41,438 research outputs found
Instabilities in Multi-Planet Circumbinary Systems
The majority of the discovered transiting circumbinary planets are located
very near the innermost stable orbits permitted, raising questions about the
origins of planets in such perturbed environments. Most favored formation
scenarios invoke formation at larger distances and subsequent migration to
their current locations. Disk-driven planet migration in multi-planet systems
is likely to trap planets in mean motion resonances and drive planets inward
into regions of larger dynamical perturbations from the binary. We demonstrate
how planet-planet resonances can interact with the binary through secular
forcing and mean-motion resonances, driving chaos in the system. We show how
this chaos will shape the architecture of circumbinary systems, with specific
applications to Kepler 47 and the Pluto-Charon system, limiting maximum
possible stable eccentricities and indicating what resonances are likely to
exist. We are also able to constrain the minimum migration rates of resonant
circumbinary planets.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRA
The Emergence of Multiple Robust Zonal Jets from Freely Evolving, Three-Dimensional Stratified Geostrophic Turbulence with Applications to Jupiter
Three-dimensional numerical simulations of freely evolving stratified geostrophic turbulence on the β plane are presented as a simplified model of zonal jet formation on Jupiter. This study samples the parameter space that covers the low, middle, and high latitudes of Jupiter by varying the central latitude of the β plane. The results show that robust zonal jets can emerge from initial small-scale random turbulence through the upscale redistribution of the kinetic energy in the spectral space. The resulting flow’s sensitivities to the flow’s deformation radius LD and the two-dimensional Rhines length Lβ = (U/β)^½ (U is the characteristic turbulence velocity and β is the meridional gradient of the planetary vorticity) are tested, revealing that whether the outcome of the upscale energy transfer becomes dominated by jets or vortices depends on the relative values of LD and Lβ. The values of Lβ and LD are varied by tuning the β-plane parameters, and it is found that the flow transitions from a jet-dominated regime in Lβ ≲ LD to a vortical flow in Lβ ≳ LD. A height-to-width ratio equal to f/N, the Coriolis parameter divided by the Brunt–Väisälä frequency, has previously been established for stable vortices, and this paper shows that this aspect ratio also applies to the zonal jets that emerge in these simulations
The genetic basis of energy conservation in the sulfate-reducing bacterium Desulfovibrio alaskensis G20.
Sulfate-reducing bacteria play major roles in the global carbon and sulfur cycles, but it remains unclear how reducing sulfate yields energy. To determine the genetic basis of energy conservation, we measured the fitness of thousands of pooled mutants of Desulfovibrio alaskensis G20 during growth in 12 different combinations of electron donors and acceptors. We show that ion pumping by the ferredoxin:NADH oxidoreductase Rnf is required whenever substrate-level phosphorylation is not possible. The uncharacterized complex Hdr/flox-1 (Dde_1207:13) is sometimes important alongside Rnf and may perform an electron bifurcation to generate more reduced ferredoxin from NADH to allow further ion pumping. Similarly, during the oxidation of malate or fumarate, the electron-bifurcating transhydrogenase NfnAB-2 (Dde_1250:1) is important and may generate reduced ferredoxin to allow additional ion pumping by Rnf. During formate oxidation, the periplasmic [NiFeSe] hydrogenase HysAB is required, which suggests that hydrogen forms in the periplasm, diffuses to the cytoplasm, and is used to reduce ferredoxin, thus providing a substrate for Rnf. During hydrogen utilization, the transmembrane electron transport complex Tmc is important and may move electrons from the periplasm into the cytoplasmic sulfite reduction pathway. Finally, mutants of many other putative electron carriers have no clear phenotype, which suggests that they are not important under our growth conditions, although we cannot rule out genetic redundancy
Using polymer electrolyte gates to set-and-freeze threshold voltage and local potential in nanowire-based devices and thermoelectrics
We use the strongly temperature-dependent ionic mobility in polymer
electrolytes to 'freeze in' specific ionic charge environments around a
nanowire using a local wrap-gate geometry. This enables us to set both the
threshold voltage for a conventional doped substrate gate and the local
disorder potential at temperatures below 200 Kelvin, which we characterize in
detail by combining conductance and thermovoltage measurements with modeling.
Our results demonstrate that local polymer electrolyte gates are compatible
with nanowire thermoelectrics, where they offer the advantage of a very low
thermal conductivity, and hold great potential towards setting the optimal
operating point for solid-state cooling applications.Comment: Published in Advanced Functional Materials. Includes colour versions
of figures and supplementary informatio
Emergent Symmetry at the N\'eel to Valence-Bond-Solid Transition
We show numerically that the `deconfined' quantum critical point between the
N\'eel antiferromagnet and the columnar valence-bond-solid, for a square
lattice of spin-1/2s, has an emergent symmetry. This symmetry allows
the N\'eel vector and the valence-bond-solid order parameter to be rotated into
each other. It is a remarkable 2+1-dimensional analogue of the symmetry that appears in the scaling limit for the
spin-1/2 Heisenberg chain. The emergent is strong evidence that the
phase transition in the 2+1D system is truly continuous, despite the violations
of finite-size scaling observed previously in this problem. It also implies
surprising relations between correlation functions at the transition. The
symmetry enhancement is expected to apply generally to the critical
two-component Abelian Higgs model (non-compact model). The result
indicates that in three dimensions there is an -symmetric conformal
field theory which has no relevant singlet operators, so is radically different
to conventional Wilson-Fisher-type conformal field theories.Comment: 4+epsilon pages, 6 figure
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