Characteristics of Cryopreserved Spermatozoa from a Holstein-Friesian Bull Thawed at Different Temperature <Research Notes>

The present study was undertaken to examine the viability, motility and morphology of spermatozoa that were frozen-thawed at different temperature followed by the storage at 4ºC until 10 hours under the condition of tropical area. The frozen semen derived from a Holstein-Friesian bull with the egg-yolkbase extender was thawed at 23ºC or 37ºC for 30 seconds or 15 seconds, respectively, and kept at 4ºC. Viability, motility and damage of acrosomal cap in sperm were assessed every 2 hours after thawing. The sperm viability just after the refrigeration at 4ºC was not different between the groups. Besides, only 5% difference was found in the viability between the groups from 2 to 10 hours after thawing. On the other hand, the sperm had a fast progressive movement until 6 hours post-thawing. Only 2% or less sperms showed the damage of acrosomal cap in both groups. This value did not rise with keeping the semen at 4ºC until 10 hours in both groups. In conclusion, the thawing at 23ºC for 30 seconds does not have detrimental effects on the viability, motility, and morphological change of sperm. This suggests that the semen thawed at 23ºC can keep the quality at 4ºC for 6 hours

Reconstruction of GABAergic Transmission and Behavior by Striatal Cell Grafts in Rats with Ischemic Infarcts in the Middle Cerebral Artery

Fetal striatal cell suspensions were grafted stereotaxically into the infarcted striatum of rats, and reconstruction of striatopallidal GABA transmission and behavior were investigated. Occlusion of the middle cerebral artery (MCA) for one hour induced ischemic infarcts mainly in the lateral striatum, as detected by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and histology. Ischemic rats had deficits in the performance of a passive avoidance task, both acquisition and retention, but no changes in general circadian actograms. In these animals pallidal GABA, detected by microdialysis, decreased to about half of control levels. There were suggestions of an improvement in passive avoidance performance in the grafted animals. Pallidal GABA concentrations recovered almost to control levels, and were increased by infusions of the GABA uptake blocker nipecotic acid. These data indicate that neural transplantation is a promising approach to improve the deficits in chemical transmission and behavior following ischemic infarcts in rat striatum

Stellar and AGN Feedback Probed with Outflows in JWST Galaxies at z=3-9: Implications of Frequent Nearly-Spherical Galactic Fountains

We study outflows in 130 galaxies with -22<MUV<-16 at z=3-9 identified in JWST NIRSpec and NIRCam WFSS data taken by the ERO, CEERS, FRESCO, GLASS, and JADES programs. We identify 30 out of the 130 galaxies with broad components of FWHM~200-700 km/s in the emission lines of H${\alpha}$ and [OIII] that trace ionized outflows, and find no excesses from the star-formation main sequence. Four out of the 30 outflowing galaxies are Type 1 AGN whose H${\alpha}$ emission lines include line profile components as broad as FWHM>1000 km/s. With the velocity shift and line widths of the outflow broad lines, we obtain ~80-500 km/s for the outflow velocities. We find that the outflow velocities as a function of star-formation rate are comparable to or higher than those of galaxies at z~1, accounting for the selection bias, while the outflow velocities of AGN are large but not significantly different from the others. Interestingly, these outflow velocities are typically not high enough to escape from the galactic potentials, suggestive of fountain-type outflows, which are concluded on the basis of thorough comparisons with recent JWST results. We estimate mass loading factors ${\eta}$ to be 0.1-1 that are not particularly large, but comparable with those of z~1 outflows. The large fraction of galaxies with outflows (30% with high resolution data) provides constraints on outflow parameters, suggesting a wide opening angle of >45 deg and a large duty-cycle of >30%, which gives a picture of more frequent and spherical outflows in high-z galaxies.Comment: 16 pages, 11 figures, submitted to the Astrophysical Journa

JWST Measurements of Neutral Hydrogen Fractions and Ionized Bubble Sizes at z=7−12z=7-12 Obtained with Lyα\alpha Damping Wing Absorptions in 26 Bright Continuum Galaxies

