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The study addresses the question, if observed changes in terms of Arctic-midlatitude linkages during winter are driven by Arctic Sea ice decline alone or if the increase of global sea surface temperatures plays an additional role. We compare atmosphere-only model experiments with ECHAM6 to ERA-Interim Reanalysis data. The model sensitivity experiment is implemented as a set of four combinations of sea ice and sea surface temperature boundary conditions. Atmospheric circulation regimes are determined and evaluated in terms of their cyclone and blocking characteristics and changes in frequency during winter. As a prerequisite, ECHAM6 reproduces general features of circulation regimes very well. Tropospheric changes induced by the change of boundary conditions are revealed and further impacts on the large-scale circulation up into the stratosphere are investigated. In early winter, the observed increase of atmospheric blocking in the region between Scandinavia and the Urals are primarily related to the changes in sea surface temperatures. During late winter, we f nd a weakened polar stratospheric vortex in the reanalysis that further impacts the troposphere. In the model sensitivity study a climatologically weakened polar vortex occurs only if sea ice is reduced and sea surface temperatures are increased together. This response is delayed compared to the reanalysis. The tropospheric response during late winter is inconclusive in the model, which is potentially related to the weak and delayed response in the stratosphere. The model experiments do not reproduce the connection between early and late winter as interpreted from the reanalysis. Potentially explaining this mismatch, we identify a discrepancy of ECHAM6 to reproduce the weakening of the stratospheric polar vortex through blocking induced upward propagation of planetary waves.
We consider a system of noninteracting particles on a line with initial positions distributed uniformly with density ? on the negative half-line. We consider two different models: (i) Each particle performs independent Brownian motion with stochastic resetting to its initial position with rate r and (ii) each particle performs run -and-tumble motion, and with rate r its position gets reset to its initial value and simultaneously its velocity gets randomized. We study the effects of resetting on the distribution P(Q, t) of the integrated particle current Q up to time t through the origin (from left to right). We study both the annealed and the quenched current distributions and in both cases, we find that resetting induces a stationary limiting distribution of the current at long times. However, we show that the approach to the stationary state of the current distribution in the annealed and the quenched cases are drastically different for both models. In the annealed case, the whole distribution P-an(Q, t) approaches its stationary limit uniformly for all Q. In contrast, the quenched distribution P-qu(Q, t) attains its stationary form for Q < Q(crit)(t), while it remains time dependent for Q > Q(crit)(t). We show that Q(crit)(t) increases linearly with t for large t. On the scale where Q <; Q(crit)(t), we show that P-qu(Q, t) has an unusual large deviation form with a rate function that has a third-order phase transition at the critical point. We have computed the associated rate functions analytically for both models. Using an importance sampling method that allows to probe probabilities as tiny as 10-14000, we were able to compute numerically this nonanalytic rate function for the resetting Brownian dynamics and found excellent agreement with our analytical prediction.
We present a detailed spectroscopic and timing analysis of X-ray observations of the bright pulsar PSR B0656+14. The observations were obtained simultaneously with eROSITA and XMM-Newton during the calibration and performance verification phase of the Spektrum-Roentgen-Gamma mission (SRG). The analysis of the 100 ks deep observation of eROSITA is supported by archival observations of the source, including XMM-Newton, NuSTAR, and NICER. Using XMM-Newton and NICER, we first established an X-ray ephemeris for the time interval 2015 to 2020, which connects all X-ray observations in this period without cycle count alias and phase shifts. The mean eROSITA spectrum clearly reveals an absorption feature originating from the star at 570 eV with a Gaussian sigma of about 70 eV that was tentatively identified in a previous long XMM-Newton observation. A second previously discussed absorption feature occurs at 260-265 eV and is described here as an absorption edge. It could be of atmospheric or of instrumental origin. These absorption features are superposed on various emission components that are phenomenologically described here as the sum of hot (120 eV) and cold (65 eV) blackbody components, both of photospheric origin, and a power law with photon index Gamma = 2 from the magnetosphere. We created energy-dependent light curves and phase-resolved spectra with a high signal-to-noise ratio. The phase-resolved spectroscopy reveals that the Gaussian absorption line at 570 eV is clearly present throughout similar to 60% of the spin cycle, but it is otherwise undetected. Likewise, its parameters were found to be dependent on phase. The visibility of the line strength coincides in phase with the maximum flux of the hot blackbody. If the line originates from the stellar surface, it nevertheless likely originates from a different location than the hot polar cap. We also present three families of model atmospheres: a magnetized atmosphere, a condensed surface, and a mixed model. They were applied to the mean observed spectrum, whose continuum fit the observed data well. The atmosphere model, however, predicts distances that are too short. For the mixed model, the Gaussian absorption may be interpreted as proton cyclotron absorption in a field as high as 10(14) G, which is significantly higher than the field derived from the moderate observed spin-down.
