421 research outputs found
Flight Investigation of Factors Affecting Pilots' Ability to Utilize a Radarscope Display of Steering Information
An experimental approach for investigating many-body phenomena in Rydberg-interacting quantum systems
Recent developments in the study of ultracold Rydberg gases demand an
advanced level of experimental sophistication, in which high atomic and optical
densities must be combined with excellent control of external fields and
sensitive Rydberg atom detection. We describe a tailored experimental system
used to produce and study Rydberg-interacting atoms excited from dense
ultracold atomic gases. The experiment has been optimized for fast duty cycles
using a high flux cold atom source and a three beam optical dipole trap. The
latter enables tuning of the atomic density and temperature over several orders
of magnitude, all the way to the Bose-Einstein condensation transition. An
electrode structure surrounding the atoms allows for precise control over
electric fields and single-particle sensitive field ionization detection of
Rydberg atoms. We review two experiments which highlight the influence of
strong Rydberg--Rydberg interactions on different many-body systems. First, the
Rydberg blockade effect is used to pre-structure an atomic gas prior to its
spontaneous evolution into an ultracold plasma. Second, hybrid states of
photons and atoms called dark-state polaritons are studied. By looking at the
statistical distribution of Rydberg excited atoms we reveal correlations
between dark-state polaritons. These experiments will ultimately provide a
deeper understanding of many-body phenomena in strongly-interacting regimes,
including the study of strongly-coupled plasmas and interfaces between atoms
and light at the quantum level.Comment: 14 pages, 11 figures; submitted to a special issue of 'Frontiers of
Physics' dedicated to 'Quantum Foundation and Technology: Frontiers and
Future
Stereoselective synthesis of γ-hydroxynorvaline through combination of organo- and biocatalysis
An efficient route for the synthesis of all four diastereomers of PMP-protected α-amino-γ-butyrolacton to access γ-hydroxynorvaline was established. The asymmetric key steps comprise an organocatalytic Mannich reaction and an enzymatic ketone reduction. Three reaction steps could be integrated in a one-pot process, using 2-PrOH both as solvent and as reducing agent. The sequential construction of stereogenic centres gave access to each of the four stereoisomers in high yield and with excellent stereocontrol
Variants of Rab GTPase–Effector Binding Protein-2 Cause Variation in the Collateral Circulation and Severity of Stroke
The extent (number and diameter) of collateral vessels varies widely and is a major determinant, along with arteriogenesis (collateral remodeling), of variation in severity of tissue injury following large artery occlusion. Differences in genetic background underlie the majority of the variation in collateral extent in mice, through alterations in collaterogenesis (embryonic collateral formation). In brain and other tissues, ~80% of the variation in collateral extent among different mouse strains has been linked to a region on chromosome 7. We recently used congenic (CNG) fine-mapping of C57BL/6 (B6, high extent) and BALB/cBy (BC, low extent) mice to narrow the region to a 737 Kb locus, Dce1. Herein, we report the causal gene
The age-redshift relation for Luminous Red Galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
We present a detailed analysis of 17,852 quiescent, Luminous Red Galaxies
(LRGs) selected from Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release Seven (DR7)
spanning a redshift range of 0.0 < z < 0.4. These galaxies are co-added into
four equal bins of velocity dispersion and luminosity to produce high
signal-to-noise spectra (>100A^{-1}), thus facilitating accurate measurements
of the standard Lick absorption-line indices. In particular, we have carefully
corrected and calibrated these indices onto the commonly used Lick/IDS system,
thus allowing us to compare these data with other measurements in the
literature, and derive realistic ages, metallicities ([Z/H]) and alpha-element
abundance ratios ([alpha/Fe]) for these galaxies using Simple Stellar
Population (SSP) models. We use these data to study the relationship of these
galaxy parameters with redshift, and find little evidence for evolution in
metallicity or alpha-elements (especially for our intermediate mass samples).
This demonstrates that our subsamples are consistent with pure passive evolving
(i.e. no chemical evolution) and represent a homogeneous population over this
redshift range. We also present the age-redshift relation for these LRGs and
clearly see a decrease in their age with redshift (5 Gyrs over the redshift
range studied here) which is fully consistent with the cosmological lookback
times in a concordance Lambda CDM universe. We also see that our most massive
sample of LRGs is the youngest compared to the lower mass galaxies. We provide
these data now to help future cosmological and galaxy evolution studies of
LRGs, and provide in the appendices of this paper the required methodology and
information to calibrate SDSS spectra onto the Lick/IDS system.Comment: 26 pages, with several appendices containing data. Accepted for
publication in MNRA
Evidence for a correlation between the sizes of quiescent galaxies and local environment to z ~ 2
We present evidence for a strong relationship between galaxy size and
environment for the quiescent population in the redshift range 1 < z < 2.
