1,645 research outputs found
Plant specimens for identification
PLANT names and the naming of plant specimens are of fundamental importance in the science of botany. In applied botany as well, proper identification is of the utmost importance. In agriculture for instance, accuracy in naming poisonous plants and weeds, as well as fodder and pasture species, can save farmers considerable sums of money, and may be responsible for avoiding heavy stock losses
Asteroseismic test of rotational mixing in low-mass white dwarfs
We exploit the recent discovery of pulsations in mixed-atmosphere (He/H),
extremely low-mass white dwarf precursors (ELM proto-WDs) to test the
proposition that rotational mixing is a fundamental process in the formation
and evolution of low-mass helium core white dwarfs. Rotational mixing has been
shown to be a mechanism able to compete efficiently against gravitational
settling, thus accounting naturally for the presence of He, as well as traces
of metals such as Mg and Ca, typically found in the atmospheres of ELM
proto-WDs. Here we investigate whether rotational mixing can maintain a
sufficient amount of He in the deeper driving region of the star, such that it
can fuel, through HeII-HeIII ionization, the observed pulsations in this type
of stars. Using state-of-the-art evolutionary models computed with MESA, we
show that rotational mixing can indeed explain qualitatively the very existence
and general properties of the known pulsating, mixed-atmosphere ELM proto-WDs.
Moreover, such objects are very likely to pulsate again during their final WD
cooling phase.Comment: accepted for publication in A&A Letter
L-moments of the Birnbaum-Saunders distribution and its extreme value version: Estimation, goodness of fit and application to earthquake data
Understanding patterns in the frequency of extreme natural events, such as earthquakes, is important as it helps in the prediction of their future occurrence and hence provides better civil protection. Distributions describing these events are known to be heavy tailed and positive skew making standard distributions unsuitable for such a situation. The Birnbaum-Saunders distribution and its extreme value version have been widely studied and applied due to their attractive properties. We derive L-moment equations for these distributions and propose novel methods for parameter estimation, goodness-of-fit assessment and model selection. A simulation study is conducted to evaluate the performance of the L-moment estimators, which is compared to that of the maximum likelihood estimators, demonstrating the superiority of the proposed methods. To illustrate these methods in a practical application, a data analysis of real-world earthquake magnitudes, obtained from the global centroid moment tensor catalogue during 1962-2015, is carried out. This application identifies the extreme value Birnbaum-Saunders distribution as a better model than classic extreme value distributions for describing seismic events
Unsteady undular bores in fully nonlinear shallow-water theory
We consider unsteady undular bores for a pair of coupled equations of
Boussinesq-type which contain the familiar fully nonlinear dissipationless
shallow-water dynamics and the leading-order fully nonlinear dispersive terms.
This system contains one horizontal space dimension and time and can be
systematically derived from the full Euler equations for irrotational flows
with a free surface using a standard long-wave asymptotic expansion.
In this context the system was first derived by Su and Gardner. It coincides
with the one-dimensional flat-bottom reduction of the Green-Naghdi system and,
additionally, has recently found a number of fluid dynamics applications other
than the present context of shallow-water gravity waves. We then use the
Whitham modulation theory for a one-phase periodic travelling wave to obtain an
asymptotic analytical description of an undular bore in the Su-Gardner system
for a full range of "depth" ratios across the bore. The positions of the
leading and trailing edges of the undular bore and the amplitude of the leading
solitary wave of the bore are found as functions of this "depth ratio". The
formation of a partial undular bore with a rapidly-varying finite-amplitude
trailing wave front is predicted for ``depth ratios'' across the bore exceeding
1.43. The analytical results from the modulation theory are shown to be in
excellent agreement with full numerical solutions for the development of an
undular bore in the Su-Gardner system.Comment: Revised version accepted for publication in Phys. Fluids, 51 pages, 9
figure
The origin of intergalactic thermonuclear supernovae
The population synthesis method is used to study the possibility of
explaining the appreciable fraction (20^+12_15%) of the intergalactic (no-host)
type Ia supernovae observed in galaxy clusters (Gal-Yam ete al. 2003) by binary
whote dwarf merginngs in the cores of globular clusters. In a typical globular
cluster, the number of merging double white dwarfs is fount to be smaller than
10^{-13} per year per average cluster star during the entire evolution of the
cluster, which is a factor of 3 higher than in a Milky-Way-type galaxy. From 5
to 30% of the merging white dwarfs are dynamically expelled from the cluster
with barycenter velocities up to 150 km/s. SN Ia explosions during the mergers
of binary white dwarfs in dense star clusters may account for \sim 1% of the
total rate of SN Ia in the central parts of galaxy clusters if the baryon mass
fraction in such star clusters is \sim 0.3%.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figs. Astronomy Letters (in press
Dynamically inflated wind models of classical Wolf-Rayet stars
Vigorous mass loss in the classical Wolf-Rayet (WR) phase is important for
the late evolution and final fate of massive stars. We develop spherically
symmetric time-dependent and steady-state hydrodynamical models of the
radiation-driven wind outflows and associated mass loss from classical WR
stars. The simulations are based on combining the opacities typically used in
static stellar structure and evolution models with a simple parametrised form
for the enhanced line-opacity expected within a supersonic outflow. Our
simulations reveal high mass-loss rates initiated in deep and hot optically
thick layers around T\approx 200kK. The resulting velocity structure is
non-monotonic and can be separated into three phases: i) an initial
acceleration to supersonic speeds ii) stagnation and even deceleration, and
iii) an outer region of rapid re-acceleration. The characteristic structures
seen in converged steady-state simulations agree well with the outflow
properties of our time-dependent models. By directly comparing our dynamic
simulations to corresponding hydrostatic models, we demonstrate explicitly that
the need to invoke extra energy transport in convectively inefficient regions
of stellar structure and evolution models is merely an artefact of enforcing a
hydrostatic outer boundary. Moreover, the "dynamically inflated" inner regions
of our simulations provide a natural explanation for the often-found mismatch
between predicted hydrostatic WR radii and those inferred from spectroscopy.
Finally, we contrast our simulations with alternative recent WR wind models
based on co-moving frame radiative transfer for computing the radiation force.
Since CMF transfer currently cannot handle non-monotonic velocity fields, the
characteristic deceleration regions found here are avoided in such simulations
by invoking an ad-hoc very high degree of clumping.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figure
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