Gravitational Collapse in Constant Potential Bath

We analyse here the gravitational collapse of directed null radiation in a background with a constant potential such as one produced by a star system like galaxy in which the collapsing object is immersed. Both naked singularities and black holes are shown to be developing as the final outcome of the collapse. An interesting feature that emerges is that a part of the naked singularity spectrum in collapsing Vaidya region gets covered in the corresponding dual-Vaidya region, which corresponds to the Vaidya directed null radiation sitting in constant potential bath. The implications of such a result towards the issue of stability of naked singularities are discussed.Comment: LaTex 12 Pages, 2 figures. To appear in Physical Review

PowerAqua: fishing the semantic web

The Semantic Web (SW) offers an opportunity to develop novel, sophisticated forms of question answering (QA). Specifically, the availability of distributed semantic markup on a large scale opens the way to QA systems which can make use of such semantic information to provide precise, formally derived answers to questions. At the same time the distributed, heterogeneous, large-scale nature of the semantic information introduces significant challenges. In this paper we describe the design of a QA system, PowerAqua, designed to exploit semantic markup on the web to provide answers to questions posed in natural language. PowerAqua does not assume that the user has any prior information about the semantic resources. The system takes as input a natural language query, translates it into a set of logical queries, which are then answered by consulting and aggregating information derived from multiple heterogeneous semantic sources

Solar analogs with and without planets: Tc_c trends and galactic evolution

We explore a sample of 148 solar-like stars to search for a possible correlation between the slopes of the abundance trends versus condensation temperature (known as the Tc slope) both with stellar parameters and Galactic orbital parameters in order to understand the nature of the peculiar chemical signatures of these stars and the possible connection with planet formation. We find that the Tc slope correlates at a significant level with the stellar age and the stellar surface gravity. We also find tentative evidence that the Tc slope correlates with the mean galactocentric distance of the stars (Rmean), suggesting that stars that originated in the inner Galaxy have fewer refractory elements relative to the volatile ones. We found that the chemical peculiarities (small refractory-to-volatile ratio) of planet-hosting stars is probably a reflection of their older age and their inner Galaxy origin. We conclude that the stellar age and probably Galactic birth place are key to establish the abundances of some specific elements.Comment: Proceedings of the GREAT-ITN conference: The Milky Way Unravelled by Gaia. Will be published in the "EAS Publications Series

From stellar to planetary composition: Galactic chemical evolution of Mg/Si mineralogical ratio

The main goal of this work is to study element ratios that are important for the formation of planets of different masses. We study potential correlations between the existence of planetary companions and the relative elemental abundances of their host stars. We use a large sample of FGK-type dwarf stars for which precise Mg, Si, and Fe abundances have been derived using HARPS high-resolution and high-quality data. A first analysis of the data suggests that low-mass planet host stars show higher [Mg/Si] ratios, while giant planet hosts present [Mg/Si] that is lower than field stars. However, we found that the [Mg/Si] ratio significantly depends on metallicity through Galactic chemical evolution. After removing the Galactic evolution trend only the difference in the [Mg/Si] elemental ratio between low-mass planet hosts and non-hosts was present in a significant way. These results suggests that low-mass planets are more prevalent around stars with high [Mg/Si]. Our results demonstrate the importance of Galactic chemical evolution and indicate that it may play an important role in the planetary internal structure and composition.Comment: Accepted by A&A (Letter to the Editor

Digital compensation of the side-band-rejection ratio in a fully analog 2SB sub-millimeter receiver

In observational radio astronomy, sideband-separating receivers are preferred, particularly under high atmospheric noise, which is usually the case in the sub-millimeter range. However, obtaining a good rejection ratio between the two sidebands is difficult since, unavoidably, imbalances in the different analog components appear. We describe a method to correct these imbalances without making any change in the analog part of the sideband-separating receiver, specifically, keeping the intermediate-frequency hybrid in place. This opens the possibility of implementing the method in any existing receiver. We have built hardware to demonstrate the validity of the method and tested it on a fully analog receiver operating between 600 and 720GHz. We have tested the stability of calibration and performance vs time and after full resets of the receiver. We have performed an error analysis to compare the digital compensation in two configurations of analog receivers, with and without intermediate frequency (IF) hybrid. An average compensated sideband rejection ratio of 46dB is obtained. Degradation of the compensated sideband rejection ratio on time and after several resets of the receiver is minimal. A receiver with an IF hybrid is more robust to systematic errors. Moreover, we have shown that the intrinsic random errors in calibration have the same impact for configuration without IF hybrid and for a configuration with IF hybrid with analog rejection ratio better than 10dB. Compensated rejection ratios above 40dB are obtained even in the presence of high analog rejection. The method is robust allowing its use under normal operational conditions at any telescope. We also demonstrate that a full analog receiver is more robust against systematic errors. Finally, the error bars associated to the compensated rejection ratio are almost independent of whether IF hybrid is present or not

