Seasonal Variability In The Ionosphere Of Uranus

Infrared ground-based observations using IRTF, UKIRT, and Keck II of Uranus have been analyzed as to identify the long-term behavior of the H-3(+) ionosphere. Between 1992 and 2008 there are 11 individual observing runs, each recording emission from the H-3(+) Q branch emission around 4 mu m through the telluric L' atmospheric window. The column-averaged rotational H-3(+) temperature ranges between 715 K in 1992 and 534 K in 2008, with the linear fit to all the run-averaged temperatures decreasing by 8 K year(-1). The temperature follows the fractional illumination curve of the planet, declining from solstice (1985) to equinox (2007). Variations in H-3(+) column density do not appear to be correlated to either solar cycle phase or season. The radiative cooling by H-3(+) is similar to 10 times larger than the ultraviolet solar energy being injected to the atmosphere. Despite the fact that the solar flux alone is incapable of heating the atmosphere to the observed temperatures, the geometry with respect to the Sun remains an important driver in determining the thermospheric temperature. Therefore, the energy source that heats the thermosphere must be linked to solar mechanisms. We suggest that this may be in the form of conductivity created by solar ionization of atmospheric neutrals and/or seasonally dependent magnetospherically driven current systems.STFC PP/E/000983/1, ST/G0022223/1RCUKGemini ObservatoryNational Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) NXX08A043G, NNX08AE38AAstronom

Comparative aeronomy of the upper atmosphere of the giant planets.

This thesis presents a study of H3 emission from Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus. This emission is associated with both auroral and solar processes, and can be used to trace energy inputs in the upper atmosphere. For Jupiter, a detailed analysis of the H3 emission is performed using a ID self-consistent atmospheric numerical model and the detailed balance formulation for H3 contained within a volume of H2. It is shown that the effects due to departures from local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE) are significant, reducing the intensity of the observed H3. Evidence of this is shown to be present in published observations of the jovian aurora. Using the non-LTE results, the auroral heating event observed by Stallard et al. 2002 on Jupiter is analysed in terms of energy inputs and outputs. It is shown that the dominant heating source is Joule heating and ion-drag, produced by the increase in ion velocity in the auroral electrojet. However, in the absence of the heating there are not enough heat sinks as to cool down the atmosphere quickly, indicative that the energy is re-distributed mechanically via thermally driven winds. Using data from the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT), the first reliable auroral H3" temperature of Saturn is determined: T = 400 50 Kelvin with a column- integrated H3" density of N = 4.6 x 1016 m-2. The variations in column density within the dataset are large, indicating large variations in the precipitation flux, while the temperature remains fairly constant. On Uranus, infrared H3 spectra covering a decade is analysed in an attempt to explain the observed variability. This forms the most comprehensive long-term study of H3 emission to date. The variability is found to be complicated, with an auroral component of the total Hjj" emission being of similar magnitude as the EUV-produced component. The auroral component appears to be controlled by geometry

Depressive Symptoms in Danish Elite Athletes Using the Major Depressive Inventory (MDI) and the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D)

Background: The prevalence of depressive symptoms among athletes is an ongoing debate in the scientific literature. Aims: The aim of the current study was to assess the prevalence of depressive symptoms in Danish elite athletes and to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Major Depressive Inventory (MDI) and the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) in athletes. Methods: The total sample comprised 996 athletes from two cross-sectional studies using the MDI (n = 409) and the CES-D (n = 587). Results: Using the original cut-off points, the MDI found 8.6% and the CES-D found 22.0% at risk of depression. Using alternative cut-off points recommended in the literature, both instruments detected 10-11% of athletes at risk of depression. No statistically significant differences were found related to age, injury, and type of sport between high risk and low risk groups, whereas female gender was identified as a risk factor for higher depressive symptoms. Principal component analyses confirmed a single factor structure in both instruments with sufficient item loadings on the first component and Cronbach α values of .89 and .88. Discussion: We recommend regular screening of depressive symptoms in elite athletes, with MDI and CES-D as reliable instrument for that purpose

