The Radio Recovery of SN 1970G: The Continuing Radio Evolution of SN 1970G

Using the Very Large Array, we have detected radio emission from the site of SN 1970G in the Sc galaxy M101. These observations are 31 years after the supernova event, making SN 1970G the longest monitored radio supernova. With flux densities of 0.12 +/- 0.020 mJy at 6 cm and 0.16 +/- 0.015 mJy at 20 cm, the spectral index of -0.24 +/- 0.20 appears to have flattened somewhat when compared with the previously reported value of -0.56 +/- 0.11, taken in 1990. The radio emission at 20 cm has decayed since the 1990 observations with a power-law index of beta_20cm = -0.28 +/- 0.13. We discuss the radio properties of this source and compare them to those of other Type II radio supernovae.Comment: 11 pages, 1 table and 2 figures; To appear in Astrophysical Journal Letter

Fission Cycling in a Supernova r-process

Recent halo star abundance observations exhibit an important feature of consequence to the r-process: the presence of a main r-process between the second and third peaks which is consistent among halo stars. We explore fission cycling and steady-beta flow as the driving mechanisms behind this feature. The presence of fission cycling during the r-process can account for nucleosynthesis yields between the second and third peaks, whereas the presence of steady-beta flow can account for consistent r-process patterns, robust under small variations in astrophysical conditions. We employ the neutrino-driven wind of the core-collapse supernova to examine fission cycling and steady-beta flow in the r-process. As the traditional neutrino-driven wind model does not produce the required very neutron-rich conditions for these mechanisms, we examine changes to the neutrino physics necessary for fission cycling to occur in the neutrino-driven wind environment, and we explore under what conditions steady-beta flow is obtained.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figure

Path integral evaluation of equilibrium isotope effects

A general and rigorous methodology to compute the quantum equilibrium isotope effect is described. Unlike standard approaches, ours does not assume separability of rotational and vibrational motions and does not make the harmonic approximation for vibrations or rigid rotor approximation for the rotations. In particular, zero point energy and anharmonicity effects are described correctly quantum mechanically. The approach is based on the thermodynamic integration with respect to the mass of isotopes and on the Feynman path integral representation of the partition function. An efficient estimator for the derivative of free energy is used whose statistical error is independent of the number of imaginary time slices in the path integral, speeding up calculations by a factor of 60 at 500 K. We describe the implementation of the methodology in the molecular dynamics package Amber 10. The method is tested on three [1,5] sigmatropic hydrogen shift reactions. Because of the computational expense, we use ab initio potentials to evaluate the equilibrium isotope effects within the harmonic approximation, and then the path integral method together with semiempirical potentials to evaluate the anharmonicity corrections. Our calculations show that the anharmonicity effects amount up to 30% of the symmetry reduced reaction free energy. The numerical results are compared with recent experiments of Doering and coworkers, confirming the accuracy of the most recent measurement on 2,4,6,7,9-pentamethyl-5-(5,5-$^2$H$_2$)methylene-11,11a-dihydro-12H-naphthacene as well as concerns about compromised accuracy, due to side reactions, of another measurement on 2-methyl-10-(10,10-$^2$H$_2$)methylenebicyclo[4.4.0]dec-1-ene.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figures, 6 table

A Study of Compact Radio Sources in Nearby Face-on Spiral Galaxies. II. Multiwavelength Analyses of Sources in M51

We report the analysis of deep radio observations of the interacting galaxy system M51 from the Very Large Array, with the goal of understanding the nature of the population of compact radio sources in nearby spiral galaxies. We detect 107 compact radio sources, 64% of which have optical counterparts in a deep H$\alpha$ Hubble Space Telescope image. Thirteen of the radio sources have X-ray counterparts from a {\em Chandra} observation of M51. We find that six of the associated H$\alpha$ sources are young supernova remnants with resolved shells. Most of the SNRs exhibit steep radio continuum spectral indices onsistent with synchrotron emission. We detect emission from the Type Ic SN 1994I nearly a decade after explosion: the emission ($160\pm22 \mu$Jy beam$^{-1}$ at 20 cm, $46\pm11 \mu$Jy beam$^{-1}$ at 6cm, $\alpha=-1.02\pm0.28$) is consistent with light curve models for Type Ib/Ic supernovae. We detect X-ray emission from the supernova, however no optical counterpart is present. We report on the analysis of the Seyfert 2 nucleus in this galaxy, including the evidence for bipolar outflows from the central black hole.Comment: 22 pages, 8 figures (5 color) in separate files, AASTeX. Full resolution figures and preprint may be obtained by contacting [email protected]. AJ accepte

Recombination in polymer-fullerene bulk heterojunction solar cells

Recombination of photogenerated charge carriers in polymer bulk heterojunction (BHJ) solar cells reduces the short circuit current (Jsc) and the fill factor (FF). Identifying the mechanism of recombination is, therefore, fundamentally important for increasing the power conversion efficiency. Light intensity and temperature dependent current-voltage measurements on polymer BHJ cells made from a variety of different semiconducting polymers and fullerenes show that the recombination kinetics are voltage dependent and evolve from first order recombination at short circuit to bimolecular recombination at open circuit as a result of increasing the voltage-dependent charge carrier density in the cell. The "missing 0.3V" inferred from comparison of the band gaps of the bulk heterojunction materials and the measured open circuit voltage at room temperature results from the temperature dependence of the quasi-Fermi-levels in the polymer and fullerene domains - a conclusion based upon the fundamental statistics of Fermions.Comment: Accepted for publication in Physical Review B. http://prb.aps.org/accepted/B/6b07cO3aHe71bd1b149e1425e58bf2868cda2384d?ajax=1&height=500&width=50

