Understanding tidal dissipation in gaseous giant planets from their core to their surface

Tidal dissipation in planetary interiors is one of the key physical mechanisms that drive the evolution of star-planet and planet-moon systems. Tidal dissipation in planets is intrinsically related to their internal structure. In particular, fluid and solid layers behave differently under tidal forcing. Therefore, their respective dissipation reservoirs have to be compared. In this work, we compute separately the contributions of the potential dense rocky/icy core and of the convective fluid envelope of gaseous giant planets, as a function of core size and mass. We demonstrate that in general both mechanisms must be taken into account.Comment: 2 pages, 2 figures, CoRoT Symposium 3 / Kepler KASC-7 joint meeting, Toulouse, July 2014; To be published by EPJ Web of Conference

Justification of the two-bulge method in the theory of bodily tides

Mathematical modeling of bodily tides can be carried out in various ways. Most straightforward is the method of complex amplitudes, which is often used in the planetary science. Another method, employed both in planetary science and astrophysics, is based on decomposition of each harmonic of the tide into two bulges oriented orthogonally to one another. We prove that the two methods are equivalent. Specifically, we demonstrate that the two-bulge method is not a separate approximation, but ensues directly from the Fourier expansion of a linear tidal theory equipped with an arbitrary rheological model involving a departure from elasticity. To this end, we use the most general mathematical formalism applicable to linear bodily tides. To express the tidal amendment to the potential of the perturbed primary, we act on the tide-raising potential of the perturbing secondary with a convolution operator. This enables us to interconnect a complex Fourier component of the tidally generated potential of the perturbed primary with the appropriate complex Fourier component of the tide-raising potential of the secondary. Then we demonstrate how this interrelation entails the two-bulge description. While less economical mathematically, the two-bulge approach has a good illustrative power, and may be employed on a par with a more concise method of complex amplitudes. At the same time, there exist situations where the two-bulge method becomes more practical for technical calculations.Comment: Astronomy & Astrophysics, in pres

A refined sub-grid model for black hole accretion and AGN feedback in large cosmological simulations

In large scale cosmological hydrodynamic simulations simplified sub-grid models for gas accretion onto black holes and AGN feedback are commonly used. Such models typically depend on various free parameters, which are not well constrained. We present a new advanced model containing a more detailed description of AGN feedback, where those parameters reflect the results of recent observations. The model takes the dependency of these parameters on the black hole properties into account and describes a continuous transition between the feedback processes acting in the so-called radio-mode and quasar-mode. In addition, we implement a more detailed description of the accretion of gas onto black holes by distinguishing between hot and cold gas accretion. Our new implementations prevent black holes from gaining too much mass, particularly at low redshifts so that our simulations are now very successful in reproducing the observed present-day black hole mass function. Our new model also suppresses star formation in massive galaxies slightly more efficiently than many state-of-the-art models. Therefore, the simulations that include our new implementations produce a more realistic population of quiescent and star-forming galaxies compared to recent observations, even if some discrepancies remain. In addition, the baryon conversion efficiencies in our simulation are - except for the high mass end - consistent with observations presented in literature over the mass range resolved by our simulations. Finally, we discuss the significant impact of the feedback model on the low-luminous end of the AGN luminosity function.Comment: 25 pages, 19 figures. MNRAS accepted. Magneticum website: http://www.magneticum.or

Unravelling tidal dissipation in gaseous giant planets

International audienceContext. Tidal dissipation in planetary interiors is one of the key physical mechanisms that drive the evolution of star-planet and planet-moon systems. New constraints on this dissipation are now obtained both in the solar and exo-planetary systems.Aims. Tidal dissipation in planets is intrinsically related to their internal structure. Indeed, the dissipation behaves very differently when we compare its properties in solid and fluid planetary layers. Since planetary interiors consist of both types of regions, it is necessary to be able to assess and compare the respective intensity of the reservoir of dissipation in each type of layers. Therefore, in the case of giant planets, the respective contribution of the potential central dense rocky/icy core and of the deep convective fluid envelope must be computed as a function of the mass and the radius of the core. This will allow us to obtain their respective strengths.Methods. Using a method that evaluates the reservoir of dissipation associated to each region, which is a frequency-average of complex tidal Love numbers, we compared the respective contributions of the central core and of the fluid envelope.Results. For Jupiter- and Saturn-like planets, we show that the viscoelastic dissipation in the core could dominate the turbulent friction acting on tidal inertial waves in the envelope. However, the fluid dissipation would not be negligible. This demonstrates that it is necessary to build complete models of tidal dissipation in planetary interiors from their deep interior to their surface without any arbitrary assumptions.Conclusions. We demonstrate how important it is to carefully evaluate the respective strength of each type of dissipation mechanism in planetary interiors and to go beyond the usually adopted ad-hoc models. We confirm the significance of tidal dissipation in the potential dense core of gaseous giant planets

