A Comparison of Phycocyanins from Three Different Species of Cyanobacteria Employing Resonance-Enhanced Coherent Anti-Stokes Raman Spectroscopy

Resonance-enhanced coherent anti-Stokes Raman spectra are recorded for monomers and trimers of phycocyanin from three different cyanobacteria: Westiellopsis prolifica, Mastigocladus laminosus and Spirulina platensis. It is shown that upon aggregation from monomer to trimer the electronic structures of both the α84 and β84 chromophores are changed. The spectra of the trimers originating from S. platensis and M. laminosus are very similar to each other, but distinctly different from the spectrum of W. prolifica

Massive Infrared-Quiet Dense Cores: Unveiling the Initial Conditions of High-Mass Star Formation

As Pr. Th. Henning said at the conference, cold precursors of high-mass stars are now "hot topics". We here propose some observational criteria to identify massive infrared-quiet dense cores which can host the high-mass analogs of Class 0 protostars and pre-stellar condensations. We also show how far-infrared to millimeter imaging surveys of entire complexes forming OB stars are starting to unveil the initial conditions of high-mass star formation

Exploiting the Temporal Logic Hierarchy and the Non-Confluence Property for Efficient LTL Synthesis

The classic approaches to synthesize a reactive system from a linear temporal logic (LTL) specification first translate the given LTL formula to an equivalent omega-automaton and then compute a winning strategy for the corresponding omega-regular game. To this end, the obtained omega-automata have to be (pseudo)-determinized where typically a variant of Safra's determinization procedure is used. In this paper, we show that this determinization step can be significantly improved for tool implementations by replacing Safra's determinization by simpler determinization procedures. In particular, we exploit (1) the temporal logic hierarchy that corresponds to the well-known automata hierarchy consisting of safety, liveness, Buechi, and co-Buechi automata as well as their boolean closures, (2) the non-confluence property of omega-automata that result from certain translations of LTL formulas, and (3) symbolic implementations of determinization procedures for the Rabin-Scott and the Miyano-Hayashi breakpoint construction. In particular, we present convincing experimental results that demonstrate the practical applicability of our new synthesis procedure

Limits on Pop III star formation with the most iron-poor stars

We study the impact of star-forming mini-haloes, and the Initial Mass Function (IMF) of Population III (Pop III) stars, on the Galactic halo Metallicity Distribution Function (MDF) and on the properties of C-enhanced and C-normal stars at [Fe/H]<-3. For our investigation we use a data-constrained merger tree model for the Milky Way formation, which has been improved to self-consistently describe the physical processes regulating star-formation in mini-haloes, including the poor sampling of the Pop III IMF. We find that only when star-forming mini-haloes are included the low-Fe tail of the MDF is correctly reproduced, showing a plateau that is built up by C-enhanced metal-poor (CEMP) stars imprinted by primordial faint supernovae. The incomplete sampling of the Pop III IMF in inefficiently star-forming mini-haloes (< $10^{-3}$ $M_\odot$/yr) strongly limits the formation of Pair Instability Supernovae (PISNe), with progenitor masses $m_{\rm popIII}$=[140-260] $M_\odot$, even when a flat Pop III IMF is assumed. Second-generation stars formed in environments polluted at >50% level by PISNe are thus extremely rare, corresponding to $\approx$ 0.25% of the total stellar population at [Fe/H]<-2, which is consistent with recent observations. The low-Fe tail of the MDF strongly depends on the Pop III IMF shape and mass range. Given the current statistics, we find that a flat Pop III IMF model with $m_{\rm popIII}$=[10-300] $M_\odot$ is disfavoured by observations. We present testable predictions for Pop III stars extending down to lower masses, with $m_{\rm popIII}$=[0.1-300] $M_\odot$.Comment: 15 pages, 11 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRAS. The only change is the correction of a mistake in the list of author

The analytical discussion on strong gravitaional lensing for a gravitational source with a f(R)f(R) global monopole

Here the gravitational lensing in strong field limit of a Schwarzschild black hole with a solid deficit angle owing to global monopole within the context of the $f(R)$ gravity theory is investigated. We obtain the expressions of deflection angle and time delay in the forms of elliptic integrals and discuss the asymptotic behaviour of the elliptic integrals to find the explicit formulae of angle and time difference in the strong field limit. We show that the deflection angle and the time delay between multiple images are related not only to the monopole but also to the $f(R)$ correction $\psi_{0}$ by taking the cosmological boundary into account. Some observables such as the minimum impact parameter, the angular separation, the relative magnification and the compacted angular position have been estimated as well. It is intriguing that the tiny modification on the standard general relativity will make the remarkable deviation on the angle and the time lag, offering a significant way to explore some possible distinct signatures of the topological soliton and the correction of the Einstein general relativity.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1004.342

Gravitational Lensing by Power-Law Mass Distributions: A Fast and Exact Series Approach

We present an analytical formulation of gravitational lensing using familiar triaxial power-law mass distributions, where the 3-dimensional mass density is given by $\rho(X,Y,Z) = \rho_0 [1 + (\frac{X}{a})^2 + (\frac{Y}{b})^2 + (\frac{Z}{c})^2]^{-\nu/2}$. The deflection angle and magnification factor are obtained analytically as Fourier series. We give the exact expressions for the deflection angle and magnification factor. The formulae for the deflection angle and magnification factor given in this paper will be useful for numerical studies of observed lens systems. An application of our results to the Einstein Cross can be found in Chae, Turnshek, & Khersonsky (1998). Our series approach can be viewed as a user-friendly and efficient method to calculate lensing properties that is better than the more conventional approaches, e.g., numerical integrations, multipole expansions.Comment: 24 pages, 3 Postscript figures, ApJ in press (October 10th

Strong field gravitational lensing in the deformed H\v{o}rava-Lifshitz black hole

Adopting the strong field limit approach, we studied the properties of strong field gravitational lensing in the deformed H\v{o}rava-Lifshitz black hole and obtained the angular position and magnification of the relativistic images. Supposing that the gravitational field of the supermassive central object of the galaxy described by this metric, we estimated the numerical values of the coefficients and observables for gravitational lensing in the strong field limit. Comparing with the Reissner-Norstr\"{om} black hole, we find that with the increase of parameter $\alpha$, the angular position $\theta_{\infty}$ decreases more slowly and $r_m$ more quickly, but angular separation $s$ increases more rapidly. This may offer a way to detect the effects of to distinguish a deformed H\v{o}rava-Lifshitz black hole from a Reissner-Norstr\"{om} black hole by the astronomical instruments in the future.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figures,some references added, Accepted by PR