Vorticity Budget of Weak Thermal Convection in Keplerian disks

By employing the equations of mean-square vorticity (enstrophy) fluctuations in strong shear flows, we demonstrate that unlike energy production of turbulent vorticity in nonrotating shear flows, the turbulent vorticity of weak convection in Keplerian disks cannot gain energy from vortex stretching/tilting by background shear unless the asscoiated Reynolds stresses are negative. This is because the epicyclic motion is an energy sink of the radial component of mean-square turbulent vorticity in Keplerian disks when Reynolds stresses are positive. Consequently, weak convection cannot be self-sustained in Keplerian flows. This agrees with the results implied from the equations of mean-square velocity fluctuations in strong shear flows. Our analysis also sheds light on the explanation of the simulation result in which positive kinetic helicity is produced by the Balbus-Hawley instability in a vertically stratified Keplerian disk. We also comment on the possibility of outward angular momentum transport by strong convection based on azimuthal pressure perturbations and directions of energy cascade.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure, emulateapj.sty, revised version in response to referee's comments, accepted by Ap

Turbulent viscosity by convection in accretion discs - a self-consistent approach

The source of viscosity in astrophysical accretion flows is still a hotly debated issue. We investigate the contribution of convective turbulence to the total viscosity in a self-consistent approach, where the strength of convection is determined from the vertical disc structure itself. Additional sources of viscosity are parametrized by a beta-viscosity prescription, which also allows an investigation of self-gravitating effects. In the context of accretion discs around stellar mass and intermediate mass black holes, we conclude that convection alone cannot account for the total viscosity in the disc, but significantly adds to it. For accretion rates up to 10% of the Eddington rate, we find that differential rotation provides a sufficiently large underlying viscosity. For higher accretion rates, further support is needed in the inner disc region, which can be provided by an MRI-induced viscosity. We briefly discuss the interplay of MRI, convection and differential rotation. We conduct a detailed parameter study of the effects of central masses and accretion rates on the disc models and find that the threshold value of the supporting viscosity is determined mostly by the Eddington ratio with only little influence from the central black hole mass.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figure

Mutations in FRMD7, a newly identified member of the FERM family, cause X-linked idiopathic congenital nystagmus

Idiopathic congenital nystagmus (ICN) is characterised by involuntary, periodic, predominantly horizontal, oscillations of both eyes. We identified 22 mutations in FRMD7 in 26 families with X-linked idiopathic congenital nystagmus. Screening of 42 ICN singleton cases (28 male, 14 females) yielded three mutations (7%). We found restricted expression of FRMD7 in human embryonic brain and developing neural retina suggesting a specific role in the control of eye movement and gaze stability

The Long-Baseline Neutrino Experiment: Exploring Fundamental Symmetries of the Universe

The preponderance of matter over antimatter in the early Universe, the dynamics of the supernova bursts that produced the heavy elements necessary for life and whether protons eventually decay --- these mysteries at the forefront of particle physics and astrophysics are key to understanding the early evolution of our Universe, its current state and its eventual fate. The Long-Baseline Neutrino Experiment (LBNE) represents an extensively developed plan for a world-class experiment dedicated to addressing these questions. LBNE is conceived around three central components: (1) a new, high-intensity neutrino source generated from a megawatt-class proton accelerator at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, (2) a near neutrino detector just downstream of the source, and (3) a massive liquid argon time-projection chamber deployed as a far detector deep underground at the Sanford Underground Research Facility. This facility, located at the site of the former Homestake Mine in Lead, South Dakota, is approximately 1,300 km from the neutrino source at Fermilab -- a distance (baseline) that delivers optimal sensitivity to neutrino charge-parity symmetry violation and mass ordering effects. This ambitious yet cost-effective design incorporates scalability and flexibility and can accommodate a variety of upgrades and contributions. With its exceptional combination of experimental configuration, technical capabilities, and potential for transformative discoveries, LBNE promises to be a vital facility for the field of particle physics worldwide, providing physicists from around the globe with opportunities to collaborate in a twenty to thirty year program of exciting science. In this document we provide a comprehensive overview of LBNE's scientific objectives, its place in the landscape of neutrino physics worldwide, the technologies it will incorporate and the capabilities it will possess.Comment: Major update of previous version. This is the reference document for LBNE science program and current status. Chapters 1, 3, and 9 provide a comprehensive overview of LBNE's scientific objectives, its place in the landscape of neutrino physics worldwide, the technologies it will incorporate and the capabilities it will possess. 288 pages, 116 figure

The need for illness

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/45466/1/11089_2005_Article_BF01845887.pd

TOI-4010: A System of Three Large Short-Period Planets With a Massive Long-Period Companion

