574 research outputs found
Comparaison entre relevés de 25 m2 et 100 m2 pour l’étude de la faune de la strate herbacée
Au cours de l’étude des peuplements animaux d’une savane de Côte d’ivoire par la méthode des carrés de ramassage, il a semblé utile de comparer deux surfaces usuelles : 25 m2 et 100 m2. Dans ce but, trois séries de relevés comprenant chacune un quadrat de 100 m2 et quatre de 25 m2 ont été réalisées en une seule matinée dans un même milieu. Il est apparu que les récoltes sur 25 m2 sont plus minutieuses et, en considérant les groupes zoologiques globalement, pas plus hétérogènes que celles sur 100 m2. L’étude spécifique de quelques groupes d’insectes montre qu’une surface de 100 m2 au minimum est nécessaire pour avoir une première idée des principales espèces. L’analyse de ces relevés montre aussi que la variabilité de densité des peuplements est très différente suivant les groupes. On peut supposer que les plus variables seraient de bons indicateurs écologiques.The results obtained by hand-collecting of Arthropods from quadrats of different size (25 m2 and 100 m2) have been compared. Collecting was done in Loudetici savanna on the same day and at the same time. Retter results are obtained using small (25 m2) rather than large (100 m2) quadrats, a greater number of small sized individuals being taken per unit area in the former compared with the latter. Sample variability is no higher in the smaller quadrats, and it is concluded that the best compromise between the cost and variance of daily sampling is attained by sampling from 4 to 6 areas, each of 25 m2
Comparaison de plusieurs indices de diversité dans l’étude d’un peuplement de Mantes
The biological diversity of praying Mantids has been analysed to illustrate some classical indices between stability and diversity on the one hand and the numbers of individuals and species on the other. A good description of the Mantid communities can be reached by using only two parameters : the « a », of Fischer for specific richness and the « E » of Margalef for interspecific relations
Spin density distribution in a partially magnetized organic quantum magnet
Polarized neutron diffraction experiments on an organic magnetic material
reveal a highly skewed distribution of spin density within the magnetic
molecular unit. The very large magnitude of the observed effect is due to
quantum spin fluctuations. The data are in quantitative agreement with direct
diagonalization results for a model spin Hamiltonian, and provide insight on
the actual microscopic origin of the relevant exchange interactions.Comment: 5 pages 4 figure
Dust modelling and a dynamical study of comet 41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresak during its 2017 perihelion passage
Thanks to the Rosetta mission, our understanding of comets has greatly
improved. A very good opportunity to apply this knowledge appeared in early
2017 with the appearance of the Jupiter family comet 41P/TGK. We performed an
observational campaign with the TRAPPIST telescopes that covered almost the
entire period of time when the comet was active. In this work we present a
comprehensive study of the evolution of the dust environment of 41P based on
observational data from January to July, 2017. Also, we performed numerical
simulations to constrain its origin and dynamical nature. To model the
observational data set we used a Monte Carlo dust tail model, which allowed us
to derive the dust parameters that best describe its dust environment as a
function of heliocentric distance. In order to study its dynamical evolution,
we completed several experiments to evaluate the degree of stability of its
orbit, its life time in its current region close to Earth, and its future
behaviour. From the dust analysis, we found that comet 41P has a complex
emission pattern that shifted from full isotropic to anisotropic ejection
sometime during February 24-March 14 in 2017, and then from anisotropic to full
isotropic again between June 7-28. During the anisotropic period, the emission
was controlled by two strongly active areas, where one was located in the
southern and one in the northern hemisphere of the nucleus. The total dust mass
loss is estimated to be kg. From the dynamical
simulations we estimate that 3600 yr is the period of time during which
41P will remain in a similar orbit. Taking into account the estimated mass loss
per orbit, after 3600 yr, the nucleus may lose about 30 of its mass.
However, based on its observed dust-to-water mass ratio and its propensity to
outbursts, the lifetime of this comet could be much shorter.Comment: 14 pages, 13 figures. Accepted for its publication in Astronomy &
Astrophysic
Ground-based follow-up observations of TRAPPIST-1 transits in the near-infrared
The TRAPPIST-1 planetary system is a favorable target for the atmospheric
characterization of temperate earth-sized exoplanets by means of transmission
spectroscopy with the forthcoming James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). A possible
obstacle to this technique could come from the photospheric heterogeneity of
the host star that could affect planetary signatures in the transit
transmission spectra. To constrain further this possibility, we gathered an
extensive photometric data set of 25 TRAPPIST-1 transits observed in the
near-IR J band (1.2 m) with the UKIRT and the AAT, and in the NB2090 band
(2.1 m) with the VLT during the period 2015-2018. In our analysis of these
data, we used a special strategy aiming to ensure uniformity in our
measurements and robustness in our conclusions. We reach a photometric
precision of (RMS of the residuals), and we detect no significant
temporal variations of transit depths of TRAPPIST-1 b, c, e, and g over the
period of three years. The few transit depths measured for planets d and f hint
towards some level of variability, but more measurements will be required for
confirmation. Our depth measurements for planets b and c disagree with the
stellar contamination spectra originating from the possible existence of bright
spots of temperature 4500 K. We report updated transmission spectra for the six
inner planets of the system which are globally flat for planets b and g and
some structures are seen for planets c, d, e, and f.Comment: accepted for publication in MNRA
SPECULOOS exoplanet search and its prototype on TRAPPIST
One of the most significant goals of modern science is establishing whether
life exists around other suns. The most direct path towards its achievement is
the detection and atmospheric characterization of terrestrial exoplanets with
potentially habitable surface conditions. The nearest ultracool dwarfs (UCDs),
i.e. very-low-mass stars and brown dwarfs with effective temperatures lower
than 2700 K, represent a unique opportunity to reach this goal within the next
decade. The potential of the transit method for detecting potentially habitable
Earth-sized planets around these objects is drastically increased compared to
Earth-Sun analogs. Furthermore, only a terrestrial planet transiting a nearby
UCD would be amenable for a thorough atmospheric characterization, including
the search for possible biosignatures, with near-future facilities such as the
James Webb Space Telescope. In this chapter, we first describe the physical
properties of UCDs as well as the unique potential they offer for the detection
of potentially habitable Earth-sized planets suitable for atmospheric
characterization. Then, we present the SPECULOOS ground-based transit survey,
that will search for Earth-sized planets transiting the nearest UCDs, as well
as its prototype survey on the TRAPPIST telescopes. We conclude by discussing
the prospects offered by the recent detection by this prototype survey of a
system of seven temperate Earth-sized planets transiting a nearby UCD,
TRAPPIST-1.Comment: Submitted as a chapter in the "Handbook of Exoplanets" (editors: H.
