1,566 research outputs found
Multi-wavelength properties of the high-energy bright Seyfert 1 galaxy IGR J18027-1455
A new sample of hard X-ray sources in the Galactic Plane is being revealed by
the regular observations performed by the INTEGRAL satellite. The full
characterization of these sources is mandatory to understand the hard X-ray
sky. Here we report new multifrequency radio, infrared and optical observations
of the source IGR J18027-1455, as well as a multi-wavelength study from radio
to hard X-rays. The radio counterpart of IGR J18027-1455 is not resolved at any
observing frequency. The radio flux density is well fitted by a simple power
law with a spectral index alpha=-0.75+/-0.02. This value is typical of
optically thin non-thermal synchrotron emission originated in a jet. The NIR
and optical spectra show redshifted emission lines with z=0.034, and a broad
Halpha line profile with FWHM ~3400 km/s. This suggests an Active Galactic
Nucleus (AGN) of type 1 as the optical counterpart of IGR J18027-1455. We
confirm the Seyfert 1 nature of the source, which is intrinsically bright at
high energies both in absolute terms and when scaled to a normalized 6 cm
luminosity. Finally, comparing its X-ray luminosity with isotropic indicators,
we find that the source is Compton thin and AGN dominated. This indicates that
INTEGRAL might have just seen the tip of the iceberg, and several tens of such
sources should be unveiled during the course of its lifetime.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures. Accepted for publication in A&A. Minor changes
according to referee repor
Quantum-kinetic theory of photocurrent generation via direct and phonon-mediated optical transitions
A quantum-kinetic theory of direct and phonon mediated indirect optical
transitions is developed within the framework of the non-equilibrium Green's
function formalism. After validation against the standard Fermi-Golden-Rule
approach in the bulk case, it is used in the simulation of photocurrent
generation in ultra-thin crystalline silicon p-i-n-junction devices.Comment: 12 pages, 11 figure
Hybridized quadrupole-dipole exciton effects in - Organic Heterostructure
In the present work we discuss resonant hybridization of the quadrupole
Wannier-Mott exciton (WE) in a quantum well with the Frenkel (FE)
dipole exciton in an adjacent layer of organic DCM2:CA:PA. The coupling between
excitons is due to interaction between the gradient of electric field induced
by DCM2 Frenkel exciton and the quadrupole moment of the transition in the
cuprous oxide. The specific choice of the organic allows us to use the
mechanism of 'solid state solvation' to dynamically tune the WE and FE into
resonance during time (comparable with the big life time of
the WE) of the 'slow' phase of the solvation. The quadrupole-dipole hybrid
utilizes the big oscillator strength of the FE along with the big lifetime of
the quadrupole exciton, unlike dipole-dipole hybrid exciton which utilizes big
oscillator strength of the FE and big radius of the dipole allowed WE. Due to
strong spatial dispersion and big mass of the quadrupole WE the hybridization
is not masked by the kinetic energy or the radiative broadening. The lower
branch of the hybrid dispersion exhibits a pronounced minimum and may be used
in applications. Also we investigate and report noticeable change in the
coupling due to a induced 'Stark effect' from the strong local electric field
of the FE. We investigated the fine energy structure of the quantum well
confined ortho and para excitons in cuprous oxide
BATSE Observations of the Piccinotti Sample of AGN
BATSE Earth occultation data have been used to search for emission in the
20-100 keV band from all sources in the Piccinotti sample, which represents to
date the only complete 2-10 keV survey of the extragalactic sky down to a
limiting flux of 3.1 x 10^(-11) erg cm^(-2)$ s^(-1). Nearly four years of
observations have been analyzed to reach a 5sigma sensitivity level of about
7.8x 10^(-11) erg cm^(-2) s^(-1) in the band considered. Of the 36 sources in
the sample, 14 have been detected above 5sigma confidence level while marginal
detection (3<sigma<5) can be claimed for 13 sources; for 9 objects 2sigma upper
limits are reported. Comparison of BATSE results with data at higher energies
is used to estimate the robustness of our data analysis: while the detection
level of each source is reliable, the flux measurement maybe overestimated in
some sources by as much as 35%, probably due to incomplete data cleaning.
