3,417 research outputs found
VLA observations of candidate high-mass protostellar objects at 7 mm
We present radio continuum observations at 7 mm made using the Very Large
Array towards three massive star forming regions thought to be in very early
stages of evolution selected from the sample of Sridharan et al. (2002).
Emission was detected towards all three sources (IRAS 18470-0044, IRAS
19217+1651 and IRAS 23151+5912). We find that in all cases the 7 mm emission
corresponds to thermal emission from ionized gas. The regions of ionized gas
associated with IRAS 19217+1651 and IRAS 23151+5912 are hypercompact with
diameters of 0.009 and 0.0006 pc, and emission measures of 7.0 x 10^8 and 2.3 x
10^9 pc cm^(-6), respectively.Comment: 17 pages, 5 figures, accepted by The Astronomical Journa
CAIRNS: The Cluster And Infall Region Nearby Survey I. Redshifts and Mass Profiles
The CAIRNS (Cluster And Infall Region Nearby Survey) project is a
spectroscopic survey of the infall regions surrounding eight nearby, rich,
X-ray luminous clusters of galaxies. We collect 15665 redshifts (3471 new or
remeasured) within \sim 5-10 Mpc of the centers of the clusters, making it the
largest study of the infall regions of clusters. We determine cluster
membership and the mass profiles of the clusters based on the phase space
distribution of the galaxies. All of the clusters display decreasing velocity
dispersion profiles. The mass profiles are fit well by functional forms based
on numerical simulations but exclude an isothermal sphere. Specifically, NFW
and Hernquist models provide good descriptions of cluster mass profiles to
their turnaround radii. Our sample shows that the predicted infall pattern is
ubiquitous in rich, X-ray luminous clusters over a large mass range. The
caustic mass estimates are in excellent agreement with independent X-ray
estimates at small radii and with virial estimates at intermediate radii. The
mean ratio of the caustic mass to the X-ray mass is 1.03\pm0.11 and the mean
ratio of the caustic mass to the virial mass (when corrected for the surface
pressure term) is 0.93\pm0.07. We further demonstrate that the caustic
technique provides reasonable mass estimates even in merging clusters.Comment: 54 pages, 18 figures, to appear in The Astronomical Journa
A New Galactic 6cm Formaldehyde Maser
We report the detection of a new H2CO maser in the massive star forming
region G23.71-0.20 (IRAS 18324-0820), i.e., the fifth region in the Galaxy
where H2CO maser emission has been found. The new H2CO maser is located toward
a compact HII region, and is coincident in velocity and position with 6.7 GHz
methanol masers and with an IR source as revealed by Spitzer/IRAC GLIMPSE data.
The coincidence with an IR source and 6.7 GHz methanol masers suggests that the
maser is in close proximity to an embedded massive protostar. Thus, the
detection of H2CO maser emission toward G23.71-0.20 supports the trend that
H2CO 6cm masers trace molecular material very near young massive stellar
objects.Comment: Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Letter
Coherent control of a surface structural phase transition
Active optical control over matter is desirable in many scientific disciplines, with prominent examples in all-optical magnetic switching1,2, light-induced metastable or exotic phases of solids3,4,5,6,7,8 and the coherent control of chemical reactions9,10. Typically, these approaches dynamically steer a system towards states or reaction products far from equilibrium. In solids, metal-to-insulator transitions are an important target for optical manipulation, offering ultrafast changes of the electronic4 and lattice11,12,13,14,15,16 properties. The impact of coherences on the efficiencies and thresholds of such transitions, however, remains a largely open subject. Here, we demonstrate coherent control over a metal–insulator structural phase transition in a quasi-one-dimensional solid-state surface system. A femtosecond double-pulse excitation scheme17,18,19,20 is used to switch the system from the insulating to a metastable metallic state, and the corresponding structural changes are monitored by ultrafast low-energy electron diffraction21,22. To govern the transition, we harness vibrational coherence in key structural modes connecting both phases, and observe delay-dependent oscillations in the double-pulse switching efficiency. Mode-selective coherent control of solids and surfaces could open new routes to switching chemical and physical functionalities, enabled by metastable and non-equilibrium states
Stochastic B\"acklund transformations
How does one introduce randomness into a classical dynamical system in order
to produce something which is related to the `corresponding' quantum system? We
consider this question from a probabilistic point of view, in the context of
some integrable Hamiltonian systems
MOST photometry of the roAp star 10 Aql
Context: We present 31.2 days of nearly continuous MOST photometry of the
roAp star 10Aql. Aims:The goal was to provide an unambiguous frequency
