4,991 research outputs found
Electrical Investigation of the Oblique Hanle Effect in Ferromagnet/Oxide/Semiconductor Contacts
We have investigated the electrical Hanle effect with magnetic fields applied
at an oblique angle ({\theta}) to the spin direction (the oblique Hanle effect,
OHE) in CoFe/MgO/semiconductor (SC) contacts by employing a three-terminal
measurement scheme. The electrical oblique Hanle signals obtained in
CoFe/MgO/Si and CoFe/MgO/Ge contacts show clearly different line shapes
depending on the spin lifetime of the host SC. Notably, at moderate magnetic
fields, the asymptotic values of the oblique Hanle signals (in both contacts)
are consistently reduced by a factor of cos^2({\theta}) irrespective of the
bias current and temperature. These results are in good agreement with
predictions of the spin precession and relaxation model for the electrical
oblique Hanle effect. At high magnetic fields where the magnetization of CoFe
is significantly tilted from the film plane to the magnetic field direction, we
find that the observed angular dependence of voltage signals in the CoFe/MgO/Si
and CoFe/MgO/Ge contacts are well explained by the OHE, considering the
misalignment angle between the external magnetic field and the magnetization of
CoFe.Comment: 19 pages, 8 figure
Physiological Antioxidative Network of the Bilirubin System in Aging and Age-Related Diseases
Oxidative stress is detrimental to life process and is particularly responsible for aging and age-related diseases. Thus, most organisms are well equipped with a spectrum of biological defense mechanisms against oxidative stress. The major efficient antioxidative mechanism is the glutathione system, operating a redox cycling mechanism for glutathione utilization, which consists of glutathione and its peroxidase and reductase. However, this system is mainly effective for hydrophilic oxidants, while lipophilic oxidants require another scavenging system. Since many age-related pathological conditions are related to lipid peroxidation, especially in association with the aging process, the physiological role of the scavenging system for lipophilic oxidants should be considered. In this regard, the biliverdin to bilirubin conversion pathway, via biliverdin reductase (BVR), is suggested to be another major protective mechanism that scavenges lipophilic oxidants because of the lipophilic nature of bilirubin. The efficiency of this bilirubin system might be potentiated by operation of the intertwined bicyclic systems of the suggested redox metabolic cycle of biliverdin and bilirubin and the interactive control cycle of BVR and heme oxygenase. In order to combat oxidative stress, both antioxidative systems against hydrophilic and lipophilic oxidants are required to work cooperatively. In this regard, the roles of the bilirubin system in aging and age-related diseases are reassessed in this review, and their interacting networks are evaluated
Distributed stabilization control of rigid formations with prescribed orientation
Most rigid formation controllers reported in the literature aim to only
stabilize a rigid formation shape, while the formation orientation is not
controlled. This paper studies the problem of controlling rigid formations with
prescribed orientations in both 2-D and 3-D spaces. The proposed controllers
involve the commonly-used gradient descent control for shape stabilization, and
an additional term to control the directions of certain relative position
vectors associated with certain chosen agents. In this control framework, we
show the minimal number of agents which should have knowledge of a global
coordinate system (2 agents for a 2-D rigid formation and 3 agents for a 3-D
rigid formation), while all other agents do not require any global coordinate
knowledge or any coordinate frame alignment to implement the proposed control.
The exponential convergence to the desired rigid shape and formation
orientation is also proved. Typical simulation examples are shown to support
the analysis and performance of the proposed formation controllers.Comment: This paper was submitted to Automatica for publication. Compared to
the submitted version, this arXiv version contains complete proofs, examples
and remarks (some of them are removed in the submitted version due to space
limit.
The effects of Thomson scattering and chemical mixing on early-time light curves of double peaked type IIb supernovae
Previous numerical simulations of double-peaked SNe IIb light curves have
demonstrated that the radius and mass of the hydrogen-rich envelope of the
progenitor star can significantly influence the brightness and timescale of the
early-time light curve around the first peak. In this study, we investigate how
Thomson scattering and chemical mixing in the SN ejecta affect the optical
light curves during the early stages of the SNe IIb using radiation
hydrodynamics simulations. By comparing the results from two different
numerical codes (i.e., \stella{} and \snec{}), we find that the optical
brightness of the first peak can be reduced by more than a factor of 3 due to
the effect of Thomson scattering that causes the thermalization depth to be
located below the Rosseland-mean photosphere, compared to the corresponding
case where this effect is ignored. We also observe a short-lived plateau-like
feature lasting for a few days in the early-time optical light curves of our
models, in contrast to typical observed SNe IIb that show a quasi-linear
decrease in optical magnitudes after the first peak. A significant degree of
chemical mixing between the hydrogen-rich envelope and the helium core in SN
ejecta is required to reconcile this discrepancy between the model prediction
and observation. Meanwhile, to properly reproduce the first peak, a significant
mixing of \nifs{} into the hydrogen-rich outermost layers should be restricted.
