313 research outputs found
Numerical Simulations of Supernova Dust Destruction. I. Cloud-crushing and Post-processed Grain Sputtering
We investigate through hydrodynamic simulations the destruction of
newly-formed dust grains by sputtering in the reverse shocks of supernova
remnants. Using an idealized setup of a planar shock impacting a dense,
spherical clump, we implant a population of Lagrangian particles into the clump
to represent a distribution of dust grains in size and composition. We then
post-process the simulation output to calculate the grain sputtering for a
variety of species and size distributions. We explore the parameter space
appropriate for this problem by altering the over-density of the ejecta clumps
and the speed of the reverse shocks. Since radiative cooling could lower the
temperature of the medium in which the dust is embedded and potentially protect
the dust by slowing or halting grain sputtering, we study the effects of
different cooling methods over the time scale of the simulations. In general,
our results indicate that grains with radii less than 0.1 microns are sputtered
to much smaller radii and often destroyed completely, while larger grains
survive their interaction with the reverse shock. We also find that, for high
ejecta densities, the percentage of dust that survives is strongly dependent on
the relative velocity between the clump and the reverse shock, causing up to
50% more destruction for the highest velocity shocks. The fraction of dust
destroyed varies widely across grain species, ranging from total destruction of
Al2O3 grains to minimal destruction of Fe grains (only 20% destruction in the
most extreme cases). C and SiO2 grains show moderate to strong sputtering as
well, with 38% and 80% mass loss. The survival rate of grains formed by early
supernovae is crucial in determining whether or not they can act as the "dust
factories" needed to explain high-redshift dust.Comment: 18 pages, 16 figures, 2 tables, changes make to the text and figures
as suggested by the anonymous referee, accepted by the Astrophysical Journa
Two-Loop Renormalization Group Equations for Soft Supersymmetry-Breaking Couplings
We compute the two-loop renormalization group equations for all soft
supersymmetry-breaking couplings in a general softly broken N=1 supersymmetric
model. We also specialize these results to the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard
Model.Comment: 26 pages. [v4: Signs of equations (4.2) and (4.3) are fixed.
The Jellyfish Cassiopea Exhibits a Sleep-like State
Do all animals sleep? Sleep has been observed in many vertebrates, and there is a growing body of evidence for sleep-like states in arthropods and nematodes. Here we show that sleep is also present in Cnidaria, an earlier-branching metazoan lineage. Cnidaria and Ctenophora are the first metazoan phyla to evolve tissue-level organization and differentiated cell types, such as neurons and muscle. In Cnidaria, neurons are organized into a non-centralized radially symmetric nerve net that nevertheless shares fundamental properties with the vertebrate nervous system: action potentials, synaptic transmission, neuropeptides, and neurotransmitters . It was reported that cnidarian soft corals and box jellyfish exhibit periods of quiescence, a pre-requisite for sleep-like states, prompting us to ask whether sleep is present in Cnidaria. Within Cnidaria, the upside-down jellyfish Cassiopea spp. displays a quantifiable pulsing behavior, allowing us to perform long-term behavioral tracking. Monitoring of Cassiopea pulsing activity for consecutive days and nights revealed behavioral quiescence at night that is rapidly reversible, as well as a delayed response to stimulation in the quiescent state. When deprived of nighttime quiescence, Cassiopea exhibited decreased activity and reduced responsiveness to a sensory stimulus during the subsequent day, consistent with homeostatic regulation of the quiescent state. Together, these results indicate that Cassiopea has a sleep-like state, supporting the hypothesis that sleep arose early in the metazoan lineage, prior to the emergence of a centralized nervous system
The Jellyfish Cassiopea Exhibits a Sleep-like State
Do all animals sleep? Sleep has been observed in many vertebrates, and there is a growing body of evidence for sleep-like states in arthropods and nematodes. Here we show that sleep is also present in Cnidaria, an earlier-branching metazoan lineage. Cnidaria and Ctenophora are the first metazoan phyla to evolve tissue-level organization and differentiated cell types, such as neurons and muscle. In Cnidaria, neurons are organized into a non-centralized radially symmetric nerve net that nevertheless shares fundamental properties with the vertebrate nervous system: action potentials, synaptic transmission, neuropeptides, and neurotransmitters . It was reported that cnidarian soft corals and box jellyfish exhibit periods of quiescence, a pre-requisite for sleep-like states, prompting us to ask whether sleep is present in Cnidaria. Within Cnidaria, the upside-down jellyfish Cassiopea spp. displays a quantifiable pulsing behavior, allowing us to perform long-term behavioral tracking. Monitoring of Cassiopea pulsing activity for consecutive days and nights revealed behavioral quiescence at night that is rapidly reversible, as well as a delayed response to stimulation in the quiescent state. When deprived of nighttime quiescence, Cassiopea exhibited decreased activity and reduced responsiveness to a sensory stimulus during the subsequent day, consistent with homeostatic regulation of the quiescent state. Together, these results indicate that Cassiopea has a sleep-like state, supporting the hypothesis that sleep arose early in the metazoan lineage, prior to the emergence of a centralized nervous system
Centrilobular emphysema and coronary artery calcification: mediation analysis in the SPIROMICS cohort
Abstract
Background
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is associated with a two-to-five fold increase in the risk of coronary artery disease independent of shared risk factors. This association is hypothesized to be mediated by systemic inflammation but this link has not been established.
