351 research outputs found
First Stellar Abundances in the Dwarf Irregular Galaxy Sextans A
We present the abundance analyses of three isolated A-type supergiant stars
in the dwarf irregular galaxy Sextans A from high-resolution spectra the UVES
spectrograph at the VLT. Detailed model atmosphere analyses have been used to
determine the stellar atmospheric parameters and the elemental abundances of
the stars. The mean iron group abundance was determined from these three stars
to be [(FeII,CrII)/H]=-0.99+/-0.04+/-0.06. This is the first determination of
the present-day iron group abundances in Sextans A. These three stars now
represent the most metal-poor massive stars for which detailed abundance
analyses have been carried out. The mean stellar alpha element abundance was
determined from the alpha element magnesium as
[alpha(MgI)/H]=-1.09+/-0.02+/-0.19. This is in excellent agreement with the
nebular alpha element abundances as determined from oxygen in the H II regions.
These results are consistent from star-to-star with no significant spatial
variations over a length of 0.8 kpc in Sextans A. This supports the nebular
abundance studies of dwarf irregular galaxies, where homogeneous oxygen
abundances are found throughout, and argues against in situ enrichment. The
alpha/Fe abundance ratio is [alpha(MgI)/FeII,CrII]=-0.11+/-0.02+/-0.10, which
is consistent with the solar ratio. This is consistent with the results from
A-supergiant analyses in other Local Group dwarf irregular galaxies but in
stark contrast with the high [alpha/Fe] results from metal-poor stars in the
Galaxy, and is most clearly seen from these three stars in Sextans A because of
their lower metallicities. The low [alpha/Fe] ratios are consistent with the
slow chemical evolution expected for dwarf galaxies from analyses of their
stellar populations.Comment: 40 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in A
Sub-electron Charge Relaxation via 2D Hopping Conductors
We have extended Monte Carlo simulations of hopping transport in completely
disordered 2D conductors to the process of external charge relaxation. In this
situation, a conductor of area shunts an external capacitor
with initial charge . At low temperatures, the charge relaxation process
stops at some "residual" charge value corresponding to the effective threshold
of the Coulomb blockade of hopping. We have calculated the r.m.s value
of the residual charge for a statistical ensemble of capacitor-shunting
conductors with random distribution of localized sites in space and energy and
random , as a function of macroscopic parameters of the system. Rather
unexpectedly, has turned out to depend only on some parameter
combination: for negligible Coulomb interaction
and for substantial interaction. (Here
is the seed density of localized states, while is the
dielectric constant.) For sufficiently large conductors, both functions
follow the power law , but with different
exponents: for negligible and
for significant Coulomb interaction. We have been able to derive this law
analytically for the former (most practical) case, and also explain the scaling
(but not the exact value of the exponent) for the latter case. In conclusion,
we discuss possible applications of the sub-electron charge transfer for
"grounding" random background charge in single-electron devices.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures. In addition to fixing minor typos and updating
references, the discussion has been changed and expande
Electronic correlation effects and the Coulomb gap at finite temperature
We have investigated the effect of the long-range Coulomb interaction on the
one-particle excitation spectrum of n-type Germanium, using tunneling
spectroscopy on mechanically controllable break junctions. The tunnel
conductance was measured as a function of energy and temperature. At low
temperatures, the spectra reveal a minimum at zero bias voltage due to the
Coulomb gap. In the temperature range above 1 K the Coulomb gap is filled by
thermal excitations. This behavior is reflected in the temperature dependence
of the variable-range hopping resitivity measured on the same samples: Up to a
few degrees Kelvin the Efros-Shkovskii ln law is obeyed,
