Discovery of {\gamma}-ray pulsation and X-ray emission from the black widow pulsar PSR J2051-0827

We report the discovery of pulsed {\gamma}-ray emission and X-ray emission from the black widow millisecond pulsar PSR J2051-0827 by using the data from the Large Area Telescope (LAT) on board the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope and the Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer array (ACIS-S) on the Chandra X-ray Observatory. Using 3 years of LAT data, PSR J2051-0827 is clearly detected in {\gamma}-ray with a signicance of \sim 8{\sigma} in the 0.2 - 20 GeV band. The 200 MeV - 20 GeV {\gamma}-ray spectrum of PSR J2051-0827 can be modeled by a simple power- law with a photon index of 2.46 \pm 0.15. Significant (\sim 5{\sigma}) {\gamma}-ray pulsations at the radio period were detected. PSR J2051-0827 was also detected in soft (0.3-7 keV) X-ray with Chandra. By comparing the observed {\gamma}-rays and X-rays with theoretical models, we suggest that the {\gamma}-ray emission is from the outer gap while the X-rays can be from intra-binary shock and pulsar magnetospheric synchrotron emissions.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures, accepted by ApJ on Jan 28, 201

TagF-mediated repression of bacterial type VI secretion systems involves a direct interaction with the cytoplasmic protein Fha

The bacterial type VI secretion system (T6SS) delivers effectors into eukaryotic host cells or toxins into bacterial competitor for survival and fitness. The T6SS is positively regulated by the threonine phosphorylation pathway (TPP) and negatively by the T6SS-accessory protein TagF. Here, we studied the mechanisms underlying TagF-mediated T6SS repression in two distinct bacterial pathogens, Agrobacterium tumefaciens and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. We found that in A. tumefaciens, T6SS toxin secretion and T6SS-dependent antibacterial activity are suppressed by a two-domain chimeric protein consisting of TagF and PppA, a putative phosphatase. Remarkably, this TagF domain is sufficient to post-translationally repress the T6SS, and this inhibition is independent of TPP. This repression requires interaction with a cytoplasmic protein, Fha, critical for activating T6SS assembly. In P. aeruginosa, PppA and TagF are two distinct proteins that repress T6SS in a TPP-dependent and -independent pathways, respectively. P. aeruginosa TagF interacts with Fha1, suggesting that formation of this complex represents a conserved TagF-mediated regulatory mechanism. Using TagF variants with substitutions of conserved amino acid residues at predicted protein-protein interaction interfaces, we uncovered evidence that the TagF-Fha interaction is critical for TagF-mediated T6SS repression in both bacteria. TagF inhibits T6SS without affecting T6SS protein abundance in A. tumefaciens, but TagF overexpression reduces the protein levels of all analyzed T6SS components in P. aeruginosa. Our results indicate that TagF interacts with Fha, which in turn could impact different stages of T6SS assembly in different bacteria, possibly reflecting an evolutionary divergence in T6SS control

Discovery of gamma-ray emission from the supernova remnant Kes 17 with Fermi Large Area Telescope

We report the discovery of GeV emission at the position of supernova remnant Kes 17 by using the data from the Large Area Telescope on board the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. Kes 17 can be clearly detected with a significance of ~12 sigma in the 1 - 20 GeV range. Moreover, a number of gamma-ray sources were detected in its vicinity. The gamma-ray spectrum of Kes 17 can be well described by a simple power-law with a photon index of ~ 2.4. Together with the multi-wavelength evidence for its interactions with the nearby molecular cloud, the gamma-ray detection suggests that Kes 17 is a candidate acceleration site for cosmic-rays.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figures, 1 table, accepted for publication in ApJ Lette

Dynamics of photoexcited carriers in graphene

The nonequilibrium dynamics of carriers and phonons in graphene is investigated by solving the microscopic kinetic equations with the carrier-phonon and carrier-carrier Coulomb scatterings explicitly included. The Fermi distribution of hot carriers are found to be established within 100 fs and the temperatures of electrons in the conduction and valence bands are very close to each other, even when the excitation density and the equilibrium density are comparable, thanks to the strong inter-band Coulomb scattering. Moreover, the temporal evolutions of the differential transmission obtained from our calculations agree with the experiments by Wang et al. [Appl. Phys. Lett. 96, 081917 (2010)] and Hale et al. [Phys. Rev. B 83, 121404 (2011)] very well, with two distinct differential transmission relaxations presented. We show that the fast relaxation is due to the rapid carrier-phonon thermalization and the slow one is mainly because of the slow decay of hot phonons. In addition, it is found that the temperatures of the hot phonons in different branches are different and the temperature of hot carriers can be even lower than that of the hottest phonons. Finally, we show that the slow relaxation rate exhibits a mild valley in the excitation density dependence and is linearly dependent on the probe-photon energy.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figure

Interpretation of x-ray-absorption dichroism experiments

A rule is derived to use x-ray magnetic circular dichroism spectra to extract the magnetic moment of the conduction-band states with j= l -1/2 separately from those with j= l + 1/2 as a function of energy. This quantity is straightforward to determine from the electronic band structure. The rule is illustrated with an application to pure iron and to the random substitutional alloy Fe_{80}CO_{20}

Multicritical Points of Potts Spin Glasses on the Triangular Lattice

We predict the locations of several multicritical points of the Potts spin glass model on the triangular lattice. In particular, continuous multicritical lines, which consist of multicritical points, are obtained for two types of two-state Potts (i.e., Ising) spin glasses with two- and three-body interactions on the triangular lattice. These results provide us with numerous examples to further verify the validity of the conjecture, which has succeeded in deriving highly precise locations of multicritical points for several spin glass models. The technique, called the direct triangular duality, a variant of the ordinary duality transformation, directly relates the triangular lattice with its dual triangular lattice in conjunction with the replica method.Comment: 18 pages, 2, figure