Cassini observations of ion and electron beams at Saturn and their relationship to infrared auroral arcs

We present Cassini Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer observations of infrared auroral emissions from the noon sector of Saturn's ionosphere revealing multiple intense auroral arcs separated by dark regions poleward of the main oval. The arcs are interpreted as the ionospheric signatures of bursts of reconnection occurring at the dayside magnetopause. The auroral arcs were associated with upward field-aligned currents, the magnetic signatures of which were detected by Cassini at high planetary latitudes. Magnetic field and particle observations in the adjacent downward current regions showed upward bursts of 100–360 keV light ions in addition to energetic (hundreds of keV) electrons, which may have been scattered from upward accelerated beams carrying the downward currents. Broadband, upward propagating whistler waves were detected simultaneously with the ion beams. The acceleration of the light ions from low altitudes is attributed to wave-particle interactions in the downward current regions. Energetic (600 keV) oxygen ions were also detected, suggesting the presence of ambient oxygen at altitudes within the acceleration region. These simultaneous in situ and remote observations reveal the highly energetic magnetospheric dynamics driving some of Saturn's unusual auroral features. This is the first in situ identification of transient reconnection events at regions magnetically conjugate to Saturn's magnetopause

Power-Laws in Nonlinear Granular Chain under Gravity

The signal generated by a weak impulse propagates in an oscillatory way and dispersively in a gravitationally compacted granular chain. For the power-law type contact force, we show analytically that the type of dispersion follows power-laws in depth. The power-law for grain displacement signal is given by $h^{-1/4(1-1/p)}$ where $h$ and $p$ denote depth and the exponent of contact force, and the power-law for the grain velocity is $h^{-1/4({1/3}+1/p)}$. Other depth-dependent power-laws for oscillation frequency, wavelength, and period are given by combining above two and the phase velocity power-law $h^{1/2(1-1/p)}$. We verify above power-laws by comparing with the data obtained by numerical simulations.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures; Changed conten

Exploring cosmic origins with CORE : Cluster science

We examine the cosmological constraints that can be achieved with a galaxy cluster survey with the future CORE space mission. Using realistic simulations of the millimeter sky, produced with the latest version of the Planck Sky Model, we characterize the CORE cluster catalogues as a function of the main mission performance parameters. We pay particular attention to telescope size, key to improved angular resolution, and discuss the comparison and the complementarity of CORE with ambitious future ground-based CMB experiments that could be deployed in the next decade. A possible CORE mission concept with a 150 cm diameter primary mirror can detect of the order of 50,000 clusters through the thermal Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect (SZE). The total yield increases (decreases) by 25% when increasing (decreasing) the mirror diameter by 30 cm. The 150 cm telescope configuration will detect the most massive clusters (> 10(14) M-circle dot) at redshift z > 1.5 over the whole sky, although the exact number above this redshift is tied to the uncertain evolution of the cluster SZE flux-mass relation; assuming self-similar evolution, CORE will detect similar to 500 clusters at redshift z > 1.5. This changes to 800 (200) when increasing (decreasing) the mirror size by 30 cm. CORE will be able to measure individual cluster halo masses through lensing of the cosmic microwave background anisotropies with a 1-sigma sensitivity of 4 x 10(14)M(circle dot), for a 120 cm aperture telescope, and 10(14)M(circle dot) for a 180 cm one. From the ground, we estimate that, for example, a survey with about 150,000 detectors at the focus of 350 cm telescopes observing 65% of the sky would be shallower than CORE and detect about 11,000 clusters, while a survey with the same number of detectors observing 25% of sky with a 10 m telescope is expected to be deeper and to detect about 70,000 clusters. When combined with the latter, CORE would reach a limiting mass of M-500 similar to 2-3 x 10(13)M(circle dot) and detect 220,000 clusters (5 sigma detection limit). Cosmological constraints from CORE cluster counts alone are competitive with other scheduled large scale structure surveys in the 2020's for measuring the dark energy equation of-state parameters w(0) and w(a) (sigma(w0) = 0.28, sigma(wa) = 0.31). In combination with primary CMB constraints, CORE cluster counts can further reduce these error bars on w(0) and w(a) to 0.05 and 0.13 respectively, and constrain the sum of the neutrino masses, Sigma m(nu), to 39 meV (1 sigma). The wide frequency coverage of CORE, 60-600 GHz, will enable measurement of the relativistic thermal SZE by stacking clusters. Contamination by dust emission from the clusters, however, makes constraining the temperature of the intracluster medium difficult. The kinetic SZE pairwise momentum will be extracted with S/N = 70 in the foreground cleaned CMB map. Measurements of T-CMB (z) using CORE clusters will establish competitive constraints on the evolution of the CMB temperature: (1 + z)(1-beta), with an uncertainty of sigma(beta) less than or similar to 2.7 x 10(-3) at low redshift (z less than or similar to 1). The wide frequency coverage also enables clean extraction of a map of the diffuse SZE signal over the sky, substantially reducing contamination by foregrounds compared to the Planck SZE map extraction. Our analysis of the one-dimensional distribution of Compton-y values in the simulated map finds an order of magnitude improvement in constraints on sigma(8) over the Planck result, demonstrating the potential of this cosmological probe with CORE.Peer reviewe

