Lightning-jumps in convective cells tracked by radar as a nowcasting tool in complex orography

Presentación realizada en la 3rd European Nowcasting Conference, celebrada en la sede central de AEMET en Madrid del 24 al 26 de abril de 2019

The Wolf-Rayet stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud: A comprehensive analysis of the WN class

Aims: Following our comprehensive studies of the WR stars in the Milky Way, we now present spectroscopic analyses of almost all known WN stars in the LMC. Methods: For the quantitative analysis of the wind-dominated emission-line spectra, we employ the Potsdam Wolf-Rayet (PoWR) model atmosphere code. By fitting synthetic spectra to the observed spectral energy distribution and the available spectra (ultraviolet and optical), we obtain the physical properties of 107 stars. Results: We present the fundamental stellar and wind parameters for an almost complete sample of WN stars in the LMC. Among those stars that are putatively single, two different groups can be clearly distinguished. While 12% of our sample are more luminous than 10^6 Lsun and contain a significant amount of hydrogen, 88% of the WN stars, with little or no hydrogen, populate the luminosity range between log (L/Lsun) = 5.3...5.8. Conclusions: While the few extremely luminous stars (log (L/Lsun) > 6), if indeed single stars, descended directly from the main sequence at very high initial masses, the bulk of WN stars have gone through the red-supergiant phase. According to their luminosities in the range of log (L/Lsun) = 5.3...5.8, these stars originate from initial masses between 20 and 40 Msun. This mass range is similar to the one found in the Galaxy, i.e. the expected metallicity dependence of the evolution is not seen. Current stellar evolution tracks, even when accounting for rotationally induced mixing, still partly fail to reproduce the observed ranges of luminosities and initial masses. Moreover, stellar radii are generally larger and effective temperatures correspondingly lower than predicted from stellar evolution models, probably due to subphotospheric inflation.Comment: 17+46 pages; 10+54 figures; v2: typos corrected, space-saving layout for appendix C, published in A&

Immune modulation and prevention of autoimmune disease by repeated sequences from parasites linked to self antigens

Parasite proteins containing repeats are essential invasion ligands, important for their ability to evade the host immune system and to induce immunosuppression. Here, the intrinsic suppressive potential of repetitive structures within parasite proteins was exploited to induce immunomodulation in order to establish self-tolerance in an animal model of autoimmune neurological disease. We tested the tolerogenic potential of fusion proteins containing repeat sequences of parasites linked to self-antigens. The fusion constructs consist of a recombinant protein containing repeat sequences derived from the S-antigen protein (SAg) of Plasmodium falciparum linked to a CD4 T cell epitope of myelin. They were tested for their efficacy to control the development of experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE), In addition, we used the DO11.10 transgenic mouse model to study the immune mechanisms involved in tolerance induced by SAg fusion proteins. We found that repeated sequences of P. falciparum SAg protein linked to self-epitopes markedly protected mice from EAE. These fusion constructs were powerful tolerizing agents not only in a preventive setting but also in the treatment of ongoing disease. The tolerogenic effect was shown to be antigen-specific and strongly dependent on the physical linkage of the T cell epitope to the parasite structure and on the action of anti-inflammatory cytokines like IL-10 and TGF-{beta}. Other mechanisms include down-regulation of TNF-{alpha} accompanied by increased numbers of FoxP3(+) cells. This study describes the use of repetitive structures from parasites linked to defined T cell epitopes as an effective method to induce antigen-specific tolerance with potential applicability for the treatment and prevention of autoimmune diseases

Evidence for a Kondo destroying quantum critical point in YbRh2Si2

The heavy-fermion metal YbRh$_{2}$Si$_{2}$ is a weak antiferromagnet below $T_{N} = 0.07$ K. Application of a low magnetic field $B_{c} = 0.06$ T ($\perp c$) is sufficient to continuously suppress the antiferromagnetic (AF) order. Below $T \approx 10$ K, the Sommerfeld coefficient of the electronic specific heat $\gamma(T)$ exhibits a logarithmic divergence. At $T < 0.3$ K, $\gamma(T) \sim T^{-\epsilon}$ ($\epsilon: 0.3 - 0.4$), while the electrical resistivity $\rho(T) = \rho_{0} + aT$ ($\rho_{0}$: residual resistivity). Upon extrapolating finite-$T$ data of transport and thermodynamic quantities to $T = 0$, one observes (i) a vanishing of the "Fermi surface crossover" scale $T^{*}(B)$, (ii) an abrupt jump of the initial Hall coefficient $R_{H}(B)$ and (iii) a violation of the Wiedemann Franz law at $B = B_{c}$, the field-induced quantum critical point (QCP). These observations are interpreted as evidence of a critical destruction of the heavy quasiparticles, i.e., propagating Kondo singlets, at the QCP of this material.Comment: 20 pages, 8 figures, SCES 201

Parallel and I/O-efficient randomisation of massive networks using global curveball trades