identification for this little studied star, as well as to discuss the detected
frequencies in the context of magnetic models and analyze the influence of the
magnetic field on the pulsation. Methods: Using traditional Fourier analysis
techniques on three independent data reductions, intrinsic frequencies for the
star are identified. Theoretical non-adiabatic axisymmetric modes influenced by
a magnetic field having polar field strengths Bp = 0-5kG were computed to
compare the observations to theory. Results: The high-precision data allow us
to identify three definite intrinsic pulsation frequencies and two other
candidate frequencies with low S/N. Considering the observed spacings, only one
(50.95microHz) is consistent with the main sequence nature of roAp stars. The
comparison with theoretical models yields a best fit for a 1.95Msun model
having solar metallicity, suppressed envelope convection, and homogenous helium
abundance. Furthermore, our analysis confirms the suspected slow rotation of
the star and sets new lower limits to the rotation period (Prot>1 month) and
inclination (i>30\pm10deg.). Conclusions:The observed frequency spectrum is not
rich enough to unambiguously identify a model. On the other hand, the models
hardly represent roAp stars in detail due to the approximations needed to
describe the interactions of the magnetic field with stellar structure and
pulsation. Consequently, errors in the model frequencies needed for the fitting
procedure can only be estimated. Nevertheless, it is encouraging that models
which suppress convection and include solar metallicity, in agreement with
current concepts of roAp stars, fit the observations best.Comment: accepted by A&
An H2CO 6cm Maser Pinpointing a Possible Circumstellar Torus in IRAS18566+0408
We report observations of 6cm, 3.6cm, 1.3cm, and 7mm radio continuum,
conducted with the Very Large Array towards IRAS18566+0408, one of the few
sources known to harbor H2CO 6cm maser emission. Our observations reveal that
the emission is dominated by an ionized jet at cm wavelengths. Spitzer/IRAC
images from GLIMPSE support this interpretation, given the presence of 4.5um
excess emission at approximately the same orientation as the cm continuum. The
7mm emission is dominated by thermal dust from a flattened structure almost
perpendicular to the ionized jet, thus, the 7mm emission appears to trace a
torus associated with a young massive stellar object. The H2CO 6cm maser is
coincident with the center of the torus-like structure. Our observations rule
out radiative pumping via radio continuum as the excitation mechanism for the
H2CO 6cm maser in IRAS18566+0408.Comment: 20 pages, 4 figures, ApJ (in press
Preliminary evaluation of the CellFinder literature curation pipeline for gene expression in kidney cells and anatomical parts
Biomedical literature curation is the process of automatically and/or manually deriving knowledge from scientific publications and recording it into specialized databases for structured delivery to users. It is a slow, error-prone, complex, costly and, yet, highly important task. Previous experiences have proven that text mining can assist in its many phases, especially, in triage of relevant documents and extraction of named entities and biological events. Here, we present the curation pipeline of the CellFinder database, a repository of cell research, which includes data derived from literature curation and microarrays to identify cell types, cell lines, organs and so forth, and especially patterns in gene expression. The curation pipeline is based on freely available tools in all text mining steps, as well as the manual validation of extracted data. Preliminary results are presented for a data set of 2376 full texts from which >4500 gene expression events in cell or anatomical part have been extracted. Validation of half of this data resulted in a precision of ~50% of the extracted data, which indicates that we are on the right track with our pipeline for the proposed task. However, evaluation of the methods shows that there is still room for improvement in the named-entity recognition and that a larger and more robust corpus is needed to achieve a better performance for event extraction. Database URL: http://www.cellfinder.org
Acoustic Emissions Applications on the Nasa Space Station
The space station is an internally pressurized container carrying inside it everything necessary to support human life in space. Since the shell of the space station contains numerous penetrations it will always be susceptible to seal failure, and when in orbit it will also be exposed to impacts from meteoroids and debris. Although designed to minimize the effects of impacts, damage which breaches the shell threatens the lives of the astronauts. Even small penetrations may require an unacceptable amount of time and effort to locate if a manual scan is necessary. Monitoring under these conditions is best done with acoustic emission (AE), which can be configured as a continuous, remote, and operator-independent monitoring system capable of detecting and locating large and small damage sources
- …