The Formation and Role of Vortices in Protoplanetary Disks

We carry out a two-dimensional, compressible, simulation of a disk, including dust particles, to study the formation and role of vortices in protoplanetary disks. We find that anticyclonic vortices can form out of an initial random perturbation of the vorticity field. Vortices have a typical decay time of the order of 50 orbital periods (for a viscosity parameter alpha=0.0001 and a disk aspect ratio of H/r = 0.15). If vorticity is continuously generated at a constant rate in the flow (e.g. by convection), then a large vortex can form and be sustained (due to the merger of vortices). We find that dust concentrates in the cores of vortices within a few orbital periods, when the drag parameter is of the order of the orbital frequency. Also, the radial drift of the dust induces a significant increase in the surface density of dust particles in the inner region of the disk. Thus, vortices may represent the preferred location for planetesimal formation in protoplanetary disks. We show that it is very difficult for vortex mergers to sustain a relatively coherent outward flux of angular momentum.Comment: Sumitted to the Astrophysical Journal, October 20, 199

Monte Carlo Simulation of Lyman Alpha Scattering and Application to Damped Lyman Alpha Systems

A Monte Carlo code to solve the transfer of Lyman alpha (Lya) photons is developed, which can predict the Lya image and two-dimensional Lya spectra of a hydrogen cloud with any given geometry, Lya emissivity, neutral hydrogen density distribution, and bulk velocity field. We apply the code to several simple cases of a uniform cloud to show how the Lya image and emitted line spectrum are affected by the column density, internal velocity gradients, and emissivity distribution. We then apply the code to two models for damped Lya absorption systems: a spherical, static, isothermal cloud, and a flattened, axially symmetric, rotating cloud. If the emission is due to fluorescence of the external background radiation, the Lya image should have a core corresponding to the region where hydrogen is self-shielded. The emission line profile has the characteristic double peak with a deep central trough. We show how rotation of the cloud causes the two peaks to shift in wavelength as the slit is perpendicular to the rotation axis, and how the relative amplitude of the two peaks is changed. In reality, damped Lya systems are likely to have a clumpy gas distribution with turbulent velocity fields, which should smooth the line emission profile, but should still leave the rotation signature of the wavelength shift across the system.Comment: 19 pages, 17 eps figures. One panel is added in Fig.1 to show the recoil effect. Revisions are made in response to the referee's comments. Accepted for publication in Ap

Standards, Harmonization and Cultural Differences: Examining the Implementation of a European Stem Cell Clinical Trial

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Taylor & Francis via the DOI in this record.A complex set of European regulations aims to facilitate regenerative medicine, harmonizing good clinical and manufacturing standards and streamlining ethical approval procedures. The sociology of standardization has elaborated some of the effects of regulation but little is known about how such implementation works in practice across institutions and countries in regenerative medicine. The effects of transnational harmonization of clinical trial conduct are complex. A long-term ethnographic study alongside a multinational clinical trial finds a range of obstacles. Harmonization standardizes at one level, but implementing the standards brings to the fore new layers of difference between countries. Europe-wide harmonization of regulations currently sdisadvantages low-cost clinician-lead research in comparison to industry-sponsored clinical trials. Moreover, harmonized standards must be aligned with the cultural variations in everyday practice across European countries. Each clinical team must find its own way of bridging harmonized compulsory practice with how things are done where they are, respecting expectations from both patients and the local hospital ethics committee. Established ways of working must further be adapted to a range of institutional and cultural conventions that affect the clinical trial such as insurance practices and understandings of patient autonomy. An additional finding is that the specific practical roles of team members in the trial affect their evaluation of the importance of these challenges. Our findings lead to conclusions of wider significance for the sociology of standards concerning how regulation works and for medical sociology about how trial funding and research directions in stem cell medicine intersect.The BAMI Project is partially funded by the European Commission under the 7th Framework Programme (Grant agreement number 278967)

Towards a systematic design of isotropic bulk magnetic metamaterials using the cubic point groups of symmetry

In this paper a systematic approach to the design of bulk isotropic magnetic metamaterials is presented. The role of the symmetries of both the constitutive element and the lattice are analyzed. For this purpose it is assumed that the metamaterial is composed by cubic SRR resonators, arranged in a cubic lattice. The minimum symmetries needed to ensure an isotropic behavior are analyzed, and some particular configurations are proposed. Besides, an equivalent circuit model is proposed for the considered cubic SRR resonators. Experiments are carried out in order to validate the proposed theory. We hope that this analysis will pave the way to the design of bulk metamaterials with strong isotropic magnetic response, including negative permeability and left-handed metamaterials.Comment: Submitted to Physical Review B, 23 page

