39 research outputs found
Exoplanet Atmosphere Measurements from Transmission Spectroscopy and other Planet-Star Combined Light Observations
It is possible to learn a great deal about exoplanet atmospheres even when we
cannot spatially resolve the planets from their host stars. In this chapter, we
overview the basic techniques used to characterize transiting exoplanets -
transmission spectroscopy, emission and reflection spectroscopy, and full-orbit
phase curve observations. We discuss practical considerations, including
current and future observing facilities and best practices for measuring
precise spectra. We also highlight major observational results on the
chemistry, climate, and cloud properties of exoplanets.Comment: Accepted review chapter; Handbook of Exoplanets, eds. Hans J. Deeg
and Juan Antonio Belmonte (Springer-Verlag). 22 pages, 6 figure
Circumstellar discs: What will be next?
This prospective chapter gives our view on the evolution of the study of
circumstellar discs within the next 20 years from both observational and
theoretical sides. We first present the expected improvements in our knowledge
of protoplanetary discs as for their masses, sizes, chemistry, the presence of
planets as well as the evolutionary processes shaping these discs. We then
explore the older debris disc stage and explain what will be learnt concerning
their birth, the intrinsic links between these discs and planets, the hot dust
and the gas detected around main sequence stars as well as discs around white
dwarfs.Comment: invited review; comments welcome (32 pages
The Rossiter-McLaughlin effect in Exoplanet Research
The Rossiter-McLaughlin effect occurs during a planet's transit. It provides
the main means of measuring the sky-projected spin-orbit angle between a
planet's orbital plane, and its host star's equatorial plane. Observing the
Rossiter-McLaughlin effect is now a near routine procedure. It is an important
element in the orbital characterisation of transiting exoplanets. Measurements
of the spin-orbit angle have revealed a surprising diversity, far from the
placid, Kantian and Laplacian ideals, whereby planets form, and remain, on
orbital planes coincident with their star's equator. This chapter will review a
short history of the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect, how it is modelled, and will
summarise the current state of the field before describing other uses for a
spectroscopic transit, and alternative methods of measuring the spin-orbit
angle.Comment: Review to appear as a chapter in the "Handbook of Exoplanets", ed. H.
Deeg & J.A. Belmont
Determination of intrinsic switching field distributions in perpendicular recording media: numerical study of the method
We present a numerical study of the method and its
ability to accurately determine intrinsic switching field distributions in
interacting granular magnetic materials such as perpendicular recording media.
In particular, we study how this methodology fails for large ferromagnetic
inter-granular interactions, at which point the associated strongly correlated
magnetization reversal cannot be properly represented by the mean-field
approximation, upon which the method is based. In this
study, we use a 2-dimensional array of symmetric hysterons that have an
intrinsic switching field distribution of standard deviation and
ferromagnetic nearest-neighbor interactions . We find the method to be very accurate for small values, while substantial
errors develop once the effective exchange field becomes comparable with
, corroborating earlier results from micromagnetic simulations. We
furthermore demonstrate that this failure is correlated with deviations from
data set redundancy, which is a key property of the mean-field approximation.
Thus, the method fails in a well defined and
quantifiable manner that can be easily assessed from the data sets alone.Comment: 13 pages, 9 figure
Surface and Temporal Biosignatures
Recent discoveries of potentially habitable exoplanets have ignited the
prospect of spectroscopic investigations of exoplanet surfaces and atmospheres
for signs of life. This chapter provides an overview of potential surface and
temporal exoplanet biosignatures, reviewing Earth analogues and proposed
applications based on observations and models. The vegetation red-edge (VRE)
remains the most well-studied surface biosignature. Extensions of the VRE,
spectral "edges" produced in part by photosynthetic or nonphotosynthetic
pigments, may likewise present potential evidence of life. Polarization
signatures have the capacity to discriminate between biotic and abiotic "edge"
features in the face of false positives from band-gap generating material.
Temporal biosignatures -- modulations in measurable quantities such as gas
abundances (e.g., CO2), surface features, or emission of light (e.g.,
fluorescence, bioluminescence) that can be directly linked to the actions of a
biosphere -- are in general less well studied than surface or gaseous
biosignatures. However, remote observations of Earth's biosphere nonetheless
provide proofs of concept for these techniques and are reviewed here. Surface
and temporal biosignatures provide complementary information to gaseous
biosignatures, and while likely more challenging to observe, would contribute
information inaccessible from study of the time-averaged atmospheric
composition alone.Comment: 26 pages, 9 figures, review to appear in Handbook of Exoplanets.