Methods
We included 300 participants enrolled in the SPIROMICS cohort, 75 each of lifetime non-smokers, smokers without airflow obstruction, mild-moderate COPD, and severe-very severe COPD. We quantified emphysema and airway disease on computed tomography, characterized visual emphysema subtypes (centrilobular and paraseptal) and airway disease, and used the Weston visual score to quantify coronary artery calcification (CAC). We used the Sobel test to determine whether markers of systemic inflammation mediated a link between spirometric and radiographic features of COPD and CAC.
Results
FEV1/FVC but not quantitative emphysema or airway wall thickening was associated with CAC (p = 0.036), after adjustment for demographics, diabetes mellitus, hypertension, statin use, and CT scanner type. To explain this discordance, we examined visual subtypes of emphysema and airway disease, and found that centrilobular emphysema but not paraseptal emphysema or bronchial thickening was independently associated with CAC (p = 0.019). MMP3, VCAM1, CXCL5 and CXCL9 mediated 8, 8, 7 and 16% of the association between FEV1/FVC and CAC, respectively. Similar biomarkers partially mediated the association between centrilobular emphysema and CAC.
Conclusions
The association between airflow obstruction and coronary calcification is driven primarily by the centrilobular subtype of emphysema, and is linked through bioactive molecules implicated in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis.
Trial Registration
ClinicalTrials.gov: Identifier:
NCT01969344
.https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/146749/1/12931_2018_Article_946.pd
Bigger, Better, Faster, More at the LHC
Multijet plus missing energy searches provide universal coverage for theories
that have new colored particles that decay into a dark matter candidate and
jets. These signals appear at the LHC further out on the missing energy tail
than two-to-two scattering indicates. The simplicity of the searches at the LHC
contrasts sharply with the Tevatron where more elaborate searches are necessary
to separate signal from background. The searches presented in this article
effectively distinguish signal from background for any theory where the LSP is
a daughter or granddaughter of the pair-produced colored parent particle
without ever having to consider missing energies less than 400 GeV.Comment: 26 pages, 8 Figures. Minor textual changes, typos fixed and
references adde
Observation of and search for violation in radiative charm decays
We report the first observation of the radiative charm decay and the first search for violation in decays , , and , using a data sample of
943 fb collected with the Belle detector at the KEKB asymmetric-energy
collider. The branching fraction is measured to be , where the first
uncertainty is statistical and the second is systematic. The obtained
asymmetries, , , and
, are consistent with no violation. We also present an improved
measurement of the branching fractions and
Spontaneous R-Parity Violation, Flavor Symmetry and Tribimaximal Mixing
We explore the possibility of spontaneous R parity violation in the context
of flavor symmetry. Our model contains singlet matter chiral superfields which are arranged as triplet of
and as well as few additional Higgs chiral superfields which are singlet
under MSSM gauge group and belong to triplet and singlet representation under
the flavor symmetry. R parity is broken spontaneously by the vacuum
expectation values of the different sneutrino fields and hence we have
neutrino-neutralino as well as neutrino-MSSM gauge singlet higgsino mixings in
our model, in addition to the standard model neutrino- gauge singlet neutrino,
gaugino-higgsino and higgsino-higgsino mixings. Because all of these mixings we
have an extended neutral fermion mass matrix. We explore the low energy
neutrino mass matrix for our model and point out that with some specific
constraints between the sneutrino vacuum expectation values as well as the MSSM
gauge singlet Higgs vacuum expectation values, the low energy neutrino mass
matrix will lead to a tribimaximal mixing matrix. We also analyze the potential
minimization for our model and show that one can realize a higher vacuum
expectation value of the singlet
sneutrino fields even when the other sneutrino vacuum expectation values are
extremely small or even zero.Comment: 18 page
- …