Constraining evaporation rates based on large-scale sea surface transects of salinity or isotopic compositions

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2019. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans 124(2), (2019): 1322-1330, doi:10.1029/2018JC014106.A Lagrangian model is constructed for a surface column of initial height h(0) that propagates at an average speed u and is subject to excess (i.e., net) evaporation of q m/year. It is shown that these parameters combine to form an evaporation length, L = uh(0)/q, which provides an estimate for the distance the column must travel before evaporating completely. While these changes in the surface water level due to evaporation are compensated by entrainment of water into the overall column, the changes in either near‐surface salinity or isotopic compositions are retained and can be measured. Observations of surface salinity and isotopic compositions of δ18O and δD along 1,000‐ to 3,500‐km long transects are used to estimate values of L in the Red Sea, Mediterranean Sea, Indian Ocean, and Gulf Stream. The variations of salinity, δ18O and δD in all four basins are linear. As anticipated, the estimated value of L is smallest in the slowly moving and arid Red Sea and is greatest in the fast‐moving Gulf Stream.The salinity and δ18O data collected aboard the Indian Ocean cruise described in Srivastava et al. (2007) can be accessed at this website (https://www.nodc.noaa.gov). The salinity, δ18O and δD data collected during the Red Sea cruise of the Interuniversity Institute for Marine Sciences, Eilat, described in Steiner et al. (2014) and can be accessed in the supporting information section of doi: 10.1073/pnas.1414323111. H. B. acknowledges the support provided by the Eshkol Foundation of the Israel Ministry of Science.2019-07-2

Spectral and Timing Analysis of NuSTAR and Swift/XRT Observations of the X-Ray Transient MAXI J0637-430

We present results for the first observed outburst from the transient X-ray binary source MAXI J0637-430. This study is based on eight observations from the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) and six observations from the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory X-Ray Telescope (Swift/XRT) collected from 2019 November 19 to 2020 April 26 as the 3-79 keV source flux declined from 8.2 × 10-10 to 1.4 × 10-12 erg cm-2 s-1. We see the source transition from a soft state with a strong disk-blackbody component to a hard state dominated by a power-law or thermal Comptonization component. NuSTAR provides the first reported coverage of MAXI J0637-430 above 10 keV, and these broadband spectra show that a two-component model does not provide an adequate description of the soft-state spectrum. As such, we test whether blackbody emission from the plunging region could explain the excess emission. As an alternative, we test a reflection model that includes a physical Comptonization continuum. Finally, we also test a spectral component based on reflection of a blackbody illumination spectrum, which can be interpreted as a simple approximation to the reflection produced by returning disk radiation due to the bending of light by the strong gravity of the black hole. We discuss the physical implications of each scenario and demonstrate the value of constraining the source distance

The Compton Spectrometer and Imager

The Compton Spectrometer and Imager (COSI) is a NASA Small Explorer (SMEX) satellite mission in development with a planned launch in 2027. COSI is a wide-field gamma-ray telescope designed to survey the entire sky at 0.2-5 MeV. It provides imaging, spectroscopy, and polarimetry of astrophysical sources, and its germanium detectors provide excellent energy resolution for emission line measurements. Science goals for COSI include studies of 0.511 MeV emission from antimatter annihilation in the Galaxy, mapping radioactive elements from nucleosynthesis, determining emission mechanisms and source geometries with polarization measurements, and detecting and localizing multimessenger sources. The instantaneous field of view for the germanium detectors is >25% of the sky, and they are surrounded on the sides and bottom by active shields, providing background rejection as well as allowing for detection of gamma-ray bursts and other gamma-ray flares over most of the sky. In the following, we provide an overview of the COSI mission, including the science, the technical design, and the project status.Comment: 8 page

The cosipy library: COSI's high-level analysis software

The Compton Spectrometer and Imager (COSI) is a selected Small Explorer (SMEX) mission launching in 2027. It consists of a large field-of-view Compton telescope that will probe with increased sensitivity the under-explored MeV gamma-ray sky (0.2-5 MeV). We will present the current status of cosipy, a Python library that will perform spectral and polarization fits, image deconvolution, and all high-level analysis tasks required by COSI's broad science goals: uncovering the origin of the Galactic positrons, mapping the sites of Galactic nucleosynthesis, improving our models of the jet and emission mechanism of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and active galactic nuclei (AGNs), and detecting and localizing gravitational wave and neutrino sources. The cosipy library builds on the experience gained during the COSI balloon campaigns and will bring the analysis of data in the Compton regime to a modern open-source likelihood-based code, capable of performing coherent joint fits with other instruments using the Multi-Mission Maximum Likelihood framework (3ML). In this contribution, we will also discuss our plans to receive feedback from the community by having yearly software releases accompanied by publicly-available data challenges

Analyzing High-Energy Transients: Spectral and Polarization Studies for Gamma-Ray Bursts and Accreting Black Holes

