487 research outputs found
The Fading Optical Counterpart of GRB~970228, Six Months and One Year Later
We report on observations of the fading optical counterpart of the gamma-ray
burst GRB 970228, made with the Hubble Space Telescope STIS CCD approximately
six months after outburst and with the HST/NICMOS and Keck/NIRC approximately
one year after outburst. The unresolved counterpart is detected by STIS at
V=28.0 +/- 0.25, consistent with a continued power-law decline with exponent
-1.14 +/- 0.05. The counterpart is located within, but near the edge of, a
faint extended source with diameter ~0."8 and integrated magnitude V=25.8 +/-
0.25. A reanalysis of HST and NTT observations performed shortly after the
burst shows no evidence of proper motion of the point source or fading of the
extended emission. Only the extended source is visible in the NICMOS images
with a magnitude of H=23.3 +/- 0.1. The Keck observations find K = 22.8 +/-
0.3. Several distinct and independent means of deriving the foreground
extinction in the direction of GRB 970228 all agree with A_V = 0.75 +/- 0.2.
After adjusting for Galactic extinction, we find that the size of the observed
extended emission is consistent with that of galaxies of comparable magnitude
found in the Hubble Deep Field (HDF) and other deep HST images. Only 2% of the
sky is covered by galaxies of similar or greater surface brightness; therefore
the extended source is almost certainly the host galaxy. Additionally, we find
that the extinction-corrected V - H and V - K colors of the host are as blue as
any galaxy of comparable or brighter magnitude in the HDF. Taken in concert
with recent observations of GRB 970508, GRB 971214, and GRB 980703 our work
suggests that all four GRBs with spectroscopic identification or deep
multicolor broad-band imaging of the host lie in rapidly star-forming galaxies.Comment: 24 pages, Latex, 4 PostScript figures, to appear in the May 10 issue
of The Astrophysical Journal (Note: displayed abstract is abridged
Quantum Mechanics of Yano tensors: Dirac equation in curved spacetime
In spacetimes admitting Yano tensors the classical theory of the spinning
particle possesses enhanced worldline supersymmetry. Quantum mechanically
generators of extra supersymmetries correspond to operators that in the
classical limit commute with the Dirac operator and generate conserved
quantities. We show that the result is preserved in the full quantum theory,
that is, Yano symmetries are not anomalous. This was known for Yano tensors of
rank two, but our main result is to show that it extends to Yano tensors of
arbitrary rank. We also describe the conformal Yano equation and show that is
invariant under Hodge duality. There is a natural relationship between Yano
tensors and supergravity theories. As the simplest possible example, we show
that when the spacetime admits a Killing spinor then this generates Yano and
conformal Yano tensors. As an application, we construct Yano tensors on
maximally symmetric spaces: they are spanned by tensor products of Killing
vectors.Comment: 1+32 pages, no figures. Accepted for publication on Classical and
Quantum Gravity. New title and abstract. Some material has been moved to the
Appendix. Concrete formulas for Yano tensors on some special holonomy
manifolds have been provided. Some corrections included, bibliography
enlarge
Effects of sources and meteorology on particulate matter in the Western Mediterranean Basin: an overview of the DAURE campaign
DAURE (Determination of the Sources of Atmospheric Aerosols in Urban and Rural Environments in the Western Mediterranean) was a multidisciplinary international field campaign aimed at investigating the sources and meteorological controls of particulate matter in the Western Mediterranean Basin (WMB). Measurements were simultaneously performed at an urban-coastal (Barcelona, BCN) and a rural-elevated (Montseny, MSY) site pair in NE Spain during winter and summer. State-of-the-art methods such as 14C analysis, proton-transfer reaction mass spectrometry, and high-resolution aerosol mass spectrometry were applied for the first time in the WMB as part of DAURE. WMB regional pollution episodes were associated with high concentrations of inorganic and organic species formed during the transport to inland areas and built up at regional scales. Winter pollutants accumulation depended on the degree of regional stagnation of an air mass under anticyclonic conditions and the planetary boundary layer height. In summer, regional