182 research outputs found
On the Hydrodynamic Interaction of Shock Waves with Interstellar Clouds. II. The Effect of Smooth Cloud Boundaries on Cloud Destruction and Cloud Turbulence
The effect of smooth cloud boundaries on the interaction of steady planar
shock waves with interstellar clouds is studied using a high-resolution local
AMR technique with a second-order accurate axisymmetric Godunov hydrodynamic
scheme. A 3D calculation is also done to confirm the results of the 2D ones. We
consider an initially spherical cloud whose density distribution is flat near
the cloud center and has a power-law profile in the cloud envelope. When an
incident shock is transmitted into a smooth cloud, velocity gradients in the
cloud envelope steepen the smooth density profile at the upstream side,
resulting in a sharp density jump having an arc-like shape. Such a ``slip
surface'' forms immediately when a shock strikes a cloud with a sharp boundary.
For smoother boundaries, the formation of slip surface and therefore the onset
of hydrodynamic instabilities are delayed. Since the slip surface is subject to
the Kelvin-Helmholtz and Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities, the shocked cloud is
eventually destroyed in cloud crushing times. After complete cloud
destruction, small blobs formed by fragmentation due to hydrodynamic
instabilities have significant velocity dispersions of the order of 0.1 ,
where is the shock velocity in the ambient medium. This suggests that
turbulent motions generated by shock-cloud interaction are directly associated
with cloud destruction. The interaction of a shock with a cold HI cloud should
lead to the production of a spray of small HI shreds, which could be related to
the small cold clouds recently observed by Stanimirovic & Heiles (2005). The
linewidth-size relation obtained from our 3D simulation is found to be
time-dependent. A possibility for gravitational instability triggered by shock
compression is also discussed.Comment: 62 pages, 16 figures, submitted to Ap
Chord distribution functions of three-dimensional random media: Approximate first-passage times of Gaussian processes
The main result of this paper is a semi-analytic approximation for the chord
distribution functions of three-dimensional models of microstructure derived
from Gaussian random fields. In the simplest case the chord functions are
equivalent to a standard first-passage time problem, i.e., the probability
density governing the time taken by a Gaussian random process to first exceed a
threshold. We obtain an approximation based on the assumption that successive
chords are independent. The result is a generalization of the independent
interval approximation recently used to determine the exponent of persistence
time decay in coarsening. The approximation is easily extended to more general
models based on the intersection and union sets of models generated from the
iso-surfaces of random fields. The chord distribution functions play an
important role in the characterization of random composite and porous
materials. Our results are compared with experimental data obtained from a
three-dimensional image of a porous Fontainebleau sandstone and a
two-dimensional image of a tungsten-silver composite alloy.Comment: 12 pages, 11 figures. Submitted to Phys. Rev.
Radiative open charm decay of the Y(3940), Z(3930), X(4160) resonances
We determine the radiative decay amplitudes for decay into and , or and of some of the charmonium like
states classified as X,Y,Z resonances, plus some other hidden charm states
which are dynamically generated from the interaction of vector mesons with
charm. The mass distributions as a function of the or
invariant mass show a peculiar behavior as a consequence of
the nature of these states. The experimental search of these
magnitudes can shed light on the nature of these states.Comment: 18 pages, 9 figure
Interface Effects on Attenuation and Phase Velocities in Metal-Matrix Composites
One often determines the effective elastic moduli and damping of a heterogeneous material by using elastic waves (propagating or standing). Several theoretical studies show that for long wavelengths one can calculate the effective wave speeds of plane longitudinal and shear waves through a composite material. At long wavelengths the wave speeds thus calculated are nondispersive and hence provide the values for the static effective elastic properties. References to some of the recent theoretical and experimental studies can be found in [1–12]. The scattering formulations developed in [1–8] provide a means to obtain both the effective wave speeds and the damping caused by scattering
Transcriptome analysis of thermogenic Arum concinnatum reveals the molecular components of floral scent production.