High-energy transient events can be used to probe the extreme physics that power them, as well as the properties of matter in violent astrophysical environments such as in the vicinity of compact objects or the birthplaces of black holes. X-ray binary outbursts provide important insights into the physics of accretion and the nature of black holes and neutron stars. Meanwhile, gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) carry signatures of the powerful progenitors that produce them, yet the origins of their prompt emission and their jet structure remain unclear. Spectral and timing analyses have been effective investigative tools for these extreme settings, especially as telescopes advance and models increase in predictive power. Pairing them with linear polarization analyses of high-energy emissions can add even more information about the emission mechanisms and source geometries of accreting black holes and GRBs.The Compton Spectrometer and Imager (COSI) is a soft gamma-ray (0.2-5 MeV) telescope designed to study astrophysical sources including accreting black holes and GRBs. It has significant heritage as a balloon-borne telescope, and was selected as a NASA Small Explorer (SMEX) slated to launch on a satellite in 2027. COSI employs a compact Compton telescope designed to conduct high-resolution spectroscopy, imaging over a wide field-of-view, polarization studies, and effective suppression of background events. Compton telescopes detect multiple interactions from individual incoming photons, allowing for polarization information to be captured through measurements of the distribution of azimuthal angles. While the standard method relies on binning the photons to produce and fit an azimuthal scattering angle distribution, improved polarization sensitivity is obtained by using additional information to more accurately weigh each event’s contribution to the likelihood statistics. In this work, we report validations of COSI’s capabilities as a polarimeter. Furthermore, we develop tools that enable future spectral and polarimetric analyses of COSI GRB observations.We also present the first observed outburst from the transient X-ray binary source MAXI J0637-430, based on observations from the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) and the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory X-Ray Telescope (Swift/XRT). We study the source's transition from a soft state dominated by disk-blackbody emission to a hard state dominated by a power-law or thermal Comptonization component, with NuSTAR providing the first coverage of MAXI J0637-430 above 10 keV. These broadband spectra show that a two-component model does not provide an adequate description of the soft state spectrum. As such, we test alternative excess emission models such as blackbody emission from the plunging region, a reflection component with a Comptonization continuum, and a reflection component of a blackbody illuminating the disk. The study demonstrates the importance of broadband spectral analyses of accreting compact objects. We include a discussion on how joint spectral and polarization analyses could be conducted for long-duration transient sources with COSI in the future

The ATLAS Tile Calorimeter experience with 10,000 readout photomultipliers operating since the start of the p-p collisions at LHC

The channels of TileCal, the hadron calorimeter of the Atlas experiment at the LHC, is readout with 8-stage fine-mesh PhotoMulTipliers (PMTs), a special version of the Hamamatsu model R5900. About 10000 PMTs are operating in TileCal. The PMT response stability allows to calibrate accurately the calorimeter and to achieve high performance of the energy reconstruction of the cells. Currently, no PMT replacement is foreseen before completion of the High Luminosity program of the LHC collider in the next decade. In this perspective, a number of measurements and tests are in progress to qualify the PMT robustness in terms of lifetime and response stability. Data from the Tile calibration procedure for the detector PMTs and from laboratory tests of spare PMTs are being analysed. Results on PMT failures, gain loss and quantum efficiency loss are presented. Analysis is focused on the study of the observed down-drift with time of the PMT response as a function of the integrated anode charge, and depending on the individual cell exposure to irradiation during the LHC operation. The multi-stage calibration system of Tile and the algorithms adopted to disentangle between gain and quantum efficiency loss are described, as well as the tests performed in dedicated test-benches

Hindbrain boundaries as niches of neural progenitor and stem cells regulated by the extracellular matrix proteoglycan chondroitin sulphate.

Peer reviewed: TrueAcknowledgements: We thank Einat Zelinger and Daniel Waiger from the Center for Scientific Imaging, Core Facility, Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, for their help with the SEM and IMARIS analyses. We thank Adi Turjeman from The Center for Genomic Technologies, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, for assisting with the RNA-sequencing. We thank Efrat Hagai from the Life Sciences Core Facilities, Weizmann Institute of Science, for assisting with the FACS procedure.Publication status: PublishedFunder: The Hebrew University of Jerusalem; doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100003483The interplay between neural progenitors and stem cells (NPSCs), and their extracellular matrix (ECM) is a crucial regulatory mechanism that determines their behavior. Nonetheless, how the ECM dictates the state of NPSCs remains elusive. The hindbrain is valuable to examine this relationship, as cells in the ventricular surface of hindbrain boundaries (HBs), which arise between any two neighboring rhombomeres, express the NPSC marker Sox2, while being surrounded with the membrane-bound ECM molecule chondroitin sulphate proteoglycan (CSPG), in chick and mouse embryos. CSPG expression was used to isolate HB Sox2+ cells for RNA-sequencing, revealing their distinguished molecular properties as typical NPSCs, which express known and newly identified genes relating to stem cells, cancer, the matrisome and cell cycle. In contrast, the CSPG- non-HB cells, displayed clear neural-differentiation transcriptome. To address whether CSPG is significant for hindbrain development, its expression was manipulated in vivo and in vitro. CSPG manipulations shifted the stem versus differentiation state of HB cells, evident by their behavior and altered gene expression. These results provide further understanding of the uniqueness of hindbrain boundaries as repetitive pools of NPSCs in-between the rapidly growing rhombomeres, which rely on their microenvironment to maintain their undifferentiated state during development