Comparison of BATSE fluxes with X-ray fluxes, obtained in the 2-10 keV range
and averaged over years, indicates that a canonical power law of photon index
1.7 gives a good description of the broad band spectra of bright AGNs and that
spectral breaks preferentially occur above 100 keV.Comment: 18 pages, 1 figure. Accepted for publication on Apj
Phonon-assisted optical absorption in silicon from first principles
The phonon-assisted interband optical absorption spectrum of silicon is
calculated at the quasiparticle level entirely from first principles. We make
use of the Wannier interpolation formalism to determine the quasiparticle
energies, as well as the optical transition and electron-phonon coupling matrix
elements, on fine grids in the Brillouin zone. The calculated spectrum near the
onset of indirect absorption is in very good agreement with experimental
measurements for a range of temperatures. Moreover, our method can accurately
determine the optical absorption spectrum of silicon in the visible range, an
important process for optoelectronic and photovoltaic applications that cannot
be addressed with simple models. The computational formalism is quite general
and can be used to understand the phonon-assisted absorption processes in
general
Multi-wavelength and black hole mass properties of Low Luminosity Active Nuclei
We investigate the relation between the X-ray nuclear emission, optical
emission line, radio luminosity and black hole mass for a sample of nearby
Seyfert galaxies. Strong linear correlations between the 2-10 keV and [OIII],
radio luminosities have been found, showing the same slopes found in quasars
and luminous Seyfert galaxies, thus implying independence from the level of
nuclear activity displayed by the sources. Moreover, despite the wide range of
Eddington ratios (L/L(Edd)) tested here (six orders of magnitude, from 0.1 down
to 10^(-7), no correlation is found between the X-ray, optical emission lines,
radio luminosities and the black hole mass. These results suggest that low
luminosity Seyfert galaxies are a scaled down version of luminous AGN and
probably are powered by the same physical processes.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, contributed talk presented at the Workshop "The
multicoloured landscape of compact objects and their explosive origin",
Cefalu' (Sicily), 11-24 June 2006, to be published by AI
Mass spectrometry of human leukocyte antigen class I peptidomes reveals strong effects of protein abundance and turnover on antigen presentation.
HLA class I molecules reflect the health state of cells to cytotoxic T cells by presenting a repertoire of endogenously derived peptides. However, the extent to which the proteome shapes the peptidome is still largely unknown. Here we present a high-throughput mass-spectrometry-based workflow that allows stringent and accurate identification of thousands of such peptides and direct determination of binding motifs. Applying the workflow to seven cancer cell lines and primary cells, yielded more than 22,000 unique HLA peptides across different allelic binding specificities. By computing a score representing the HLA-I sampling density, we show a strong link between protein abundance and HLA-presentation (p < 0.0001). When analyzing overpresented proteins - those with at least fivefold higher density score than expected for their abundance - we noticed that they are degraded almost 3 h faster than similar but nonpresented proteins (top 20% abundance class; median half-life 20.8h versus 23.6h, p < 0.0001). This validates protein degradation as an important factor for HLA presentation. Ribosomal, mitochondrial respiratory chain, and nucleosomal proteins are particularly well presented. Taking a set of proteins associated with cancer, we compared the predicted immunogenicity of previously validated T-cell epitopes with other peptides from these proteins in our data set. The validated epitopes indeed tend to have higher immunogenic scores than the other detected HLA peptides. Remarkably, we identified five mutated peptides from a human colon cancer cell line, which have very recently been predicted to be HLA-I binders. Altogether, we demonstrate the usefulness of combining MS-analysis with immunogenesis prediction for identifying, ranking, and selecting peptides for therapeutic use
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