721 research outputs found
Spectral Energy Distributions of T Tauri and Herbig Ae Disks: Grain Mineralogy, Parameter Dependences, and Comparison with ISO LWS Observations
We improve upon the radiative, hydrostatic equilibrium models of passive
circumstellar disks constructed by Chiang & Goldreich (1997). New features
include (1) account for a range of particle sizes, (2) employment of
laboratory-based optical constants of representative grain materials, and (3)
numerical solution of the equations of radiative and hydrostatic equilibrium
within the original 2-layer (disk surface + disk interior) approximation. We
explore how the spectral energy distribution (SED) of a face-on disk depends on
grain size distributions, disk geometries and surface densities, and stellar
photospheric temperatures. Observed SEDs of 3 Herbig Ae and 2 T Tauri stars,
including spectra from the Long Wavelength Spectrometer (LWS) aboard the
Infrared Space Observatory (ISO), are fitted with our models. Silicate emission
bands from optically thin, superheated disk surface layers appear in nearly all
systems. Water ice emission bands appear in LWS spectra of 2 of the coolest
stars. Infrared excesses in several sources are consistent with vertical
settling of photospheric grains. While this work furnishes further evidence
that passive reprocessing of starlight by flared disks adequately explains the
origin of infrared-to-millimeter wavelength excesses of young stars, we
emphasize how the SED alone does not provide sufficient information to
constrain particle sizes and disk masses uniquely.Comment: Accepted to ApJ, 35 pages inc. 14 figures, AAS preprin
On the cubic interactions of massive and partially-massless higher spins in (A)dS
Cubic interactions of massive and partially-massless totally-symmetric
higher-spin fields in any constant-curvature background of dimension greater
than three are investigated. Making use of the ambient-space formalism, the
consistency condition for the traceless and transverse parts of the
parity-invariant interactions is recast into a system of partial differential
equations. The latter can be explicitly solved for given s_1-s_2-s_3 couplings
and the 2-2-2 and 3-3-2 examples are provided in detail for general choices of
the masses. On the other hand, the general solutions for the interactions
involving massive and massless fields are expressed in a compact form as
generating functions of all the consistent couplings. The St\"uckelberg
formulation of the cubic interactions as well as their massless limits are also
analyzed.Comment: 42 pages, 2 tables, LaTex. Comments on two-derivative couplings
involving partially-massless spin-2 fields added, typos corrected, references
added. v2: final version to appear in JHEP. v3: formulae (3.4) and (3.9)
correcte
Chondrule Formation and Protoplanetary Disk Heating by Current Sheets in Non-Ideal Magnetohydrodynamic Turbulence
We study magnetic field steepening due to ambipolar diffusion (Brandenburg &
Zweibel 1994) in protoplanetary disk environments and draw the following
conclusions. Current sheets are generated in magnetically active regions of the
disk where the ionization fraction is high enough for the magnetorotational
instability to operate. In late stages of solar nebula evolution, the surface
density is expected to have lowered and dust grains to have gravitationally
settled to the midplane. If the local dust-to-gas mass ratio near the midplane
is increased above cosmic abundances by factors > 10^3, current sheets reach
high enough temperatures to melt millimeter-sized dust grains, and hence may
provide the mechanism to form meteoritic chondrules. In addition, these current
sheets possibly explain the near-infrared excesses observed in spectral energy
distributions (SEDs) of young stellar objects. Direct imaging of protoplanetary
disks via a nulling interferometer or, in the future, a multi-band, adaptive
optics coronagraph can test this hypothesis.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Ap
Discovery and Functional Characterization of Diverse Class 2 CRISPR-Cas Systems
Microbial CRISPR-Cas systems are divided into Class 1, with multisubunit effector complexes, and Class 2, with single protein effectors. Currently, only two Class 2 effectors, Cas9 and Cpf1, are known. We describe here three distinct Class 2 CRISPR-Cas systems. The effectors of two of the identified systems, C2c1 and C2c3, contain RuvC-like endonuclease domains distantly related to Cpf1. The third system, C2c2, contains an effector with two predicted HEPN RNase domains. Whereas production of mature CRISPR RNA (crRNA) by C2c1 depends on tracrRNA, C2c2 crRNA maturation is tracrRNA independent. We found that C2c1 systems can mediate DNA interference in a 5'-PAM-dependent fashion analogous to Cpf1. However, unlike Cpf1, which is a single-RNA-guided nuclease, C2c1 depends on both crRNA and tracrRNA for DNA cleavage. Finally, comparative analysis indicates that Class 2 CRISPR-Cas systems evolved on multiple occasions through recombination of Class 1 adaptation modules with effector proteins acquired from distinct mobile elements.National Institute of Mental Health (U.S.) (Grant 5DP1-MH100706)National Institute of Mental Health (U.S.) (Grant 1R01-MH110049)National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (U.S.) (Grant 5R01DK097768-03)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant GM10407
Higher-Spin Fermionic Gauge Fields and Their Electromagnetic Coupling
We study the electromagnetic coupling of massless higher-spin fermions in
flat space. Under the assumptions of locality and Poincare invariance, we
employ the BRST-BV cohomological methods to construct consistent
parity-preserving off-shell cubic 1-s-s vertices. Consistency and
non-triviality of the deformations not only rule out minimal coupling, but also
restrict the possible number of derivatives. Our findings are in complete
agreement with, but derived in a manner independent from, the
light-cone-formulation results of Metsaev and the string-theory-inspired
results of Sagnotti-Taronna. We prove that any gauge-algebra-preserving vertex
cannot deform the gauge transformations. We also show that in a local theory,
without additional dynamical higher-spin gauge fields, the non-abelian vertices
are eliminated by the lack of consistent second-order deformations.Comment: 44 pages; references added, minor changes made, to appear in JHE
Solving the Noether procedure for cubic interactions of higher spins in (A)dS
The Noether procedure represents a perturbative scheme to construct all
possible consistent interactions starting from a given free theory. In this
note we describe how cubic interactions involving higher spins in any
constant-curvature background can be systematically derived within this
framework.Comment: 17 pages, LaTex. Invited contribution to the J. Phys. A special
volume on "Higher Spin Theories and AdS/CFT" edited by M. Gaberdiel and M. A.
