1,266 research outputs found
Full polar cap cascade scenario: -ray and X-ray luminosities from spin-powered pulsars
We modify polar cap cascade picture to include the ICS of the higher
generation pairs. In such a ``full-cascade'' scenario, not only the
perpendicular portion of the energy of the pairs goes to high energy radiation
via SR, but the parallel portion of the energy of the pairs can also contribute
to high energy emission via ICS with the soft thermal photons from either the
full neutron star surface or the hot polar cap. An important output of such a
scenario is that the soft tail of the ICS spectrum can naturally result in a
non-thermal X-ray component which can contribute to the luminosities observed
by ROSAT and ASCA. Here we present an analytic description of such a full polar
cap cascade scenario within the framework of Harding & Muslimov acceleration
model. We present the theoretical predictions of the -ray luminosities,
the thermal and non-thermal X-ray luminosities for the known spin-powered X-ray
pulsars. Our results show that the observed different dependences of the high
energy luminosities on the pulsar spin-down luminosities, i.e., and , are well
reproduced. Our model predicts that the {\em pulsed} soft X-rays in the ROSAT
band from most of the millisecond pulsars might be of thermal origin if there
is no strong multipole field components near the surfaces of these pulsars.Comment: 23 pages, emulateapj style, final version to appear in the
Astrophysical Journa
Identification of groundnut (Arachis hypogaea) SSR markers suitable for multiple resistance traits QTL mapping in African germplasm
AbstractBackgroundThis study aimed to identify and select informative Simple Sequence Repeat (SSR) markers that may be linked to resistance to important groundnut diseases such as Early Leaf Spot, Groundnut Rosette Disease, rust and aflatoxin contamination. To this end, 799 markers were screened across 16 farmer preferred and other cultivated African groundnut varieties that are routinely used in groundnut improvement, some with known resistance traits.ResultsThe SSR markers amplified 817 loci and were graded on a scale of 1 to 4 according to successful amplification and ease of scoring of amplified alleles. Of these, 376 markers exhibited Polymorphic Information Content (PIC) values ranging from 0.06 to 0.86, with 1476 alleles detected at an average of 3.7 alleles per locus. The remaining 423 markers were either monomorphic or did not work well. The best performing polymorphic markers were subsequently used to construct a dissimilarity matrix that indicated the relatedness of the varieties in order to aid selection of appropriately diverse parents for groundnut improvement. The closest related varieties were MGV5 and ICGV-SM 90704 and most distant were Chalimbana and 47â10. The mean dissimilarity value was 0.51, ranging from 0.34 to 0.66.DiscussionOf the 376 informative markers identified in this study, 139 (37%) have previously been mapped to the Arachis genome and can now be employed in Quantitative Trait Loci (QTL) mapping and the additional 237 markers identified can be used to improve the efficiency of introgression of resistance to multiple important biotic constraints into farmer-preferred varieties of Sub-Saharan Africa
Atom chip based generation of entanglement for quantum metrology
Atom chips provide a versatile `quantum laboratory on a microchip' for
experiments with ultracold atomic gases. They have been used in experiments on
diverse topics such as low-dimensional quantum gases, cavity quantum
electrodynamics, atom-surface interactions, and chip-based atomic clocks and
interferometers. A severe limitation of atom chips, however, is that techniques
to control atomic interactions and to generate entanglement have not been
experimentally available so far. Such techniques enable chip-based studies of
entangled many-body systems and are a key prerequisite for atom chip
applications in quantum simulations, quantum information processing, and
quantum metrology. Here we report experiments where we generate multi-particle
entanglement on an atom chip by controlling elastic collisional interactions
with a state-dependent potential. We employ this technique to generate
spin-squeezed states of a two-component Bose-Einstein condensate and show that
they are useful for quantum metrology. The observed 3.7 dB reduction in spin
noise combined with the spin coherence imply four-partite entanglement between
the condensate atoms and could be used to improve an interferometric
measurement by 2.5 dB over the standard quantum limit. Our data show good
agreement with a dynamical multi-mode simulation and allow us to reconstruct
the Wigner function of the spin-squeezed condensate. The techniques
demonstrated here could be directly applied in chip-based atomic clocks which
are currently being set up
Observation of radiative leptonic decay of the tau lepton
Using 4.68 fb(-1) of e(+) e(-) annihilation data collected with the CLEO II detector at the Cornell Electron Storage Ring, we have studied tau radiative decays tau(-) --> nu(tau)mu(-)(mu)gamma and tau- --> nu(tau)e(-)(e)gamma. For a 10 MeV minimum photon energy in the tau rest frame, the branching fraction for radiative tau decay to a muon or electron is measured to be (3.61 +/- 0.16 +/- 0.35) x 10(-3) or (1.75 +/- 0.06 +/- 0.17) x 10(-2), respectively. The branching fractions are in agreement with standard model theoretical predictions
Measurement of charm meson lifetimes
We report measurements of the D-0, D-,(+) and D-s(+) meson lifetimes using 3.7 fb(-1) of e(+)e(-) annihilation data collected near the Y(4S) resonance with the CLEO detector. The measured lifetimes of the D-0, D+, and D-s(+) mesons are 408.5 +/- 4.1(-3.4)(+3.5) fs, 1033.6 +/- 22.1(-12.7)(+9.9) fs, and 486.3 +/- 15.0(-5.1)(+4.9) fs. The precisions of these lifetimes are comparable to those of the best previous measurements, and the systematic errors are very different. In a single experiment we find that the ratio of the D-s(+) and D-0 lifetimes is 1.19 +/- 0.04. [S0031-9007(99)09313-8]
Measurement of Ï c1 and Ï c2 production with sâ = 7 TeV pp collisions at ATLAS
