1,023 research outputs found
The Detectability of Rocky Planet Surface and Atmosphere Composition with JWST: The Case of LHS 3844b
The spectroscopic characterization of terrestrial exoplanets will be made
possible for the first time with JWST. One challenge to characterizing such
planets is that it is not known a priori whether they possess optically thick
atmospheres or even any atmospheres altogether. But this challenge also
presents an opportunity - the potential to detect the surface of an extrasolar
world. This study explores the feasibility of characterizing the atmosphere and
surface of a terrestrial exoplanet with JWST, taking LHS 3844b as a test case
because it is the highest signal-to-noise rocky thermal emission target among
planets that are cool enough to have non-molten surfaces. We model the
planetary emission, including the spectral signal of both atmosphere and
surface, and we explore all scenarios that are consistent with the existing
Spitzer 4.5 m measurement of LHS 3844b from Kreidberg et al. (2019). In
summary, we find a range of plausible surfaces and atmospheres that are within
3 of the observation - less reflective metal-rich, iron oxidized and
basaltic compositions are allowed, and atmospheres are restricted to a maximum
thickness of 1 bar, if near-infrared absorbers at 100 ppm are
included. We further make predictions on the observability of surfaces and
atmospheres, perform a Bayesian retrieval analysis on simulated JWST data and
find that a small number, ~3, of eclipse observations should suffice to
differentiate between surface and atmospheric features. However, the surface
signal may make it harder to place precise constraints on the abundance of
atmospheric species and may even falsely induce a weak HO detection.Comment: 33 pages, 20 figure
New Results in Sasaki-Einstein Geometry
This article is a summary of some of the author's work on Sasaki-Einstein
geometry. A rather general conjecture in string theory known as the AdS/CFT
correspondence relates Sasaki-Einstein geometry, in low dimensions, to
superconformal field theory; properties of the latter are therefore reflected
in the former, and vice versa. Despite this physical motivation, many recent
results are of independent geometrical interest, and are described here in
purely mathematical terms: explicit constructions of infinite families of both
quasi-regular and irregular Sasaki-Einstein metrics; toric Sasakian geometry;
an extremal problem that determines the Reeb vector field for, and hence also
the volume of, a Sasaki-Einstein manifold; and finally, obstructions to the
existence of Sasaki-Einstein metrics. Some of these results also provide new
insights into Kahler geometry, and in particular new obstructions to the
existence of Kahler-Einstein metrics on Fano orbifolds.Comment: 31 pages, no figures. Invited contribution to the proceedings of the
conference "Riemannian Topology: Geometric Structures on Manifolds"; minor
typos corrected, reference added; published version; Riemannian Topology and
Geometric Structures on Manifolds (Progress in Mathematics), Birkhauser (Nov
2008
Bethe-Salpeter equation and a nonperturbative quark-gluon vertex
A Ward-Takahashi identity preserving Bethe-Salpeter kernel can always be
calculated explicitly from a dressed-quark-gluon vertex whose diagrammatic
content is enumerable. We illustrate that fact using a vertex obtained via the
complete resummation of dressed-gluon ladders. While this vertex is planar, the
vertex-consistent kernel is nonplanar and that is true for any dressed vertex.
In an exemplifying model the rainbow-ladder truncation of the gap and
Bethe-Salpeter equations yields many results; e.g., pi- and rho-meson masses,
that are changed little by including higher-order corrections. Repulsion
generated by nonplanar diagrams in the vertex-consistent Bethe-Salpeter kernel
for quark-quark scattering is sufficient to guarantee that diquark bound states
do not exist.Comment: 16 pages, 12 figures, REVTEX
Effects of morphine and nalorphine upon tooth pulp thresholds of dogs in the alert and drowsy state
The alteration of tooth pulp thresholds of dogs with chronically implanted electrodes was determined in the awake and drowsy states after morphine and nalorphine. The elevation in tooth pulp threshold was significantly greater after morphine than during the alert or drowsy state of the animal. Nalorphine antagonized this effect of morphine.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/46329/1/213_2004_Article_BF00441191.pd
Core components for effective infection prevention and control programmes: new WHO evidence-based recommendations
Abstract
Health care-associated infections (HAI) are a major public health problem with a significant impact on morbidity, mortality and quality of life. They represent also an important economic burden to health systems worldwide. However, a large proportion of HAI are preventable through effective infection prevention and control (IPC) measures. Improvements in IPC at the national and facility level are critical for the successful containment of antimicrobial resistance and the prevention of HAI, including outbreaks of highly transmissible diseases through high quality care within the context of universal health coverage. Given the limited availability of IPC evidence-based guidance and standards, the World Health Organization (WHO) decided to prioritize the development of global recommendations on the core components of effective IPC programmes both at the national and acute health care facility level, based on systematic literature reviews and expert consensus. The aim of the guideline development process was to identify the evidence and evaluate its quality, consider patient values and preferences, resource implications, and the feasibility and acceptability of the recommendations. As a result, 11 recommendations and three good practice statements are presented here, including a summary of the supporting evidence, and form the substance of a new WHO IPC guideline
A rocky planet transiting a nearby low-mass star
M-dwarf stars -- hydrogen-burning stars that are smaller than 60 per cent of
the size of the Sun -- are the most common class of star in our Galaxy and
outnumber Sun-like stars by a ratio of 12:1. Recent results have shown that M
dwarfs host Earth-sized planets in great numbers: the average number of M-dwarf
planets that are between 0.5 to 1.5 times the size of Earth is at least 1.4 per
star. The nearest such planets known to transit their star are 39 parsecs away,
too distant for detailed follow-up observations to measure the planetary masses
or to study their atmospheres. Here we report observations of GJ 1132b, a
planet with a size of 1.2 Earth radii that is transiting a small star 12
parsecs away. Our Doppler mass measurement of GJ 1132b yields a density
consistent with an Earth-like bulk composition, similar to the compositions of
the six known exoplanets with masses less than six times that of the Earth and
precisely measured densities. Receiving 19 times more stellar radiation than
the Earth, the planet is too hot to be habitable but is cool enough to support
a substantial atmosphere, one that has probably been considerably depleted of
hydrogen. Because the host star is nearby and only 21 per cent the radius of
the Sun, existing and upcoming telescopes will be able to observe the
composition and dynamics of the planetary atmosphere.Comment: Published in Nature on 12 November 2015, available at
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature15762. This is the authors' version of the
manuscrip
Spectroscopic Studies of Intramolecular Proton Transfer in 2-(4-Fluorophenylamino)-5-(2,4-Dihydroxybenzeno)-1,3,4-Thiadiazole
Spectroscopic studies of the biologically active compound 2-(4-fluorophenylamino)-5-(2,4-dihydroxybenzeno)-1,3,4-thiadiazole (FABT), have been performed. Absorption studies in the UV-Vis region for FABT in polar solvents, like water or ethanol, exhibit the domination of the enol form over its keto counterpart, with a broad absorption band centered around 340 nm. In non-polar solvents such as n-heptane or heavier alkanes the 340 nm absorption band disappears and an increase of the band related to the keto form (approximately 270 nm) is observed. Fluorescence spectra (with 270 nm and 340 nm excitation energies used) show a similar dependence: for FABT in 2-propanol a peak at about 400 nm dominates over that at 330 nm while in n-heptane this relation is reversed. The solvent dependent equilibrium between the keto and enol forms is further confirmed by FTIR and Raman spectroscopies. As can be expected, this equilibrium also shows some temperature dependences. We note that the changes between the two tautomeric forms of FABT are not related to the permanent dipole moment of the solvent but rather to its dipole polarizability
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