Composite Fermions and quantum Hall systems: Role of the Coulomb pseudopotential

The mean field composite Fermion (CF) picture successfully predicts angular momenta of multiplets forming the lowest energy band in fractional quantum Hall (FQH) systems. This success cannot be attributed to a cancellation between Coulomb and Chern-Simons interactions beyond the mean field, because these interactions have totally different energy scales. Rather, it results from the behavior of the Coulomb pseudopotential V(L) (pair energy as a function of pair angular momentum) in the lowest Landau level (LL). The class of short range repulsive pseudopotentials is defined that lead to short range Laughlin like correlations in many body systems and to which the CF model can be applied. These Laughlin correlations are described quantitatively using the formalism of fractional parentage. The discussion is illustrated with an analysis of the energy spectra obtained in numerical diagonalization of up to eleven electrons in the lowest and excited LL's. The qualitative difference in the behavior of V(L) is shown to sometimes invalidate the mean field CF picture when applied to higher LL's. For example, the nu=7/3 state is not a Laughlin nu=1/3 state in the first excited LL. The analysis of the involved pseudopotentials also explains the success or failure of the CF picture when applied to other systems of charged Fermions with Coulomb repulsion, such as the Laughlin quasiparticles in the FQH hierarchy or charged excitons in an electron-hole plasma.Comment: 27 pages, 23 figures, revised version (significant changes in text and figures), submitted to Phil. Mag.

Theoretical study of resonant x-ray emission spectroscopy of Mn films on Ag

We report a theoretical study on resonant x-ray emission spectra (RXES) in the whole energy region of the Mn $L_{2,3}$ white lines for three prototypical Mn/Ag(001) systems: (i) a Mn impurity in Ag, (ii) an adsorbed Mn monolayer on Ag, and (iii) a thick Mn film. The calculated RXES spectra depend strongly on the excitation energy. At $L_3$ excitation, the spectra of all three systems are dominated by the elastic peak. For excitation energies around $L_2$, and between $L_3$ and $L_2$, however, most of the spectral weight comes from inelastic x-ray scattering. The line shape of these inelastic ``satellite'' structures changes considerably between the three considered Mn/Ag systems, a fact that may be attributed to changes in the bonding nature of the Mn-$d$ orbitals. The system-dependence of the RXES spectrum is thus found to be much stronger than that of the corresponding absorption spectrum. Our results suggest that RXES in the Mn $L_{2,3}$ region may be used as a sensitive probe of the local environment of Mn atoms.Comment: 9 pages, 11 figure

Ph.D. research output in STEM: the role of gender and race in supervision

We study whether student-advisor gender and race couples matter for publication productivity of Ph.D. students in South Africa. We consider the sample of all Ph.D.s in STEM graduating between 2000 and 2014, after the recent systematic introduction of doctoral programs in this country. We investigate the joint effects of gender and race for the whole sample and looking separately at the sub-samples of (1) whitewhite; (2) black-black; and (3) black-white student-advisor couples. We find early career productivity differences: while female students publish on average 10% to 20% fewer articles than males, this is true mainly for female students working with a male advisor, not for those working with a female one. These disparities are similar, though more pronounced, when looking at the joint effects of gender and race for the white-white and black-black student-advisor pairs. We also explore whether publication productivity differences change significantly for students with a high, medium, or low “productivity-profile”, and find that they are U-shaped. Female students with a high (or low) “productivity-profile” studying with female advisors are as productive than male students with a high (or low) “productivity-profile” studying with male advisor

It’s the way he tells them (and who is listening):men’s dominance is positively correlated with their preference for jokes told by dominant-sounding men

While much research has explored humorous exchange in relation to mate choice, recent perspectives have emphasized the importance of humor for monitoring interest within social partnerships more generally. Indeed, given that similarity is thought to be important in the maintenance of social partnerships, we may expect humor appreciation to vary according to the degree of similarity between humor producers and recipients. In the current study we report evidence for such variation that is specific to men’s judgments of other men’s humor. Here we manipulated voice pitch in a set of ‘one-liner’ jokes to create low-pitched and high-pitched versions of men and women telling jokes. A composite measure of men’s own dominance was positively correlated with their preference for jokes told by other men with lowered voice pitch (a vocal cue to dominance). A follow-up study demonstrated that self-reported dominance was positively related to men’s choice of low-pitch men as friends when judging humorous audio clips but not when judging neutral control audio clips, suggesting that humor may be important in mediating the effect of dominance on friendship choice. These studies indicate systematic variation in humor appreciation related to friendship choices which may function to promote cohesion within male partnerships based on status

Supernovae versus Neutron Star Mergers as the Major r-Process Sources

I show that recent observations of r-process abundances in metal-poor stars are difficult to explain if neutron star mergers (NSMs) are the major r-process sources. In contrast, such observations and meteoritic data on Hf182 and I129 in the early solar system support a self-consistent picture of r-process enrichment by supernovae (SNe). While further theoretical studies of r-process production and enrichment are needed for both SNe and NSMs, I emphasize two possible direct observational tests of the SN r-process model: gamma rays from decay of r-process nuclei in SN remnants and surface contamination of the companion by SN r-process ejecta in binaries.Comment: 5 pages, to appear in ApJ