3,623 research outputs found
On the changes in the physical properties of the ionized region around the Weigelt structures in Eta Carinae over the 5.54-yr spectroscopic cycle
We present HST/STIS observations and analysis of two prominent nebular
structures around the central source of Eta Carinae, the knots C and D. The
former is brighter than the latter for emission lines from intermediate or high
ionization potential ions. The brightness of lines from intermediate and high
ionization potential ions significantly decreases at phases around periastron.
We do not see conspicuous changes in the brightness of lines from low
ionization potential (<13.6 eV) that the total extinction towards the Weigelt
structures is that the total extinction towards the Weigelt structures is AsubV
=2/0. that the total extinction towards the Weigelt structures is AV = 2.0.
Weigelt C and D are characterized by an electron density of that the total
extinction towards the Weigelt structures is AV = 2.0. Weigelt C and D are
characterized by an electron density of 10exp6.9 cm-3 that does not
significantly change throughout the orbital cycle. The electron temperature
varies from 5500 K (around periastron) to 7200 K (around apastron). The
relative changes in the brightness of He I lines are well reproduced by the
variations in the electron temperature alone. We found that, at phases around
periastron, the electron temperature seems to be higher for Weigelt C than that
of D. The Weigelt structures are located close to the Homunculus equatorial
plane, at a distance of about 1240 AU from the central source. From the
analysis of proper motion and age, the Weigelt complex can be associated with
the equatorial structure called the Butterfly Nebula surrounding the central
binary system.Comment: 19 pages, 18 figure
aristotle's demonstrative logic
Demonstrative logic, the study of demonstration as opposed to persuasion, is the subject of Aristotle's two-volume Analytics. Many examples are geometrical. Demonstration produces knowledge (of the truth of propositions). Persuasion merely produces opinion. Aristotle presented a general truth-and-consequence conception of demonstration meant to apply to all demonstrations. According to him, a demonstration, which normally proves a conclusion not previously known to be true, is an extended argumentation beginning with premises known to be truths and containing a chain of reasoning showing by deductively evident steps that its conclusion is a consequence of its premises. In particular, a demonstration is a deduction whose premises are known to be true. Aristotle's general theory of demonstration required a prior general theory of deduction presented in the Prior Analytics. His general immediate-deduction-chaining conception of deduction was meant to apply to all deductions. According to him, any deduction that is not immediately evident is an extended argumentation that involves a chaining of intermediate immediately evident steps that shows its final conclusion to follow logically from its premises. To illustrate his general theory of deduction, he presented an ingeniously simple and mathematically precise special case traditionally known as the categorical syllogisti
Waiting in the Wings: Reflected X-ray Emission from the Homunculus Nebula
We report the first detection of X-ray emission associated with the
Homunculus Nebula which surrounds the supermassive star Eta Carinae. The
emission is characterized by a temperature in excess of 100 MK, and is
consistent with scattering of the time-delayed X-ray flux associated with the
star. The nebular emission is bright in the northwestern lobe and near the
central regions of the Homunculus, and fainter in the southeastern lobe. We
also report the detection of an unusually broad Fe K fluorescent line, which
may indicate fluorescent scattering off the wind of a companion star or some
other high velocity outflow. The X-ray Homunculus is the nearest member of the
small class of Galactic X-ray reflection nebulae, and the only one in which
both the emitting and reflecting sources are distinguishable.Comment: 17 pages, 5 figures, accepted by Ap
Coherence in the Quasi-Particle 'Scattering' by the Vortex Lattice in Pure Type-II Superconductors
The effect of quasi-particle (QP) 'scattering' by the vortex lattice on the
de-Haas van-Alphen oscillations in a pure type-II superconductor is
investigated within mean field,asymptotic perturbation theory. Using a 2D
electron gas model it is shown that, due to a strict phase coherence in the
many-particle correlation functions, the 'scattering' effect in the asymptotic
limit () is much weaker than what is predicted
by the random vortex lattice model proposed by Maki and Stephen, which destroys
this coherence . The coherent many particle configuration is a collinear array
of many particle coordinates, localized within a spatial region with size of
the order of the magnetic length. The amplitude of the magnetization
oscillations is sharply damped just below because of strong
out of phase magnetic oscillations in the superconducting
condensation energy ,which tend to cancel the normal electron oscillations.