Arctic climate change is marked by intensified warming compared to global trends and a significant reduction in Arctic sea ice which can intricately influence mid-latitude atmospheric circulation through tropo- and stratospheric pathways. Achieving accurate simulations of current and future climate demands a realistic representation of Arctic climate processes in numerical climate models, which remains challenging.
Model deficiencies in replicating observed Arctic climate processes often arise due to inadequacies in representing turbulent boundary layer interactions that determine the interactions between the atmosphere, sea ice, and ocean. Many current climate models rely on parameterizations developed for mid-latitude conditions to handle Arctic turbulent boundary layer processes.
This thesis focuses on modified representation of the Arctic atmospheric processes and understanding their resulting impact on large-scale mid-latitude atmospheric circulation within climate models. The improved turbulence parameterizations, recently developed based on Arctic measurements, were implemented in the global atmospheric circulation model ECHAM6. This involved modifying the stability functions over sea ice and ocean for stable stratification and changing the roughness length over sea ice for all stratification conditions. Comprehensive analyses are conducted to assess the impacts of these modifications on ECHAM6's simulations of the Arctic boundary layer, overall atmospheric circulation, and the dynamical pathways between the Arctic and mid-latitudes.
Through a step-wise implementation of the mentioned parameterizations into ECHAM6, a series of sensitivity experiments revealed that the combined impacts of the reduced roughness length and the modified stability functions are non-linear. Nevertheless, it is evident that both modifications consistently lead to a general decrease in the heat transfer coefficient, being in close agreement with the observations.
Additionally, compared to the reference observations, the ECHAM6 model falls short in accurately representing unstable and strongly stable conditions.
The less frequent occurrence of strong stability restricts the influence of the modified stability functions by reducing the affected sample size. However, when focusing solely on the specific instances of a strongly stable atmosphere, the sensible heat flux approaches near-zero values, which is in line with the observations. Models employing commonly used surface turbulence parameterizations were shown to have difficulties replicating the near-zero sensible heat flux in strongly stable stratification.
I also found that these limited changes in surface layer turbulence parameterizations have a statistically significant impact on the temperature and wind patterns across multiple pressure levels, including the stratosphere, in both the Arctic and mid-latitudes. These significant signals vary in strength, extent, and direction depending on the specific month or year, indicating a strong reliance on the background state.
Furthermore, this research investigates how the modified surface turbulence parameterizations may influence the response of both stratospheric and tropospheric circulation to Arctic sea ice loss.
The most suitable parameterizations for accurately representing Arctic boundary layer turbulence were identified from the sensitivity experiments. Subsequently, the model's response to sea ice loss is evaluated through extended ECHAM6 simulations with different prescribed sea ice conditions.
The simulation with adjusted surface turbulence parameterizations better reproduced the observed Arctic tropospheric warming in vertical extent, demonstrating improved alignment with the reanalysis data. Additionally, unlike the control experiments, this simulation successfully reproduced specific circulation patterns linked to the stratospheric pathway for Arctic-mid-latitude linkages. Specifically, an increased occurrence of the Scandinavian-Ural blocking regime (negative phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation) in early (late) winter is observed. Overall, it can be inferred that improving turbulence parameterizations at the surface layer can improve the ECHAM6's response to sea ice loss.
