1,993 research outputs found
Nesting Induced Peierls-type Instability for Compressed Li-CI16
Alkalies are considered to be simple metals at ambient conditions. However,
recently reported theoretical and experimental results have shown an unexpected
and intriguing correlation between complex structures and an enhanced
superconducting transition temperature in lithium under pressure. In this
article we analyze the pressure induced Fermi surface deformation in bcc
lithium, and its relation to the observed cI16 structure. According to our
calculations, the Fermi surface becomes increasingly anisotropic with pressure
and develops an extended nesting along the bcc [121] direction. This nesting
induces a phonon instability of both transverse modes at N, so that a
Peierls-type mechanism is proposed to explain the stability of Li-cI16.Comment: Proceedings of Fukuoka 2006 Conference on Novel Pressure-induced
Phenomena in Condensed Matter Systems. To be published in J. Phys. Soc. Jpn.
2 pages and 3 figure
The Energetic Particle Detector. Energetic particle instrument suite for the Solar Orbiter mission
Semliki forest virus vectors engineered to express higher IL-12 levels induce efficient elimination of murine colon adenocarcinomas
To evaluate the use of alphavirus vectors for tumor treatment we have constructed and compared two Semliki Forest virus (SFV) vectors expressing different levels of IL-12. SFV-IL-12 expresses both IL-12 subunits from a single subgenomic promoter, while in SFV-enhIL-12 each IL-12 subunit is expressed from an independent subgenomic promoter fused to the SFV capsid translation enhancer. This latter strategy provided an eightfold increase of IL-12 expression. We chose the poorly immunogenic MC38 colon adenocarcinoma model to evaluate the therapeutic potential of SFV vectors. A single intratumoral injection of 10(8) viral particles of SFV-IL-12 or SFV-enh-IL-12 induced>or=80% complete tumor regressions with long-term tumor-free survival. However, lower doses of SFV-enhIL-12 were more efficient than SFV-IL-12 in inducing antitumoral responses, indicating a positive correlation between the IL-12 expression level and the therapeutic effect. Moreover, repeated intratumoral injections of suboptimal doses of SFV-enhIL-12 increased the antitumoral response. In all cases SFV vectors were more efficient at eliminating tumors than a first-generation adenovirus vector expressing IL-12. In addition, the antitumoral effect of SFV vectors was only moderately affected by preimmunization of animals with high doses of SFV vectors. This antitumoral effect was produced, at least partially, by a potent CTL-mediated immune response
A feature-rich transmission spectrum for WASP-127b
WASP-127b is one of the lowest density planets discovered to date. With a
sub-Saturn mass () and super-Jupiter radius
(), it orbits a bright G5 star, which is about to
leave the main-sequence. We aim to explore WASP-127b's atmosphere in order to
retrieve its main atmospheric components, and to find hints for its intriguing
inflation and evolutionary history. We used the ALFOSC spectrograph at the NOT
telescope to observe a low resolution (, seeing limited) long-slit
spectroscopic time series during a planetary transit, and present here the
first transmission spectrum for WASP-127b. We find the presence of a strong
Rayleigh slope at blue wavelengths and a hint of Na absorption, although the
quality of the data does not allow us to claim a detection. At redder
wavelengths the absorption features of TiO and VO are the best explanation to
fit the data. Although higher signal-to-noise ratio observations are needed to
conclusively confirm the absorption features, WASP-127b seems to posses a
cloud-free atmosphere and is one of the best targets to perform further
characterization studies in the near future.Comment: Accepted for Publication A&A Letters, May 22nd, 201
High spatial resolution and high contrast optical speckle imaging with FASTCAM at the ORM
In this paper, we present an original observational approach, which combines,
for the first time, traditional speckle imaging with image post-processing to
obtain in the optical domain diffraction-limited images with high contrast
(1e-5) within 0.5 to 2 arcseconds around a bright star. The post-processing
step is based on wavelet filtering an has analogy with edge enhancement and
high-pass filtering. Our I-band on-sky results with the 2.5-m Nordic Telescope
(NOT) and the lucky imaging instrument FASTCAM show that we are able to detect
L-type brown dwarf companions around a solar-type star with a contrast DI~12 at
2" and with no use of any coronographic capability, which greatly simplifies
the instrumental and hardware approach. This object has been detected from the
ground in J and H bands so far only with AO-assisted 8-10 m class telescopes
(Gemini, Keck), although more recently detected with small-class telescopes in
the K band. Discussing the advantage and disadvantage of the optical regime for
the detection of faint intrinsic fluxes close to bright stars, we develop some
perspectives for other fields, including the study of dense cores in globular
clusters. To the best of our knowledge this is the first time that high
contrast considerations are included in optical speckle imaging approach.Comment: Proceedings of SPIE conference - Ground-based and Airborne
Instrumentation for Astronomy III (Conference 7735), San Diego 201
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