Environments were measured using projected galaxy overdensities on a scale of
400 kpc, as determined from ~ 96,000 K-band selected galaxies from the UKIDSS
Ultra Deep Survey (UDS). Sizes were determined from ground-based K-band
imaging, calibrated using space-based CANDELS HST observations in the centre of
the UDS field, with photometric redshifts and stellar masses derived from
11-band photometric fitting. From the resulting size-mass relation, we confirm
that quiescent galaxies at a given stellar mass were typically ~ 50 % smaller
at z ~ 1.4 compared to the present day. At a given epoch, however, we find that
passive galaxies in denser environments are on average significantly larger at
a given stellar mass. The most massive quiescent galaxies (M_stellar > 2 x
10^11 M_sun) at z > 1 are typically 50 % larger in the highest density
environments compared to those in the lowest density environments. Using Monte
Carlo simulations, we reject the null hypothesis that the size-mass relation is
independent of environment at a significance > 4.8 sigma for the redshift range
1 < z < 2. In contrast, the evidence for a relationship between size and
environment is much weaker for star-forming galaxies.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS. 16 pages, 11 figures, 6 table
Galaxy Zoo: Are Bars Responsible for the Feeding of Active Galactic Nuclei at 0.2 < z < 1.0?
We present a new study investigating whether active galactic nuclei (AGN)
beyond the local universe are preferentially fed via large-scale bars. Our
investigation combines data from Chandra and Galaxy Zoo: Hubble (GZH) in the
AEGIS, COSMOS, and GOODS-S surveys to create samples of face-on, disc galaxies
at 0.2 < z < 1.0. We use a novel method to robustly compare a sample of 120 AGN
host galaxies, defined to have 10^42 erg/s < L_X < 10^44 erg/s, with inactive
control galaxies matched in stellar mass, rest-frame colour, size, Sersic
index, and redshift. Using the GZH bar classifications of each sample, we
demonstrate that AGN hosts show no statistically significant enhancement in bar
fraction or average bar likelihood compared to closely-matched inactive
galaxies. In detail, we find that the AGN bar fraction cannot be enhanced above
the control bar fraction by more than a factor of two, at 99.7% confidence. We
similarly find no significant difference in the AGN fraction among barred and
non-barred galaxies. Thus we find no compelling evidence that large-scale bars
directly fuel AGN at 0.2<z<1.0. This result, coupled with previous results at
z=0, implies that moderate-luminosity AGN have not been preferentially fed by
large-scale bars since z=1. Furthermore, given the low bar fractions at z>1,
our findings suggest that large-scale bars have likely never directly been a
dominant fueling mechanism for supermassive black hole growth.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures, 2 tables, accepted by MNRA
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CANDELS Observations Of The Structural Properties Of Cluster Galaxies At Z=1.62
We discuss the structural and morphological properties of galaxies in a z = 1.62 proto-cluster using near-IR imaging data from Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Camera 3 data of the Cosmic Assembly Near-IR Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey (CANDELS). The cluster galaxies exhibit a clear color-morphology relation: galaxies with colors of quiescent stellar populations generally have morphologies consistent with spheroids, and galaxies with colors consistent with ongoing star formation have disk-like and irregular morphologies. The size distribution of the quiescent cluster galaxies shows a deficit of compact (less than or similar to 1 kpc), massive galaxies compared to CANDELS field galaxies at z = 1.6. As a result, the cluster quiescent galaxies have larger average effective sizes compared to field galaxies at fixed mass at greater than 90% significance. Combined with data from the literature, the size evolution of quiescent cluster galaxies is relatively slow from z similar or equal to 1.6 to the present, growing as (1 + z)(-0.6 +/- 0.1). If this result is generalizable, then it implies that physical processes associated with the denser cluster region seem to have caused accelerated size growth in quiescent galaxies prior to z = 1.6 and slower subsequent growth at z < 1.6 compared to galaxies in the lower density field. The quiescent cluster galaxies at z = 1.6 have higher ellipticities compared to lower redshift samples at fixed mass, and their surface-brightness profiles suggest that they contain extended stellar disks. We argue that the cluster galaxies require dissipationless (i.e., gas-poor or "dry") mergers to reorganize the disk material and to match the relations for ellipticity, stellar mass, size, and color of early-type galaxies in z < 1 clusters.NASA NAS5-26555HST GO-12060NASA through from the Space Telescope Science Institute GO-12060European Research CouncilRoyal SocietyTexas AM UniversityGeorge P. and Cynthia Woods Institute for Fundamental Physics and AstronomyAstronom
Estimation of peptide concentration by a modified bicinchoninic acid assay
Although biuret based protein assays are theoretically applicable to peptide measurement, there is a high level of inter-peptide variation, determined largely by peptide hydrophobicity. This variation in peptide reactivity can be significantly reduced by heat-denaturation of peptides at 95 °C for 5 minutes in the presence of 0.1 M NaOH containing 1% (w/v) SDS, prior to incubation for 30 min at 37 °C in BCA standard working reagent. This modification to the standard bicinchoninic acid (BCA) assay protocol allows for an accurate, rapid and economical estimation of the peptide concentration within an unknown sample
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