Perovskite semiconductors are an attractive option to overcome the limitations of established silicon based photovoltaic (PV) technologies due to their exceptional opto-electronic properties and their successful integration into multijunction cells. However, the performance of single- and multijunction cells is largely limited by significant nonradiative recombination at the perovskite/organic electron transport layer junctions. In this work, the cause of interfacial recombination at the perovskite/C-60 interface is revealed via a combination of photoluminescence, photoelectron spectroscopy, and first-principle numerical simulations. It is found that the most significant contribution to the total C-60-induced recombination loss occurs within the first monolayer of C-60, rather than in the bulk of C-60 or at the perovskite surface. The experiments show that the C-60 molecules act as deep trap states when in direct contact with the perovskite. It is further demonstrated that by reducing the surface coverage of C-60, the radiative efficiency of the bare perovskite layer can be retained. The findings of this work pave the way toward overcoming one of the most critical remaining performance losses in perovskite solar cells.
Thanks to dedicated long-term missions like Voyager and GOES over the past 50 years, much insight has been gained on the activity of our Sun, the solar wind, its interaction with the interstellar medium, and, thus, about the formation, the evolution, and the structure of the heliosphere. Additionally, with the help of multi-wavelength observations by the Hubble Space Telescope, Kepler, and TESS, we not only were able to detect a variety of extrasolar planets and exomoons but also to study the characteristics of their host stars, and thus became aware that other stars drive bow shocks and astrospheres. Although features like, e.g., stellar winds, could not be measured directly, over the past years several techniques have been developed allowing us to indirectly derive properties like stellar mass-loss rates and stellar wind speeds, information that can be used as direct input to existing astrospheric modeling codes. In this review, the astrospheric modeling efforts of various stars will be presented. Starting with the heliosphere as a benchmark of astrospheric studies, investigating the paleo-heliospheric changes and the Balmer H alpha projections to 1 pc, we investigate the surroundings of cool and hot stars, but also of more exotic objects like neutron stars. While pulsar wind nebulae (PWNs) might be a source of high-energy galactic cosmic rays (GCRs), the astrospheric environments of cool and hot stars form a natural shield against GCRs. Their modulation within these astrospheres, and the possible impact of turbulence, are also addressed. This review shows that all of the presented modeling efforts are in excellent agreement with currently available observations.
Energetic charged particles trapped in planetary radiation belts are hazardous to spacecraft. Planned missions to iron-rich asteroids with possible strong remanent magnetic fields require an assessment of trapped particles energies. Using laboratory measurements of iron meteorites, we estimate the largest possible asteroid magnetic moment. Although weak compared to moments of planetary dynamos, the small body size may yield strong surface fields. We use hybrid simulations to confirm the formation of a magnetosphere with an extended quasi-dipolar region. However, the short length scale of the field implies that energetic particle motion would be nonadiabatic, making existing radiation belt theories not applicable. Our idealized particle simulations demonstrate that chaotic motions lead to particle loss at lower energies than those predicted by adiabatic theory, which may explain the energies of transiently trapped particles observed at Mercury, Ganymede, and Earth. However, even the most magnetized asteroids are unlikely to stably trap hazardous particles.
