987 research outputs found
Solute effects on edge dislocation pinning in complex alpha-Fe alloys
Reactor pressure vessel steels are well-known to harden and embrittle under neutron irradiation, mainly because of the formation of obstacles to the motion of dislocations, in particular, precipitates and clusters composed of Cu, Ni, Mn, Si and P. In this paper, we employ two complementary atomistic modelling techniques to study the heterogeneous precipitation and segregation of these elements and their effects on the edge dislocations in BCC iron. We use a special and highly computationally efficient Monte Carlo algorithm in a constrained semi-grand canonical ensemble to compute the equilibrium configurations for solute clusters around the dislocation core. Next, we use standard molecular dynamics to predict and analyze the effect of this segregation on the dislocation mobility. Consistently with expectations our results confirm that the required stress for dislocation unpinning from the precipitates formed on top of it is quite large. The identification of the precipitate resistance allows a quantitative treatment of atomistic results, enabling scale transition towards larger scale simulations, such as dislocation dynamics or phase field.Fil: Pascuet, Maria Ines Magdalena. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones CientĂficas y TĂ©cnicas; Argentina. Comision Nacional de Energia Atomica. Centro Atomico Constituyentes. Departamento de Materiales; ArgentinaFil: MartĂnez, E.. Los Alamos National High Magnetic Field Laboratory; Estados UnidosFil: Monnet, G.. EDFâR&D; FranciaFil: Malerba, L.. SCKâąCEN. Structural Materials Expert Group. Nuclear Materials Institute; BĂ©lgic
Turning the tide of antimicrobial resistance: Europe shows the way
To access publisher full text version of this article. Please click on the hyperlink in Additional Links fieldTen years ago, European officials, experts and other stakeholders met in Copenhagen, Denmark, at the invitation of the Danish Ministry of Health and the Danish Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Fisheries. This European conference on "The Microbial Threat" due to antimicrobial resistance resulted in the publication of "Copenhagen Recommendations" calling for action to limit the emerging problem of antimicrobial-resistant microorganisms [1]. Following the conference, the European Commission prepared a comprehensive Community strategy against antimicrobial resistance, which was published in 2001 [2] and presented in Eurosurveillance [3]. Later the same year, European Union (EU) Health Ministers adopted a Council Recommendation on the prudent use of antimicrobial agents in human medicine with a series of specific measures aimed at containing the spread of antimicrobial resistance by prudent use of antimicrobial agents [4
Scalable N-body code for the modelling of early-type galaxies
Early-type galaxies exhibit a wealth of photometric and dynamical structures.
These signatures are fossil records of their formation and evolution processes.
In order to examine these structures in detail, we build models aimed at
reproducing the observed photometry and kinematics. The developed method is a
generalization of the one introduced by Syer and Tremaine (1996), consisting in
an N-body representation, in which the weights of the particles are changing
with time. Our code is adapted for integral-field spectroscopic data, and is
able to reproduce the photometric as well as stellar kinematic data of observed
galaxies. We apply this technique on SAURON data of early-type galaxies, and
present preliminary results on NGC 3377.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures. Original version printed in the Proceedings of
"Science perspective for 3D spectroscopy", 2005, Eds Kissler-Patig, Walsh,
Roth, ES0, Springe
VLT Diffraction Limited Imaging and Spectroscopy in the NIR: Weighing the black hole in Centaurus A with NACO
We present high spatial resolution near-infrared spectra and images of the
nucleus of Centaurus A (NGC 5128) obtained with NAOS-CONICA at the VLT. The
adaptive optics corrected data have a spatial resolution of 0.06" (FWHM) in K-
and 0.11" in H-band, four times higher than previous studies. The observed gas
motions suggest a kinematically hot disk which is orbiting a central object and
is oriented nearly perpendicular to the nuclear jet. We model the central
rotation and velocity dispersion curves of the [FeII] gas orbiting in the
combined potential of the stellar mass and the (dominant) black hole. Our
physically most plausible model, a dynamically hot and geometrically thin gas
disk, yields a black hole mass of M_bh = (6.1 +0.6/-0.8) 10^7 M_sun. As the
physical state of the gas is not well understood, we also consider two limiting