The interpretation of the field angle dependence of the critical current in defect-engineered superconductors

We apply the vortex path model of critical currents to a comprehensive analysis of contemporary data on defect-engineered superconductors, showing that it provides a consistent and detailed interpretation of the experimental data for a diverse range of materials. We address the question of whether electron mass anisotropy plays a role of any consequence in determining the form of this data and conclude that it does not. By abandoning this false interpretation of the data, we are able to make significant progress in understanding the real origin of the observed behavior. In particular, we are able to explain a number of common features in the data including shoulders at intermediate angles, a uniform response over a wide angular range and the greater discrimination between individual defect populations at higher fields. We also correct several misconceptions including the idea that a peak in the angular dependence of the critical current is a necessary signature of strong correlated pinning, and conversely that the existence of such a peak implies the existence of correlated pinning aligned to the particular direction. The consistency of the vortex path model with the principle of maximum entropy is introduced.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figure

Spitzer 3.6 micron and 4.5 micron full-orbit lightcurves of WASP-18

We present new lightcurves of the massive hot Jupiter system WASP-18 obtained with the Spitzer spacecraft covering the entire orbit at 3.6 micron and 4.5 micron. These lightcurves are used to measure the amplitude, shape and phase of the thermal phase effect for WASP-18b. We find that our results for the thermal phase effect are limited to an accuracy of about 0.01% by systematic noise sources of unknown origin. At this level of accuracy we find that the thermal phase effect has a peak-to-peak amplitude approximately equal to the secondary eclipse depth, has a sinusoidal shape and that the maximum brightness occurs at the same phase as mid-occultation to within about 5 degrees at 3.6 micron and to within about 10 degrees at 4.5 micron. The shape and amplitude of the thermal phase curve imply very low levels of heat redistribution within the atmosphere of the planet. We also perform a separate analysis to determine the system geometry by fitting a lightcurve model to the data covering the occultation and the transit. The secondary eclipse depths we measure at 3.6 micron and 4.5 micron are in good agreement with previous measurements and imply a very low albedo for WASP-18b. The parameters of the system (masses, radii, etc.) derived from our analysis are in also good agreement with those from previous studies, but with improved precision. We use new high-resolution imaging and published limits on the rate of change of the mean radial velocity to check for the presence of any faint companion stars that may affect our results. We find that there is unlikely to be any significant contribution to the flux at Spitzer wavelengths from a stellar companion to WASP-18. We find that there is no evidence for variations in the times of eclipse from a linear ephemeris greater than about 100 seconds over 3 years.Comment: 17 pages, 10 figures. Accpeted for publication in MNRA

The Scattering of Electromagnetic Waves from Two-Dimensional Randomly Rough Penetrable Surfaces

An accurate and efficient numerical simulation approach to electromagnetic wave scattering from two-dimensional, randomly rough, penetrable surfaces is presented. The use of the M\"uller equations and an impedance boundary condition for a two-dimensional rough surface yields a pair of coupled two-dimensional integral equations for the sources on the surface in terms of which the scattered field is expressed through the Franz formulas. By this approach, we calculate the full angular intensity distribution of the scattered field that is due to a finite incident beam of $p$-polarized light. We specifically check the energy conservation (unitarity) of our simulations (for the non-absorbing case). Only after a detailed numerical treatment of {\em both} diagonal and close-to-diagonal matrix elements is the unitarity condition found to be well-satisfied for the non-absorbing case (${\mathcal U}>0.995$), a result that testifies to the accuracy of our approach.Comment: Revtex, 4 pages, 2 figure

High inclination orbits in the secular quadrupolar three-body problem

The Lidov-Kozai mechanism allows a body to periodically exchange its eccentricity with inclination. It was first discussed in the framework of the quadrupolar secular restricted three-body problem, where the massless particle is the inner body, and later extended to the quadrupolar secular nonrestricted three body problem. In this paper, we propose a different point of view on the problem by looking first at the restricted problem where the massless particle is the outer body. In this situation, equilibria at high mutual inclination appear, which correspond to the population of stable particles that Verrier & Evans (2008,2009) find in stable, high inclination circumbinary orbits around one of the components of the quadruple star HD 98800. We provide a simple analytical framework using a vectorial formalism for these situations. We also look at the evolution of these high inclination equilibria in the non restricted case.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures. Accepted by MNRAS 2009 September 1