Massive stars that become stripped of their hydrogen envelope through binary interaction or winds can be observed either as Wolf-Rayet stars, if they have optically thick winds, or as transparent-wind stripped-envelope stars. We approximate their evolution through evolutionary models of single helium stars, and compute detailed model grids in the initial mass range 1.5-70 M. for metallicities between 0.01 and 0.04, from core helium ignition until core collapse. Throughout their lifetimes some stellar models expose the ash of helium burning. We propose that models that have nitrogen-rich envelopes are candidate WN stars, while models with a carbon-rich surface are candidate WC stars during core helium burning, and WO stars afterwards. We measure the metallicity dependence of the total lifetimes of our models and the duration of their evolutionary phases. We propose an analytic estimate of the wind's optical depth to distinguish models of Wolf-Rayet stars from transparent-wind stripped-envelope stars, and find that the luminosity ranges at which WN-, WC-, and WO-type stars can exist is a strong function of metallicity. We find that all carbon-rich models produced in our grids have optically thick winds and match the luminosity distribution of observed populations. We construct population models and predict the numbers of transparent-wind stripped-envelope stars and Wolf-Rayet stars, and derive their number ratios at different metallicities. We find that as metallicity increases, the number of transparent-wind stripped-envelope stars decreases and the number of Wolf-Rayet stars increases. At high metallicities WC- and WO-type stars become more common. We apply our population models to nearby galaxies, and find that populations are more sensitive to the transition luminosity between Wolf-Rayet stars and transparent-wind helium stars than to the metallicity-dependent mass loss rates.
The bimolecular recombination characteristics of conjugated polymer poly[(4,4'-bis(2-ethylhexyl)dithieno[3,2-b:2',3'-d]silole)-2,6-diyl-alt-(2,5-bis 3-tetradecylthiophen-2-y1 thiazolo 5,4-d thiazole)-2,5diy1] (PDTSiTTz) blended with the fullerene series PC60BM, ICMA, ICBA, and ICTA have been investigated using microsecond and femtosecond transient absorption spectroscopy, in conjunction with electroluminescence measurements and ambient photoemission spectroscopy. The non-Langevin polymer PDTSiTTz allows an inspection of intrinsic bimolecular recombination rates uninhibited by diffusion, while the low oscillator strengths of fullerenes allow polymer features to dominate, and we compare our results to those of the well-known polymer Si-PCPDTBT. Using mu s-TAS, we have shown that the trap -limited decay dynamics of the PDTSiTTz polaron becomes progressively slower across the fullerene series, while those of Si-PCPDTBT are invariant. Electroluminescence measurements showed an unusual double peak in pristine PDTSiTTz, attributed to a low energy intragap charge transfer state, likely interchain in nature. Furthermore, while the pristine PDTSiTTz showed a broad, low-intensity density of states, the ICBA and ICTA blends presented a virtually identical DOS to Si-PCPDTBT and its blends. This has been attributed to a shift from a delocalized, interchain highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) in the pristine material to a dithienosilole-centered HOMO in the blends, likely a result of the bulky fullerenes increasing interchain separation. This HOMO localization had a side effect of progressively shifting the polymer HOMO to shallower energies, which was correlated with the observed decrease in bimolecular recombination rate and increased "trap" depth. However, since the density of tail states remained the same, this suggests that the traditional viewpoint of "trapping" being dominated by tail states may not encompass the full picture and that the breadth of the DOS may also have a strong influence on bimolecular recombination.
We present observations with the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph onboard the Hubble Space Telescope of seven compact low-mass star-forming galaxies at redshifts, z, in the range 0.3161-0.4276, with various O3Mg2 = [O III] lambda 5007/Mg II lambda 2796+2803 and Mg-2 = Mg II lambda 2796/Mg II lambda 2803 emission-line ratios. We aim to study the dependence of leaking Lyman continuum (LyC) emission on the characteristics of Mg ii emission together with the dependencies on other indirect indicators of escaping ionizing radiation. LyC emission with escape fractions f(esc)(LyC) = 3.1-4.6 per cent is detected in four galaxies, whereas only 1 sigma upper limits of f(esc)(LyC) in the remaining three galaxies were derived. A strong narrow Ly alpha emission line with two peaks separated by V-sep similar to 298-592 km s(-1) was observed in four galaxies with detected LyC emission and very weak Ly alpha emission is observed in galaxies with LyC non-detections. Our new data confirm the tight anticorrelation between f(esc)(LyC) and V-sep found for previous low-redshift galaxy samples. V-sep remains the best indirect indicator of LyC leakage among all considered indicators. It is found that escaping LyC emission is detected predominantly in galaxies with Mg-2 greater than or similar to 1.3. A tendency of an increase of f(esc)(LyC) with increasing of both the O3Mg2 and Mg-2 is possibly present. However, there is substantial scatter in these relations not allowing their use for reliable prediction of f(esc)(LyC).
