996 research outputs found
On the Theory of Gamma Ray Bursts and Hypernovae: The Black Hole Soft X-ray Transient Sources
We show that a common evolutionary history can produce the black hole
binaries in the Galaxy in which the black holes have masses of ~ 5-10 M_sun. In
with low-mass, <~ 2.5 M_sun, ZAMS (zero age main sequence) companions, the
latter remain in main sequence during the active stage of soft X-ray transients
(SXTs), most of them being of K or M classification. In two intermediate cases,
IL Lupi and Nova Scorpii with ZAMS ~ 2.5 M_sun companions the orbits are
greatly widened because of large mass loss in the explosion forming the black
hole, and whereas these companions are in late main sequence evolution, they
are close to evolving. Binaries with companion ZAMS masses >~ 3 M_sun are
initially "silent" until the companion begins evolving across the Herzsprung
gap. We provide evidence that the narrower, shorter period binaries, with
companions now in main sequence, are fossil remnants of gamma ray bursters
(GRBs). We also show that the GRB is generally accompanied by a hypernova
explosion (a very energetic supernova explosion). We further show that the
binaries with evolved companions are good models for some of the ultraluminous
X-ray sources (ULXs) recently seen by Chandra in other galaxies. The great
regularity in our evolutionary history, especially the fact that most of the
companions of ZAMS mass <~ 2.5 M_sun remain in main sequences as K or M stars
can be explained by the mass loss in common envelope evolution to be Case C;
i.g., to occur only after core He burning has finished. Since our argument for
Case C mass transfer is not generally understood in the community, we add an
appendix, showing that with certain assumptions which we outline we can
reproduce the regularities in the evolution of black hole binaries by Case C
mass transfer.Comment: 59 pages, 12 figures, review articl
Massive-Star Forming Infrared Loop around the Crab-like Supernova Remnant G54.1+0.3: Post Main-Sequence Triggered Star Formation?
We report the discovery of a star-forming loop around the young, Crab-like
supernova remnant (SNR) G54.1+0.3 using the AKARI infrared satellite. The loop
consists of at least eleven young stellar objects (YSOs) embedded in a
ring-like diffuse emission of radius ~1'. The YSOs are bright in the
mid-infrared and are also visible in the Spitzer Space Telescope Galactic plane
survey images. Their Spitzer colors are similar to those of class II YSOs in
[3.6]-[5.8] but significantly redder in [8]-[24], i.e., 0<[3.6]-[5.8]<1.2 and
5<[8]-[24]<9. Most of them have near-infrared counterparts in the 2MASS JHKs
images, and some of them have an optical counterpart too. Their JHKs colors and
magnitudes indicate that the YSOs are massive (<= 10 Msun) pre-main-sequence
stars at the same distance to the SNR, i.e., 8 kpc, which supports the
association of the star-forming loop with the SNR. The dereddened spectral
energy distributions are similar to eraly Herbig Be stars, which are early
B-type pre-main-sequence stars with inner disks that have been destroyed. The
confinement to a loop structure indicates that the YSOs are young, i.e., <= 2
Myr. We propose that their formation is triggered by the progenitor star of
G54.1+0.3, which has a mass of <= 15 Msun. The triggering must have occurred
near the end of the progenitor's life, possibly after it had evolved off the
main sequence.Comment: 6 pages, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal
Letters; added a reference for section
Discovery of a Black-hole Mass - Period Correlation in Soft X-ray Transients and its Implication for Gamma-Ray Burst and Hypernova Mechanisms
We investigate the soft X-ray transients with black hole primaries which may
have been the sources of gamma-ray bursts and hypernovae earlier in their
evolution. We find that the black-hole mass increases with the orbital period
of the binary, both for systems with main-sequence donors and for those with
evolved donors. This correlation can be understood in terms of angular-momentum
support in the helium star progenitor of the black hole, if the systems with
shorter periods had more rapidly rotating primaries prior to their explosion:
centrifugal support will then prevent more of its mass from collapsing into the
black hole. This trend of more rapidly rotating stars in closer binaries is
very generally seen, and in the present case can be understood in terms of
spin-up during spiral in and subsequent tidal coupling. We investigate the
relation quantitatively and obtain reasonable agreement with the observed
