8,526 research outputs found
Terrestrial Planet Formation in a protoplanetary disk with a local mass depletion: A successful scenario for the formation of Mars
Models of terrestrial planet formation for our solar system have been
successful in producing planets with masses and orbits similar to those of
Venus and Earth. However, these models have generally failed to produce
Mars-sized objects around 1.5 AU. The body that is usually formed around Mars'
semimajor axis is, in general, much more massive than Mars. Only when Jupiter
and Saturn are assumed to have initially very eccentric orbits (e 0.1),
which seems fairly unlikely for the solar system, or alternately, if the
protoplanetary disk is truncated at 1.0 AU, simulations have been able to
produce Mars-like bodies in the correct location. In this paper, we examine an
alternative scenario for the formation of Mars in which a local depletion in
the density of the protosolar nebula results in a non-uniform formation of
planetary embryos and ultimately the formation of Mars-sized planets around 1.5
AU. We have carried out extensive numerical simulations of the formation of
terrestrial planets in such a disk for different scales of the local density
depletion, and for different orbital configurations of the giant planets. Our
simulations point to the possibility of the formation of Mars-sized bodies
around 1.5 AU, specifically when the scale of the disk local mass-depletion is
moderately high (50-75%) and Jupiter and Saturn are initially in their current
orbits. In these systems, Mars-analogs are formed from the protoplanetary
materials that originate in the regions of disk interior or exterior to the
local mass-depletion. Results also indicate that Earth-sized planets can form
around 1 AU with a substantial amount of water accreted via primitive
water-rich planetesimals and planetary embryos. We present the results of our
study and discuss their implications for the formation of terrestrial planets
in our solar system.Comment: Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journa
A Compound model for the origin of Earth's water
One of the most important subjects of debate in the formation of the solar
system is the origin of Earth's water. Comets have long been considered as the
most likely source of the delivery of water to Earth. However, elemental and
isotopic arguments suggest a very small contribution from these objects. Other
sources have also been proposed, among which, local adsorption of water vapor
onto dust grains in the primordial nebula and delivery through planetesimals
and planetary embryos have become more prominent. However, no sole source of
water provides a satisfactory explanation for Earth's water as a whole. In view
of that, using numerical simulations, we have developed a compound model
incorporating both the principal endogenous and exogenous theories, and
investigating their implications for terrestrial planet formation and
water-delivery. Comets are also considered in the final analysis, as it is
likely that at least some of Earth's water has cometary origin. We analyze our
results comparing two different water distribution models, and complement our
study using D/H ratio, finding possible relative contributions from each
source, focusing on planets formed in the habitable zone. We find that the
compound model play an important role by showing more advantage in the amount
and time of water-delivery in Earth-like planets.Comment: Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journa
Stable retrograde orbits around the triple system 2001 SN263
The NEA 2001 SN263 is the target of the ASTER MISSION - First Brazilian Deep
Space Mission. Araujo et al. (2012), characterized the stable regions around
the components of the triple system for the planar and prograde cases. Knowing
that the retrograde orbits are expected to be more stable, here we present a
complementary study. We now considered particles orbiting the components of the
system, in the internal and external regions, with relative inclinations
between , i.e., particles with retrograde
orbits. Our goal is to characterize the stable regions of the system for
retrograde orbits, and then detach a preferred region to place the space probe.
For a space mission, the most interesting regions would be those that are
unstable for the prograde cases, but stable for the retrograde cases. Such
configuration provide a stable region to place the mission probe with a
relative retrograde orbit, and, at the same time, guarantees a region free of
debris since they are expected to have prograde orbits. We found that in fact
the internal and external stable regions significantly increase when compared
to the prograde case. For particles with and , we found
that nearly the whole region around Alpha and Beta remain stable. We then
identified three internal regions and one external region that are very
interesting to place the space probe. We present the stable regions found for
the retrograde case and a discussion on those preferred regions. We also
discuss the effects of resonances of the particles with Beta and Gamma, and the
role of the Kozai mechanism in this scenario. These results help us understand
and characterize the stability of the triple system 2001 SN263 when retrograde
orbits are considered, and provide important parameters to the design of the
ASTER mission.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRAS - 2015 March
1
IrF4: From Tetrahedral Compass Model to Topological Semimetal
The intersection of topology, symmetry, and magnetism yields a rich structure
of possible phases. In this work, we study theoretically the consequences of
magnetism on IrF4, which was recently identified as a possible candidate
topological nodal chain semimetal in the absence of magnetic order. We show
that the spin-orbital nature of the Ir moments gives rise to strongly
anisotropic magnetic couplings resembling a tetrahedral compass model on a
diamond lattice. The predicted magnetic ground state preserves key symmetries
protecting the nodal lines, such that they persist into the ordered phase at
the mean-field level. The consequences for other symmetry reductions are also
discussed
Effects of confinement and surface enhancement on superconductivity
Within the Ginzburg-Landau approach a theoretical study is performed of the
effects of confinement on the transition to superconductivity for type-I and
type-II materials with surface enhancement. The superconducting order parameter
is characterized by a negative surface extrapolation length . This leads to
an increase of the critical field and to a surface critical
temperature in zero field, , which exceeds the bulk . When the
sample is {\em mesoscopic} of linear size the surface induces
superconductivity in the interior for .
