91 research outputs found
EFFECTS OF FOREIGN INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS ON U.S. BILATERAL EXPORTS OF BIOTECHNOLOGY RELATED AGRICULTURAL INPUTS
This paper examines the effect of foreign intellectual property right (IPR) systems and the policies that comprise them on U.S. exports of biotechnology related agricultural input industries. Policy components include the extent of patent coverage across industry sectors, enforcement mechanisms, provisions for loss of patent protection, memberships to other international patent agreements, and duration of patent protection. Extending the empirical and theoretical work of Smith (2002), this paper uses a gravity model to analyze how IPRs affect the market power and market expansion effects of exports to countries with differing abilities to imitate technology. The findings suggest that strengthening global IPRs grant a market power effect to U.S. exporters; strong IPRs reduce U.S. exports by awarding a temporary monopoly over the protected good. However, the analysis of the individual policy components of an IPR system reveal which components inhibit trade through market power effects and which components counterbalance it through market expansion effects, increasing the flow of trade and access to biotechnology related agricultural inputs.Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,
Hydrogen Balmer Line Broadening in Solar and Stellar Flares
The broadening of the hydrogen lines during flares is thought to result from
increased charge (electron, proton) density in the flare chromosphere. However,
disagreements between theory and modeling prescriptions have precluded an
accurate diagnostic of the degree of ionization and compression resulting from
flare heating in the chromosphere. To resolve this issue, we have incorporated
the unified theory of electric pressure broadening of the hydrogen lines into
the non-LTE radiative transfer code RH. This broadening prescription produces a
much more realistic spectrum of the quiescent, A0 star Vega compared to the
analytic approximations used as a damping parameter in the Voigt profiles. We
test recent radiative-hydrodynamic (RHD) simulations of the atmospheric
response to high nonthermal electron beam fluxes with the new broadening
prescription and find that the Balmer lines are over-broadened at the densest
times in the simulations. Adding many simultaneously heated and cooling model
loops as a "multithread" model improves the agreement with the observations. We
revisit the three-component phenomenological flare model of the YZ CMi
Megaflare using recent and new RHD models. The evolution of the broadening,
line flux ratios, and continuum flux ratios are well-reproduced by a
multithread model with high-flux nonthermal electron beam heating, an extended
decay phase model, and a "hot spot" atmosphere heated by an ultrarelativistic
electron beam with reasonable filling factors: 0.1%, 1%, and 0.1% of the
visible stellar hemisphere, respectively. The new modeling motivates future
work to understand the origin of the extended gradual phase emission.Comment: 31 pages, 13 figures, 2 tables, accepted for publication in the
Astrophysical Journa
Towards Space-like Photometric Precision from the Ground with Beam-Shaping Diffusers
We demonstrate a path to hitherto unachievable differential photometric
precisions from the ground, both in the optical and near-infrared (NIR), using
custom-fabricated beam-shaping diffusers produced using specialized
nanofabrication techniques. Such diffusers mold the focal plane image of a star
into a broad and stable top-hat shape, minimizing photometric errors due to
non-uniform pixel response, atmospheric seeing effects, imperfect guiding, and
telescope-induced variable aberrations seen in defocusing. This PSF reshaping
significantly increases the achievable dynamic range of our observations,
increasing our observing efficiency and thus better averages over
scintillation. Diffusers work in both collimated and converging beams. We
present diffuser-assisted optical observations demonstrating
ppm precision in 30 minute bins on a nearby bright star
16-Cygni A (V=5.95) using the ARC 3.5m telescope---within a factor of 2
of Kepler's photometric precision on the same star. We also show a transit of
WASP-85-Ab (V=11.2) and TRES-3b (V=12.4), where the residuals bin down to
ppm in 30 minute bins for WASP-85-Ab---a factor of 4 of
the precision achieved by the K2 mission on this target---and to 101ppm for
TRES-3b. In the NIR, where diffusers may provide even more significant
improvements over the current state of the art, our preliminary tests have
demonstrated ppm precision for a star on the 200"
Hale Telescope. These photometric precisions match or surpass the expected
photometric precisions of TESS for the same magnitude range. This technology is