We report the confirmation of three exoplanets transiting TOI-4010 (TIC-352682207), a metal-rich K dwarf observed by TESS in Sectors 24, 25, 52, and 58. We confirm these planets with HARPS-N radial velocity observations and measure their masses with 8 - 12% precision. TOI-4010 b is a sub-Neptune ($P = 1.3$ days, $R_{p} = 3.02_{-0.08}^{+0.08}~R_{\oplus}$, $M_{p} = 11.00_{-1.27}^{+1.29}~M_{\oplus}$) in the hot Neptune desert, and is one of the few such planets with known companions. Meanwhile, TOI-4010 c ($P = 5.4$ days, $R_{p} = 5.93_{-0.12}^{+0.11}~R_{\oplus}$, $M_{p} = 20.31_{-2.11}^{+2.13}~M_{\oplus}$) and TOI-4010 d ($P = 14.7$ days, $R_{p} = 6.18_{-0.14}^{+0.15}~R_{\oplus}$, $M_{p} = 38.15_{-3.22}^{+3.27}~M_{\oplus}$) are similarly-sized sub-Saturns on short-period orbits. Radial velocity observations also reveal a super-Jupiter-mass companion called TOI-4010 e in a long-period, eccentric orbit ($P \sim 762$ days and $e \sim 0.26$ based on available observations). TOI-4010 is one of the few systems with multiple short-period sub-Saturns to be discovered so far.Comment: 26 pages, 16 figures, published in A

Identification of the top TESS objects of interest for atmospheric characterization of transiting exoplanets with JWST

Funding: Funding for the TESS mission is provided by NASA's Science Mission Directorate. This work makes use of observations from the LCOGT network. Part of the LCOGT telescope time was granted by NOIRLab through the Mid-Scale Innovations Program (MSIP). MSIP is funded by NSF. This paper is based on observations made with the MuSCAT3 instrument, developed by the Astrobiology Center and under financial support by JSPS KAKENHI (grant No. JP18H05439) and JST PRESTO (grant No. JPMJPR1775), at Faulkes Telescope North on Maui, HI, operated by the Las Cumbres Observatory. This paper makes use of data from the MEarth Project, which is a collaboration between Harvard University and the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. The MEarth Project acknowledges funding from the David and Lucile Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering, the National Science Foundation under grant Nos. AST-0807690, AST-1109468, AST-1616624 and AST-1004488 (Alan T. Waterman Award), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration under grant No. 80NSSC18K0476 issued through the XRP Program, and the John Templeton Foundation. C.M. would like to gratefully acknowledge the entire Dragonfly Telephoto Array team, and Bob Abraham in particular, for allowing their telescope bright time to be put to use observing exoplanets. B.J.H. acknowledges support from the Future Investigators in NASA Earth and Space Science and Technology (FINESST) program (grant No. 80NSSC20K1551) and support by NASA under grant No. 80GSFC21M0002. K.A.C. and C.N.W. acknowledge support from the TESS mission via subaward s3449 from MIT. D.R.C. and C.A.C. acknowledge support from NASA through the XRP grant No. 18-2XRP18_2-0007. C.A.C. acknowledges that this research was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (80NM0018D0004). S.Z. and A.B. acknowledge support from the Israel Ministry of Science and Technology (grant No. 3-18143). The research leading to these results has received funding from the ARC grant for Concerted Research Actions, financed by the Wallonia-Brussels Federation. TRAPPIST is funded by the Belgian Fund for Scientific Research (Fond National de la Recherche Scientifique, FNRS) under the grant No. PDR T.0120.21. The postdoctoral fellowship of K.B. is funded by F.R.S.-FNRS grant No. T.0109.20 and by the Francqui Foundation. H.P.O.'s contribution has been carried out within the framework of the NCCR PlanetS supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation under grant Nos. 51NF40_182901 and 51NF40_205606. F.J.P. acknowledges financial support from the grant No. CEX2021-001131-S funded by MCIN/AEI/ 10.13039/501100011033. A.J. acknowledges support from ANID—Millennium Science Initiative—ICN12_009 and from FONDECYT project 1210718. Z.L.D. acknowledges the MIT Presidential Fellowship and that this material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship under grant No. 1745302. P.R. acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation grant No. 1952545. This work is partly supported by JSPS KAKENHI grant Nos. JP17H04574, JP18H05439, JP21K20376; JST CREST grant No. JPMJCR1761; and Astrobiology Center SATELLITE Research project AB022006. This publication benefits from the support of the French Community of Belgium in the context of the FRIA Doctoral Grant awarded to M.T. D.D. acknowledges support from TESS Guest Investigator Program grant Nos. 80NSSC22K1353, 80NSSC22K0185, and 80NSSC23K0769. A.B. acknowledges the support of M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University Program of Development. T.D. was supported in part by the McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences. V.K. acknowledges support from the youth scientific laboratory project, topic FEUZ-2020-0038.JWST has ushered in an era of unprecedented ability to characterize exoplanetary atmospheres. While there are over 5000 confirmed planets, more than 4000 Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) planet candidates are still unconfirmed and many of the best planets for atmospheric characterization may remain to be identified. We present a sample of TESS planets and planet candidates that we identify as “best-in-class” for transmission and emission spectroscopy with JWST. These targets are sorted into bins across equilibrium temperature Teq and planetary radius Rp and are ranked by a transmission and an emission spectroscopy metric (TSM and ESM, respectively) within each bin. We perform cuts for expected signal size and stellar brightness to remove suboptimal targets for JWST. Of the 194 targets in the resulting sample, 103 are unconfirmed TESS planet candidates, also known as TESS Objects of Interest (TOIs). We perform vetting and statistical validation analyses on these 103 targets to determine which are likely planets and which are likely false positives, incorporating ground-based follow-up from the TESS Follow-up Observation Program to aid the vetting and validation process. We statistically validate 18 TOIs, marginally validate 31 TOIs to varying levels of confidence, deem 29 TOIs likely false positives, and leave the dispositions for four TOIs as inconclusive. Twenty-one of the 103 TOIs were confirmed independently over the course of our analysis. We intend for this work to serve as a community resource and motivate formal confirmation and mass measurements of each validated planet. We encourage more detailed analysis of individual targets by the community.Peer reviewe