Within the ideal 2D model used it is found, however, that because of the
relative smallness of the quartic and higher order terms in the expansion, the
oscillations amplitude at lower fields does not really damp to zero, but only
reverses sign and remains virtually undamped well below . This
conclusion may be changed if disorder in the vortex lattice, or vortex lines
motion will be taken into account. The reduced QP 'scattering' effect may be
responsible for the apparent crossover from a strong damping of the dHvA
oscillations just below to a weaker damping at lower fields observed
experimentally in several 3D superconductors.Comment: 26 pages, Revtex no Figure
A Coordinated X-ray and Optical Campaign of the Nearby Massive Binary Orionis Aa: II. X-ray Variability
We present time-resolved and phase-resolved variability studies of an
extensive X-ray high-resolution spectral dataset of the Orionis Aa
binary system. The four observations, obtained with Chandra ACIS HETGS, have a
total exposure time of ~479 ks and provide nearly complete binary phase
coverage. Variability of the total X-ray flux in the range 5-25 is
confirmed, with maximum amplitude of about +/-15% within a single ~125 ks
observation. Periods of 4.76d and 2.04d are found in the total X-ray flux, as
well as an apparent overall increase in flux level throughout the 9-day
observational campaign. Using 40 ks contiguous spectra derived from the
original observations, we investigate variability of emission line parameters
and ratios. Several emission lines are shown to be variable, including S XV, Si
XIII, and Ne IX. For the first time, variations of the X-ray emission line
widths as a function of the binary phase are found in a binary system, with the
smallest widths at phase=0.0 when the secondary Orionis Aa2 is at
inferior conjunction. Using 3D hydrodynamic modeling of the interacting winds,
we relate the emission line width variability to the presence of a wind cavity
created by a wind-wind collision, which is effectively void of embedded wind
shocks and is carved out of the X-ray-producing primary wind, thus producing
phase-locked X-ray variability.Comment: 36 pages, 14 Tables, 19 Figures, accepted by ApJ, one of 4 related
papers to be published togethe
enoLOGOS: a versatile web tool for energy normalized sequence logos
enoLOGOS is a web-based tool that generates sequence logos from various input sources. Sequence logos have become a popular way to graphically represent DNA and amino acid sequence patterns from a set of aligned sequences. Each position of the alignment is represented by a column of stacked symbols with its total height reflecting the information content in this position. Currently, the available web servers are able to create logo images from a set of aligned sequences, but none of them generates weighted sequence logos directly from energy measurements or other sources. With the advent of high-throughput technologies for estimating the contact energy of different DNA sequences, tools that can create logos directly from binding affinity data are useful to researchers. enoLOGOS generates sequence logos from a variety of input data, including energy measurements, probability matrices, alignment matrices, count matrices and aligned sequences. Furthermore, enoLOGOS can represent the mutual information of different positions of the consensus sequence, a unique feature of this tool. Another web interface for our software, C2H2-enoLOGOS, generates logos for the DNA-binding preferences of the C2H2 zinc-finger transcription factor family members. enoLOGOS and C2H2-enoLOGOS are accessible over the web at
Multi-Wavelength Observations of Colliding Stellar Winds
Massive colliding wind binary stars serve as laboratories for the study of
strong-shock physics. In these systems fundamental flow parameters (velocities,
densities, directions) are often well known, and photon fields important for
Compton scattering and ionization are usually defined or constrained as well.
In this paper we review observed X-ray and radio characteristics of some
important colliding wind systems. We discuss how X-ray and radio observations
of these systems can be used to test models of the collision of massive flows
in the presence of intense UV radiation and magnetic fields.Comment: 13 pages, 11 figures, to appear in the Proceedings of "X-Ray and
Radio Connections", Santa Fe, NM, 3-6 February, 200
Chandra X-ray Grating Spectrometry of Eta Carinae near X-ray Minimum: I. Variability of the Sulfur and Silicon Emission Lines
We report on variations in important X-ray emission lines in a series of Chandra grating spectra of the supermassive colliding wind binary star eta Car, including key phases around the X-ray minimum/periastron passage in 2003.5. The X-rays arise from the collision of the slow, dense wind of eta Car with the fast, low-density wind of an otherwise hidden companion star. The X-ray emission lines provide the only direct measure of the flow dynamics of the companion's wind along the wind-wind collision zone. We concentrate here on the silicon and sulfur lines, which are the strongest and best resolved lines in the X-ray spectra. Most of the line profiles can be adequately fit with symmetric Gaussians with little significant skewness. Both the silicon and sulfur lines show significant velocity shifts and correlated increases in line widths through the observations. The R = forbidden-to-intercombination ratio from the Si XIII and S XV triplets is near or above the low-density limit in all observations, suggesting that the line-forming region is > 1.6 stellar radii from the companion star, and that the emitting plasma may be in a non-equilibrium state. We show that simple geometrical models cannot simultaneously fit both the observed centroid variations and changes in line width as a function of phase. We show that the observed profiles can be fitted with synthetic profiles with a reasonable model of the emissivity along the wind-wind collision boundary. We use this analysis to help constrain the line formation region as a function of orbital phase, and the orbital geometry. Subject headings: X-rays: stars -stars: early-type-stars: individual (q Car
An adaptive Metropolis-Hastings scheme: sampling and optimization
We propose an adaptive Metropolis-Hastings algorithm in which sampled data
are used to update the proposal distribution. We use the samples found by the
algorithm at a particular step to form the information-theoretically optimal
mean-field approximation to the target distribution, and update the proposal
distribution to be that approximatio. We employ our algorithm to sample the
energy distribution for several spin-glasses and we demonstrate the superiority
of our algorithm to the conventional MH algorithm in sampling and in annealing
optimization.Comment: To appear in Europhysics Letter
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