521 research outputs found
On the transport and thermodynamic properties of quasi-two-dimensional purple bronzes AMoO (A=Na, K)
We report a comparative study of the specific heat, electrical resistivity
and thermal conductivity of the quasi-two-dimensional purple bronzes
NaMoO and KMoO, with special emphasis on
the behavior near their respective charge-density-wave transition temperatures
. The contrasting behavior of both the transport and the thermodynamic
properties near is argued to arise predominantly from the different
levels of intrinsic disorder in the two systems. A significant proportion of
the enhancement of the thermal conductivity above in
NaMoO, and to a lesser extent in KMoO, is
attributed to the emergence of phason excitations.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, To appear in Physical Review
Differentiation Between Type I and Type II Substrate Binding to Cytochrome P450 by Temperature Studies
The binding reactions of type J and type II substances to
cytochrome P450 solubilized from phenobarbital induced rat liver
microsomes show different dependence on temperature. With increasing
temperature the type II binding is lowered whereas the
stability of type I substrate complexes increases. The binding enthalpies
were calculated from the van\u27t Hoff plots and discussed
in connection with the entropy and Gibbs energy of substrate
binding to cytochrome P450. Our data on temperature dependence
provide further evidence pointing to a difference between the
binding sites of the two classes of substrates, and support the view
that the type I binding site is located in a hydrophobic part of the
cytochrome P450 molecule
Chasing the impact of the Gaia-Sausage-Enceladus merger on the formation of the Milky Way thick disc
We employ our Bayesian Machine Learning framework BINGO (Bayesian INference for Galactic archaeOlogy) to obtain high-quality stellar age estimates for 68 360 red giant and red clump stars present in the 17th data release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, the APOGEE-2 high-resolution spectroscopic survey. By examining the denoised age-metallicity relationship of the Galactic disc stars, we identify a drop in metallicity with an increase in [Mg/Fe] at an early epoch, followed by a chemical enrichment episode with increasing [Fe/H] and decreasing [Mg/Fe]. This result is congruent with the chemical evolution induced by an early-epoch gas-rich merger identified in the Milky Way-like zoom-in cosmological simulation Auriga. In the initial phase of the merger of Auriga 18 there is a drop in metallicity due to the merger diluting the metal content and an increase in the [Mg/Fe] of the primary galaxy. Our findings suggest that the last massive merger of our Galaxy, the Gaia-Sausage-Enceladus, was likely a significant gas-rich merger and induced a starburst, contributing to the chemical enrichment and building of the metal-rich part of the thick disc at an early epoch
BICEP3: a 95 GHz refracting telescope for degree-scale CMB polarization
BICEP3 is a 550 mm-aperture refracting telescope for polarimetry of radiation
in the cosmic microwave background at 95 GHz. It adopts the methodology of
BICEP1, BICEP2 and the Keck Array experiments - it possesses sufficient
resolution to search for signatures of the inflation-induced cosmic
gravitational-wave background while utilizing a compact design for ease of
construction and to facilitate the characterization and mitigation of
systematics. However, BICEP3 represents a significant breakthrough in
per-receiver sensitivity, with a focal plane area 5 larger than a
BICEP2/Keck Array receiver and faster optics ( vs. ).
Large-aperture infrared-reflective metal-mesh filters and infrared-absorptive
cold alumina filters and lenses were developed and implemented for its optics.
The camera consists of 1280 dual-polarization pixels; each is a pair of
orthogonal antenna arrays coupled to transition-edge sensor bolometers and read
out by multiplexed SQUIDs. Upon deployment at the South Pole during the 2014-15
season, BICEP3 will have survey speed comparable to Keck Array 150 GHz (2013),
and will significantly enhance spectral separation of primordial B-mode power
from that of possible galactic dust contamination in the BICEP2 observation
patch.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures. Presented at SPIE Astronomical Telescopes and
Instrumentation 2014: Millimeter, Submillimeter, and Far-Infrared Detectors
and Instrumentation for Astronomy VII. To be published in Proceedings of SPIE
Volume 915
Many Roads Lead to Lithium: Formation Pathways For Lithium-Rich Red Giants
Stellar models predict that lithium (Li) inside a star is destroyed during
the first dredge-up phase, yet 1.2% of red giant stars are Li-rich. We aim to
uncover possible origins of this population, by analysing 1155 Li-rich giants
(A(Li) 1.5) in GALAH DR3. To expose peculiar traits of Li-rich stars, we
construct a reference sample of Li-normal (doppelg\"anger) stars with matched
evolutionary state and fiducial supernova abundances. Comparing Li-rich and
doppelg\"anger spectra reveals systematic differences in the H- and
Ca-triplet line profiles associated with the velocity broadening measurement.