Schwertmannitic coatings on subsoil macropores of coastal acid sulfate soil landscapes in eastern Australia and implications for groundwater geochemistry

Schwertmannite (Fe8(OH)5.5(SO4)1.25) has recently been found to be the dominant mineral of iron precipitate accumulations from surface environments surrounding waterways (e.g. the sides of drains, and soil surface horizons) in acid sulfate soil landscapes in eastern Australia (Sullivan and Bush, 2004). In this study the yellowish-brown, orange-brown, and reddish-brown coatings on macropores (such as channels and planar pores) in 21 subsoil layers all located within acid sulfate soil ‘hotspots\u27 in eastern Australia, were isolated and examined by both XRD and SEM-EDS to determine if schwertmannite was present. This examination determined that schwertmannite was detected in these coatings in 14 of these 21 subsoil layers. The finding that schwertmannite is common in the acid sulfate subsoils within acid sulfate soil hotspots has implications for the behavior of these soil materials and in particular the properties of groundwater in these soil layers. Surficial accumulations of schwertmannite in similar acid sulfate soil landscapes have been shown to exert a strong influence on the geochemistry of surface waters (Sullivan and Bush 2004). Research presented here indicates that the presence of macropore coatings of schwertmannite in the acid sulfate subsoil layers within these landscapes can similarly exert a strong influence on the geochemistry of groundwaters. Interestingly, the World Reference Base (1998) has included the presence of “yellowish-brown schwertmannite mottles” as a defining feature of sulfuric subsoil horizons. However, the results here indicate that schwertmannite can exhibit a wide range of colors from yellowish-browns through to reddish-browns when located as coatings in the subsoils of such acid sulfate soil landscapes. Schwertmannite exhibited a similar a wide range of colors in the surficial schwertmannite accumulations in these landscapes (Sullivan and Bush 2004). These results further emphasize the conclusions of Scheinost and Schwertmann (1999) that color is not suitable property to identify schwertmannite due to 1) schwertmanite\u27s high color variability and 2) schwertmanite\u27s similar average colors to those other iron precipitate minerals

Accumulation of schwertmannite impact on water quality in acid sulfate soil landscapes

Schwertmannite [Fe8O8(OH)6SO4] has recently been found to be the dominant mineral of iron precipitate accumulations from surface environments surrounding waterways (e.g. the sides of drains and in litter layers) in acid sulfate soil landscapes in eastern Australia. In this study the yellowish-brown, orange-brown, and reddishbrown coatings on macropores (such as channels and planar pores) in 21 soil layers from 10 sites all located within severely-acidified acid sulfate soil landscapes in eastern Australia, were isolated and examined by both differential XRD and SEM-EDS to determine if schwertmannite was present. Schwertmannite was detected in these coatings in 14 of these 21 soil layers. The finding that schwertmannite is common in the acid sulfate soil materials within severely-acidified acid sulfate soil landscapes has implications for the behaviour of these soil materials and in particular how these soil materials affect water quality in these landscapes. The results presented here indicates that the accumulation of schwertmannite as, for example macropore coatings, may exert a strong influence on the geochemistry of waters within severely-acidified acid sulfate soil landscapes. The results of this study indicate that a better understanding of the role of iron precipitate minerals (such as schwertmannite) in regulating the quality of surficial waters leaving acid soil landscapes will provide a much better understanding of processes governing fluxes of acidity etc. in these landscapes, and provide better tools for both risk assessment and management