The prompt and non-prompt production cross-sections for the Ï c1 and Ï c2 charmonium states are measured in pp collisions at sâ = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC using 4.5 fbâ1 of integrated luminosity. The Ï c states are reconstructed through the radiative decay Ï c â J/ÏÎł (with J/Ï â ÎŒ + ÎŒ â) where photons are reconstructed from Îł â e + e â conversions. The production rate of the Ï c2 state relative to the Ï c1 state is measured for prompt and non-prompt Ï c as a function of J/Ï transverse momentum. The prompt Ï c cross-sections are combined with existing measurements of prompt J/Ï production to derive the fraction of prompt J/Ï produced in feed-down from Ï c decays. The fractions of Ï c1 and Ï c2 produced in b-hadron decays are also measured
c- and N-myc Regulate Neural Precursor Cell Fate, Cell Cycle, and Metabolism to Direct Cerebellar Development
Separate murine knockout (KO) of either c- or N-myc genes in neural stem and precursor cells (NSC) driven by nestin-cre causes microcephaly. The cerebellum is particularly affected in the N-myc KO, leading to a strong reduction in cerebellar granule neural progenitors (CGNP) and mature granule neurons. In humans, mutation of N-myc also causes microcephaly in Feingold Syndrome. We created a double KO (DKO) of c- and N-myc using nestin-cre, which strongly impairs brain growth, particularly that of the cerebellum. Granule neurons were almost absent from the Myc DKO cerebellum, and other cell types were relatively overrepresented, including astroglia, oligodendrocytes, and Purkinje neurons. These findings are indicative of a profound disruption of cell fate of cerebellar stem and precursors. DKO Purkinje neurons were strikingly lacking in normal arborization. Inhibitory neurons were ectopic and exhibited very abnormal GAD67 staining patterns. Also consistent with altered cell fate, the adult DKO cerebellum still retained a residual external germinal layer (EGL). CGNP in the DKO EGL were almost uniformly NeuN and p27KIP1 positive as well as negative for Math1 and BrdU at the peak of normal cerebellar proliferation at P6. The presence of some mitotic CGNP in the absence of S phase cells suggests a possible arrest in M phase. CGNP and NSC metabolism also was affected by loss of Myc as DKO cells exhibited weak nucleolin staining. Together these findings indicate that c- and N-Myc direct cerebellar development by maintaining CGNP and NSC populations through inhibiting differentiation as well as directing rapid cell cycling and active cellular metabolism
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Deleted in Colorectal Cancer Is a Putative Conditional Tumor-Suppressor Gene Inactivated by Promoter Hypermethylation in Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma
Deleted in colorectal cancer (DCC) is a candidate tumor-suppressor gene located at chromosome 18q21. However, DCC gene was found to have few somatic mutations and the heterozygous mice (DCC+/â) showed a similar frequency of tumor formation compared with the wild-type mice (DCC+/+). Recently, DCC came back to the spotlight as a better understating of its function and relationship with its ligand (netrin-1) had shown that DCC may act as a conditional tumor-suppressor gene. We evaluated hypermethylation as a mechanism for DCC inactivation in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC). DCC promoter region hypermethylation was found in 75% of primary HNSCC. There was a significant correlation between DCC promoter region hypermethylation and DCC expression (assessed by immunohistochemistry; P = 0.021). DCC nonexpressing HNSCC cell lines JHU-O12 and JHU-O19 with baseline hypermethylation of the DCC promoter were treated with 5-aza-2âČ-deoxycytidine (a demethylating agent) and reexpression of DCC was noted. Transfection of DCC into DCC-negative HNSCC cell lines resulted in complete abrogation of growth in all cell lines, whereas additional cotransfection of netrin-1 resulted in rescue of DCC-mediated growth inhibition. These results suggest that DCC is a putative conditional tumor-suppressor gene that is epigenetically inactivated by promoter hypermethylation in a majority of HNSCC. (Cancer Res 2006; 66(19): 9401-07
The Fourteenth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: First Spectroscopic Data from the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey and from the second phase of the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment
The fourth generation of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-IV) has been in
operation since July 2014. This paper describes the second data release from
this phase, and the fourteenth from SDSS overall (making this, Data Release
Fourteen or DR14). This release makes public data taken by SDSS-IV in its first
two years of operation (July 2014-2016). Like all previous SDSS releases, DR14
is cumulative, including the most recent reductions and calibrations of all
data taken by SDSS since the first phase began operations in 2000. New in DR14
is the first public release of data from the extended Baryon Oscillation
Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS); the first data from the second phase of the
Apache Point Observatory (APO) Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE-2),
including stellar parameter estimates from an innovative data driven machine
learning algorithm known as "The Cannon"; and almost twice as many data cubes
from the Mapping Nearby Galaxies at APO (MaNGA) survey as were in the previous
release (N = 2812 in total). This paper describes the location and format of
the publicly available data from SDSS-IV surveys. We provide references to the
important technical papers describing how these data have been taken (both
targeting and observation details) and processed for scientific use. The SDSS
website (www.sdss.org) has been updated for this release, and provides links to
data downloads, as well as tutorials and examples of data use. SDSS-IV is
planning to continue to collect astronomical data until 2020, and will be
followed by SDSS-V.Comment: SDSS-IV collaboration alphabetical author data release paper. DR14
happened on 31st July 2017. 19 pages, 5 figures. Accepted by ApJS on 28th Nov
2017 (this is the "post-print" and "post-proofs" version; minor corrections
only from v1, and most of errors found in proofs corrected
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