Catalog of Luminous Supersoft X-ray Sources

This catalog comprises an up-to-date list of luminous (>10^36 erg/s) supersoft X-ray sources. We include in this catalog accreting binary sources of high luminosity which are thought to be in a state of (steady or recurrent) hydrogen burning. Since CAL 83, the prototype, is known to have an ionisation nebula, and further supersoft binaries are expected to also have one, we include also sources associated with very luminous planetary nebulae. Not included are PG 1159 stars which reach similar magnitudes but form a rather distinct class. Excluded are also supersoft active galactic nuclei which reach luminosities up to 10^45 erg/s.Comment: 39 pages postscript, Proc. of Workshop on Supersoft X-Ray Sources, to appear in Lecture Notes in Physics vol. 472 (1996

Holographic analysis of diffraction structure factors

We combine the theory of inside-source/inside-detector x-ray fluorescence holography and Kossel lines/x ray standing waves in kinematic approximation to directly obtain the phases of the diffraction structure factors. The influence of Kossel lines and standing waves on holography is also discussed. We obtain partial phase determination from experimental data obtaining the sign of the real part of the structure factor for several reciprocal lattice vectors of a vanadium crystal.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, submitte

Close-packed dimers on the line: diffraction versus dynamical spectrum

The translation action of \RR^{d} on a translation bounded measure $\omega$ leads to an interesting class of dynamical systems, with a rather rich spectral theory. In general, the diffraction spectrum of $\omega$, which is the carrier of the diffraction measure, live on a subset of the dynamical spectrum. It is known that, under some mild assumptions, a pure point diffraction spectrum implies a pure point dynamical spectrum (the opposite implication always being true). For other systems, the diffraction spectrum can be a proper subset of the dynamical spectrum, as was pointed out for the Thue-Morse sequence (with singular continuous diffraction) in \cite{EM}. Here, we construct a random system of close-packed dimers on the line that have some underlying long-range periodic order as well, and display the same type of phenomenon for a system with absolutely continuous spectrum. An interpretation in terms of `atomic' versus `molecular' spectrum suggests a way to come to a more general correspondence between these two types of spectra.Comment: 14 pages, with some additions and improvement

Electron energy loss and induced photon emission in photonic crystals

The interaction of a fast electron with a photonic crystal is investigated by solving the Maxwell equations exactly for the external field provided by the electron in the presence of the crystal. The energy loss is obtained from the retarding force exerted on the electron by the induced electric field. The features of the energy loss spectra are shown to be related to the photonic band structure of the crystal. Two different regimes are discussed: for small lattice constants $a$ relative to the wavelength of the associated electron excitations $\lambda$, an effective medium theory can be used to describe the material; however, for $a\sim\lambda$ the photonic band structure plays an important role. Special attention is paid to the frequency gap regions in the latter case.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figure

lncRNA-Induced Spread of Polycomb Controlled by Genome Architecture, RNA Abundance, and CpG Island DNA

Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) cause Polycomb repressive complexes (PRCs) to spread over broad regions of the mammalian genome. We report that in mouse trophoblast stem cells, the Airn and Kcnq1ot1 lncRNAs induce PRC-dependent chromatin modifications over multi-megabase domains. Throughout the Airn-targeted domain, the extent of PRC-dependent modification correlated with intra-nuclear distance to the Airn locus, preexisting genome architecture, and the abundance of Airn itself. Specific CpG islands (CGIs) displayed characteristics indicating that they nucleate the spread of PRCs upon exposure to Airn. Chromatin environments surrounding Xist, Airn, and Kcnq1ot1 suggest common mechanisms of PRC engagement and spreading. Our data indicate that lncRNA potency can be tightly linked to lncRNA abundance and that within lncRNA-targeted domains, PRCs are recruited to CGIs via lncRNA-independent mechanisms. We propose that CGIs that autonomously recruit PRCs interact with lncRNAs and their associated proteins through three-dimensional space to nucleate the spread of PRCs in lncRNA-targeted domains. Schertzer et al. studied relationships between long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) and Polycomb repressive complexes (PRCs) in mouse trophoblast stem cells. They found that genome architecture, lncRNA abundance, and CpG island DNA each play important roles in dictating the intensity of PRC-induced chromatin modifications within lncRNA target domains

Baseline and innate immune response characterization of a Zfp30 knockout mouse strain

Airway neutrophilia is correlated with disease severity in a number of chronic and acute pulmonary diseases, and dysregulation of neutrophil chemotaxis can lead to host tissue damage. The gene Zfp30 was previously identified as a candidate regulator of neutrophil recruitment to the lungs and secretion of CXCL1, a potent neutrophil chemokine, in a genome-wide mapping study using the Collaborative Cross. ZFP30 is a putative transcriptional repressor with a KRAB domain capable of inducing heterochromatin formation. Using a CRISPR-mediated knockout mouse model, we investigated the role that Zfp30 plays in recruitment of neutrophils to the lung using models of allergic airway disease and acute lung injury. We found that the Zfp30 null allele did not affect CXCL1 secretion or neutrophil recruitment to the lungs in response to various innate immune stimuli. Intriguingly, despite the lack of neutrophil phenotype, we found there was a significant reduction in the proportion of live Zfp30 homozygous female mutant mice produced from heterozygous matings. This deviation from the expected Mendelian ratios implicates Zfp30 in fertility or embryonic development. Overall, our results indicate that Zfp30 is an essential gene but does not influence neutrophilic inflammation in this particular knockout model