Prospects for high-z cluster detections with Planck, based on a follow-up of 28 candidates using MegaCam@CFHT

The Planck catalogue of SZ sources limits itself to a significance threshold of 4.5 to ensure a low contamination rate by false cluster candidates. This means that only the most massive clusters at redshift z>0.5, and in particular z>0.7, are expected to enter into the catalogue, with a large number of systems in that redshift regime being expected around and just below that threshold. In this paper, we follow-up a sample of SZ sources from the Planck SZ catalogues from 2013 and 2015. In the latter maps, we consider detections around and at lower significance than the threshold adopted by the Planck Collaboration. To keep the contamination rate low, our 28 candidates are chosen to have significant WISE detections, in combination with non-detections in SDSS/DSS, which effectively selects galaxy cluster candidates at redshifts $z\gtrsim0.5$. By taking r- and z-band imaging with MegaCam@CFHT, we bridge the 4000A rest-frame break over a significant redshift range, thus allowing accurate redshift estimates of red-sequence cluster galaxies up to z~0.8. After discussing the possibility that an overdensity of galaxies coincides -by chance- with a Planck SZ detection, we confirm that 16 of the candidates have likely optical counterparts to their SZ signals, 13 (6) of which have an estimated redshift z>0.5 (z>0.7). The richnesses of these systems are generally lower than expected given the halo masses estimated from the Planck maps. However, when we follow a simplistic model to correct for Eddington bias in the SZ halo mass proxy, the richnesses are consistent with a reference mass-richness relation established for clusters detected at higher significance. This illustrates the benefit of an optical follow-up, not only to obtain redshift estimates, but also to provide an independent mass proxy that is not based on the same data the clusters are detected with, and thus not subject to Eddington bias.Comment: 13 pages, 7 figures. Accepted for publication in A&

The Origin of the Designability of Protein Structures

We examined what determines the designability of 2-letter codes (H and P) lattice proteins from three points of view. First, whether the native structure is searched within all possible structures or within maximally compact structures. Second, whether the structure of the used lattice is bipartite or not. Third, the effect of the length of the chain, namely, the number of monomers on the chain. We found that the bipartiteness of the lattice structure is not a main factor which determines the designability. Our results suggest that highly designable structures will be found when the length of the chain is sufficiently long to make the hydrophobic core consisting of enough number of monomers.Comment: 17 pages, 2 figure