5,710 research outputs found
Irregular self-similar configurations of shock-wave impingement on shear layers
An oblique shock impinging on a shear layer that separates two uniform supersonic streams, of Mach numbers M1 and M2, at an incident angle σi can produce regular and irregular interactions with the interface. The region of existence of regular shock refractions with stable flow structures is delineated in the parametric space (M1,M2,σi) considering oblique-shock impingement on a supersonic vortex sheet of infinitesimal thickness. It is found that under supercritical conditions, the oblique shock fails to deflect both streams consistently and to provide balanced flow properties downstream. In this circumstance, the flow renders irregular configurations which, in the absence of characteristic length scales, exhibit self-similar pseudosteady behaviours. These cases involve shocks moving upstream at constant speed and increasing their intensity to comply with equilibrium requirements. Differences in the variation of propagation speed among the flows yield pseudosteady configurations that grow linearly with time. Supercritical conditions are described theoretically and reproduced numerically using highly resolved inviscid simulation
Comparative transcriptomics reveals key differences in the response to milk oligosaccharides of infant gut-associated bifidobacteria.
Breast milk enhances the predominance of Bifidobacterium species in the infant gut, probably due to its large concentration of human milk oligosaccharides (HMO). Here we screened infant-gut isolates of Bifidobacterium longum subsp. infantis and Bifidobacterium bifidum using individual HMO, and compared the global transcriptomes of representative isolates on major HMO by RNA-seq. While B. infantis displayed homogeneous HMO-utilization patterns, B. bifidum were more diverse and some strains did not use fucosyllactose (FL) or sialyllactose (SL). Transcriptomes of B. bifidum SC555 and B. infantis ATCC 15697 showed that utilization of pooled HMO is similar to neutral HMO, while transcriptomes for growth on FL were more similar to lactose than HMO in B. bifidum. Genes linked to HMO-utilization were upregulated by neutral HMO and SL, but not by FL in both species. In contrast, FL induced the expression of alternative gene clusters in B. infantis. Results also suggest that B. bifidum SC555 does not utilize fucose or sialic acid from HMO. Surprisingly, expression of orthologous genes differed between both bifidobacteria even when grown on identical substrates. This study highlights two major strategies found in Bifidobacterium species to process HMO, and presents detailed information on the close relationship between HMO and infant-gut bifidobacteria
Resonant x-ray scattering reveals possible disappearance of magnetic order under hydrostatic pressure in the Kitaev candidate -LiIrO
Honeycomb iridates such as -LiIrO are argued to realize
Kitaev spin-anisotropic magnetic exchange, along with Heisenberg and possibly
other couplings. While systems with pure Kitaev interactions are candidates to
realize a quantum spin liquid ground state, in -LiIrO it has
been shown that the balance of magnetic interactions leads to the
incommensurate spiral spin order at ambient pressure below 38 K. We study the
fragility of this state in single crystals of -LiIrO using
resonant x-ray scattering (RXS) under applied hydrostatic pressures of up to
3.0 GPa. RXS is a direct probe of the underlying electronic order, and we
observe the abrupt disappearance of the =(0.57, 0, 0) spiral order at a
critical pressure GPa with no accompanying change in the symmetry
of the lattice. This dramatic disappearance is in stark contrast with recent
studies of -LiIrO that show continuous suppression of the spiral
order in magnetic field; under pressure, a new and possibly nonmagnetic ground
state emerges
The Role of Stellar Feedback in the Dynamics of HII Regions
Stellar feedback is often cited as the biggest uncertainty in galaxy
formation models today. This uncertainty stems from a dearth of observational
constraints as well as the great dynamic range between the small scales (<1 pc)
where the feedback occurs and the large scales of galaxies (>1 kpc) that are
shaped by this feedback. To bridge this divide, in this paper we aim to assess
observationally the role of stellar feedback at the intermediate scales of HII
regions. In particular, we employ multiwavelength data to examine several
stellar feedback mechanisms in a sample of 32 HII regions in the Large and
Small Magellanic Clouds (LMC and SMC, respectively). Using optical, infrared,
radio, and X-ray images, we measure the pressures exerted on the shells from
the direct stellar radiation, the dust-processed radiation, the warm ionized
gas, and the hot X-ray emitting gas. We find that the warm ionized gas
dominates over the other terms in all of the sources, although two have
comparable dust-processed radiation pressures to their warm gas pressures. The
hot gas pressures are comparatively weak, while the direct radiation pressures
are 1-2 orders of magnitude below the other terms. We discuss the implications
of these results, particularly highlighting evidence for hot gas leakage from
the HII shells and regarding the momentum deposition from the dust-processed
radiation to the warm gas. Furthermore, we emphasize that similar observational
work should be done on very young HII regions to test whether direct radiation
pressure and hot gas can drive the dynamics at early times.Comment: 19 pages, 8 figures; accepted by Ap
Observational - relation for Sct stars using eclipsing binaries and space photometry
Delta Scuti ( Sct) stars are intermediate-mass pulsators, whose
intrinsic oscillations have been studied for decades. However, modelling their
pulsations remains a real theoretical challenge, thereby even hampering the
precise determination of global stellar parameters. In this work, we used space
photometry observations of eclipsing binaries with a Sct component to
obtain reliable physical parameters and oscillation frequencies. Using that
information, we derived an observational scaling relation between the stellar
mean density and a frequency pattern in the oscillation spectrum. This pattern
is analogous to the solar-like large separation but in the low order regime. We
also show that this relation is independent of the rotation rate. These
findings open the possibility of accurately characterizing this type of
pulsator and validate the frequency pattern as a new observable for
Sct stars.Comment: 11 pages, including 2 pages of appendix, 2 figures, 2 tables,
accepted for publication in ApJ
Crossovers in the Two Dimensional Ising Spin Glass with ferromagnetic next-nearest-neighbor interactions
By means of extensive computer simulations we analyze in detail the two
dimensional Ising spin glass with ferromagnetic next-nearest-neighbor
interactions. We found a crossover from ferromagnetic to ``spin glass'' like
order both from numerical simulations and analytical arguments. We also present
evidences of a second crossover from the ``spin glass'' behavior to a
paramagnetic phase for the largest volume studied.Comment: 19 pages with 9 postscript figures also available at
http://chimera.roma1.infn.it/index_papers_complex.html. Some changes in
captions of figures 1 and
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