2,852 research outputs found
Hydrodynamic Coupling of Particle Inclusions Embedded in Curved Lipid Bilayer Membranes
We develop theory and computational methods to investigate particle
inclusions embedded within curved lipid bilayer membranes. We consider the case
of spherical lipid vesicles where inclusion particles are coupled through (i)
intramembrane hydrodynamics, (ii) traction stresses with the external and
trapped solvent fluid, and (iii) intermonolayer slip between the two leaflets
of the bilayer. We investigate relative to flat membranes how the membrane
curvature and topology augment hydrodynamic responses. We show how both the
translational and rotational mobility of protein inclusions are effected by the
membrane curvature, ratio of intramembrane viscosity to solvent viscosity, and
inter-monolayer slip. For general investigations of many-particle dynamics, we
also discuss how our approaches can be used to treat the collective diffusion
and hydrodynamic coupling within spherical bilayers.Comment: 32 pages, double-column format, 15 figure
The Vela pulsar `jet': a companion-punctured bubble of fallback material
Markwardt and Oegelman (1995) used ROSAT to reveal a 12 by 45 arcmin
structure in 1 keV X rays around the Vela pulsar, which they interpret as a jet
emanating from the pulsar. We here present an alternative view of the nature of
this feature, namely that it consists of material from very deep inside the
exploding star, close to the mass cut between material that became part of the
neutron star and ejected material. The initial radial velocity of the inner
material was lower than the bulk of the ejecta, and formed a bubble of slow
material that started expanding again due to heating by the young pulsar's
spindown energy. The expansion is mainly in one direction, and to explain this
we speculate that the pre-supernova system was a binary. The explosion caused
the binary to unbind, and the pulsar's former companion carved a lower-density
channel into the main ejecta. The resulting puncture of the bubble's edge
greatly facilitated expansion along its path relative to other directions. If
this is the case, we can estimate the current speed of the former binary
companion and from this reconstruct the presupernova binary orbit. It follows
that the exploding star was a helium star, hence that the supernova was of type
Ib. Since the most likely binary companion is another neutron star, the
evolution of the Vela remnant and its surroundings has been rather more
complicated than the simple expansion of one supernova blast wave into
unperturbed interstellar material.Comment: submitted to MNRAS; 6 pages laTeX, 3 figures (1 postscript, 2 gif
files of images
The orbital statistics of stellar inspiral and relaxation near a massive black hole: characterizing gravitational wave sources
We study the orbital parameters distribution of stars that are scattered into
nearly radial orbits and then spiral into a massive black hole (MBH) due to
dissipation, in particular by emission of gravitational waves (GW). This is
important for GW detection, e.g. by the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna
(LISA). Signal identification requires knowledge of the waveforms, which depend
on the orbital parameters. We use analytical and Monte Carlo methods to analyze
the interplay between GW dissipation and scattering in the presence of a mass
sink during the transition from the initial scattering-dominated phase to the
final dissipation-dominated phase of the inspiral. Our main results are (1)
Stars typically enter the GW-emitting phase with high eccentricities. (2) The
GW event rate per galaxy is a few per Gyr for typical central stellar cusps,
almost independently of the relaxation time or the MBH mass. (3) For
intermediate mass black holes (IBHs) of ~a thousand solar masses such as may
exist in dense stellar clusters, the orbits are very eccentric and the inspiral
is rapid, so the sources are very short-lived.Comment: ApJ Accepte
Dynamic Implicit-Solvent Coarse-Grained Models of Lipid Bilayer Membranes : Fluctuating Hydrodynamics Thermostat
Many coarse-grained models have been developed for equilibrium studies of
lipid bilayer membranes. To achieve in simulations access to length-scales and
time-scales difficult to attain in fully atomistic molecular dynamics, these
coarse-grained models provide a reduced description of the molecular degrees of
freedom and often remove entirely representation of the solvent degrees of
freedom. In such implicit-solvent models the solvent contributions are treated
through effective interaction terms within an effective potential for the free
energy. For investigations of kinetics, Langevin dynamics is often used.
