2,350 research outputs found
Chemical signatures of planets: beyond solar-twins
Elemental abundance studies of solar twin stars suggest that the solar
chemical composition contains signatures of the formation of terrestrial
planets in the solar system, namely small but significant depletions of the
refractory elements. To test this hypothesis, we study stars which, compared to
solar twins, have less massive convective envelopes (therefore increasing the
amplitude of the predicted effect) or are, arguably, more likely to host
planets (thus increasing the frequency of signature detections). We measure
relative atmospheric parameters and elemental abundances of a late-F type dwarf
sample (52 stars) and a sample of metal-rich solar analogs (59 stars). We
detect refractory-element depletions with amplitudes up to about 0.15 dex. The
distribution of depletion amplitudes for stars known to host gas giant planets
is not different from that of the rest of stars. The maximum amplitude of
depletion increases with effective temperature from 5650 K to 5950 K, while it
appears to be constant for warmer stars (up to 6300 K). The depletions observed
in solar twin stars have a maximum amplitude that is very similar to that seen
here for both of our samples. Gas giant planet formation alone cannot explain
the observed distributions of refractory-element depletions, leaving the
formation of rocky material as a more likely explanation of our observations.
More rocky material is necessary to explain the data of solar twins than
metal-rich stars, and less for warm stars. However, the sizes of the stars'
convective envelopes at the time of planet formation could be regulating these
amplitudes. Our results could be explained if disk lifetimes were shorter in
more massive stars, as independent observations indeed seem to suggest.Comment: Astronomy and Astrophysics, in press. Full tables available in the
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Stellar Chemical Abundances: In Pursuit of the Highest Achievable Precision
The achievable level of precision on photospheric abundances of stars is a
major limiting factor on investigations of exoplanet host star characteristics,
the chemical histories of star clusters, and the evolution of the Milky Way and
other galaxies. While model-induced errors can be minimized through the
differential analysis of spectrally similar stars, the maximum achievable
precision of this technique has been debated. As a test, we derive differential
abundances of 19 elements from high-quality asteroid-reflected solar spectra
taken using a variety of instruments and conditions. We treat the solar spectra
as being from unknown stars and use the resulting differential abundances,
which are expected to be zero, as a diagnostic of the error in our
measurements. Our results indicate that the relative resolution of the target
and reference spectra is a major consideration, with use of different
instruments to obtain the two spectra leading to errors up to 0.04 dex. Use of
the same instrument at different epochs for the two spectra has a much smaller
effect (~0.007 dex). The asteroid used to obtain the solar standard also has a
negligible effect (~0.006 dex). Assuming that systematic errors from the
stellar model atmospheres have been minimized, as in the case of solar twins,
we confirm that differential chemical abundances can be obtained at sub-0.01
dex precision with due care in the observations, data reduction and abundance
analysis.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ; 13 pages, 6 figures, 7 table
A possible signature of terrestrial planet formation in the chemical composition of solar analogs
Recent studies have shown that the elemental abundances in the Sun are
anomalous when compared to most (about 85%) nearby solar twin stars. Compared
to its twins, the Sun exhibits a deficiency of refractory elements (those with
condensation temperatures Tc>900K) relative to volatiles (Tc<900K). This
finding is speculated to be a signature of the planet formation that occurred
more efficiently around the Sun compared with the majority of solar twins.
Furthermore, within this scenario, it seems more likely that the abundance
patterns found are specifically related to the formation of terrestrial
planets. In this work we analyze abundance results from six large independent
stellar abundance surveys to determine whether they confirm or reject this
observational finding. We show that the elemental abundances derived for solar
analogs in these six studies are consistent with the Tc trend suggested as a
planet formation signature. The same conclusion is reached when those results
are averaged heterogeneously. We also investigate the dependency of the
abundances with first ionization potential (FIP), which correlates well with
Tc. A trend with FIP would suggest a different origin for the abundance
patterns found, but we show that the correlation with Tc is statistically more
significant. We encourage similar investigations of metal-rich solar analogs
and late F-type dwarf stars, for which the hypothesis of a planet formation
signature in the elemental abundances makes very specific predictions. Finally,
we examine a recent paper that claims that the abundance patterns of two stars
hosting super-Earth like planets contradict the planet formation signature
hypothesis. Instead, we find that the chemical compositions of these two stars
are fully compatible with our hypothesis.Comment: To appear in Astronomy and Astrophysic
Balanced modular parameterizations
In this thesis, we show that Classical representations for certain modular forms have symmetric form. These symmetric formulations are interpreted in terms of more general balanced homogeneous polynomial representations resulting from a permutative action of Hecke congruence subgroups on quotients of theta functions. For prime levels between 5 and 19, sets of permuted theta quotients are constructed that generate the corresponding vector spaces of modular forms of weight one
siRNA knockdown of SPHK1 in vivo protects mice from systemic, type-I Allergy.