cases: first a cold disk model, which completely neglects the velocity
dispersion; it yields an M_bh estimate that is almost two times lower. The
other extreme case is to model a spherical gas distribution in hydrostatic
equilibrium through Jeans equation. Compared to the hot disk model the best-fit
black hole mass increases by a factor of 1.5. This wide mass range spanned by
the limiting cases shows how important the gas physics is even for high
resolution data. Our overall best-fitting black hole mass is a factor of 2-4
lower than previous measurements. With our revised M_bh estimate, Cen A's
offset from the M_bh-sigma relation is significantly reduced; it falls above
this relation by a factor of ~2, which is close to the intrinsic scatter of
this relation. (Abridged)Comment: 12 pages, 14 figures, including minor changes following the referee
report; accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journa
NGC 7331: the Galaxy with the Multicomponent Central Region
We present the results of the spectral investigation of the regular Sb galaxy
NGC 7331 with the Multi-Pupil Field Spectrograph of the 6m telescope. The
absorption-line indices H-beta, Mgb, and are mapped to analyse the
properties of the stellar populations in the circumnuclear region of the
galaxy. The central part of the disk inside ~3" (200 pc) -- or a separate
circumnuclear stellar-gaseous disk as it is distinguished by decoupled fast
rotation of the ionized gas -- is very metal-rich, rather young, ~ 2 billion
years old, and its solar magnesium-to-iron ratio evidences for a very long
duration of the last episode of star formation there. However the gas
excitation mechanism now in this disk is shock-like. The star-like nucleus had
probably experienced a secondary star formation burst too: its age is 5 billion
years, much younger than the age of the circumnuclear bulge. But [Mg/Fe]=+0.3
and only solar global metallicity imply that the nuclear star formation burst
has been much shorter than that in the circumnuclear disk. The surrounding
bulge is rather old, 9--14 billion years old, and moderately metal-poor. The
rotation of the stars and gas within the circumnuclear disk is axisymmetric
though its rotation plane may be slightly inclined to the global plane of the
galaxy. Outside the circumnuclear disk the gas may experience non-circular
motions, and we argue that the low-contrast extended bulge of NGC 7331 is
triaxial.Comment: LATEX, 27 pages, + 15 Postscript figures. Accepted to Astronomical
Journal, July issu
Phytoplankton dynamics from the Cambrian Explosion to the onset of the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event: a review of Cambrian acritarch diversity
Most early Palaeozoic acritarchs are thought to represent a part of the marine phytoplankton and so constituted a significant element at the base of the marine trophic chain during the âCambrian Explosionâ and the subsequent âGreat Ordovician Biodiversification Event.â Cambrian acritarch occurrences have been recorded in a great number of studies. In this paper, published data on Cambrian acritarchs are assembled in order to reconstruct taxonomic diversity trends that can be compared with the biodiversity of marine invertebrates. We compile a database and calculate various diversity indices at global and regional (i.e. Gondwana or Baltica) scales. The stratigraphic bins applied are at the level of the ten Cambrian stages, or of fourteen commonly used biozones in a somewhat higher resolved scheme. Our results show marked differences between palaeogeographical regions. They also indicate limitations of the data and a potential sampling bias, as the taxonomic diversity indices of species are significantly correlated with the number of studies per stratigraphic bin. The total and normalized diversities of genera are not affected in the same way. The normalized genus diversity curves show a slow but irregular rise over the course of the Cambrian. These also are the least biased. A radiation of species and to a lesser extent of genera in the âlowerâ Cambrian Series 2 appears to mirror the âCambrian Explosionâ of metazoans. This radiation, not evident on Gondwana, is followed by a prominent low in species diversity in the upper Series 3 and lower Furongian. Highest diversities are reached globally, and on both Baltica and Gondwana, in the uppermost Cambrian Stage 10, more precisely in the Peltura trilobite Zone, preceding a substantial phase of acritarch species extinction below and at the Cambrian/Ordovician boundary. Nearly all the genera present in Stage 10 survived into the Ordovician. The forms that emerged during the Cambrian therefore became the foundation for the more rapid radiation of acritarchs during the âGreat Ordovician Biodiversification Eventâ
The M 31 double nucleus probed with OASIS and HST. A natural m=1 mode?