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A continuum from clear to cloudy hot-Jupiter exoplanets without primordial water depletion
Thousands of transiting exoplanets have been discovered, but spectral analysis of their atmospheres has so far been dominated by a small number of exoplanets and data spanning relatively narrow wavelength ranges (such as 1.1â1.7 micrometres). Recent studies show that some hot-Jupiter exoplanets have much weaker water absorption features in their near-infrared spectra than predicted. The low amplitude of water signatures could be explained by very low water abundances, which may be a sign that water was depleted in the protoplanetary disk at the planetâs formation location, but it is unclear whether this level of depletion can actually occur. Alternatively, these weak signals could be the result of obscuration by clouds or hazes, as found in some optical spectra. Here we report results from a comparative study of ten hot Jupiters covering the wavelength range 0.3â5 micrometres, which allows us to resolve both the optical scattering and infrared molecular absorption spectroscopically. Our results reveal a diverse group of hot Jupiters that exhibit a continuum from clear to cloudy atmospheres. We find that the difference between the planetary radius measured at optical and infrared wavelengths is an effective metric for distinguishing different atmosphere types. The difference correlates with the spectral strength of water, so that strong water absorption lines are seen in clear-atmosphere planets and the weakest features are associated with clouds and hazes. This result strongly suggests that primordial water depletion during formation is unlikely and that clouds and hazes are the cause of weaker spectral signatures
Effect of Continuous and Pulsed Current on the Metallurgical and Mechanical Properties of Gas Tungsten Arc Welded AISI 4340 Aeronautical and AISI 304 L Austenitic Stainless Steel Dissimilar Joints
Efficacy and Safety of Nadifloxacin for Bacterial Skin Infections: Results from Clinical and Post-Marketing Studies
Family-led rehabilitation after stroke in India (ATTEND): a randomised controlled trial
Background
Most people with stroke in India have no access to organised rehabilitation services. The effectiveness of training family members to provide stroke rehabilitation is uncertain. Our primary objective was to determine whether family-led stroke rehabilitation, initiated in hospital and continued at home, would be superior to usual care in a low-resource setting.
Methods
The Family-led Rehabilitation after Stroke in India (ATTEND) trial was a prospectively randomised open trial with blinded endpoint done across 14 hospitals in India. Patients aged 18 years or older who had had a stroke within the past month, had residual disability and reasonable expectation of survival, and who had an informal family-nominated caregiver were randomly assigned to intervention or usual care by site coordinators using a secure web-based system with minimisation by site and stroke severity. The family members of participants in the intervention group received additional structured rehabilitation trainingâincluding information provision, joint goal setting, carer training, and task-specific trainingâthat was started in hospital and continued at home for up to 2 months. The primary outcome was death or dependency at 6 months, defined by scores 3â6 on the modified Rankin scale (range, 0 [no symptoms] to 6 [death]) as assessed by masked observers. Analyses were by intention to treat. This trial is registered with Clinical Trials Registry-India (CTRI/2013/04/003557), Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (ACTRN12613000078752), and Universal Trial Number (U1111-1138-6707).
Findings
Between Jan 13, 2014, and Feb 12, 2016, 1250 patients were randomly assigned to intervention (n=623) or control (n=627) groups. 33 patients were lost to follow-up (14 intervention, 19 control) and five patients withdrew (two intervention, three control). At 6 months, 285 (47%) of 607 patients in the intervention group and 287 (47%) of 605 controls were dead or dependent (odds ratio 0·98, 95% CI 0·78â1·23, p=0·87). 72 (12%) patients in the intervention group and 86 (14%) in the control group died (p=0·27), and we observed no difference in rehospitalisation (89 [14%]patients in the intervention group vs 82 [13%] in the control group; p=0·56). We also found no difference in total non-fatal events (112 events in 82 [13%] intervention patients vs 110 events in 79 [13%] control patients; p=0·80).
Interpretation
Although task shifting is an attractive solution for health-care sustainability, our results do not support investment in new stroke rehabilitation services that shift tasks to family caregivers, unless new evidence emerges. A future avenue of research should be to investigate the effects of task shifting to health-care assistants or team-based community care
Assessment of supervised machine learning for atmospheric retrieval of exoplanets
Atmospheric retrieval of exoplanets from spectroscopic observations requires
an extensive exploration of a highly degenerate and high-dimensional parameter
space to accurately constrain atmospheric parameters. Retrieval methods
commonly conduct Bayesian parameter estimation and statistical inference using
sampling algorithms such as Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) or Nested Sampling.
Recently several attempts have been made to use machine learning algorithms
either to complement or replace fully Bayesian methods. While much progress has
been made, these approaches are still at times unable to accurately reproduce
results from contemporary Bayesian retrievals. The goal of our present work is
to investigate the efficacy of machine learning for atmospheric retrieval. As a
case study, we use the Random Forest supervised machine learning algorithm
which has been applied previously with some success for atmospheric retrieval
of the hot Jupiter WASP-12b using its near-infrared transmission spectrum. We
reproduce previous results using the same approach and the same semi-analytic
models, and subsequently extend this method to develop a new algorithm that
results in a closer match to a fully Bayesian retrieval. We combine this new
method with a fully numerical atmospheric model and demonstrate excellent
agreement with a Bayesian retrieval of the transmission spectrum of another hot
Jupiter, HD 209458b. Despite this success, and achieving high computational
efficiency, we still find that the machine learning approach is computationally
prohibitive for high-dimensional parameter spaces that are routinely explored
with Bayesian retrievals with modest computational resources. We discuss the
trade offs and potential avenues for the future