We present volume-averaged neutral hydrogen fractions x_{\rm \HI} and ionized bubble radii $R_{\rm b}$ measured with Ly$\alpha$ damping wing absorptions of galaxies at the epoch of reionization. We combine JWST/NIRSpec spectra taken by CEERS, GO-1433, and DDT-2750 programs, and obtain 26 bright UV-continuum galaxies at $7<z<12$. We construct 4 composite spectra binned by redshift, and find the clear evolution of spectral flattening towards high redshift at the rest-frame $1216$ \AA\ suggesting the increase of Ly$\alpha$ damping wing absorption. We estimate Ly$\alpha$ damping wing absorption in the composite spectra with realistic templates including Ly$\alpha$ emission and circum-galactic medium absorptions. Assuming the standard inside-out reionization picture having an ionized bubble with $R_{\rm b}$ around a galaxy in the inter-galactic medium of x_{\rm \HI}, we obtain x_{\rm \HI} ($R_{\rm b}$) values monotonically increasing (decreasing) from x_{\rm \HI}={0.46}^{+0.36}_{-0.32} to ${0.83}^{+0.12}_{-0.21}$ ($R_{\rm b}={1.49}^{+0.37}_{-0.43}\times10^2$ to ${5.04}^{+8.06}_{-3.73}$ comoving Mpc) at redshift $7.140^{+0.039}_{-0.076}$ to $9.801^{+1.599}_{-1.164}$. The redshift evolution of x_{\rm \HI} indicates moderately late reionization history consistent with the one suggested from the electron scattering of cosmic microwave background and the evolution of UV luminosity function with an escape fraction $f_{\rm esc}\simeq 0.17$. Our $R_{\rm b}$ measurements are about 20 times larger than the cosmic average values estimated by analytic calculations for a given x_{\rm \HI}, while our $R_{\rm b}$ measurements are comparable with the values for merged ionized bubbles around bright galaxies predicted by recent numerical simulations

Pure Spectroscopic Constraints on UV Luminosity Functions and Cosmic Star Formation History From 25 Galaxies at zspec=8.61−13.20z_\mathrm{spec}=8.61-13.20 Confirmed with JWST/NIRSpec

We present pure spectroscopic constraints on the UV luminosity functions and cosmic star formation rate (SFR) densities from 25 galaxies at $z_\mathrm{spec}=8.61-13.20$. By reducing the JWST/NIRSpec spectra taken in multiple programs of ERO, ERS, GO, and DDT with our analysis technique, we independently confirm 16 galaxies at $z_\mathrm{spec}=8.61-11.40$ including new redshift determinations, and a bright interloper at $z_\mathrm{spec}=4.91$ that was claimed as a photometric candidate at z~16. In conjunction with nine galaxies at redshifts up to $z_\mathrm{spec}=13.20$ in the literature, we make a sample of 25 spectroscopically-confirmed galaxies in total and carefully derive the best estimates and lower limits of the UV luminosity functions. These UV luminosity function constraints are consistent with the previous photometric estimates within the uncertainties and indicate mild redshift evolution towards z~12 showing tensions with some theoretical models of rapid evolution. With these spectroscopic constraints, we obtain firm lower limits of the cosmic SFR densities and spectroscopically confirm a high SFR density at z~12 beyond the constant star-formation efficiency models, which supports earlier claims from the photometric studies. While there are no spectroscopically-confirmed galaxies with very large stellar masses violating the $\Lambda$CDM model due to the removal of the bright interloper, we confirm star-forming galaxies at $z_\mathrm{spec}=11-13$ with stellar masses much higher than model predictions. Our results indicate possibilities of high star-formation efficiency (>5%), hidden AGN, top-heavy initial mass function (possibly with Pop-III), and large scatter/variance. Having these successful and unsuccessful spectroscopy results, we suggest observational strategies for efficiently removing low redshift interlopers for future JWST programs.Comment: 27 pages, 18 figures, submitted to Ap

A JWST/NIRSpec First Census of Broad-Line AGNs at z=4-7: Detection of 10 Faint AGNs with M_BH~10^6-10^8 M_sun and Their Host Galaxy Properties

We present a first statistical sample of faint type-1 AGNs at $z>4$ identified by JWST/NIRSpec deep spectroscopy. Among the 185 galaxies at $z_\mathrm{spec}=3.8-8.9$ confirmed with NIRSpec, our systematic search for broad-line emission reveals 10 type-1 AGNs at $z=4.015-6.936$ whose broad component is only seen in the permitted H$\alpha$ line and not in the forbidden [OIII]$\lambda$5007 line that is detected with greater significance than H$\alpha$. The broad H$\alpha$ line widths of $\mathrm{FWHM}\simeq1000-6000\ \mathrm{km\ s^{-1}}$suggest that the AGNs have low-mass black holes with$M_\mathrm{BH}\sim10^6-10^8\ M_\odot$, remarkably lower than those of low-luminosity quasars previously identified at$z>4$with ground-based telescopes. JWST and HST high-resolution images reveal that the majority of them show extended morphologies indicating significant contribution to the total lights from their host galaxies, except for three compact objects two of which show red SEDs, probably in a transition phase from faint AGNs to low luminosity quasars. Careful AGN-host decomposition analyses show that their host's stellar masses are systematically lower than the local relation between the black hole mass and the stellar mass, implying a fast black hole growth consistent with predictions from theoretical simulations. A high fraction of the broad-line AGNs ($\sim5\%$), higher than$z\sim0$, indicates that a number density of such faint AGNs is higher than an extrapolation of the quasar luminosity function, implying a large population of AGNs including type 1 and type 2 in the early universe. Such faint AGNs contribute to cosmic reionization, while the total contribution is not large, up to$\sim50\%$at$z\sim6$, because of their faint nature.Comment: 24 pages, 16 figures, accepted for publication in Ap