Multijunction solar cells can overcome the fundamental efficiency limits of single-junction devices. The bandgap tunability of metal halide perovskite solar cells renders them attractive for multijunction architectures(1). Combinations with silicon and copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS), as well as all-perovskite tandem cells, have been reported(2-5). Meanwhile, narrow-gap non-fullerene acceptors have unlocked skyrocketing efficiencies for organic solar cells(6,7). Organic and perovskite semiconductors are an attractive combination, sharing similar processing technologies. Currently, perovskite-organic tandems show subpar efficiencies and are limited by the low open-circuit voltage (V-oc) of wide-gap perovskite cells(8) and losses introduced by the interconnect between the subcells(9,10). Here we demonstrate perovskite-organic tandem cells with an efficiency of 24.0 per cent (certified 23.1 per cent) and a high V-oc of 2.15 volts. Optimized charge extraction layers afford perovskite subcells with an outstanding combination of high V-oc and fill factor. The organic subcells provide a high external quantum efficiency in the near-infrared and, in contrast to paradigmatic concerns about limited photostability of non-fullerene cells(11), show an outstanding operational stability if excitons are predominantly generated on the non-fullerene acceptor, which is the case in our tandems. The subcells are connected by an ultrathin (approximately 1.5 nanometres) metal-like indium oxide layer with unprecedented low optical/electrical losses. This work sets a milestone for perovskite-organic tandems, which outperform the best p-i-n perovskite single junctions(12) and are on a par with perovskite-CIGS and all-perovskite multijunctions(13).
A combinatorial study of the effect of in-mixing of various guests on the thermoelectric properties of the host workhorse polymer poly[2,5-bis(3-tetradecylthiophen-2-yl)thieno[3,2-b]thiophene] (PBTTT) is presented. Specifically, the composition and thickness for doped films of PBTTT blended with different polymers are varied. Some blends at guest weight fractions around 10-15% exhibit up to a fivefold increase in power factor compared to the reference material, leading to zT values around 0.1. Spectroscopic analysis of the charge-transfer species, structural characterization using grazing-incidence wide-angle X-ray scattering, differential scanning calorimetry, Raman, and atomic force microscopy, and Monte Carlo simulations are employed to determine that the key to improved performance is for the guest to promote long-range electrical connectivity and low disorder, together with similar highest occupied molecular orbital levels for both materials in order to ensure electronic connectivity are combined.
We present proper motion (PM) measurements within the central region of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), using near-infrared data from the VISTA survey of the Magellanic Cloud system (VMC). This work encompasses 18 VMC tiles covering a total sky area of similar to 28 deg(2). We computed absolute stellar PMs from multiepoch observations in the K-s filter over time baselines between similar to 12 and 47 months. Our final catalogue contains similar to 6322 000 likely LMC member stars with derived PMs. We employed a simple flat-rotating disc model to analyse and interpret the PM data. We found a stellar centre of rotation (alpha(0) = 79.95 degrees(+0.22)(-0.23), delta(0) = -69.31 degrees(+0.12)(-0.11)) that is in agreement with that resulting from Hubble Space Telescope data. The inferred viewing angles of the LMC disc (i = 33.5 degrees(+1.2)(-1.3), Theta = 129.8 degrees(+1.9)(-1.9)) are in good agreement with values from the literature but suggest a higher inclination of the central parts of the LMC. Our data confirm a higher rotation amplitude for the young (less than or similar to 0.5 Gyr) stars compared to the intermediate-age/old (greater than or similar to 1 Gyr) population, which can be explained by asymmetric drift. We constructed spatially resolved velocity maps of the intermediate-age/old and young populations. Intermediate-age/old stars follow elongated orbits parallel to the bar's major axis, providing first observational evidence for x(1) orbits within the LMC bar. In the innermost regions, the motions show more chaotic structures. Young stars show motions along a central filamentary bar structure.
