169 research outputs found
Starspot-induced optical and infrared radial velocity variability in T Tauri star Hubble 4
We report optical (6150 Ang) and K-band (2.3 micron) radial velocities
obtained over two years for the pre-main sequence weak-lined T Tauri star
Hubble I 4. We detect periodic and near-sinusoidal radial velocity variations
at both wavelengths, with a semi-amplitude of 1395\pm94 m/s in the optical and
365\pm80 m/s in the infrared. The lower velocity amplitude at the longer
wavelength, combined with bisector analysis and spot modeling, indicates that
there are large, cool spots on the stellar surface that are causing the radial
velocity modulation. The radial velocities maintain phase coherence over
hundreds of days suggesting that the starspots are long-lived. This is one of
the first active stars where the spot-induced velocity modulation has been
resolved in the infrared.Comment: Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journa
Structure, dynamics, and stability of the globular domain of human linker histone H1.0 and the role of positive charges
Linker histone H1 (H1) is an abundant chromatin-binding protein that acts as an epigenetic regulator binding to nucleosomes and altering chromatin structures and dynamics. Nonetheless, the mechanistic details of its function remain poorly understood. Recent work suggest that the number and position of charged side chains on the globular domain (GD) of H1 influence chromatin structure and hence gene repression. Here, we solved the solution structure of the unbound GD of human H1.0, revealing that the structure is almost completely unperturbed by complex formation, except for a loop connecting two antiparallel β-strands. We further quantified the role of the many positive charges of the GD for its structure and conformational stability through the analysis of 11 charge variants. We find that modulating the number of charges has little effect on the structure, but the stability is affected, resulting in a difference in melting temperature of 26 K between GD of net charge +5 versus +13. This result suggests that the large number of positive charges on H1-GDs have evolved for function rather than structure and high stability. The stabilization of the GD upon binding to DNA can thus be expected to have a pronounced electrostatic component, a contribution that is amenable to modulation by posttranslational modifications, especially acetylation and phosphorylation.
Keywords: CD; NMR; histone; nucleosome; protein electrostatics; protein stability; protein structur
The non-equilibrium steady state of sparse systems with nontrivial topology
We study the steady state of a multiply-connected system that is driven out
of equilibrium by a sparse perturbation. The prototype example is an -site
ring coupled to a thermal bath, driven by a stationary source that induces
transitions with log-wide distributed rates. An induced current arises, which
is controlled by the strength of the driving, and an associated topological
term appears in the expression for the energy absorption rate. Due to the
sparsity, the crossover from linear response to saturation is mediated by an
intermediate regime, where the current is exponentially small in ,
which is related to the work of Sinai on "random walk in a random environment".Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure
Precision radial velocities with CSHELL
Radial velocity identification of extrasolar planets has historically been
dominated by optical surveys. Interest in expanding exoplanet searches to M
dwarfs and young stars, however, has motivated a push to improve the precision
of near infrared radial velocity techniques. We present our methodology for
achieving 58 m/s precision in the K band on the M0 dwarf GJ 281 using the
CSHELL spectrograph at the 3-meter NASA IRTF. We also demonstrate our ability
to recover the known 4 Mjup exoplanet Gl 86 b and discuss the implications for
success in detecting planets around 1-3 Myr old T Tauri stars.Comment: 31 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables, accepted for publication in Ap
Multimodality of rich clusters from the SDSS DR8 within the supercluster-void network
We study the relations between the multimodality of galaxy clusters drawn
from the SDSS DR8 and the environment where they reside. As cluster environment
we consider the global luminosity density field, supercluster membership, and
supercluster morphology. We use 3D normal mixture modelling, the
Dressler-Shectman test, and the peculiar velocity of cluster main galaxies as
signatures of multimodality of clusters. We calculate the luminosity density
field to study the environmental densities around clusters, and to find
superclusters where clusters reside. We determine the morphology of
superclusters with the Minkowski functionals and compare the properties of
clusters in superclusters of different morphology. We apply principal component
analysis to study the relations between the multimodality parametres of
clusters and their environment simultaneously. We find that multimodal clusters
reside in higher density environment than unimodal clusters. Clusters in
superclusters have higher probability to have substructure than isolated
clusters. The superclusters can be divided into two main morphological types,
spiders and filaments. Clusters in superclusters of spider morphology have
higher probabilities to have substructure and larger peculiar velocities of
their main galaxies than clusters in superclusters of filament morphology. The
most luminous clusters are located in the high-density cores of rich
superclusters. Five of seven most luminous clusters, and five of seven most
multimodal clusters reside in spider-type superclusters; four of seven most
unimodal clusters reside in filament-type superclusters. Our study shows the
importance of the role of superclusters as high density environment which
affects the properties of galaxy systems in them.Comment: 16 pages, 12 figures, 2 online tables, accepted for publication in
Astronomy and Astrophysic
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