A Comprehensive Study on Galaxies at z~9-17 Found in the Early JWST Data: UV Luminosity Functions and Cosmic Star-Formation History at the Pre-Reionization Epoch

We conduct a comprehensive study on dropout galaxy candidates at $z\sim 9-17$ using the first 90 arcmin$^2$ JWST/NIRCam images taken by the early release observations (ERO) and early release science (ERS) programs. With the JWST simulation images, we find that a number of foreground interlopers are selected with a weak photo-$z$ determination ($\Delta \chi^2>4$). We thus carefully apply a secure photo-$z$ selection criterion ($\Delta \chi^2>9$) and conventional color criteria with confirmations of the ERO NIRSpec spectroscopic redshifts, and obtain a total of 25 dropout galaxies at $z\sim 9-17$, including two candidates at $z_\mathrm{phot}=16.45_{-0.32}^{+0.09}$ and $16.66_{-0.34}^{+1.86}$. We perform thorough comparisons of dropout galaxies found in our work with recent JWST studies, and conclude that our galaxy sample is reliable enough for statistical analyses. We derive the UV luminosity functions at $z\sim 9-17$, and confirm that our UV luminosity functions at $z\sim 9$ and $12$ agree with those determined by previous HST and JWST studies. The cosmic star-formation rate density decreases from $z\sim 9$ to $12$, and perhaps to $17$, but the densities at $z\sim12-17$ are higher than the constant star formation efficiency model. Interestingly, there are six bright galaxy candidates at $z\sim 11-17$ with $M_{\rm UV}<-19.5$ whose stellar masses are very high, $10^{8-9} M_\odot$. Because a majority ($\sim 70\%$) of these galaxies shows no signatures of AGNs in their morphologies, the high cosmic star-formation rate densities and the existence of these stellar massive galaxies are explained by no suppression of star-formation by the UV background radiation at the pre-reionization epoch or an efficient UV radiation production by Population III-like star formation.Comment: 36 pages, 19 figures. Submitted to ApJS. Comments welcom

Census for the Rest-frame Optical and UV Morphologies of Galaxies at z=4−10z=4-10: First Phase of Inside-Out Galaxy Formation

We present the rest-frame optical and UV surface brightness (SB) profiles for $149$ galaxies with $M_{\rm opt}< -19.4$ mag at $z=4$-$10$ ($29$ of which are spectroscopically confirmed with JWST NIRSpec), securing high signal-to-noise ratios of $10$-$135$ with deep JWST NIRCam $1$-$5\mu$m images obtained by the CEERS survey. We derive morphologies of our high-$z$ galaxies, carefully evaluating the systematics of SB profile measurements with Monte Carlo simulations as well as the impacts of a) AGNs, b) multiple clumps including galaxy mergers, c) spatial resolution differences with previous HST studies, and d) strong emission lines, e.g., H$\alpha$ and [OIII], on optical morphologies with medium-band F410M images. Conducting S\'ersic profile fitting to our high-$z$ galaxy SBs with GALFIT, we obtain the effective radii of optical $r_{\rm e, opt}$ and UV $r_{\rm e, UV}$ wavelengths ranging $r_{\rm e, opt}=0.05$-$1.6$ kpc and $r_{\rm e, UV}=0.03$-$1.7$ kpc that are consistent with previous results within large scatters in the size luminosity relations. However, we find the effective radius ratio, $r_{\rm e, opt}/r_{\rm e, UV}$, is almost unity, $1.01^{+0.35}_{-0.22}$, over $z=4$-$10$ with no signatures of past inside-out star formation such found at $z\sim 0$-$2$. There are no spatial offsets exceeding $3\sigma$ between the optical and UV morphology centers in case of no mergers, indicative of major star-forming activity only found near a mass center of galaxies at $z\gtrsim 4$ probably experiencing the first phase of inside-out galaxy formation.Comment: 33 pages, 18 figures, 6 table