424 research outputs found
Visible Light-Driven Water Oxidation Catalyzed by Ruthenium Complexes
A shift in energy dependence from fossil fuels to sustainable and carbon-neutral alternatives is a daunting challenge that faces the human society. Light harvesting for the production of solar fuels has been extensively investigated as an attractive approach to clean and abundant energy. An essential component in solar energy conversion schemes is a catalyst for water oxidation. Ruthenium-based catalysts have received significant attention due to their ability to efficiently mediate the oxidation of water. In this context, the design of robust catalysts capable of driving water oxidation at low overpotential is a key challenge for realizing efficient visible light-driven water splitting. Herein, recent progress in the development within this field is presented with a focus on homogeneous ruthenium-based systems and surface-immobilized ruthenium assemblies for photo-induced oxidation of water
Long-lived space observatories for astronomy and astrophysics
NASA's plan to build and launch a fleet of long-lived space observatories that include the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), the Gamma Ray Observatory (GRO), the Advanced X Ray Astrophysics Observatory (AXAF), and the Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF) are discussed. These facilities are expected to have a profound impact on the sciences of astronomy and astrophysics. The long-lived observatories will provide new insights about astronomical and astrophysical problems that range from the presence of planets orbiting nearby stars to the large-scale distribution and evolution of matter in the universe. An important concern to NASA and the scientific community is the operation and maintenance cost of the four observatories described above. The HST cost about 160 million (1986 dollars) a year to operate and maintain. If HST is operated for 20 years, the accumulated costs will be considerably more than those required for its construction. Therefore, it is essential to plan carefully for observatory operations and maintenance before a long-lived facility is constructed. The primary goal of this report is to help NASA develop guidelines for the operations and management of these future observatories so as to achieve the best possible scientific results for the resources available. Eight recommendations are given
The accretion origin of the Milky Way's stellar halo
We have used data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 5 to
explore the overall structure and substructure of the stellar halo of the Milky
Way using about 4 million color-selected main sequence turn-off stars. We fit
oblate and triaxial broken power-law models to the data, and found a `best-fit'
oblateness of the stellar halo 0.5<c/a<0.8, and halo stellar masses between
Galactocentric radii of 1 and 40kpc of (3.7+/-1.2)x10^8 M_sun. The density
profile of the stellar halo is approximately r^{-3}; it is possible that the
power law slope is shallower inside 20kpc and steeper outside that radius. Yet,
we found that all smooth and symmetric models were very poor fits to the
distribution of stellar halo stars because the data exhibit a great deal of
spatial substructure. We quantified deviations from a smooth oblate/triaxial
model using the RMS of the data around the model profile on scales >~100pc,
after accounting for the (known) contribution of Poisson uncertainties. The
fractional RMS deviation of the actual stellar distribution from any smooth,
parameterized halo model is >~40%: hence, the stellar halo is highly
structured. We compared the observations with simulations of galactic stellar
halos formed entirely from the accretion of satellites in a cosmological
context by analysing the simulations in the same way as the data. While the
masses, overall profiles, and degree of substructure in the simulated stellar
halos show considerable scatter, the properties and degree of substructure in
the Milky Way's halo match well the properties of a `typical' stellar halo
built exclusively out of the debris from disrupted satellite galaxies. Our
results therefore point towards a picture in which an important fraction of the
Milky Way's stellar halo has been accreted from satellite galaxies.Comment: Submitted to the Astrophysical Journal. 14 pages; 11 figure
SDSS J092455.87+021924.9: an Interesting Gravitationally Lensed Quasar from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
We report the discovery of a new gravitationally lensed quasar from the Sloan
Digital Sky Survey, SDSS J092455.87+021924.9 (SDSS J0924+0219). This object was
selected from among known SDSS quasars by an algorithm that was designed to
select another known SDSS lensed quasar (SDSS 1226-0006A,B). Five separate
components, three of which are unresolved, are identified in photometric
follow-up observations obtained with the Magellan Consortium's 6.5m Walter
Baade telescope at Las Campanas Observatory. Two of the unresolved components
(designated A and B) are confirmed to be quasars with z=1.524; the velocity
difference is less than 100 km sec^{-1} according to spectra taken with the W.