whereas at higher temperatures deviations from this law are observed,
indicating a cross-over to Mott's ln law. The mechanism of
this cross-over is different from that considered previously in the literature.Comment: 3 pages, 3 figure
The chemical abundance analysis of normal early A- and late B-type stars
Modern spectroscopy of early-type stars often aims at studying complex
physical phenomena. Comparatively less attention is paid to identifying and
studying the "normal" A- and B-type stars and testing how the basic atomic
parameters and standard spectral analysis allow one to fit the observations. We
wish to stablish whether the chemical composition of the solar photosphere can
be regarded as a reference for early A- and late B-type stars. We have obtained
optical high-resolution, high signal-to-noise ratio spectra of three slowly
rotating early-type stars (HD 145788, 21 Peg and pi Cet) that show no obvious
sign of chemical peculiarity, and performed a very accurate LTE abundance
analysis of up to 38 ions of 26 elements (for 21 Peg), using a vast amount of
spectral lines visible in the spectral region covered by our spectra. We
provide an exhaustive description of the abundance characteristics of the three
analysed stars with a critical review of the line parameters used to derive the
abundances. We compiled a table of atomic data for more than 1100 measured
lines that may be used in the future as a reference. The abundances we obtained
for He, C, Al, S, V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Ni, Sr, Y, and Zr are compatible with the
solar ones derived with recent 3D radiative-hydrodynamical simulations of the
solar photosphere. The abundances of the remaining studied elements show some
degree of discrepancy compared to the solar photosphere. Those of N, Na, Mg,
Si, Ca, Ti, and Nd may well be ascribed to non-LTE effects; for P, Cl, Sc and
Co, non-LTE effects are totally unknown; O, Ne, Ar, and Ba show discrepancies
that cannot be ascribed to non-LTE effects. The discrepancies obtained for O
(in two stars) and Ne agree with very recent non-LTE abundance analysis of
early B-type stars in the solar neighbourhood.Comment: Accepted for publication on Astronomy and Astrophysic
Abundance analysis of Am binaries and search for tidally driven abundance anomalies - III. HD116657, HD138213, HD155375, HD159560, HD196544 and HD204188
We continue here the systematic abundance analysis of a sample of Am binaries
in order to search for possible abundance anomalies driven by tidal interaction
in these binary systems. New CCD observations in two spectral regions
(6400-6500, 6660-6760 AA) of HD116657, HD138213, HD155375, HD159560, HD196544
and HD204188 were obtained. Synthetic spectrum analysis was carried out and
basic stellar properties, effective temperatures, gravities, projected
rotational velocities, masses, ages and abundances of several elements were
determined. We conclude that all six stars are Am stars. These stars were put
into the context of other Am binaries with 10 < Porb < 200 days and their
abundance anomalies discussed in the context of possible tidal effects. There
is clear anti-correlation of the Am peculiarities with v sin i. However, there
seems to be also a correlation with the eccentricity and may be with the
orbital period. The dependence on the temperature, age, mass, and
microturbulence was studied as well. The projected rotational velocities
obtained by us were compared to those of Royer et al. (2002) and Abt & Morrell
(1995).Comment: 11 pages, 3 tables, 12 figures. Accepted for publication in Monthly
Notices of the Royal Astronomical Societ
A Numerical Study of Coulomb Interaction Effects on 2D Hopping Transport
We have extended our supercomputer-enabled Monte Carlo simulations of hopping
transport in completely disordered 2D conductors to the case of substantial
electron-electron Coulomb interaction. Such interaction may not only suppress
the average value of hopping current, but also affect its fluctuations rather
substantially. In particular, the spectral density of current
fluctuations exhibits, at sufficiently low frequencies, a -like increase
which approximately follows the Hooge scaling, even at vanishing temperature.