Systemic anaphylaxis is considered to be a typical immediate hypersensitivity response, determined by the activation of immune cells,
via antigen-induced aggregation of IgE-sensitized FcεRI cells. Perhaps most the important cells, in the immediate hypersensitivity responses, are mast cells. We have previously shown that SPHK1 plays a key role in the intracellular signaling pathways triggered by FceRI aggregation on human
mast cells. More recently, we performed a genome-wide gene expression profiling of human mast cells, sensitized with IgE alone, or stimulated by FcεRI aggregation. We found that sphingosine kinase 1 (SPHK1) was one
of genes activated at the earlier stages of mast cell activation, including during sensitization. Moreover, SPHK1 has been shown, by us and others, to be a key player in the intracellular signaling pathways triggered by
several immune-receptors, including fMLP, C5a, and Fcg- and Fcereceptors. Here we have investigated the in vivo role of SPHK1 in allergy, using a specific siRNA to knockdown SPHK1 in vivo. Our results support a role for
SPHK1 in the inflammatory responses that share clinical, immunological, and histological features of type I hypersensitivity. Thus, mice pretreated with the siRNA for SPHK1 were protected from the IgE mediated allergic
reactions including: temperature changes, histamine release, cytokine production, cell-adhesion molecule expression, and immune cell infiltration into the lungs
Differential Gene Expression of Human Mast cell Activation Reveals Gene profiles of Innate and Adaptive Immunity.
High-density oligonucleotide microarray is a promising approach for high throughput analysis. It has been extensively used in many areas of biomedical research. Immunoglobulin E (IgE) mediated allergic response (type-1 hypersensitivity) is one of the most powerful reactions of the immune system. Tissue Mast Cells (MCs) and circulating basophils are the major effector cells in these reactions. By dissecting the regulatory circuitry of mast cells by analyzing the genome wide effects of antigen stimulation triggered by FcεRI, offers a potential for finding novel genes as ‘targets’ for therapeutic intervention. In this work, we tried to study the gene expression pattern in IgE sensitized and FcεRI cross linked cord blood derived MCs using one of the latest techniques, high density oligonucleotide expression probe array (HG-Focus array, Gene Chip, Affymetrix, Santa Clara, CA). Microarray hybridization of RNA from cord blood derived MCs revealed coordinated changes in gene expression in response to IgE stimulation and receptor cross linking at different time points. Among the most prominent findings, we observed 2 to 32-fold increased expression of different transcripts. Real-time PCR confirmed reliability of microarray data. This enabled us to classify and cluster genes by functional families as well as to understand known genes in signaling pathways. These results defined a list of primary candidates for finding novel genes as ‘targets’ for therapeutic intervention
IRFM Temperature Calibrations for the Vilnius, Geneva, RI(C) and DDO Photometric Systems
We have used the infrared flux method (IRFM) temperatures of a large sample of late type dwarfs given by Alonso et al. (1996a) to calibrate empirically the relations Teff = f (colour, [Fe/H]) for the Vilnius, Geneva, RI(C) and DDO photometric systems. The resulting temperature scale and intrinsic colour-colour diagrams for these systems are also obtained. From this scale, the solar colours are derived and compared with those of the solar twin 18 Sco. Since our work is based on the same Teff and [Fe/H] values used by Alonso et al. (1996b) to calibrate other colours, we now have an homogeneous calibration for a large set of photometric systems
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