We present observations with the adaptive optics assisted integral field
spectrograph OASIS of the M 31 double nucleus at a spatial resolution better
than 0.5 arcsec FWHM. These data are used to derive the two-dimensional stellar
kinematics within the central 2 arcsec. Archival WFPC2/HST images are revisited
to perform a photometric decomposition of the nuclear region. We also present
STIS/HST kinematics obtained from the archive. The luminosity distribution of
the central region is well separated into the respective contributions of the
bulge, the nucleus including P1 and P2, and the so-called UV peak. We then show
that the axis joining P1 and P2, the two local surface brightness maxima, does
not coincide with the kinematic major-axis, which is also the major-axis of the
nuclear isophotes (excluding P1). We also confirm that the velocity dispersion
peak is offset by ~ 0.2 arcsec from the UV peak, assumed to mark the location
of the supermassive black hole. The newly reduced STIS/HST velocity and
dispersion profiles are then compared to OASIS and other published kinematics.
We find significant offsets with previously published data. Simple parametric
models are then built to successfully reconcile all the available kinematics.
We finally interpret the observations using new N-body simulations. The nearly
keplerian nuclear disk of M31 is subject to a natural m=1 mode, with a very
slow pattern speed (3 km/s/pc for M_BH = 7 10^7~\Msun), that can be maintained
during more than a thousand dynamical times. The resulting morphology and
kinematics of the mode can reproduce the M~31 nuclear-disk photometry and mean
stellar velocity, including the observed asymmetries. It requires a central
mass concentration and a cold disk system representing between 20 and 40% of
its mass. Abridged..Comment: 21 pages. accepted for publication in A&
SAURON Observations of Disks in Early-Type Galaxies
We briefly describe the SAURON project, aimed at determining the intrinsic
shape and internal dynamics of spheroids. We focus here on the ability of
SAURON to identify gaseous and stellar disks and to measure their morphology
and kinematics. We illustrate some of our results with complete maps of
NGC3377, NGC3623, and NGC4365.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures (newpasp.sty). To appear in ASP Conf. Series
"Galaxy Disks and Disk Galaxies", eds. J.G. Funes S.J. & E.M. Corsini.
Version with full resolution images available at
http://www.strw.leidenuniv.nl/~bureau/pub_list.htm
The counterrotating core and the black hole mass of IC1459
The E3 giant elliptical galaxy IC1459 is the prototypical galaxy with a fast
counterrotating stellar core. We obtained one HST/STIS long-slit spectrum along
the major axis of this galaxy and CTIO spectra along five position angles. We
present self-consistent three-integral axisymmetric models of the stellar
kinematics, obtained with Schwarzschild's numerical orbit superposition method.
We study the dynamics of the kinematically decoupled core (KDC) in IC1459 and
we find it consists of stars that are well-separated from the rest of the
galaxy in phase space. The stars in the KDC counterrotate in a disk on orbits
that are close to circular. We estimate that the KDC mass is ~0.5% of the total
galaxy mass or ~3*10^9 Msun. We estimate the central black hole mass M_BH of
IC1459 independently from both its stellar and its gaseous kinematics. Some
complications probably explain why we find rather discrepant BH masses with the
different methods. The stellar kinematics suggest that M_BH = (2.6 +/-
1.1)*10^9 Msun (3 sigma error). The gas kinematics suggests that M_BH ~
3.5*10^8 Msun if the gas is assumed to rotate at the circular velocity in a
thin disk. If the observed velocity dispersion of the gas is assumed to be
gravitational, then M_BH could be as high as ~1.0*10^9 Msun. These different
estimates bracket the value M_BH = (1.1 +/- 0.3)*10^9 Msun predicted by the
M_BH-sigma relation. It will be an important goal for future studies to assess
the reliability of black hole mass determinations with either technique. This
is essential if one wants to interpret the correlation between the BH mass and
other global galaxy parameters (e.g. velocity dispersion) and in particular the
scatter in these correlations (believed to be only ~0.3 dex). [Abridged]Comment: 51 pages, LaTeX with 19 PostScript figures. Revised version, with
three new figures and data tables. To appear in The Astrophysical Journal,
578, 2002 October 2
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