We also find twice as many Li-rich stars appear to be fast rotators (2% with
km s) compared to doppelg\"angers. On
average, Li-rich stars have higher abundances than their doppelg\"angers, for a
subset of elements, and Li-rich stars at the base of RGB have higher mean
process abundances ( dex for Ba, Y, Zr), relative to their
doppelg\"angers. External mass-transfer from intermediate-mass AGB companions
could explain this signature. Additional companion analysis excludes binaries
with mass ratios 0.5 at 7 AU. We also discover that highly
Ba-enriched stars are missing from the Li-rich population, possibly due to
low-mass AGB companions which preclude Li-enrichment. Finally, we confirm a
prevalence of Li-rich stars on the red clump that increases with lithium, which
supports an evolutionary state mechanism for Li-enhancement. Multiple culprits,
including binary spin-up and mass-transfer, are therefore likely mechanisms of
Li-enrichment.Comment: 29 pages, 19 figures, 6 tables. Submitted to Ap
YETI observations of the young transiting planet candidate CVSO 30 b
CVSO 30 is a unique young low-mass system, because, for the first time, a
close-in transiting and a wide directly imaged planet candidates are found
around a common host star. The inner companion, CVSO 30 b, is the first
possible young transiting planet orbiting a previously known weak-lined T-Tauri
star. With five telescopes of the 'Young Exoplanet Transit Initiative' (YETI)
located in Asia, Europe and South America we monitored CVSO 30 over three years
in a total of 144 nights and detected 33 fading events. In two more seasons we
carried out follow-up observations with three telescopes. We can confirm that
there is a change in the shape of the fading event between different
observations and that the fading event even disappears and reappears. A total
of 38 fading event light curves were simultaneously modelled. We derived the
planetary, stellar, and geometrical properties of the system and found them
slightly smaller but in agreement with the values from the discovery paper. The
period of the fading event was found to be 1.36 s shorter and 100 times more
precise than the previous published value. If CVSO 30 b would be a giant planet
on a precessing orbit, which we cannot confirm, yet, the precession period may
be shorter than previously thought. But if confirmed as a planet it would be
the youngest transiting planet ever detected and will provide important
constraints on planet formation and migration time-scales.Comment: 14 pages (20 with appendix), 7 figures (16 with appendix), 6 tables
(7 with appendix
The K2-HERMES Survey: Age and Metallicity of the Thick Disc
Asteroseismology is a promising tool to study Galactic structure and
evolution because it can probe the ages of stars. Earlier attempts comparing
seismic data from the {\it Kepler} satellite with predictions from Galaxy
models found that the models predicted more low-mass stars compared to the
observed distribution of masses. It was unclear if the mismatch was due to
inaccuracies in the Galactic models, or the unknown aspects of the selection
function of the stars. Using new data from the K2 mission, which has a
well-defined selection function, we find that an old metal-poor thick disc, as
used in previous Galactic models, is incompatible with the asteroseismic
information. We show that spectroscopic measurements of [Fe/H] and
[/Fe] elemental abundances from the GALAH survey indicate a mean
metallicity of for the thick disc. Here is the
effective solar-scaled metallicity, which is a function of [Fe/H] and
[/Fe]. With the revised disc metallicities, for the first time, the
theoretically predicted distribution of seismic masses show excellent agreement
with the observed distribution of masses. This provides an indirect
verification of the asteroseismic mass scaling relation is good to within five
percent. Using an importance-sampling framework that takes the selection
function into account, we fit a population synthesis model of the Galaxy to the
observed seismic and spectroscopic data. Assuming the asteroseismic scaling
relations are correct, we estimate the mean age of the thick disc to be about
10 Gyr, in agreement with the traditional idea of an old -enhanced
thick disc.Comment: 21 pages, submitted to MNRA
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