In analogy with adsorbed fluids, superconductivity in thin films of type-I
materials is akin to {\em capillary condensation} and competes with the
interface delocalization or "wetting" transition. The finite-size scaling
properties of capillary condensation in superconductors are scrutinized in the
limit that the ratio of magnetic penetration depth to superconducting coherence
length, , goes to zero, using analytic
calculations. While standard finite-size scaling holds for the transition in
non-zero magnetic field , an anomalous critical-point shift is found for
H=0. The increase of for H=0 is calculated for mesoscopic films,
cylindrical wires, and spherical grains of type-I and type-II materials.
Surface curvature is shown to induce a significant increase of ,
characterized by a shift inversely proportional to the
radius .Comment: 37 pages, 5 figures, accepted for PR
New interactions: past and future experiments
In this talk I will review the present status and future perspectives of some
popular extensions of the conventional three-neutrino oscillation scenario,
from a purely phenomenological point of view. For concreteness I will focus
only on three specific scenarios: non-standard neutrino interactions with
matters, models with extra sterile neutrinos, and neutrino decay and
decoherence.Comment: LaTeX file using jpconf class, 8 pages, 2 tables. Proceedings of the
"XXIII International Conference on Neutrino Physics and Astrophysics"
(Neutrino 08), Christchurch, New Zealand, May 25-31, 200
Resolving lipid mediators maresin 1 and resolvin D2 prevent atheroprogression in mice
RATIONALE: Atheroprogression is a consequence of non-resolved inflammation and currently a comprehensive overview of the mechanisms preventing resolution is missing. However, in acute inflammation, resolution is known to be orchestrated by a switch from inflammatory to resolving lipid mediators. Therefore we hypothesized that lesional lipid mediator imbalance favors atheroprogression. OBJECTIVE: To understand the lipid mediator balance during atheroprogression and to establish an interventional strategy based on delivery of resolving lipid mediators. METHODS AND RESULTS: Aortic lipid mediator profiling of aortas from Apoe(-/-) mice fed a high fat diet for four weeks, eight weeks, or four months revealed an expansion of inflammatory lipid mediators, Leukotriene B4 (LTB4) and Prostaglandin E2 (PGE2), and a concomitant decrease of resolving lipid mediators, Resolvin D2 (RvD2) and Maresin 1 (MaR1), during advanced atherosclerosis. Functionally, aortic LTB4 and PGE2 levels correlated with traits of plaque instability while RvD2 and MaR1 levels correlated with signs of plaque stability. In a therapeutic context, repetitive RvD2 and MaR1 delivery prevented atheroprogression as characterized by halted expansion of the necrotic core and accumulation of macrophages along with increased fibrous cap thickness and smooth muscle cell numbers. Mechanistically, RvD2 and MaR1 induced a shift in macrophage profile towards a reparative phenotype which secondarily stimulated collagen synthesis in smooth muscle cells. CONCLUSIONS: We present evidence for the imbalance between inflammatory and resolving lipid mediators during atheroprogression. Delivery of RvD2 and MaR1 successfully prevented atheroprogression suggesting that resolving lipid mediators potentially represent an innovative strategy to resolve arterial inflammation
Two quantum analogues of Fisher information from a large deviation viewpoint of quantum estimation
We discuss two quantum analogues of Fisher information, symmetric logarithmic
derivative (SLD) Fisher information and Kubo-Mori-Bogoljubov (KMB) Fisher
information from a large deviation viewpoint of quantum estimation and prove
that the former gives the true bound and the latter gives the bound of
consistent superefficient estimators. In another comparison, it is shown that
the difference between them is characterized by the change of the order of
limits.Comment: LaTeX with iopart.cls, iopart12.clo, iopams.st
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