Using image analysis in the study of multiphase gas absorption

For the air–water–calcium alginate beads system, the effect of the presence of solids on the mass transfer characteristics in a bubble column was experimentally studied. Volumetric liquid side mass transfer coefficient, kLa, specific interfacial area, a, and hence liquid side mass transfer coefficient, kL, were determined under different solid concentrations (0, 5, and 10 vol%), superficial gas velocities (up to 0.27 cm/s) and solid sizes (1.2 and 2.1mm diameter). The bubble characteristics, namely the interfacial area, were obtained using an image analysis technique. This technique proved to be a suitable and practical method to characterize mass transfer phenomena in bubble columns for the range of operating conditions used. The solids affect negatively kLa, decreasing both a and kL, the effect being more pronounced for the smaller particles. For these particles the variation of kLa is due to the variation of its two components, while for larger particles kLa variation is due, essentially, to changes in kL as no significant differences in a were observed.Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT

WKB-type Approximation to Noncommutative Quantum Cosmology

In this work, we develop and apply the WKB approximation to several examples of noncommutative quantum cosmology, obtaining the time evolution of the noncommutative universe, this is done starting from a noncommutative quantum formulation of cosmology where the noncommutativity is introduced by a deformation on the minisuperspace variables. This procedure gives a straightforward algorithm to incorporate noncommutativity to cosmology and inflation.Comment: Revtex4, 6 pages, no figure

Orbital and physical properties of planets and their hosts: new insights on planet formation and evolution

We explore the relations between physical and orbital properties of planets and properties of their host stars to identify the main observable signatures of the formation and evolution processes of planetary systems. We use a large sample of FGK dwarf planet hosts with stellar parameters derived in a homogeneous way from the SWEET-Cat database to study the relation between stellar metallicity and position of planets in the period-mass diagram. In the second part we use all the RV-detected planets orbiting FGK stars to explore the role of planet-disk and planet-planet interaction on the evolution of orbital properties of planets with masses above 1MJup. We show that planets orbiting metal-poor stars have longer periods than those in metal-rich systems. This trend is valid for masses at least from 10MEarth to 4MJup. Earth-like planets orbiting metal-rich stars always show shorter periods (fewer than 20 days) than those orbiting metal-poor stars. We also found statistically significant evidence that very high mass giants have on average more eccentric orbits than giant planets with lower mass.Finally, we show that the eccentricity of planets with masses higher than 4MJup tends to be lower for planets with shorter periods. Our results suggest that the planets in the P-MP diagram are evolving differently because of a mechanism that operates over a wide range of planetary masses. This mechanism is stronger or weaker depending on the metallicity of the respective system. One possibility is that planets in metal-poor disks form farther out from their central star and/or they form later and do not have time to migrate as far as the planets in metal-rich systems. The trends and dependencies obtained for very high mass planetary systems suggest that planet-disk interaction is a very important and orbit-shaping mechanism for planets in the high-mass domain. Shortened.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures and 1 table. Accepted for publication in A&

Abundance trend with condensation temperature for stars with different Galactic birth places

During the past decade, several studies reported a correlation between chemical abundances of stars and condensation temperature (also known as Tc trend). However, the real astrophysical nature of this correlation is still debated. The main goal of this work is to explore the possible dependence of the Tc trend on stellar Galactocentric distances, Rmean. We used high-quality spectra of about 40 stars observed with the HARPS and UVES spectrographs to derive precise stellar parameters, chemical abundances, and stellar ages. A differential line-by-line analysis was applied to achieve the highest possible precision in the chemical abundances. We confirm previous results that [X/Fe] abundance ratios depend on stellar age and that for a given age, some elements also show a dependence on Rmean. When using the whole sample of stars, we observe a weak hint that the Tc trend depends on Rmean. The observed dependence is very complex and disappears when only stars with similar ages are considered. To conclude on the possible dependence of the Tc trend on the formation place of stars, a larger sample of stars with very similar atmospheric parameters and stellar ages observed at different Galactocentric distances is neededComment: Accepted by A&