recirculation and biogenic secondary organic aerosols (SOA) formation mainly determined the regional pollutant concentrations. The contribution from fossil sources to organic carbon (OC) and elemental carbon (EC) and hydrocarbon-like organic aerosol concentrations were higher at BCN compared with MSY due to traffic emissions. The relative contribution of nonfossil OC was higher at MSY especially in summer due to biogenic emissions. The fossil OC/EC ratio at MSY was twice the corresponding ratio at BCN indicating that a substantial fraction of fossil OC was due to fossil SOA. In winter, BCN cooking emissions were identified as an important source of modern carbon in primary organic aerosol
Organotypical tissue cultures from adult murine colon as an in vitro model of intestinal mucosa
Together with animal experiments, organotypical cell cultures are important models for analyzing cellular interactions of the mucosal epithelium and pathogenic mechanisms in the gastrointestinal tract. Here, we introduce a three-dimensional culture model from the adult mouse colon for cell biological investigations in an in vivo-like environment. These explant cultures were cultured for up to 2 weeks and maintained typical characteristics of the intestinal mucosa, including a high-prismatic epithelium with specific epithelial cell-to-cell connections, a basal lamina and various connective tissue cell types, as analyzed with immunohistological and electron microscopic methods. The function of the epithelium was tested by treating the cultures with dexamethasone, which resulted in a strong upregulation of the serum- and glucocorticoid-inducible kinase 1 similar to that found in vivo. The culture system was investigated in infection experiments with the fungal pathogen Candida albicans. Wildtype but not Δcph1/Δefg1-knockout Candida adhered to, penetrated and infiltrated the epithelial barrier. The results demonstrate the potential usefulness of this intestinal in vitro model for studying epithelial cell-cell interactions, cellular signaling and microbiological infections in a three-dimensional cell arrangement
The Evolution of Compact Binary Star Systems
We review the formation and evolution of compact binary stars consisting of
white dwarfs (WDs), neutron stars (NSs), and black holes (BHs). Binary NSs and
BHs are thought to be the primary astrophysical sources of gravitational waves
(GWs) within the frequency band of ground-based detectors, while compact
binaries of WDs are important sources of GWs at lower frequencies to be covered
by space interferometers (LISA). Major uncertainties in the current
understanding of properties of NSs and BHs most relevant to the GW studies are
discussed, including the treatment of the natal kicks which compact stellar
remnants acquire during the core collapse of massive stars and the common
envelope phase of binary evolution. We discuss the coalescence rates of binary
NSs and BHs and prospects for their detections, the formation and evolution of
binary WDs and their observational manifestations. Special attention is given
to AM CVn-stars -- compact binaries in which the Roche lobe is filled by
another WD or a low-mass partially degenerate helium-star, as these stars are
thought to be the best LISA verification binary GW sources.Comment: 105 pages, 18 figure
Constraints on the χ_(c1) versus χ_(c2) polarizations in proton-proton collisions at √s = 8 TeV
The polarizations of promptly produced χ_(c1) and χ_(c2) mesons are studied using data collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC, in proton-proton collisions at √s=8 TeV. The χ_c states are reconstructed via their radiative decays χ_c → J/ψγ, with the photons being measured through conversions to e⁺e⁻, which allows the two states to be well resolved. The polarizations are measured in the helicity frame, through the analysis of the χ_(c2) to χ_(c1) yield ratio as a function of the polar or azimuthal angle of the positive muon emitted in the J/ψ → μ⁺μ⁻ decay, in three bins of J/ψ transverse momentum. While no differences are seen between the two states in terms of azimuthal decay angle distributions, they are observed to have significantly different polar anisotropies. The measurement favors a scenario where at least one of the two states is strongly polarized along the helicity quantization axis, in agreement with nonrelativistic quantum chromodynamics predictions. This is the first measurement of significantly polarized quarkonia produced at high transverse momentum
- …