Simulating the space weather in the AU Mic system: stellar winds and extreme coronal mass ejections
(2022)
Two close-in planets have been recently found around the M-dwarf flare star AU Microscopii (AU Mic). These Neptune-sized planets (AU Mic b and c) seem to be located very close to the so-called "evaporation valley" in the exoplanet population, making this system an important target for studying atmospheric loss on exoplanets. This process, while mainly driven by high-energy stellar radiation, will be strongly mediated by the space environment surrounding the planets. Here we present an investigation of this last area, performing 3D numerical modeling of the quiescent stellar wind from AU Mic, as well as time-dependent simulations describing the evolution of a highly energetic coronal mass ejection (CME) event in this system. Observational constraints on the stellar magnetic field and properties of the eruption are incorporated in our models. We carry out qualitative and quantitative characterizations of the stellar wind, the emerging CMEs, as well as the expected steady and transient conditions along the orbit of both exoplanets. Our results predict extreme space weather for AU Mic and its planets. This includes sub-Alfvenic regions for the large majority of the exoplanet orbits, very high dynamic and magnetic pressure values in quiescence (varying within 10(2)-10(5) times the dynamic pressure experienced by Earth), and an even harsher environment during the passage of any escaping CME associated with the frequent flaring observed in AU Mic. These space weather conditions alone pose an immense challenge for the survival of exoplanetary atmospheres (if any) in this system.
When two initially thermal many-body systems start to interact strongly, their transient states quickly become non-Gibbsian, even if the systems eventually equilibrate. To see beyond this apparent lack of structure during the transient regime, we use a refined notion of thermality, which we call g-local. A system is g-locally thermal if the states of all its small subsystems are marginals of global thermal states. We numerically demonstrate for two harmonic lattices that whenever the total system equilibrates in the long run, each lattice remains g-locally thermal at all times, including the transient regime. This is true even when the lattices have long-range interactions within them. In all cases, we find that the equilibrium is described by the generalized Gibbs ensemble, with three-dimensional lattices requiring special treatment due to their extended set of conserved charges. We compare our findings with the well-known two-temperature model. While its standard form is not valid beyond weak coupling, we show that at strong coupling it can be partially salvaged by adopting the concept of a g-local temperature.
Core-collapse supernova remnants are structures of the interstellar medium (ISM) left behind the explosive death of most massive stars ( ?40 M-?). Since they result in the expansion of the supernova shock wave into the gaseous environment shaped by the star's wind history, their morphology constitutes an insight into the past evolution of their progenitor star. Particularly, fast-mo ving massiv e stars can produce asymmetric core-collapse superno va remnants. We inv estigate the mixing of materials in core-collapse supernova remnants generated by a moving massive 35 M-? star, in a magnetized ISM. Stellar rotation and the wind magnetic field are time-dependently included into the models which follow the entire evolution of the stellar surroundings from the zero-age main-sequence to 80 kyr after the supernova explosion. It is found that very little main-sequence material is present in remnants from moving stars, that the Wolf-Rayet wind mixes very efficiently within the 10 kyr after the explosion, while the red supergiant material is still unmixed by 30 per cent within 50 kyr after the supernova. Our results indicate that the faster the stellar motion, the more complex the internal organization of the supernova remnant and the more ef fecti ve the mixing of ejecta therein. In contrast, the mixing of stellar wind material is only weakly affected by progenitor motion, if at all.
This review discusses picosecond ultrasonics experiments using ultrashort hard x-ray probe pulses to extract the transient strain response of laser-excited nanoscopic structures from Bragg-peak shifts. This method provides direct, layer-specific, and quantitative information on the picosecond strain response for structures down to few-nm thickness. We model the transient strain using the elastic wave equation and express the driving stress using Gruneisen parameters stating that the laser-induced stress is proportional to energy density changes in the microscopic subsystems of the solid, i.e., electrons, phonons and spins. The laser-driven strain response can thus serve as an ultrafast proxy for local energy-density and temperature changes, but we emphasize the importance of the nanoscale morphology for an accurate interpretation due to the Poisson effect. The presented experimental use cases encompass ultrathin and opaque metal-heterostructures, continuous and granular nanolayers as well as negative thermal expansion materials, that each pose a challenge to established all-optical techniques.
