Water Maser Emission from the Active Nucleus in M51

22 GHz water vapor `kilomaser' emission is reported from the central region of the Whirlpool galaxy M 51 (NGC 5194). The red-shifted spectral features (Vlsr ~ 560 km/s), flaring during most of the year 2000, originate from a spatially unresolved maser spot of size < 30 mas (< 1.5 pc), displaced by < 250 mas from the nucleus. The data provide the first direct evidence for the association of an H2O kilomaser with an active galactic nucleus (AGN). In early 2001, blue-shifted maser emission (Vlsr ~ 435 km/s) was also detected. Red- and blue-shifted features bracket the systemic velocity asymmetrically. Within the standard model of a rotating Keplerian torus, this may either suggest the presence of a highly eccentric circumnuclear cloud or red- and blue-shifted `high velocity' emission from a radially extended torus. Most consistent with the measured H2O position is, however, an association of the red-shifted H2O emission with the northern part of the bipolar radio jet. In this scenario, the (weaker) northern jet is receding while the blue-shifted H2O emission is associated with the approaching southern jet.Comment: 9 pages, 1 figur

Strongly Coupled Semi-Direct Mediation of Supersymmetry Breaking

Strongly coupled semi-direct gauge mediation models of supersymmetry breaking through massive mediators with standard model charges are investigated by means of composite degrees of freedom. Sizable mediation is realized to generate the standard model gaugino masses for a small mediator mass without breaking the standard model symmetries.Comment: 7 pages; v2: the model generalized, gaugino mass corrected; v3: explanations expanded, references adde

Specific heat and low-lying excitations in the mixed state for a type II superconductor

Low temperature behavior of the electronic specific heat $C(T)$ in the mixed state is by the self-consistent calculation of the Eilenberger theory. In addition to $\gamma T$-term ($\gamma$ is a Sommerfeld coefficient), $C(T)$ has significant contribution of $T^2$-term intrinsic in the vortex state. We identify the origin of the $T^2$-term as (i) V-shape density of states in the vortex state and (ii) Kramer-Pesch effect of vortex core shrinking upon lowering $T$. These results both for full-gap and line node cases reveal that the vortex core is a richer electronic structure beyond the normal core picture.Comment: Accepted in Phys. Rev. B. 5 pages, 5 figure

Utilizando R para manipular dados de projeção climática.

O Laboratório de Modelagem Agroambiental (LMA) da Embrapa Informática Agropecuária utiliza dados de projeção climática para realização de simulações de cenários agrícolas futuros. Grande parte desses dados é disponibilizada no formato NetCDF. A NetCDF é uma biblioteca livre, que possui funções de manipulação de dados armazenados em matrizes que contêm dimensões, variáveis e metadados. É utilizada em linguagens como C, C++, Fortran, Java, R entre outras. Essa combinação entre linguagem, biblioteca e arquivo possibilita criação, acesso e compartilhamento de dados científicos. Os arquivos NetCDF possuem informações descritivas sobre os dados que contêm (os chamados metadados). Podem armazenar diferentes tipos de variáveis numéricas e caracteres. Além disso, o formato é eficiente, permitindo ao usuário acessar um pequeno subconjunto de uma grande base de dados, visualizar simultaneamente o mesmo arquivo por mais de um leitor e anexar dados a um arquivo NetCDF, sem ter que copiar sua base de dados ou redefinir sua estrutura. Antes de serem utilizados, esses dados passam por diversos processamentos, tais como recorte temporal e espacial, reamostragem de grade e extração de dados. O objetivo deste trabalho é demonstrar como tais processamentos podem ser realizados utilizando o R

