The potential for gamma-emitting radionuclides to contribute to an understanding of erosion processes in South Africa

Several research projects undertaken by the authors and others over the last 14 years have used fallout and geogenic radionuclides for understanding erosion processes and sediment yield dynamics in South Africa over the last 100–200 years as European settlers colonised the interior plains and plateaux of the country and imported new livestock and farming techniques to the region. These projects have used two fallout radionuclides (210Pb and 137Cs) to date sediments accumulating in reservoirs, farm dams, wetlands, alluvial fans and floodouts and have used other fallout nuclides (7Be) and long-lived geogenic radionuclides (e.g. 40K, 235U) as part of a composite fingerprint exploring contemporary sediment sources and changes to sources through time. While successful in many parts of the world, applying these techniques in Southern Africa has posed a number of challenges often not encountered elsewhere. Here we explore some of the benefits and challenges in using gamma-emitting radionuclides, especially 137Cs, in these landscapes. Benefits include the potential for discriminating gully sidewall from topsoil sources, which has helped to identify contemporary gully systems as sediment conduits, rather than sources, and for providing a time-synchronous marker horizon in a range of sedimentary environments that has helped to develop robust chronologies. Challenges include the spatial variability in soil cover on steep rocky hillslopes, which is likely to challenge assumptions about the uniformity of initial fallout nuclide distribution, the paucity of stable (non-eroding) sites in order to estimate atmospheric fallout inventories, and the limited success of 210Pb dating in some rapidly accumulating high altitude catchments where sediments often comprise significant amounts of sand and gravel. Despite these challenges we present evidence suggesting that the use of gamma-emitting radionuclides can make a significant contribution to our understanding of erosion processes and sediment yield dynamics. Future research highlighted in the conclusion will try to address current challenges and outline new projects established to address them more fully

How well do local relations predict gas-phase metallicity gradients? Results from SDSS-IV MaNGA

Funding: J.B-B thanks IA-100420 (DGAPA-PAPIIT, UNAM) and CONA-CYT grant CF19-39578 support. RR thanks Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico ( CNPq, Proj. 311223/2020-6, 304927/2017-1 and 400352/2016-8), Fundação de amparo ’a pesquisa do Rio Grande do Sul (FAPERGS, Proj. 16/2551-0000251-7 and 19/1750-2), Coordena¸cão de Aperfei¸coamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES, Proj. 0001). RAR acknowledges financial support from Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (302280/2019-7).Gas-phase metallicity gradients in galaxies provide important clues to those galaxies’ formation histories. Using SDSS-IV MaNGA data, we previously demonstrated that gas metallicity gradients vary systematically and significantly across the galaxy mass–size plane: at stellar masses beyond approximately 1010 M⊙, more extended galaxies display steeper gradients (in units of dex/Re) at a given stellar mass. Here, we set out to develop a physical interpretation of these findings by examining the ability of local ∼kpc-scale relations to predict the gradient behaviour along the mass–size plane. We find that local stellar mass surface density, when combined with total stellar mass, is sufficient to reproduce the overall mass–size trend in a qualitative sense. We further find that we can improve the predictions by correcting for residual trends relating to the recent star formation histories of star-forming regions. However, we find as well that the most extended galaxies display steeper average gradients than predicted, even after correcting for residual metallicity trends with other local parameters. From these results, we argue that gas-phase metallicity gradients can largely be understood in terms of known local relations, but we also discuss some possible physical causes of discrepant gradients.PostprintPeer reviewe

The disappearing act: a dusty wind eclipsing RW Aur

The authors acknowledge support from the Science and Technology Facilities Council through grants no. ST/K502339/1 and ST/M001296/1, and the Science Foundation Ireland through grant no. 10/RFP/AST2780.RW Aur is a young binary star that experienced a deep dimming in 2010-11in component A and a second even deeper dimming from summer 2014 to summer 2016. We present new unresolved multi-band photometry during the 2014-16 eclipse, new emission line spectroscopy before and during th dimming, archive infrared photometry between 2014-15, as well as an overview of literature data. Spectral observations were carried out witht he Fibre-fed RObotic Dual-beam Optical Spectrograph on the Liverpool Telescope. Photometric monitoring was done with the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network and James Gregory Telescope. Ourphotometry shows that RW Aur dropped in brightness to R = 12.5 in March 2016. In addition to the long-term dimming trend, RW Aur is variable on time-scales as short as hours. The short-term variation is most likely due to an unstable accretion flow. This, combined with the presence of accretion-related emission lines in the spectra suggest that accretion flows in the binary system are at least partially visible during the eclipse. The equivalent width of [O I] increases by a factor of ten in 2014, coinciding with the dimming event, confirming previous reports.The blueshifted part of the Hα profile is suppressed during the eclipse. In combination with the increase in mid-infrared brightness during the eclipse reported in the literature and seen in WISE archival data, and constraints on the geometry of the disk around RW Aur A we arrive at the conclusion that the obscuring screen is part of a wind emanating from the inner disc.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Polychromatic solitons in a quadratic medium

We introduce the simplest model to describe parametric interactions in a quadratically nonlinear optical medium with the fundamental harmonic containing two components with (slightly) different carrier frequencies [which is a direct analog of wavelength-division multiplexed (WDM) models, well known in media with cubic nonlinearity]. The model takes a closed form with three different second-harmonic components, and it is formulated in the spatial domain. We demonstrate that the model supports both polychromatic solitons (PCSs), with all the components present in them, and two types of mutually orthogonal simple solitons, both types being stable in a broad parametric region. An essential peculiarity of PCS is that its power is much smaller than that of a simple (usual) soliton (taken at the same values of control parameters), which may be an advantage for experimental generation of PCSs. Collisions between the orthogonal simple solitons are simulated in detail, leading to the conclusion that the collisions are strongly inelastic, converting the simple solitons into polychromatic ones, and generating one or two additional PCSs. A collision velocity at which the inelastic effects are strongest is identified, and it is demonstrated that the collision may be used as a basis to design a simple all-optical XOR logic gate.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures, accepted to Phys. Rev.

Approximate solutions and scaling transformations for quadratic solitons

We study quadratic solitons supported by two- and three-wave parametric interactions in chi-2 nonlinear media. Both planar and two-dimensional cases are considered. We obtain very accurate, 'almost exact', explicit analytical solutions, matching the actual bright soliton profiles, with the help of a specially-developed approach, based on analysis of the scaling properties. Additionally, we use these approximations to describe the linear tails of solitary waves which are related to the properties of the soliton bound states.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figures; submitted for publicatio