1,811 research outputs found
Probing the MSP prenatal stage: the optical identification of the X-ray burster EXO 1745-248 in Terzan 5
We report on the optical identification of the neutron star burster EXO
1745-248 in Terzan 5. The identification was performed by exploiting HST/ACS
images acquired in Director's Discretionary Time shortly after (approximately 1
month) the Swift detection of the X-ray burst. The comparison between these
images and previous archival data revealed the presence of a star that
currently brightened by ~3 magnitudes, consistent with expectations during an
X-ray outburst. The centroid of this object well agrees with the position, in
the archival images, of a star located in the Turn-Off/Sub Giant Branch region
of Terzan 5. This supports the scenario that the companion should has recently
filled its Roche Lobe. Such a system represents the pre-natal stage of a
millisecond pulsar, an evolutionary phase during which heavy mass accretion on
the compact object occurs, thus producing X-ray outbursts and re-accelerating
the neutron star.Comment: ApJ Letter, in pres
A chemical trompe-l'\oe{}il: no iron spread in the globular cluster M22
We present the analysis of high-resolution spectra obtained with UVES and
UVES-FLAMES at the Very Large Telescope of 17 giants in the globular cluster
M22, a stellar system suspected to have an intrinsic spread in the iron
abundance. We find that when surface gravities are derived spectroscopically
(by imposing to obtain the same iron abundance from FeI and FeII lines) the
[Fe/H] distribution spans ~0.5 dex, according to previous analyses. However,
the gravities obtained in this way correspond to unrealistic low stellar masses
(0.1-0.5 Msun) for most of the surveyed giants. Instead, when photometric
gravities are adopted, the [FeII/H] distribution shows no evidence of spread at
variance with the [FeI/H] distribution. This difference has been recently
observed in other clusters and could be due to non-local thermodynamical
equilibrium effects driven by over-ionization mechanisms, that mainly affect
the neutral species (thus providing lower [FeI/H]) but leave [FeII/H]
unaltered. We confirm that the s-process elements show significant star-to-star
variations and their abundances appear to be correlated with the difference
between [FeI/H] and [FeII/H]. This puzzling finding suggests that the peculiar
chemical composition of some cluster stars may be related to effects able to
spuriously decrease [FeI/H]. We conclude that M22 is a globular cluster with no
evidence of intrinsic iron spread, ruling out that it has retained the
supernovae ejecta in its gravitational potential well.Comment: Accepted for publication to ApJ; 33 pages, 10 figures, 6 table
Numerical and experimental investigation of leaks in viscoelastic pressurized pipe flow
Abstract. This paper extends the analysis concerning the importance in numerical models of unsteady friction and viscoelasticity to transients in plastic pipes with an external flow due to a leak. In fact recently such a benchmarking analysis has been executed for the cases of a constant diameter pipe (Duan et al., 2010), a pipe with a partially closed in-line valve (Meniconi et al., 2012a), and a pipe with cross-section changes in series (Meniconi et al., 2012b). Tests are based on laboratory experiments carried out at the Water Engineering Laboratory (WEL) of the University of Perugia, Italy, and the use of different numerical models. The results show that it is crucial to take into account the viscoelasticity to simulate the main characteristics of the examined transients
Weak Galactic Halo--Fornax dSph Connection from RR Lyrae Stars
For the first time accurate pulsation properties of the ancient variable
stars of the Fornax dwarf spheroidal galaxy (dSph) are discussed in the broad
context of galaxy formation and evolution. Homogeneous multi-band optical
photometry of spanning {\it twenty} years has allowed us to identify and
characterize more than 1400 RR Lyrae stars (RRLs) in this galaxy. Roughly 70\%
are new discoveries. We investigate the period-amplitude distribution and find
that Fornax shows a lack of High Amplitude (A_V\gsim0.75 mag) Short Period
fundamental-mode RRLs (P\lsim0.48 d, HASPs). These objects occur in stellar
populations more metal-rich than [Fe/H]-1.5 and they are common in the
Galactic halo (Halo) and in globulars. This evidence suggests that old (age
older than 10 Gyr) Fornax stars are relatively metal-poor.
A detailed statistical analysis of the role of the present-day Fornax dSph in
reproducing the Halo period distribution shows that it can account for only a
few to 20\% of the Halo when combined with RRLs in massive dwarf galaxies
(Sagittarius dSph, Large Magellanic Cloud). This finding indicates that
Fornax-like systems played a minor role in building up the Halo when compared
with massive dwarfs. We also discuss the occurrence of HASPs in connection with
the luminosity and the early chemical composition of nearby dwarf galaxies. We
find that, independently of their individual star formation histories, bright
(M_V\lsim-13.5 mag) galaxies have HASPs, whereas faint ones (M_V\gsim-11
mag) do not. Interestingly enough, Fornax belongs to a luminosity range
(--11M--13.5 mag) in which the occurrence of HASPs appears to be
correlated with the early star formation and chemical enrichment of the host
galaxy.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, A&A, accepte
Physiological effectors modify voltage sensing by the cyclosporin A-sensitive permeability transition pore of mitochondria.