The Distribution of H2O Maser Emission in the Nucleus of NGC 4945

We present the first interferometer map of the water maser emission in the active nucleus of NGC 4945. Although the declination of the galaxy is about -49 degrees, we were able to make the observations with the southernmost antennas of the Very Long Baseline Array. Strong maser emission is present in three velocity ranges, one near the systemic velocity and two shifted roughly symmetrically by +/-(100-150) km/s. This is the first detection of highly blue-shifted water emission in NGC 4945. We determined the position of the maser to be RA(B1950)= 13 02 32.28 +/- 0.02 ; Dec(B1950)= -49 12 01.9 +/- 0.1. The uncertainties in earlier estimates are at least several arcseconds. The maser lies within 2'' (36 pc at a distance of 3.7 Mpc) of the peaks in 1.4 GHz continuum and 1.6 micron emission from the nucleus. The mappable maser emission is distributed roughly linearly over about 40 milliarcseconds (0.7 pc) at a position angle of about 45 degrees, which is close to the 43 +/- 2 degree position angle of the galactic disk. The red and blue-shifted emission symmetrically stradle the systemic emission on the sky, which suggests material in edge-on circular motion around a central object. The position-velocity structure indicates a binding mass of about one million Suns, within a volume of radius about 0.3 pc. This implies that the central engine radiates on the order of 10% of its Eddington luminosity.Comment: 18 pages, including 5 Postscript figures. Accepted for publication in ApJ Letter

All-or-none switching of transcriptional activity on single DNA molecules caused by a discrete conformational transition

Recently, it has been confirmed that long duplex DNA molecules with sizes larger than several tens of kilo-base pairs (kbp), exhibit a discrete conformational transition from an elongated coil state to a compact globule state upon the addition of various kinds of chemical species that usually induce DNA condensation. In this study, we performed a single-molecule observation on a large DNA, Lambda ZAP II DNA (ca. 41 kbp), in a solution containing RNA polymerase and substrates along with spermine, a tetravalent cation, at different concentrations, by use of fluorescence staining of both DNA and RNA. We found that transcription, or RNA production, is completely inhibited in the compact state, but is actively performed in the unfolded coil state. Such an all-or-none effect on transcriptional activity induced by the discrete conformational transition of single DNA molecules is discussed in relation to the mechanism of the regulation of large-scale genetic activity.Comment: 14 pages, 2 figure

Avaliação de banco de dados raster para o projeto Natdata.

O projeto Natdata pretende sobrepor esses desafios, visando, ao final, a implantação de uma plataforma que integre os dados de recursos naturais da Embrapa, ainda muito heterogêneos e provenientes de diferentes domínios, e muitas vezes de outras instituições, garantindo a manutenção de sua semântica

Toward a New Distance to the Active Galaxy NGC 4258: II. Centripetal Accelerations and Investigation of Spiral Structure

We report measurements of centripetal accelerations of maser spectral components of NGC 4258 for 51 epochs spanning 1994 to 2004. This is the second paper of a series, in which the goal is determination of a new geometric maser distance to NGC 4258 accurate to possibly ~3%. We measure accelerations using a formal analysis method that involves simultaneous decomposition of maser spectra for all epochs into multiple, Gaussian components. Components are coupled between epochs by linear drifts (accelerations) from their centroid velocities at a reference epoch. For high-velocity emission, accelerations lie in the range -0.7 to +0.7 km/s/yr indicating an origin within 13 degrees of the disk midline (the perpendicular to the line-of-sight to the black hole). Comparison of high-velocity emission projected positions in VLBI images, with those derived from acceleration data, provides evidence that masers trace real gas dynamics. High-velocity emission accelerations do not support a model of trailing shocks associated with spiral arms in the disk. However, we find strengthened evidence for spatial periodicity in high-velocity emission, of wavelength 0.75 mas. This supports suggestions of spiral structure due to density waves in the nuclear accretion disk of an active galaxy. Accelerations of low-velocity (systemic) emission lie in the range 7.7 to 8.9 km/s/yr, consistent with emission originating from a concavity where the thin, warped disk is tangent to the line-of-sight. A trend in accelerations of low-velocity emission as a function of Doppler velocity may be associated with disk geometry and orientation, or with the presence of spiral structure.Comment: Accepted to ApJ, 48 pages and 20 figure

Big Data e monitoramento agroambiental.

O objetivo do trabalho foi criar uma estrutura para processamento de vários índices de vegetação para o sensor RapidEye, na qual qualquer operador possa escolher o índice por meio de sua aplicação e obter a geração automática para todo e qualquer município do Brasil de maneira relativamente automatizada