Several plant species can generate enough heat to increase their internal floral temperature above ambient temperature. Among thermogenic plants, Arum concinnatum shows the highest respiration activity during thermogenesis. However, an overall understanding of the genes related to plant thermogenesis has not yet been achieved. In this study, we performed de novo transcriptome analysis of flower organs in A. concinnatum. The de novo transcriptome assembly represented, in total, 158,490 non-redundant transcripts, and 53,315 of those showed significant homology with known genes. To explore genes associated with thermogenesis, we filtered 1266 transcripts that showed a significant correlation between expression pattern and the temperature trend of each sample. We confirmed five putative alternative oxidase transcripts were included in filtered transcripts as expected. An enrichment analysis of the Gene Ontology terms for the filtered transcripts suggested over-representation of genes involved in 1-deoxy-d-xylulose-5-phosphate synthase (DXS) activity. The expression profiles of DXS transcripts in the methyl-d-erythritol 4-phosphate (MEP) pathway were significantly correlated with thermogenic levels. Our results suggest that the MEP pathway is the main biosynthesis route for producing scent monoterpenes. To our knowledge, this is the first report describing the candidate pathway and the key enzyme for floral scent production in thermogenic plants.Yoshihiko Onda, Keiichi Mochida, Takuhiro Yoshida, Tetsuya Sakurai, Roger S. Seymour, Yui Umekawa, Stergios Arg Pirintsos, Kazuo Shinozaki, Kikukatsu It
Measurement of the Bottom-Strange Meson Mixing Phase in the Full CDF Data Set
We report a measurement of the bottom-strange meson mixing phase \beta_s
using the time evolution of B0_s -> J/\psi (->\mu+\mu-) \phi (-> K+ K-) decays
in which the quark-flavor content of the bottom-strange meson is identified at
production. This measurement uses the full data set of proton-antiproton
collisions at sqrt(s)= 1.96 TeV collected by the Collider Detector experiment
at the Fermilab Tevatron, corresponding to 9.6 fb-1 of integrated luminosity.
We report confidence regions in the two-dimensional space of \beta_s and the
B0_s decay-width difference \Delta\Gamma_s, and measure \beta_s in [-\pi/2,
-1.51] U [-0.06, 0.30] U [1.26, \pi/2] at the 68% confidence level, in
agreement with the standard model expectation. Assuming the standard model
value of \beta_s, we also determine \Delta\Gamma_s = 0.068 +- 0.026 (stat) +-
0.009 (syst) ps-1 and the mean B0_s lifetime, \tau_s = 1.528 +- 0.019 (stat) +-
0.009 (syst) ps, which are consistent and competitive with determinations by
other experiments.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, Phys. Rev. Lett 109, 171802 (2012
Structural Basis and Catalytic Mechanism for the Dual Functional Endo-β-N-Acetylglucosaminidase A
Endo-β-N-acetylglucosaminidases (ENGases) are dual specificity enzymes with an ability to catalyze hydrolysis and transglycosylation reactions. Recently, these enzymes have become the focus of intense research because of their potential for synthesis of glycopeptides. We have determined the 3D structures of an ENGase from Arthrobacter protophormiae (Endo-A) in 3 forms, one in native form, one in complex with Man3GlcNAc-thiazoline and another in complex with GlcNAc-Asn. The carbohydrate moiety sits above the TIM-barrel in a cleft region surrounded by aromatic residues. The conserved essential catalytic residues – E173, N171 and Y205 are within hydrogen bonding distance of the substrate. W216 and W244 regulate access to the active site during transglycosylation by serving as “gate-keepers”. Interestingly, Y299F mutation resulted in a 3 fold increase in the transglycosylation activity. The structure provides insights into the catalytic mechanism of GH85 family of glycoside hydrolases at molecular level and could assist rational engineering of ENGases
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