Schottky barrier heights at polar metal/semiconductor interfaces

Using a first-principle pseudopotential approach, we have investigated the Schottky barrier heights of abrupt Al/Ge, Al/GaAs, Al/AlAs, and Al/ZnSe (100) junctions, and their dependence on the semiconductor chemical composition and surface termination. A model based on linear-response theory is developed, which provides a simple, yet accurate description of the barrier-height variations with the chemical composition of the semiconductor. The larger barrier values found for the anion- than for the cation-terminated surfaces are explained in terms of the screened charge of the polar semiconductor surface and its image charge at the metal surface. Atomic scale computations show how the classical image charge concept, valid for charges placed at large distances from the metal, extends to distances shorter than the decay length of the metal-induced-gap states.Comment: REVTeX 4, 11 pages, 6 EPS figure

Magnetic trapping of ultracold neutrons

Three-dimensional magnetic confinement of neutrons is reported. Neutrons are loaded into an Ioffe-type superconducting magnetic trap through inelastic scattering of cold neutrons with 4He. Scattered neutrons with sufficiently low energy and in the appropriate spin state are confined by the magnetic field until they decay. The electron resulting from neutron decay produces scintillations in the liquid helium bath that results in a pulse of extreme ultraviolet light. This light is frequency downconverted to the visible and detected. Results are presented in which 500 +/- 155 neutrons are magnetically trapped in each loading cycle, consistent with theoretical predictions. The lifetime of the observed signal, 660 s +290/-170 s, is consistent with the neutron beta-decay lifetime.Comment: 17 pages, 18 figures, accepted for publication in Physical Review

The SCUBA-2 Cosmology Legacy Survey: ALMA resolves the bright-end of the submillimeter number counts

We present high-resolution 870 μm Atacama Large Millimeter/sub-millimeter Array (ALMA) continuum maps of 30 bright sub-millimeter sources in the UKIDSS UDS field. These sources are selected from deep, 1 degree2 850 μm maps from the SCUBA-2 Cosmology Legacy Survey, and are representative of the brightest sources in the field (median = 8.7 ± 0.4 mJy). We detect 52 sub-millimeter galaxies (SMGs) at >4σ significance in our 30 ALMA maps. In of the ALMA maps the single-dish source comprises a blend of ≥2 SMGs, where the secondary SMGs are Ultra-luminous Infrared Galaxies (ULIRGs) with 1012 . The brightest SMG contributes on average of the single-dish flux density, and in the ALMA maps containing ≥2 SMGs the secondary SMG contributes of the integrated ALMA flux. We construct source counts and show that multiplicity boosts the apparent single-dish cumulative counts by 20% at S870 > 7.5 mJy, and by 60% at S870 > 12 mJy. We combine our sample with previous ALMA studies of fainter SMGs and show that the counts are well-described by a double power law with a break at 8.5 ± 0.6 mJy. The break corresponds to a luminosity of ~6 × 1012 or a star formation rate (SFR) of ~103 . For the typical sizes of these SMGs, which are resolved in our ALMA data with = 1.2 ± 0.1 kpc, this yields a limiting SFR density of ~100 yr−1 kpc−2 Finally, the number density of S870 2 mJy SMGs is 80 ± 30 times higher than that derived from blank-field counts. An over-abundance of faint SMGs is inconsistent with line-of-sight projections dominating multiplicity in the brightest SMGs, and indicates that a significant proportion of these high-redshift ULIRGs are likely to be physically associated

Black Hole Spin via Continuum Fitting and the Role of Spin in Powering Transient Jets

The spins of ten stellar black holes have been measured using the continuum-fitting method. These black holes are located in two distinct classes of X-ray binary systems, one that is persistently X-ray bright and another that is transient. Both the persistent and transient black holes remain for long periods in a state where their spectra are dominated by a thermal accretion disk component. The spin of a black hole of known mass and distance can be measured by fitting this thermal continuum spectrum to the thin-disk model of Novikov and Thorne; the key fit parameter is the radius of the inner edge of the black hole's accretion disk. Strong observational and theoretical evidence links the inner-disk radius to the radius of the innermost stable circular orbit, which is trivially related to the dimensionless spin parameter a_* of the black hole (|a_*| < 1). The ten spins that have so far been measured by this continuum-fitting method range widely from a_* \approx 0 to a_* > 0.95. The robustness of the method is demonstrated by the dozens or hundreds of independent and consistent measurements of spin that have been obtained for several black holes, and through careful consideration of many sources of systematic error. Among the results discussed is a dichotomy between the transient and persistent black holes; the latter have higher spins and larger masses. Also discussed is recently discovered evidence in the transient sources for a correlation between the power of ballistic jets and black hole spin.Comment: 30 pages. Accepted for publication in Space Science Reviews. Also to appear in hard cover in the Space Sciences Series of ISSI "The Physics of Accretion onto Black Holes" (Springer Publisher). Changes to Sections 5.2, 6.1 and 7.4. Section 7.4 responds to Russell et al. 2013 (MNRAS, 431, 405) who find no evidence for a correlation between the power of ballistic jets and black hole spi