inexpensive, scalable, easily adaptable, and can have an important and
immediate impact on the observations of transits and secondary eclipses of
exoplanets.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ. 30 pages, 20 figure
The Implications of M Dwarf Flares on the Detection and Characterization of Exoplanets at Infrared Wavelengths
We present the results of an observational campaign which obtained high time
cadence, high precision, simultaneous optical and IR photometric observations
of three M dwarf flare stars for 47 hours. The campaign was designed to
characterize the behavior of energetic flare events, which routinely occur on M
dwarfs, at IR wavelengths to milli-magnitude precision, and quantify to what
extent such events might influence current and future efforts to detect and
characterize extrasolar planets surrounding these stars. We detected and
characterized four highly energetic optical flares having U-band total energies
of ~7.8x10^30 to ~1.3x10^32 ergs, and found no corresponding response in the J,
H, or Ks bandpasses at the precision of our data. For active dM3e stars, we
find that a ~1.3x10^32 erg U-band flare (delta Umax ~1.5 mag) will induce <8.3
(J), <8.5 (H), and <11.7 (Ks) milli-mags of a response. A flare of this energy
or greater should occur less than once per 18 hours. For active dM4.5e stars,
we find that a ~5.1x10^31 erg U-band flare (delta Umax ~1.6 mag) will induce
<7.8 (J), <8.8 (H), and <5.1 (Ks) milli-mags of a response. A flare of this
energy or greater should occur less than once per 10 hours. No evidence of
stellar variability not associated with discrete flare events was observed at
the level of ~3.9 milli-mags over 1 hour time-scales and at the level of ~5.6
milli-mags over 7.5 hour time-scales. We therefore demonstrate that most M
dwarf stellar activity and flares will not influence IR detection and
characterization studies of M dwarf exoplanets above the level of ~5-11
milli-mags, depending on the filter and spectral type. We speculate that the
most energetic megaflares on M dwarfs, which occur at rates of once per month,
are likely to be easily detected in IR observations with sensitivity of tens of
milli-mags.Comment: Accepted in Astronomical Journal, 17 pages, 6 figure
Kepler Flares II: The Temporal Morphology of White-Light Flares on GJ 1243
We present the largest sample of flares ever compiled for a single M dwarf,
the active M4 star GJ 1243. Over 6100 individual flare events, with energies
ranging from to erg, are found in 11 months of 1-minute
cadence data from Kepler. This sample is unique for its completeness and
dynamic range. We have developed automated tools for finding flares in
short-cadence Kepler light curves, and performed extensive validation and
classification of the sample by eye. From this pristine sample of flares we
generate a median flare template. This template shows that two exponential
cooling phases are present during the white-light flare decay, providing
fundamental constraints for models of flare physics. The template is also used
as a basis function to decompose complex multi-peaked flares, allowing us to
study the energy distribution of these events. Only a small number of flare
events are not well fit by our template. We find that complex, multi-peaked
flares occur in over 80% of flares with a duration of 50 minutes or greater.
The underlying distribution of flare durations for events 10 minutes and longer
appears to follow a broken power law. Our results support the idea that
sympathetic flaring may be responsible for some complex flare events.Comment: 12 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in Ap
NEID Reveals that The Young Warm Neptune TOI-2076 b Has a Low Obliquity
TOI-2076 b is a sub-Neptune-sized planet () that transits a young () bright
() K-dwarf hosting a system of three transiting planets. Using
spectroscopic observations with the NEID spectrograph on the WIYN 3.5 m
Telescope, we model the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect of TOI-2076 b, and derive a
sky-projected obliquity of . Using the size of
the star (), and the stellar rotation period
( days), we estimate a true obliquity of
( at 95% confidence),
demonstrating that TOI-2076 b is on a well-aligned orbit. Simultaneous
diffuser-assisted photometry from the 3.5 m Telescope at Apache Point
Observatory rules out flares during the transit. TOI-2076 b joins a small but
growing sample of young planets in compact multi-planet systems with
well-aligned orbits, and is the fourth planet with an age Myr in
a multi-transiting system with an obliquity measurement. The low obliquity of
TOI-2076 b and the presence of transit timing variations in the system suggest
the TOI-2076 system likely formed via convergent disk migration in an initially
well-aligned disk.Comment: Submitted to ApJL, 13 pages, 4 figures, 3 table
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