Deeg & J.A. Belmonte; Section Editor: N. Narita). 16 pages, 4 figure
Discovery and characterization of WASP-6b, an inflated sub-Jupiter mass planet transiting a solar-type star
We report the discovery of WASP-6b, an inflated sub-Jupiter mass planet transiting every 3.3610060^{\rm + 0.0000022 }_ days a mildly metal-poor solar-type star of magnitude V = 11.9. A combined analysis of the WASP photometry, high-precision followup transit photometry and radial velocities yield a planetary mass M_{\rm p} = 0.503^_ and radius R_{\rm p} = 1.224^_ , resulting in a density . The mass and radius for the host star are M_\ast = 0.88^_ and R_\ast = 0.870^_ . The non-zero orbital eccentricity e = 0.054^{\rm +0.018}_ that we measure suggests that the planet underwent a massive tidal heating ~1 Gyr ago that could have contributed to its inflated radius. High-precision radial velocities obtained during a transit allow us to measure a sky-projected angle between the stellar spin and orbital axis \beta = 11^_ deg. In addition to similar published measurements, this result favors a dominant migration mechanism based on tidal interactions with a protoplanetary disk
A new variational approach to the stability of gravitational systems
We consider the three dimensional gravitational Vlasov Poisson system which
describes the mechanical state of a stellar system subject to its own gravity.
A well-known conjecture in astrophysics is that the steady state solutions
which are nonincreasing functions of their microscopic energy are nonlinearly
stable by the flow. This was proved at the linear level by several authors
based on the pioneering work by Antonov in 1961. Since then, standard
variational techniques based on concentration compactness methods as introduced
by P.-L. Lions in 1983 have led to the nonlinear stability of subclasses of
stationary solutions of ground state type.
In this paper, inspired by pioneering works from the physics litterature
(Lynden-Bell 94, Wiechen-Ziegler-Schindler MNRAS 88, Aly MNRAS 89), we use the
monotonicity of the Hamiltonian under generalized symmetric rearrangement
transformations to prove that non increasing steady solutions are local
minimizer of the Hamiltonian under equimeasurable constraints, and extract
compactness from suitable minimizing sequences. This implies the nonlinear
stability of nonincreasing anisotropic steady states under radially symmetric
perturbations
Experimental magnetic form factors in Co3V2O8: A combined study of ab initio calculations, magnetic Compton scattering and polarized neutron diffraction
We present a combination of ab initio calculations, magnetic Compton
scattering and polarized neutron experiments, which elucidate the density
distribution of unpaired electrons in the kagome staircase system Co3V2O8. Ab
initio wave functions were used to calculate the spin densities in real and
momentum space, which show good agreement with the respective experiments. It
has been found that the spin polarized orbitals are equally distributed between
the t2g and the eg levels for the spine (s) Co ions, while the eg orbitals of
the cross-tie (c) Co ions only represent 30% of the atomic spin density.
Furthermore, the results reveal that the magnetic moments of the cross-tie Co
ions, which are significantly smaller than those of the spine Co ions in the
zero-field ferromagnetic structure, do not saturate by applying an external
magnetic field of 2 T along the easy axis a, but that the increasing bulk
magnetization originates from induced magnetic moments on the O and V sites.
The refined individual magnetic moments are mu(Co_c)=1.54(4) mu_B,
mu(Co_s)=2.87(3) mu_B, mu(V)=0.41(4) mu_B, mu(O1)=0.05(5) mu_B, mu(O2)=0.35(5)
mu_B, and; mu(O3)=0.36(5) mu_B combining to the same macroscopic magnetization
value, which was previously only attributed to the Co ions
An ingress and a complete transit of HD 80606 b
We have used four telescopes at different longitudes to obtain
near-continuous lightcurve coverage of the star HD 80606 as it was transited by
its \sim 4-MJup planet. The observations were performed during the predicted
transit windows around the 25th of October 2008 and the 14th of February 2009.
Our data set is unique in that it simultaneously constrains the duration of the
transit and the planet's period. Our Markov-Chain Monte Carlo analysis of the
light curves, combined with constraints from radial-velocity data, yields
system parameters consistent with previously reported values. We find a
planet-to-star radius ratio marginally smaller than previously reported,
corresponding to a planet radius of Rp = 0.921 \pm 0.036RJup .Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, MNRAS accepte
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