However, for many dynamical processes within bilayers this approach is
insufficient since it neglects important correlations and dynamical
contributions that are missing as a result of the momentum transfer that would
have occurred through the solvent. To address this issue, we introduce a new
thermostat based on fluctuating hydrodynamics for dynamic simulations of
implicit-solvent coarse-grained models. Our approach couples the coarse-grained
degrees of freedom to a stochastic continuum field that accounts for both the
solvent hydrodynamics and thermal fluctuations. We show our approach captures
important correlations in the dynamics of lipid bilayers that are missing in
simulations performed using conventional Langevin dynamics. For both planar
bilayer sheets and bilayer vesicles, we investigate the diffusivity of lipids,
spatial correlations, and lipid flow within the bilayer. The presented
fluctuating hydrodynamics approaches provide a promising way to extend
implicit-solvent coarse-grained lipid models for use in studies of dynamical
processes within bilayers
Survival of Terrestrial Planets in the Presence of Giant Planet Migration
The presence of ``Hot Jupiters'', Jovian mass planets with very short orbital
periods orbiting nearby main sequence stars, has been proposed to be primarily
due to the orbital migration of planets formed in orbits initially much further
from the parent star. The migration of giant planets would have profound
effects on the evolution of inner terrestrial planets in these systems, and
previous analyses have assumed that no terrestrial planets survive after
migration has occurred. We present numerical simulations showing that a
significant fraction of terrestrial planets could survive the migration
process, eventually returning to circular orbits relatively close to their
original positions. A fraction of the final orbits are in the Habitable Zone,
suggesting that planetary systems with close-in giant planets are viable
targets for searches for Earth-like habitable planets around other stars.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, emulateapj. ApJL in press, referee comments
changes and edited for lengt
Layers of powers: societies and institutions in Europe
Historians and social scientists have offered many and varied definitions of the term âcommunityâ. This chapter focuses on specific examples of face-to-face or local communities in order to test the possibilities and limits of the two major analytical approaches to communities: an anthropological approach which identifies âcommunityâ as an organic entity, and a symbolic one which considers feelings of belonging and self-identification as constitutive aspects of a community. In this quest, close attention is paid to the question of the stabilization of communityâs structures through legislation and institutions, a process that integrates such micro-societies into broader networks of power, and renders them visible to historians. In the first section we examine what we have called a âworld of communitiesâ, from periods when communities constituted the dominant element of social structure. Examining ancient Jewish and medieval Icelandic communities, and then early modern Irish and Scottish clans, we try to identify their basic characteristics and to reconstruct the way they related to the rest of the social structure. The second section analyzes the emergence of new loyalties and models of social membership from the 19th century onwards, emphasizing how the discourse on communities played a crucial role in the construction of these diverse patterns of identification and differentiation. Finally, we explore the permanence of the communitarian world supposedly replaced by nationalism and other major modern ideologies along with the new meanings and uses of communities in the 20th and 21st centuries. In sum, this broad overview provides a preliminary narrative of the changes in the structures of communities and their shifting position within wider patterns of social organizations while drawing attention to parallel transformations in theoretical reflection on communities
Transition from adiabatic inspiral to plunge into a spinning black hole
A test particle of mass mu on a bound geodesic of a Kerr black hole of mass M
>> mu will slowly inspiral as gravitational radiation extracts energy and
angular momentum from its orbit. This inspiral can be considered adiabatic when
the orbital period is much shorter than the timescale on which energy is
radiated, and quasi-circular when the radial velocity is much less than the
azimuthal velocity. Although the inspiral always remains adiabatic provided mu
<< M, the quasi-circular approximation breaks down as the particle approaches
the innermost stable circular orbit (ISCO). In this paper, we relax the
quasi-circular approximation and solve the radial equation of motion explicitly
near the ISCO. We use the requirement that the test particle's 4-velocity
remain properly normalized to calculate a new contribution to the difference
between its energy and angular momentum. This difference determines how a black
hole's spin changes following a test-particle merger, and can be extrapolated
to help predict the mass and spin of the final black hole produced in
finite-mass-ratio black-hole mergers. Our new contribution is particularly
important for nearly maximally spinning black holes, as it can affect whether a
merger produces a naked singularity.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, final version published in PRD with minor change
Gravitational radiation timescales for extreme mass ratio inspirals
The capture and inspiral of compact stellar masses into massive black holes
is an important source of low-frequency gravitational waves (with frequencies
of ~1-100mHz), such as those that might be detected by the planned Laser
Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA). Simulations of stellar clusters designed
to study this problem typically rely on simple treatments of the black hole
encounter which neglect some important features of orbits around black holes,
such as the minimum radii of stable, non-plunging orbits. Incorporating an
accurate representation of the orbital dynamics near a black hole has been
avoided due to the large computational overhead. This paper provides new, more
accurate, expressions for the energy and angular momentum lost by a compact
object during a parabolic encounter with a non-spinning black hole, and the
subsequent inspiral lifetime. These results improve on the Keplerian
expressions which are now commonly used and will allow efficient computational
simulations to be performed that account for the relativistic nature of the
spacetime around the central black hole in the system.Comment: 19 pages, 4 figures. Changed in response to referee's report.
Accepted for publication in Astrophysical Journa
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