Graph randomisation is a crucial task in the analysis and synthesis of networks. It is typically implemented as an edge switching process (ESMC) repeatedly swapping the nodes of random edge pairs while maintaining the degrees involved [23]. Curveball is a novel approach that instead considers the whole neighbourhoods of randomly drawn node pairs. Its Markov chain converges to a uniform distribution, and experiments suggest that it requires less steps than the established ESMC [6]. Since trades however are more expensive, we study Curveball’s practical runtime by introducing the first efficient Curveball algorithms: the I/O-efficient EM-CB for simple undirected graphs and its internal memory pendant IM-CB. Further, we investigate global trades [6] processing every node in a single super step, and show that undirected global trades converge to a uniform distribution and perform superior in practice. We then discuss EM-GCB and EMPGCB for global trades and give experimental evidence that EM-PGCB achieves the quality of the state-of-the-art ESMC algorithm EM-ES [15] nearly one order of magnitude faster

Exploiting radar polarimetry for nowcasting thunderstorm hazards using deep learning

This work presents the importance of polarimetric variables as an additional data source for nowcasting thunderstorm hazards using an existing neural network architecture with recurrent-convolutional layers. The model can be trained to predict different target variables, which enables nowcasting of hail, lightning, and heavy rainfall for lead times up to 60 min with a 5 min resolution, in particular. The exceedance probabilities of Swiss thunderstorm warning thresholds are predicted. This study is based on observations from the Swiss operational radar network, which consists of five operational polarimetric C-band radars. The study area of the Alpine region is topographically complex and has a comparatively very high thunderstorm activity. Different model runs using combinations of single- and dual-polarimetric radar observations and radar quality indices are compared to the reference run using only single-polarimetric observations. Two case studies illustrate the performance difference when using all predictors compared to the reference model. The importance of the predictors is quantified by investigating the final training loss of the model, with skill scores such as critical success index (CSI), precision, recall, precision–recall area under the curve, and the Shapley value. Results indicate that single-polarization radar data are the most important data source. Adding polarimetric observations improves the model performance compared to reference model in term of the training loss for all three target variables. Adding quality indices does so, too. Including both polarimetric variables and quality indices at the same time improves the accuracy of nowcasting heavy precipitation and lightning, with the largest improvement found for heavy precipitation. No improvement could be achieved for nowcasting of the probability of hail in this way.</p

Constraining Light Gravitino Mass from Cosmic Microwave Background

We investigate the possibilities of constraining the light gravitino mass m_{3/2} from future cosmic microwave background (CMB) surveys. A model with light gravitino with the mass m_{3/2}<O(10) eV is of great interest since it is free from the cosmological gravitino problem and, in addition, can be compatible with many baryogenesis/leptogenesis scenarios such as the thermal leptogenesis. We show that the lensing of CMB anisotropies can be a good probe for m_{3/2} and obtain an expected constraint on m_{3/2} from precise measurements of lensing potential in the future CMB surveys, such as the PolarBeaR and CMBpol experiments. If the gravitino mass is m_{3/2}=1 eV, we will obtain the constraint for the gravitino mass as m_{3/2} < 3.2 eV (95% C.L.) for the case with Planck+PolarBeaR combined and m_{3/2}=1.04^{+0.22}_{-0.26} eV (68% C.L.) for CMBpol. The issue of Bayesian model selection is also discussed.Comment: 22 pages, 6 figures, 7 tables, references are added, accepted for publication in JCA

Effects of the stellar wind on X-ray spectra of Cygnus X-3

We study X-ray spectra of Cyg X-3 from BeppoSAX, taking into account absorption and emission in the strong stellar wind of its companion. We find the intrinsic X-ray spectra are well modelled by disc blackbody emission, its upscattering by hot electrons with a hybrid distribution, and by Compton reflection. These spectra are strongly modified by absorption and reprocessing in the stellar wind, which we model using the photoionization code cloudy. The form of the observed spectra implies the wind is composed of two phases. A hot tenuous plasma containing most of the wind mass is required to account for the observed features of very strongly ionized Fe. Small dense cool clumps filling <0.01 of the volume are required to absorb the soft X-ray excess, which is emitted by the hot phase but not present in the data. The total mass-loss rate is found to be (0.6--1.6) x 10^-5 solar masses per year. We also discuss the feasibility of the continuum model dominated by Compton reflection, which we find to best describe our data. The intrinsic luminosities of our models suggest that the compact object is a black hole.Comment: MNRAS, in pres

Self-consistent modelling of line-driven hot-star winds with Monte Carlo radiation hydrodynamics

Radiative pressure exerted by line interactions is a prominent driver of outflows in astrophysical systems, being at work in the outflows emerging from hot stars or from the accretion discs of cataclysmic variables, massive young stars and active galactic nuclei. In this work, a new radiation hydrodynamical approach to model line-driven hot-star winds is presented. By coupling a Monte Carlo radiative transfer scheme with a finite-volume fluid dynamical method, line-driven mass outflows may be modelled self-consistently, benefiting from the advantages of Monte Carlo techniques in treating multi-line effects, such as multiple scatterings, and in dealing with arbitrary multidimensional configurations. In this work, we introduce our approach in detail by highlighting the key numerical techniques and verifying their operation in a number of simplified applications, specifically in a series of self-consistent, one-dimensional, Sobolev-type, hot-star wind calculations. The utility and accuracy of our approach is demonstrated by comparing the obtained results with the predictions of various formulations of the so-called CAK theory and by confronting the calculations with modern sophisticated techniques of predicting the wind structure. Using these calculations, we also point out some useful diagnostic capabilities our approach provides. Finally we discuss some of the current limitations of our method, some possible extensions and potential future applications.Comment: 15 pages, 8 figures; accepted for publication in MNRA