The NGC 346 young stellar system and associated N66 giant H ii region in the Small Magellanic Cloud are the nearest example of a massive star-forming event in a low metallicity (Z approximate to 0.2Z (circle dot)) galaxy. With an age of less than or similar to 3 Myr this system provides a unique opportunity to study relationships between massive stars and their associated H ii region. Using archival data, we derive a total H alpha luminosity of L(H alpha) = 4.1 x 10(38) erg s(-1) corresponding to an H-photoionization rate of 3 x 10(50) s(-1). A comparison with a predicted stellar ionization rate derived from the more than 50 known O-stars in NGC 346, including massive stars recently classified from Hubble Space Telescope far-ultraviolet (FUV) spectra, indicates an approximate ionization balance. Spectra obtained with SALT suggest the ionization structure of N66 could be consistent with some leakage of ionizing photons. Due to the low metallicity, the FUV luminosity from NGC 346 is not confined to the interstellar cloud associated with N66. Ionization extends through much of the spatial extent of the N66 cloud complex, and most of the cloud mass is not ionized. The stellar mass estimated from nebular L(H alpha) appears to be lower than masses derived from the census of resolved stars which may indicate a disconnect between the formation of high and low mass stars in this region. We briefly discuss implications of the properties of N66 for studies of star formation and stellar feedback in low metallicity environments.
The unmixed debris of Gaia-Sausage/Enceladus in the form of a pair of halo stellar overdensities
(2022)
In the first billion years after its formation, the galaxy underwent several mergers with dwarf satellites of various masses. The debris of Gaia-Sausage/Enceladus (GSE), the galaxy responsible for the last significant merger of the Milky Way, dominates the inner halo and has been suggested to be the progenitor of both the Hercules-Aquila Cloud (HAC) and Virgo Overdensity (VOD). We combine SEGUE, APOGEE, Gaia, and StarHorse distances to characterize the chemodynamical properties and verify the link between HAC, VOD, and GSE. We find that the orbital eccentricity distributions of the stellar overdensities and GSE are comparable. We also find that they have similar, strongly peaked, metallicity distribution functions, reinforcing the hypothesis of common origin. Furthermore, we show that HAC and VOD are indistinguishable from the prototypical GSE population within all chemical-abundance spaces analyzed. All these evidences combined provide a clear demonstration that the GSE merger is the main progenitor of the stellar populations found within these halo overdensities.
Understanding the origin of inefficient photocurrent generation in organic solar cells with low energy offset remains key to realizing high-performance donor-acceptor systems. Here, we probe the origin of field-dependent free-charge generation and photoluminescence in wnon-fullereneacceptor (NFA)-based organic solar cells using the polymer PM6 and the NFA Y5-a non-halogenated sibling to Y6, with a smaller energetic offset to PM6. By performing time-delayed collection field (TDCF) measurements on a variety of samples with different electron transport layers and active layer thickness, we show that the fill factor and photocurrent are limited by field-dependent free charge generation in the bulk of the blend. We also introduce a new method of TDCF called m-TDCF to prove the absence of artifacts from non-geminate recombination of photogenerated and dark charge carriers near the electrodes. We then correlate free charge generation with steady-state photoluminescence intensity and find perfect anticorrelation between these two properties. Through this, we conclude that photocurrent generation in this low-offset system is entirely controlled by the field-dependent dissociation of local excitons into charge-transfer states. (c) 2023 Author(s).
