12,019 research outputs found
Herschel-PACS Measurements of Nitrogen Enrichment in Nebulae around Wolf-Rayet Stars
For three nebulae that have early-WN Wolf-Rayet exciting stars, NGC 6888, WR
8 and Abell 48, we have obtained Herschel-PACS line scans of the [N III] 57 um
and [O III] 88 micron lines, along with the 122 and 205 micron lines of [N II].
From the former two lines we have derived N/O abundance ratios,
equal to the overall N/O ratio under a wide range of nebular conditions. We
find that all of the nebulae observed possess significant nitrogen enrichment,
with derived N/O ratios greater than solar. The two nebulae with massive
Wolf-Rayet exciting stars, NGC 6888 and WR8 are found to have N/O ratios that
are enhanced by factors of 7 - 10 relative to the solar N/O ratio, consistent
with an origin as material ejected just before the onset of the Wolf-Rayet
phase. The other nebula, Abell 48, has recently been reclassified as a member
of the rare class of three planetary nebulae that have early-WN central stars
and are not of Peimbert Type I. We derive a nebular N/O ratio for it that is a
factor of 4 enhanced relative to solar and slightly above the range of N/O
values that have been measured for the other three members of its [WN]
planetary nebula class.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures, MNRAS accepte
Hadronization conditions in relativistic nuclear collisions and the QCD pseudo-critical line
We compare the reconstructed hadronization conditions in relativistic nuclear
collisions in the nucleon-nucleon centre-of-mass energy range 4.7-2760 GeV in
terms of temperature and baryon-chemical potential with lattice QCD
calculations, by using hadronic multiplicities. We obtain hadronization
temperatures and baryon chemical potentials with a fit to measured
multiplicities by correcting for the effect of post-hadronization rescattering.
The post-hadronization modification factors are calculated by means of a
coupled hydrodynamical-transport model simulation under the same conditions of
approximate isothermal and isochemical decoupling as assumed in the statistical
hadronization model fits to the data. The fit quality is considerably better
than without rescattering corrections, as already found in previous work. The
curvature of the obtained "true" hadronization pseudo-critical line kappa is
found to be 0.0048 +- 0.0026, in agreement with lattice QCD estimates; the
pseudo-critical temperature at vanishing mu_B is found to be 164.3+-1.8 MeV.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures. Minor corrections, version published in PL
Adaptive Ising Model and Bacterial Chemotactic Receptor Network
We present a so-called adaptive Ising model (AIM) to provide a unifying
explanation for sensitivity and perfect adaptation in bacterial chemotactic
signalling, based on coupling among receptor dimers. In an AIM, an external
field, representing ligand binding, is randomly applied to a fraction of spins,
representing the states of the receptor dimers, and there is a delayed negative
feedback from the spin value on the local field. This model is solved in an
adiabatic approach. If the feedback is slow and weak enough, as indeed in
chemotactic signalling, the system evolves through quasi-equilibrium states and
the ``magnetization'', representing the signal, always attenuates towards zero
and is always sensitive to a subsequent stimulus.Comment: revtex, final version to appear in Europhysics Letter
Cenozoic evolution of Neotethys and implications for the causes of plate motions
Africa-North America-Eurasia plate circuit rotations, combined with Red Sea rotations and new estimates of crustal shortening in Iran define the Cenozoic history of the Neotethyan ocean between Arabia and Eurasia. The new constraints indicate that Arabia-Eurasia convergence has been fairly constant at 2 to 3 cm/yr since 56 Ma with slowing of Africa-Eurasia motion to <1 cm/yr near 25 Ma, coeval with the opening of the Red Sea. Ocean closure occurred no later than 10 Ma, and could have occurred prior to this time only if a large amount of continental lithosphere was subducted, suggesting that slowing of Africa significantly predated the Arabia-Eurasia collision. These kinematics imply that Africa's disconnection with the negative buoyancy of the downgoing slab of lithosphere beneath southern Eurasia slowed its motion. The slow, steady rate of northward subduction since 56 Ma contrasts with strongly variable rates of magma production in the Urumieh-Dokhtar arc, implying magma production rate in continental arcs is not linked to subduction rate
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