mass-period correlation. A natural consequence of this observation is that
black holes formed in soft X-ray transients acquire significant Kerr
parameters. This makes them good sources of power for gamma-ray bursts and
hypernovae, via the Blandford-Znajek mechanism, and thus supports our model for
the origin of gamma-ray bursts in soft X-ray transients.Comment: 33 pages, 12 figures,substantial change
Multiscale modelling of vascular tumour growth in 3D: the roles of domain size & boundary condition
We investigate a three-dimensional multiscale model of vascular tumour growth, which couples blood flow, angiogenesis, vascular remodelling, nutrient/growth factor transport, movement of, and interactions between, normal and tumour cells, and nutrient-dependent cell cycle dynamics within each cell. In particular, we determine how the domain size, aspect ratio and initial vascular network influence the tumour's growth dynamics and its long-time composition. We establish whether it is possible to extrapolate simulation results obtained for small domains to larger ones, by constructing a large simulation domain from a number of identical subdomains, each subsystem initially comprising two parallel parent vessels, with associated cells and diffusible substances. We find that the subsystem is not representative of the full domain and conclude that, for this initial vessel geometry, interactions between adjacent subsystems contribute to the overall growth dynamics. We then show that extrapolation of results from a small subdomain to a larger domain can only be made if the subdomain is sufficiently large and is initialised with a sufficiently complex vascular network. Motivated by these results, we perform simulations to investigate the tumour's response to therapy and show that the probability of tumour elimination in a larger domain can be extrapolated from simulation results on a smaller domain. Finally, we demonstrate how our model may be combined with experimental data, to predict the spatio-temporal evolution of a vascular tumour
Mergers of Binary Compact Objects
We work out the effects of hypercritical accretion, which transfers mass from
the secondary to the primary (first-born) neutron star (NS) in a binary,
showing that the mass of the primary would end up 0.6 M_sun greater than the
secondary NS in contradiction with the very nearly equal masses of the two NS's
in binaries measured to date. We discuss that the primary NS evolves into a
low-mass black-hole (LMBH) due to the hypercritical accretion. Using a flat
distribution in the mass ratio q (q = M_secondary/M_primary), we calculated a
ratio of LMBH-NS and NS-NS systems to be 5, in rough agreement with
Pinsonneault and Stanek (2006). These authors emphasize the importance of
"twins", which we discuss. The two NS's in the twins would be close in mass and
further increase the number of mergings.Comment: 7 pages, substantial changes, accepted for publication in Ap
Does facial soft tissue protect against zygomatic fractures?: results of a finite element analysis
Introduction: Zygomatic fractures form a major entity in craniomaxillofacial traumatology. Few studies have dealt with biomechanical basics and none with the role of the facial soft tissues. Therefore this study should investigate, whether facial soft tissue plays a protecting role in lateral midfacial trauma
The structure of the nuclear stellar cluster of the Milky Way
We present high-resolution seeing limited and AO NIR imaging observations of
the stellar cluster within about one parsec of Sgr A*, the massive black hole
at the centre of the Milky Way. Stellar number counts and the diffuse
background light density were extracted from these observations in order to
examine the structure of the nuclear stellar cluster.Our findings are as
follows: (a) A broken-power law provides an excellent fit to the overall
structure of the GC nuclear cluster. The power-law slope of the cusp is
, the break radius is or
pc, and the cluster density decreases with a power-law index of
outside of . (b) Using the best velocity
dispersion measurements from the literature, we derive higher mass estimates
for the central parsec than assumed until now. The inferred density of the
cluster at the break radius is . This high density agrees well with the small extent and flat slope
of the cusp. Possibly, the mass of the stars makes up only about 50% of the
total cluster mass. (c) Possible indications of mass segregation in the cusp
are found (d) The cluster appears not entirely homogeneous. Several density
clumps are detected that are concentrated at projected distances of and