M. Keck Observatory's Keck II telescope on Mauna Kea. A third stellar
component, designated C, has the colors of a quasar with redshift similar to
components A and B. The maximum separation of the point sources is 1.78". The
other two sources, designated G and D, are resolved. Component G appears to be
the best candidate for the lensing galaxy. Although component D is near the
expected position of the fourth lensed component in a four image lens system,
its properties are not consistent with being the image of a quasar at z~1.5.
Nevertheless, the identical redshifts of components A and B and the presence of
component C strongly suggest that this object is a gravitational lens. Our
observations support the idea that a foreground object reddens the fourth
lensed component and that another unmodeled effect (such as micro- or
milli-lensing) demagnificates it, but we cannot rule out the possibility that
SDSS0924+0219 is an example of the relatively rare class of ``three component''
lens systems.Comment: 24 pages, 6 figures, accepted by A
Quantifying Kinematic Substructure in the Milky Way's Stellar Halo
We present and analyze the positions, distances, and radial velocities for
over 4000 blue horizontal-branch (BHB) stars in the Milky Way's halo, drawn
from SDSS DR8. We search for position-velocity substructure in these data, a
signature of the hierarchical assembly of the stellar halo. Using a cumulative
"close pair distribution" (CPD) as a statistic in the 4-dimensional space of
sky position, distance, and velocity, we quantify the presence of
position-velocity substructure at high statistical significance among the BHB
stars: pairs of BHB stars that are close in position on the sky tend to have
more similar distances and radial velocities compared to a random sampling of
these overall distributions. We make analogous mock-observations of 11
numerical halo formation simulations, in which the stellar halo is entirely
composed of disrupted satellite debris, and find a level of substructure
comparable to that seen in the actually observed BHB star sample. This result
quantitatively confirms the hierarchical build-up of the stellar halo through a
signature in phase (position-velocity) space. In detail, the structure present
in the BHB stars is somewhat less prominent than that seen in most simulated
halos, quite possibly because BHB stars represent an older sub-population. BHB
stars located beyond 20 kpc from the Galactic center exhibit stronger
substructure than at kpc.Comment: 29 page, 10 figures, 1 table; accepted by APJ; for related article by
another group see arXiv:1011.192
Kepler eclipsing binary stars. VII. the catalogue of eclipsing binaries found in the entire Kepler data set
The primary Kepler Mission provided nearly continuous monitoring of ~200,000 objects with unprecedented photometric precision. We present the final catalog of eclipsing binary systems within the 105 deg2 Kepler field of view. This release incorporates the full extent of the data from the primary mission (Q0-Q17 Data Release). As a result, new systems have been added, additional false positives have been removed, ephemerides and principal parameters have been recomputed, classifications have been revised to rely on analytical models, and eclipse timing variations have been computed for each system. We identify several classes of systems including those that exhibit tertiary eclipse events, systems that show clear evidence of additional bodies, heartbeat systems, systems with changing eclipse depths, and systems exhibiting only one eclipse event over the duration of the mission. We have updated the period and galactic latitude distribution diagrams and included a catalog completeness evaluation. The total number of identified eclipsing and ellipsoidal binary systems in the Kepler field of view has increased to 2878, 1.3% of all observed Kepler targets
On gravitational waves emitted by an ensemble of rotating neutron stars
We study the possibility to detect the gravitational wave background
generated by all the neutron stars in the Galaxy with only one gravitational
wave interferometric detector. The proposed strategy consists in squaring the
detector's output and searching for a sidereal modulation. The shape of the
squared signal is computed for a disk and a halo distribution of neutron stars.
The required noise stability of the interferometric detector is discussed. We
argue that a possible population of old neutron stars, originating from a high
stellar formation rate at the birth of the Galaxy and not emitting as radio
pulsars, could be detected by the proposed technique in the low frequency range
of interferometric experiments.Comment: 14 pages, 2 PostScript figures, RevTeX, accepted for publication in
Physical Review
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