Origin and properties of dual and offset active galactic nuclei in a cosmological simulation at z=2

In the last few years, it became possible to observationally resolve galaxies with two distinct nuclei in their centre. For separations smaller than 10kpc, dual and offset active galactic nuclei (AGN) are distinguished: in dual AGN, both nuclei are active, whereas in offset AGN only one nucleus is active. To study the origin of such AGN pairs, we employ a cosmological, hydrodynamic simulation with a large volume of (182Mpc)^3 from the set of Magneticum Pathfinder Simulations. The simulation self-consistently produces 35 resolved black hole (BH) pairs at redshift z=2, with a comoving distance smaller than 10kpc. 14 of them are offset AGN and nine are dual AGN, resulting in a fraction of (1.2 \pm 0.3)% AGN pairs with respect to the total number of AGN. In this paper, we discuss fundamental differences between the BH and galaxy properties of dual AGN, offset AGN and inactive BH pairs and investigate their different triggering mechanisms. We find that in dual AGN the BHs have similar masses and the corresponding BH from the less massive progenitor galaxy always accretes with a higher Eddington ratio. In contrast, in offset AGN the active BH is typically more massive than its non-active counterpart. Furthermore, dual AGN in general accrete more gas from the intergalactic medium than offset AGN and non-active BH pairs. This highlights that merger events, particularly minor mergers, do not necessarily lead to strong gas inflows and thus, do not always drive strong nuclear activity.Comment: 17 pages, 18 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS, website: http://www.magneticum.or

Lifetime investigations of a lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery system connected to a wind turbine for forecast improvement and output power gradient reduction

Lithium Ion batteries and especially Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) batteries can be characterized by high power densities, relatively long life-time, no maintenance and a lot of research currently being done on increasing their performance. Therefore, they seem to be a good choice for integration with wind turbines. However, the current Lithium Ion energy storage price and its limited lifetime are the main obstacles to the integration of storage technologies with wind turbines. That is why proper lifetime estimation of the lithium ion batteries, working with mission-profile characteristics for specific services, is very important, not only for optimisation of the revenues but also for correct scheduling of the maintenance jobs. This paper analyzes the connection of LFP battery storage systems into wind turbines, with a high focus on the lifetime of LFP batteries for selected services.Postprint (published version

Metabolic resource overlap impacts competition among phyllosphere bacteria

The phyllosphere is densely colonised by microbial communities, despite sparse and heterogeneously distributed resources. The limitation of resources is expected to drive bacterial competition resulting in exclusion or coexistence based on fitness differences and resource overlap between individual colonisers. We studied the impact of resource competition by determining the effects of different bacterial colonisers on the growth of the model epiphyte Pantoea eucalypti 299R (Pe299R). Resource overlap was predicted based on genome-scale metabolic modelling. By combining results of metabolic modelling and pairwise competitions in the Arabidopsis thaliana phyllosphere and in vitro, we found that ten resources sufficed to explain fitness of Pe299R. An effect of both resource overlap and phylogenetic relationships was found on competition outcomes in vitro as well as in the phyllosphere. However, effects of resource competition were much weaker in the phyllosphere when compared to in vitro experiments. When investigating growth dynamics and reproductive success at the single-cell resolution, resource overlap and phylogenetic relationships are only weakly correlated with epiphytic Pe299R reproductive success, indicating that the leaf’s spatial heterogeneity mitigates resource competition. Although the correlation is weak, the presence of competitors led to the development of Pe299R subpopulations that experienced different life histories and cell divisions. In some in planta competitions, Pe299R benefitted from the presence of epiphytes despite high resource overlap to the competitor strain suggesting other factors having stronger effects than resource competition. This study provides fundamental insights into how bacterial communities are shaped in heterogeneous environments and a framework to predict competition outcomes