from Sgr A*.(e) There appears to exist an under-density of horizontal
branch/red clump stars near , or an over-density of stars of similar
brightness at and . (f) The extinction map in combination with
cometary-like features in an L'-band image may provide support for the
assumption of an outflow from Sgr A*.Comment: accepted for publication by A&A; please contact first author for
higher quality figure
Emergent Properties of Tumor Microenvironment in a Real-life Model of Multicell Tumor Spheroids
Multicellular tumor spheroids are an important {\it in vitro} model of the
pre-vascular phase of solid tumors, for sizes well below the diagnostic limit:
therefore a biophysical model of spheroids has the ability to shed light on the
internal workings and organization of tumors at a critical phase of their
development. To this end, we have developed a computer program that integrates
the behavior of individual cells and their interactions with other cells and
the surrounding environment. It is based on a quantitative description of
metabolism, growth, proliferation and death of single tumor cells, and on
equations that model biochemical and mechanical cell-cell and cell-environment
interactions. The program reproduces existing experimental data on spheroids,
and yields unique views of their microenvironment. Simulations show complex
internal flows and motions of nutrients, metabolites and cells, that are
otherwise unobservable with current experimental techniques, and give novel
clues on tumor development and strong hints for future therapies.Comment: 20 pages, 10 figures. Accepted for publication in PLOS One. The
published version contains links to a supplementary text and three video
file
Muon capture by 3He nuclei followed by proton and deuteron production
The paper describes an experiment aimed at studying muon capture by
nuclei in pure and mixtures at various densities. Energy distributions of
protons and deuterons produced via and are measured for the
energy intervals MeV and MeV, respectively. Muon capture
rates, and are obtained using two different analysis methods. The
least--squares methods gives , . The Bayes theorem
gives ,
. The experimental
differential capture rates, and , are compared with theoretical
calculations performed using the plane--wave impulse approximation (PWIA) with
the realistic NN interaction Bonn B potential. Extrapolation to the full energy
range yields total proton and deuteron capture rates in good agreement with
former results.Comment: 17 pages, 13 figures, accepted for publication in PR
Extreme genetic fragility of the HIV-1 capsid
Genetic robustness, or fragility, is defined as the ability, or lack thereof, of a biological entity to maintain function in the face of mutations. Viruses that replicate via RNA intermediates exhibit high mutation rates, and robustness should be particularly advantageous to them. The capsid (CA) domain of the HIV-1 Gag protein is under strong pressure to conserve functional roles in viral assembly, maturation, uncoating, and nuclear import. However, CA is also under strong immunological pressure to diversify. Therefore, it would be particularly advantageous for CA to evolve genetic robustness. To measure the genetic robustness of HIV-1 CA, we generated a library of single amino acid substitution mutants, encompassing almost half the residues in CA. Strikingly, we found HIV-1 CA to be the most genetically fragile protein that has been analyzed using such an approach, with 70% of mutations yielding replication-defective viruses. Although CA participates in several steps in HIV-1 replication, analysis of conditionally (temperature sensitive) and constitutively non-viable mutants revealed that the biological basis for its genetic fragility was primarily the need to coordinate the accurate and efficient assembly of mature virions. All mutations that exist in naturally occurring HIV-1 subtype B populations at a frequency >3%, and were also present in the mutant library, had fitness levels that were >40% of WT. However, a substantial fraction of mutations with high fitness did not occur in natural populations, suggesting another form of selection pressure limiting variation in vivo. Additionally, known protective CTL epitopes occurred preferentially in domains of the HIV-1 CA that were even more genetically fragile than HIV-1 CA as a whole. The extreme genetic fragility of HIV-1 CA may be one reason why cell-mediated immune responses to Gag correlate with better prognosis in HIV-1 infection, and suggests that CA is a good target for therapy and vaccination strategies
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