. The solutions we determine
satisfy asymptotic conditions carrying the information about the level that we
conjecture to hold for all the operators of the model.Comment: 23 page
Topological Quantum Phase Transitions in Topological Superconductors
In this paper we show that BF topological superconductors (insulators) exibit
phase transitions between different topologically ordered phases characterized
by different ground state degeneracy on manifold with non-trivial topology.
These phase transitions are induced by the condensation (or lack of) of
topological defects. We concentrate on the (2+1)-dimensional case where the BF
model reduce to a mixed Chern-Simons term and we show that the superconducting
phase has a ground state degeneracy and not . When the symmetry is
, namely when both gauge fields are compact, this model is
not equivalent to the sum of two Chern-Simons term with opposite chirality,
even if naively diagonalizable. This is due to the fact that U(1) symmetry
requires an ultraviolet regularization that make the diagonalization
impossible. This can be clearly seen using a lattice regularization, where the
gauge fields become angular variables. Moreover we will show that the phase in
which both gauge fields are compact is not allowed dynamically.Comment: 5 pages, no figure
Preliminary Assessment of Sorption Capacity on Solid CO2-Sorbents at Conditions for Sorption-Enhanced Processes
This work aims to assess solid sorbent capacity to operate CO2 capture under industrial conditions relevant to biogas/bio-syngas upgrading systems to green H2 and food-grade CO2 through Sorption-Enhanced Water Gas Shift (SEWGS) technologies. The pursued degree of innovation is the process intensification to remove CO2 in a more sustainable industrial practice reducing the CO2 footprint of a potential H2 production process. A lab-scale apparatus is appropriately designed and built to operate at relevant industrial scale conditions. The core of the system is a fixed-bed reactor equipped with mass flow meters/controllers and online gas analyzers. CO2 capture experiments were carried out to investigate the effect of pressure (1.0-1.4 MPa) on different commercial and synthesized solid sorbent materials (hydrotalcite-like compounds). The best sorbent is a commercial hydrotalcite impregnated with 20 wt% of K2CO3, with an average sorption capacity of 0.85 mmolCO2/gad at 1.4 MPa and 623 K. The explored conditions are compatible with an industrial operation where syngas is available at low-to-moderate pressure
Mapping deuterated methanol toward L1544: I. Deuterium fraction and comparison with modeling
The study of deuteration in pre-stellar cores is important to understand the
physical and chemical initial conditions in the process of star formation. In
particular, observations toward pre-stellar cores of methanol and deuterated
methanol, solely formed on the surface of dust grains, may provide useful
insights on surface processes at low temperatures. Here we analyze maps of CO,
methanol, formaldehyde and their deuterated isotopologues toward a well-known
pre-stellar core. This study allows us to test current gas-dust chemical
models. Single-dish observations of CHOH, CHDOH, HCO,
H_2\,^{13}CO, HDCO, DCO and CO toward the prototypical pre-stellar
core L1544 were performed at the IRAM 30 m telescope. We analyze their column
densities, distributions, and compare these observations with gas-grain
chemical models. The maximum deuterium fraction derived for methanol is
[CHDOH]/[CHOH] 0.080.02, while the measured deuterium
fractions of formaldehyde at the dust peak are [HDCO]/[HCO]
0.030.02, [DCO]/[HCO] 0.040.03 and [DCO]/[HDCO]
1.20.3. Observations differ significantly from the predictions of
models, finding discrepancies between a factor of 10 and a factor of 100 in
most cases. It is clear though that to efficiently produce methanol on the
surface of dust grains, quantum tunneling diffusion of H atoms must be switched
on. It also appears that the currently adopted reactive desorption efficiency
of methanol is overestimated and/or that abstraction reactions play an
important role. More laboratory work is needed to shed light on the chemistry
of methanol, an important precursor of complex organic molecules in space.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&
FTIR spectroscopic and theoretical study of matrix-isolated (E)-1-(cyclopropyldiazenyl)naphthalen-2-ol
Photochromic systems are important due to their industrial applications in variable optical transmission
materials and optobioelectronic devices. For such applications, the organic photochromic compounds involved
are usually incorporated in polymers, liquid crystalline materials, or other convenient host matrices [1, 2]. Herein,
a photochromic compound, (E)-1-(cyclopropyldiazenyl)naphthalen-2-ol (show in Figure 1), which was
synthesized by a published method [3] and characterized, was isolated in a cryogenic argon matrix and its
structure as well as UV-induced phototransformations were characterized by IR spectroscopy. The structures of
the starting compound and of the generated photoproducts were identified by comparison of their experimental IR
spectra with the spectra theoretically calculated at the DFT (B3LYP)/6-311++G(d,p) level for several possible
tautomeric and rotameric forms.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT
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