Gravitational Fragmentation of Expanding Shells. I. Linear Analysis

We perform a linear perturbation analysis of expanding shells driven by expansions of HII regions. The ambient gas is assumed to be uniform. As an unperturbed state, we develop a semi-analytic method for deriving the time evolution of the density profile across the thickness. It is found that the time evolution of the density profile can be divided into three evolutionary phases, deceleration-dominated, intermediate, and self-gravity-dominated phases. The density peak moves relatively from the shock front to the contact discontinuity as the shell expands. We perform a linear analysis taking into account the asymmetric density profile obtained by the semi-analytic method, and imposing the boundary conditions for the shock front and the contact discontinuity while the evolutionary effect of the shell is neglected. It is found that the growth rate is enhanced compared with the previous studies based on the thin-shell approximation. This is due to the boundary effect of the contact discontinuity and asymmetric density profile that were not taken into account in previous works.Comment: 13 pages, 13 figures, to be published in the Astrophysical Journa

Charge Transfer Cross Sections for Multiply Charged Slow Ne, Ar, Kr and Xe Ions on Various Gas Targets : II. Molecular Gas Targets

Observed charge transfer cross sections are compiled, similarly to Part I, for multiply charged Ne, Ar, Kr and Xe ions on several molecular targets in an energy region from a few to tens keV. The projectiles are recoil ions produced by using our “ion-impact ion source” (IIIS). The values are compared with the results of other research workers

Auto-Luminescent Genetically-Encoded Ratiometric Indicator for Real-Time Ca2+ Imaging at the Single Cell Level

Background: Efficient bioluminescence resonance energy transfer (BRET) from a bioluminescent protein to a fluorescent protein with high fluorescent quantum yield has been utilized to enhance luminescence intensity, allowing single-cell imaging in near real time without external light illumination. Methodology/Principal Findings: We applied BRET to develop an autoluminescent Ca2+ indicator, BRAC, which is composed of Ca^[2+]-binding protein, calmodulin, and its target peptide, M13, sandwiched between a yellow fluorescent protein variant, Venus, and an enhanced Renilla luciferase, RLuc8. Adjusting the relative dipole orientation of the luminescent protein's chromophores improved the dynamic range of BRET signal change in BRAC up to 60%, which is the largest dynamic range among BRET-based indicators reported so far. Using BRAC, we demonstrated successful visualization of Ca2+ dynamics at the single-cell level with temporal resolution at 1 Hz. Moreover, BRAC signals were acquired by ratiometric imaging capable of canceling out Ca^[2+]-independent signal drifts due to change in cell shape, focus shift, etc. Conclusions/Significance: The brightness and large dynamic range of BRAC should facilitate high-sensitive Ca2+ imaging not only in single live cells but also in small living subjects

An External Beam Method for Multi-Elemental Analysis of Heavy Metals in Stream Water

An improvement has been made on a liquid target preparation for an external proton beam PIXE which is regarded as an excellent technique for multi-elemental analysis. A 2 MeV proton beam taken out to the atmosphere through an exit Kapton foil bombards an acidic solution target directly. Such direct bombardment enables the direct comparison of X-ray yields of a liquid sample with those of the standard solution so that one can determine the elemental concentration in a liquid sample more precisely and easily. An example is given for the analysis of heavy metals in stream water