Our findings indicate that inferring the SN IIb progenitor structure from a
simplified approach that ignores these two factors may introduce substantial
uncertainty.Comment: 28 pages, 21 figures, accepted for Ap
The 750 GeV Diphoton Excess May Not Imply a 750 GeV Resonance
We discuss non-standard interpretations of the 750 GeV diphoton excess
recently reported by the ATLAS and CMS Collaborations which do not involve a
new, relatively broad, resonance with a mass near 750 GeV. Instead, we consider
the sequential cascade decay of a much heavier, possibly quite narrow,
resonance into two photons along with one or more invisible particles. The
resulting diphoton invariant mass signal is generically rather broad, as
suggested by the data. We examine three specific event topologies - the antler,
the sandwich, and the 2-step cascade decay, and show that they all can provide
a good fit to the observed published data. In each case, we delineate the
preferred mass parameter space selected by the best fit. In spite of the
presence of invisible particles in the final state, the measured missing
transverse energy is moderate, due to its anti- correlation with the diphoton
invariant mass. We comment on the future prospects of discriminating with
higher statistics between our scenarios, as well as from more conventional
interpretations.Comment: Discussion about the ATLAS Moriond EW2016 added. Matched to PRL
accepted versio
Distance-based Control of Kn Formations in General Space with Almost Global Convergence
In this paper, we propose a distance-based formation control strategy for a group of mobile agents to achieve almost global convergence to a target formation shape provided that the formation is represented by a complete graph, and each agent is governed by a single-integrator model. The undamental idea of achieving almost global convergence is to use a virtual formation of which the dimension is augmented with some virtual coordinates. We define a cost function associated with the virtual formation and apply the gradient-descent algorithm to the cost function so that the function has a global minimum at the target formation shape. We show that all agents finally achieve the target formation shape for almost all initial conditions under the proposed control law.This work was supported in part by the Australian Research Council under Grants DP130103610 and DP160104500, and in part by the National Research Foundation of Korea under Grant NRF-2017R1A2B3007034. The work of Z. Sun was supported by the Prime Minister’s Australia Asia Incoming
Endeavour Postgraduate Award
Optical Spectroscopy of Supernova Remnants in M81 and M82
We present spectroscopy of 28 SNR candidates as well as one H II region in
M81, and two SNR candidates in M82. Twenty six out of the M81 candidates turn
out to be genuine SNRs, and two in M82 may be shocked condensations in the
galactic outflow or SNRs. The distribution of [N II]/H{\alpha} ratios of M81
SNRs is bimodal. M81 SNRs are divided into two groups in the spectral line
ratio diagrams: an [O III]-strong group and an [O III]-weak group. The latter
have larger sizes, and may have faster shock velocity. [N II]/H{\alpha} ratios
of the SNRs show a strong correlation with [S II]/H{\alpha} ratios. They show a
clear radial gradient in [N II]/H{\alpha} and [S II]/H{\alpha} ratios: dLog ([N
II]/H{\alpha})/dLog R = -0.018 {\pm} 0.008 dex/kpc and dLog ([S
II]/H{\alpha})/dLog R = -0.016 {\pm} 0.008 dex/kpc where R is a deprojected
galactocentric distance. We estimate the nitrogen and oxygen abundance of the
SNRs from the comparison with shock-ionization models. We obtain a value for
the nitrogen radial gradient, dLog(N/H)/dLogR = -0.023 {\pm} 0.009 dex/kpc, and
little evidence for the gradient in oxygen. This nitrogen abundance shows a few
times flatter gradient than those of the planetary nebulae and H II regions. We
find that five SNRs are matched with X-ray sources. Their X-ray hardness colors
are consistent with thermal SNRs.Comment: 19 pages, 24 figures, 5 tables, ApJ accepte
- …