Effective meson masses, effective meson-nucleon couplings and neutron star radii

Using the generalized mean field theory, we have studied the relation among the effective meson masses, the effective meson-nucleon couplings and the equation of state (EOS) in asymmetric nuclear matter. If the effective omega-meson mass becomes smaller at high density, the EOS becomes stiffer. However, if we require that the omega-meson mean field is proportional to the baryon density, the effective omega-nucleon coupling automatically becomes smaller at the same time as the effective omega-meson mass becomes smaller. Consequently, the EOS becomes softer. A similar relation is found for the effective rho-meson mass and the effective rho-nucleon coupling. We have also studied the relation among the effective meson masses, the effective meson-nucleon couplings and a radius R of a neutron star. The R depends somewhat on the value of the effective omega-meson mass and the effective omega-nucleon coupling.Comment: 29pages, 24 figure

Mesoscale Vortex Circulations on Venus Observed in Akatsuki IR2 Images

No abstract availabl

The Venus' Cloud Discontinuity in 2022

First identified in 2016 by JAXA's Akatsuki mission, the discontinuity/disruption is a recurrent wave observed to propagate during decades at the deeper clouds of Venus (47--56 km above the surface), while its absence at the clouds' top ($\sim$70 km) suggests that it dissipates at the upper clouds and contributes in the maintenance of the puzzling atmospheric superrotation of Venus through wave-mean flow interaction. Taking advantage of the campaign of ground-based observations undertaken in coordination with the Akatsuki mission since December 2021 until July 2022, we aimed to undertake the longest uninterrupted monitoring of the cloud discontinuity up to date to obtain a pioneering long-term characterization of its main properties and better constrain its recurrence and lifetime. The dayside upper, middle and nightside lower clouds were studied with images with suitable filters acquired by Akatsuki/UVI, amateur observers and NASA's IRTF/SpeX, respectively. Hundreds of images were inspected in search of manifestations of the discontinuity events and to measure key properties like its dimensions, orientation or rotation period. We succeeded in tracking the discontinuity at the middle clouds during 109 days without interruption. The discontinuity exhibited properties nearly identical to measurements in 2016 and 2020, with an orientation of $91^{\circ}\pm 8^{\circ}$, length/width of $4100\pm 800$ / $500\pm 100$ km and a rotation period of $5.11\pm 0.09$ days. Ultraviolet images during 13-14 June 2022 suggest that the discontinuity may have manifested at the top of the clouds during $\sim$21 hours as a result of an altitude change in the critical level for this wave due to slower zonal winds.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, 2 animated figures, 1 tabl

Site-directed mutagenesis of azurin from Pseudomonas aeruginosa enhances the formation of an electron-transfer complex with a copper-containing nitrite reductase from Alcaligenes faecalis S-6

AbstractKinetic analysis of electron transfer between azurin from Pseudomonas aeruginosa and copper-containing nitrite reductase (NIR) from Alcaligenes faecalis S-6 was carried out to investigate the specificity of electron transfer between copper-containing proteins. Apparent values of kcat and Km of NIR for azurin were 300-fold smaller and 172-fold larger than those for the physiological redox partner, pseudoazurin from A. faecalis S-6, respectively, suggesting that the electron transfer between azurin and NIR was less specific than that between pseudoazurin and NIR. One of the major differences in 3-D structure between these redox proteins, azurin and pseudoazurin, is the absence and presence of lysine residues near their type 1 copper sites, respectively. Three mutated azurins, D11K, P36K, and D11K/P36K, were constructed to evaluate the importance of lysine residues in the interaction with NIR. The redox potentials of D11K, P36K, and D11K/P36K azurins were higher than that of wild-type azurin by 48, 7, and 55 mV, respectively. As suggested by the increase in the redox potential, kinetic analysis of electron transfer revealed reduced ability of electron transfer in the mutated azurins. On the other hand, although each of the single mutations caused modest effects on the decrease in the Km value, the simultaneous mutations of D11K and P36K caused significant decrease in the Km value when compared to that for wild-type azurin. These results suggest that the introduction of two lysine residues into azurin facilitated docking to NIR

"Gtool5": a Fortran90 library of input/output interfaces for self-descriptive multi-dimensional numerical data

A Fortran90 input/output library, "gtool5", is developed for use with numerical simulation models in the fields of Earth and planetary sciences. The use of this library will simplify implementation of input/output operations into program code in a consolidated form independent of the size and complexity of the software and data. The library also enables simple specification of the metadata needed for post-processing and visualization of the data. These aspects improve the readability of simulation code, which facilitates the simultaneous performance of multiple numerical experiments with different software and efficiency in examining and comparing the numerical results. The library is expected to provide a common software platform to reinforce research on, for instance, the atmosphere and ocean, where a close combination of multiple simulation models with a wide variety of complexity of physics implementations from massive climate models to simple geophysical fluid dynamics models is required

Model-measurement comparison of mesospheric temperature inversions, and a simple theory for their occurrence

Mesospheric temperature inversions are well established observed phenomena, yet their properties remain the subject of ongoing research. Comparisons between Rayleigh-scatter lidar temperature measurements obtained by the University of Western Ontario's Purple Crow Lidar (42.9°N, 81.4°W) and the Canadian Middle Atmosphere Model are used to quantify the statistics of inversions. In both model and measurements, inversions occur most frequently in the winter and exhibit an average amplitude of ∼10 K. The model exhibits virtually no inversions in the summer, while the measurements show a strongly reduced frequency of occurrence with an amplitude about half that in the winter. A simple theory of mesospheric inversions based on wave saturation is developed, with no adjustable parameters. It predicts that the environmental lapse rate must be less than half the adiabatic lapse rate for an inversion to form, and it predicts the ratio of the inversion amplitude and thickness as a function of environmental lapse rate. Comparison of this prediction to the actual amplitude/thickness ratio using the lidar measurements shows good agreement between theory and measurements