This paper reports an investigation on the modulation of the mitochondrial permeability transition pore (MTP) by the membrane potential. Energized rat liver mitochondria loaded with a small Ca2+ pulse in sucrose medium supplemented with phosphate favor a high MTP "closed" probability because of the high membrane potential and therefore maintain a low permeability to sucrose. Upon depolarization by the addition of fully uncoupling concentrations of carbonyl cyanide p-trifluoromethoxyphenylhydrazone (FCCP) mitochondria favor a high MTP "open" probability and rapidly undergo a process of osmotic swelling following sucrose diffusion toward the matrix. A titration with FCCP reveals that discrete subpopulations of mitochondria with different gating potentials for MTP opening may exist, since increasing concentrations of FCCP increase the fraction of mitochondria undergoing osmotic swelling. We show that physiological effectors (Ca2+, Mg2+, ADP, palmitate) modify pore opening in a mitochondrial population by shifting the fraction of mitochondria with a functionally open pore at any given membrane potential. Many inducers and inhibitors may therefore affect the pore directly through an effect on the MTP voltage sensing rather than indirectly through an effect on the membrane potential. Thus, many effectors may induce pore opening by shifting the MTP gating potential to higher levels, whereas many inhibitors may induce pore closure by shifting the MTP gating potential to lower levels
Detection of Building Damage Using Helmholtz Tomography
High‐rise buildings with dense permanent installations of continuously recording accelerometers offer a unique opportunity to observe temporal and spatial variations in the propagation properties of seismic waves. When precise, floor‐by‐floor measurements of frequency‐dependent travel times can be made, accurate models of material properties (e.g., stiffness or rigidity) can be determined using seismic tomographic imaging techniques. By measuring changes in the material properties, damage to the structure can be detected and localized after shaking events such as earthquakes. Here, seismic Helmholtz tomography is applied to simulated waveform data from a high‐rise building, and its feasibility is demonstrated. A 52‐story dual system building—braced‐frame core surrounded by an outrigger steel moment frame—in downtown Los Angeles is used for the computational basis. It is part of the Community Seismic Network and has a three‐component accelerometer installed on every floor. A finite‐element model of the building based on structural drawings is used for the computation of synthetic seismograms for 60 damage scenarios in which the stiffness of the building is perturbed in different locations across both adjacent and distributed floors and to varying degrees. The dynamic analysis loading function is a Gaussian pulse applied to the lowest level fixed boundary condition, producing a broadband response on all floors. After narrowband filtering the synthetic seismograms and measuring the maximum amplitude, the frequency‐dependent travel times and differential travel times are computed. The travel‐time and amplitude measurements are converted to shear‐wave velocity at each floor via the Helmholtz wave equation whose solutions can be used to track perturbations to wavefronts through densely sampled wavefields. These results provide validation of the method’s application to recorded data from real buildings to detect and locate structural damage using earthquake, explosion, or ambient seismic noise data in near‐real time
Detection of Building Damage Using Helmholtz Tomography
High‐rise buildings with dense permanent installations of continuously recording accelerometers offer a unique opportunity to observe temporal and spatial variations in the propagation properties of seismic waves. When precise, floor‐by‐floor measurements of frequency‐dependent travel times can be made, accurate models of material properties (e.g., stiffness or rigidity) can be determined using seismic tomographic imaging techniques. By measuring changes in the material properties, damage to the structure can be detected and localized after shaking events such as earthquakes. Here, seismic Helmholtz tomography is applied to simulated waveform data from a high‐rise building, and its feasibility is demonstrated. A 52‐story dual system building—braced‐frame core surrounded by an outrigger steel moment frame—in downtown Los Angeles is used for the computational basis. It is part of the Community Seismic Network and has a three‐component accelerometer installed on every floor. A finite‐element model of the building based on structural drawings is used for the computation of synthetic seismograms for 60 damage scenarios in which the stiffness of the building is perturbed in different locations across both adjacent and distributed floors and to varying degrees. The dynamic analysis loading function is a Gaussian pulse applied to the lowest level fixed boundary condition, producing a broadband response on all floors. After narrowband filtering the synthetic seismograms and measuring the maximum amplitude, the frequency‐dependent travel times and differential travel times are computed. The travel‐time and amplitude measurements are converted to shear‐wave velocity at each floor via the Helmholtz wave equation whose solutions can be used to track perturbations to wavefronts through densely sampled wavefields. These results provide validation of the method’s application to recorded data from real buildings to detect and locate structural damage using earthquake, explosion, or ambient seismic noise data in near‐real time
A reliable rainfall–runoff model for flood forecasting: review and application to a semi-urbanized watershed at high flood risk in Italy
Many rainfall–runoff (RR) models are available in the scientific literature. Selecting the best structure and parameterization for a model is not straightforward and depends on a broad number of factors, including climatic conditions, catchment characteristics, temporal/spatial resolution and model objectives. In this study, the RR model 'Modello Idrologico Semi-Distribuito in continuo' (MISDc), mainly developed for flood simulation in Mediterranean basins, was tested on the Seveso basin, which is stressed several times a year by flooding events mainly caused by excessive urbanization. The work summarizes a compendium of the MISDc applications over a wide range of catchments in European countries and then it analyses the performances over the Seveso basin. The results show a good fit behaviour during both the calibration and the validation periods with a Nash–Sutcliffe coefficient index larger than 0.9. Moreover, the median volume and peak discharge errors calculated on several flood events were less than 25%. In conclusion, we can be assured that the reliability and computational speed could make the MISDc model suitable for flood estimation in many catchments of different geographical contexts and land use characteristics. Moreover, MISDc will also be useful for future support of real-time decision-making for flood risk management in the Seveso basin
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