At higher , there is a crossover to a broad range of frequencies in which
is nearly constant, hence allowing characterization of the current
noise by the effective Fano factor F\equiv S_I(f)/2e \left. For
sufficiently large conductor samples and low temperatures, the Fano factor is
suppressed below the Schottky value (F=1), scaling with the length of the
conductor as . The exponent is significantly
affected by the Coulomb interaction effects, changing from when such effects are negligible to virtually unity when they are
substantial. The scaling parameter , interpreted as the average
percolation cluster length along the electric field direction, scales as when Coulomb interaction effects are negligible
and when such effects are substantial, in
good agreement with estimates based on the theory of directed percolation.Comment: 19 pages, 7 figures. Fixed minor typos and updated reference
The solar-like CoRoT target HD 170987: spectroscopic and seismic observations
The CoRoT mission is in its third year of observation and the data from the
second long run in the galactic centre direction are being analysed. The
solar-like oscillating stars that have been observed up to now have given some
interesting results, specially concerning the amplitudes that are lower than
predicted. We present here the results from the analysis of the star HD
170987.The goal of this research work is to characterise the global parameters
of HD 170987. We look for global seismic parameters such as the mean large
separation, maximum amplitude of the modes, and surface rotation because the
signal-to-noise ratio in the observations do not allow us to measure individual
modes. We also want to retrieve the stellar parameters of the star and its
chemical composition.We have studied the chemical composition of the star using
ground-based observations performed with the NARVAL spectrograph. We have used
several methods to calculate the global parameters from the acoustic
oscillations based on CoRoT data. The light curve of the star has been
interpolated using inpainting algorithms to reduce the effect of data gaps. We
find power excess related to p modes in the range [400 - 1200]muHz with a mean
large separation of 55.2+-0.8muHz with a probability above 95% that increases
to 55.9 +-0.2muHz in a higher frequency range [500 - 1250] muHz and a rejection
level of 1%. A hint of the variation of this quantity with frequency is also
found. The rotation period of the star is estimated to be around 4.3 days with
an inclination axis of i=50 deg +20/-13. We measure a bolometric amplitude per
radial mode in a range [2.4 - 2.9] ppm around 1000 muHz. Finally, using a grid
of models, we estimate the stellar mass, M=1.43+-0.05 Msun, the radius,
R=1.96+-0.046 Rsun, and the age ~2.4 Gyr.Comment: 12 pages, 15 figures, accepted for publication in A&
A remote secondary binding pocket promotes heteromultivalent targeting of DC-SIGN
Dendritic cells (DC) are antigen-presenting cells coordinating the interplay of the innate and the adaptive immune response. The endocytic C-type lectin receptors DC-SIGN and Langerin display expression profiles restricted to distinct DC subtypes and have emerged as prime targets for next-generation immunotherapies and anti-infectives. Using heteromultivalent liposomes copresenting mannosides bearing aromatic aglycones with natural glycan ligands, we serendipitously discovered striking cooperativity effects for DC-SIGN+ but not for Langerin+ cell lines. Mechanistic investigations combining NMR spectroscopy with molecular docking and molecular dynamics simulations led to the identification of a secondary binding pocket for the glycomimetics. This pocket, located remotely of DC-SIGNâs carbohydrate bindings site, can be leveraged by heteromultivalent avidity enhancement. We further present preliminary evidence that the aglycone allosterically activates glycan recognition and thereby contributes to DC-SIGN-specific cell targeting. Our findings have important implications for both translational and basic glycoscience, showcasing heteromultivalent targeting of DCs to improve specificity and supporting potential allosteric regulation of DC-SIGN and CLRs in general
Genome-wide association study identifies loci associated with liability to alcohol and drug dependence that is associated with variability in reward-related ventral striatum activity in African- and European-Americans.
Genetic influences on alcohol and drug dependence partially overlap, however, specific loci underlying this overlap remain unclear. We conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of a phenotype representing alcohol or illicit drug dependence (ANYDEP) among 7291 European-Americans (EA; 2927 cases) and 3132 African-Americans (AA: 1315 cases) participating in the family-based Collaborative Study on the Genetics of Alcoholism. ANYDEP was heritable (h 2 in EA = 0.60, AA = 0.37). The AA GWAS identified three regions with genome-wide significant (GWS; Pâ<â5E-08) single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) on chromosomes 3 (rs34066662, rs58801820) and 13 (rs75168521, rs78886294), and an insertion-deletion on chromosome 5 (chr5:141988181). No polymorphisms reached GWS in the EA. One GWS region (chromosome 1: rs1890881) emerged from a trans-ancestral meta-analysis (EAâ+âAA) of ANYDEP, and was attributable to alcohol dependence in both samples. Four genes (AA: CRKL, DZIP3, SBK3; EA: P2RX6) and four sets of genes were significantly enriched within biological pathways for hemostasis and signal transduction. GWS signals did not replicate in two independent samples but there was weak evidence for association between rs1890881 and alcohol intake in the UK Biobank. Among 118 AA and 481 EA individuals from the Duke Neurogenetics Study, rs75168521 and rs1890881 genotypes were associated with variability in reward-related ventral striatum activation. This study identified novel loci for substance dependence and provides preliminary evidence that these variants are also associated with individual differences in neural reward reactivity. Gene discovery efforts in non-European samples with distinct patterns of substance use may lead to the identification of novel ancestry-specific genetic markers of risk
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