Vasiliev. Final version to appear in J. Phys.
Protein interactions in Xenopus germ plasm RNP particles
Hermes is an RNA-binding protein that we have previously reported to be found in the ribonucleoprotein (RNP) particles of Xenopus germ plasm, where it is associated with various RNAs, including that encoding the germ line determinant Nanos1. To further define the composition of these RNPs, we performed a screen for Hermes-binding partners using the yeast two-hybrid system. We have identified and validated four proteins that interact with Hermes in germ plasm: two isoforms of Xvelo1 (a homologue of zebrafish Bucky ball) and Rbm24b and Rbm42b, both RNA-binding proteins containing the RRM motif. GFP-Xvelo fusion proteins and their endogenous counterparts, identified with antisera, were found to localize with Hermes in the germ plasm particles of large oocytes and eggs. Only the larger Xvelo isoform was naturally found in the Balbiani body of previtellogenic oocytes. Bimolecular fluorescence complementation (BiFC) experiments confirmed that Hermes and the Xvelo variants interact in germ plasm, as do Rbm24b and 42b. Depletion of the shorter Xvelo variant with antisense oligonucleotides caused a decrease in the size of germ plasm aggregates and loosening of associated mitochondria from these structures. This suggests that the short Xvelo variant, or less likely its RNA, has a role in organizing and maintaining the integrity of germ plasm in Xenopus oocytes. While GFP fusion proteins for Rbm24b and 42b did not localize into germ plasm as specifically as Hermes or Xvelo, BiFC analysis indicated that both interact with Hermes in germ plasm RNPs. They are very stable in the face of RNA depletion, but additive effects of combinations of antisense oligos suggest they may have a role in germ plasm structure and may influence the ability of Hermes protein to effectively enter RNP particles
Maxwell-like Lagrangians for higher spins
We show how implementing invariance under divergence-free gauge
transformations leads to a remarkably simple Lagrangian description of massless
bosons of any spin. Our construction covers both flat and (A)dS backgrounds and
extends to tensors of arbitrary mixed-symmetry type. Irreducible and traceless
fields produce single-particle actions, while whenever trace constraints can be
dispensed with the resulting Lagrangians display the same reducible,
multi-particle spectra as those emerging from the tensionless limit of free
open-string field theory. For all explored options the corresponding kinetic
operators take essentially the same form as in the spin-one, Maxwell case.Comment: 77 pages, revised version. Erroneous interpretation and proof of the
gauge-fixing procedure for mixed-symmetry fields corrected. As a consequence,
the mixed-symmetry, one-particle Lagrangians are to be complemented with
conditions on the divergences of the fields; all other conclusions unchanged.
Additional minor changes including references added. To appear in JHE
Holography, Unfolding and Higher-Spin Theory
Holographic duality is argued to relate classes of models that have
equivalent unfolded formulation, hence exhibiting different space-time
visualizations for the same theory. This general phenomenon is illustrated by
the higher-spin gauge theory shown to be dual to the theory of 3d
conformal currents of all spins interacting with 3d conformal higher-spin
fields of Chern-Simons type. Generally, the resulting 3d boundary conformal
theory is nonlinear, providing an interacting version of the 3d boundary sigma
model conjectured by Klebanov and Polyakov to be dual to the HS theory
in the large limit. Being a gauge theory it escapes the conditions of the
theorem of Maldacena and Zhiboedov, which force a 3d boundary conformal theory
to be free. Two reductions of particular higher-spin gauge theories where
boundary higher-spin gauge fields decouple from the currents and which have
free boundary duals are identified. Higher-spin holographic duality is also
discussed for the cases of and duality between higher-spin
theories and nonrelativistic quantum mechanics. In the latter case it is shown
in particular that () geometry in the higher-spin setup is dual to
the (inverted) harmonic potential in the quantum-mechanical setup.Comment: 57 pages, V2: Acknowledgements, references, comments, clarifications
and new section on reductions of particular HS theories associated with free
boundary theories are added. Typos corrected, V3. Minor corrections:
clarification in section 9 is added and typos correcte
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