We explore the role of non-ergodicity in the relationship between income inequality, the extent of concentration in the income distribution, and income mobility, the feasibility of an individual to change their position in the income rankings. For this purpose, we use the properties of an established model for income growth that includes 'resetting' as a stabilizing force to ensure stationary dynamics. We find that the dynamics of inequality is regime-dependent: it may range from a strictly non-ergodic state where this phenomenon has an increasing trend, up to a stable regime where inequality is steady and the system efficiently mimics ergodicity. Mobility measures, conversely, are always stable over time, but suggest that economies become less mobile in non-ergodic regimes. By fitting the model to empirical data for the income share of the top earners in the USA, we provide evidence that the income dynamics in this country is consistently in a regime in which non-ergodicity characterizes inequality and immobility. Our results can serve as a simple rationale for the observed real-world income dynamics and as such aid in addressing non-ergodicity in various empirical settings across the globe.This article is part of the theme issue 'Kinetic exchange models of societies and economies'.
Modern stationary X-ray spectroscopy is unable to resolve rotational structure.
In the present paper, we propose to use time-resolved two color X-ray pump-probe spectroscopy with picosecond resolution for real-time monitoring of the rotational dynamics induced by the recoil effect.
The proposed technique consists of two steps.
The first short pump X-ray pulse ionizes the valence electron, which transfers angular momentum to the molecule.
The second time-delayed short probe X-ray pulse resonantly excites a 1s electron to the created valence hole.
Due to the recoil-induced angular momentum the molecule rotates and changes the orientation of transition dipole moment of core-excitation with respect to the transition dipole moment of the valence ionization, which results in a temporal modulation of the probe X-ray absorption as a function of the delay time between the pulses.
We developed an accurate theory of the X-ray pump-probe spectroscopy of the recoil-induced rotation and study how the energy of the photoelectron and thermal dephasing affect the structure of the time-dependent X-ray absorption using the CO molecule as a case-study.
We also discuss the feasibility of experimental observation of our theoretical findings, opening new perspectives in studies of molecular rotational dynamics.
We characterize finite-time thermodynamic processes of multidimensional quadratic overdamped systems.
Analytic expressions are provided for heat, work, and dissipation for any evolution of the system covariance matrix.
The Bures-Wasserstein metric between covariance matrices naturally emerges as the local quantifier of dissipation.
General principles of how to apply these geometric tools to identify optimal protocols are discussed.
Focusing on the relevant slow-driving limit, we show how these results can be used to analyze cases in which the experimental control over the system is partial.
A magnetic field modifies optical properties and provides valley splitting in a molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) monolayer.
Here we demonstrate a scalable approach to the epitaxial synthesis of MoS2 monolayer on a magnetic graphene/Co system.
Using spin- and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy we observe a magnetic proximity effect that causes a 20 meV spin-splitting at the (Gamma) over bar point and canting of spins at the (K) over bar point in the valence band toward the in-plane direction of cobalt magnetization.
Our density functional theory calculations reveal that the in-plane spin component at (K) over bar is localized on Co atoms in the valence band, while in the conduction band it is localized on the MoS2 layer.
The calculations also predict a 16 meV spin-splitting at the (Gamma) over bar point and 8 meV (K) over bar-(K) over bar' valley asymmetry for an out-of-plane magnetization. These findings suggest control over optical transitions in MoS2 via Co magnetization. Our estimations show that the magnetic proximity effect is equivalent to the action of the magnetic field as large as 100 T.
We perform a statistical clustering analysis of upper main-sequence stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) using data from the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy survey of the Magellanic Clouds. We map over 2500 young stellar structures at 15 significance levels across similar to 120 square degrees centred on the LMC. The structures have sizes ranging from a few parsecs to over 1 kpc. We find that the young structures follow power-law size and mass distributions. From the perimeter-area relation, we derive a perimeter-area dimension of 1.44 +/- 0.20. From the mass-size relation and the size distribution, we derive two-dimensional fractal dimensions of 1.50 +/- 0.10 and 1.61 +/- 0.20, respectively. We find that the surface density distribution is well represented by a lognormal distribution. We apply the Larson relation to estimate the velocity dispersions and crossing times of these structures. Our results indicate that the fractal nature of the young stellar structures has been inherited from the gas clouds from which they form and that this architecture is generated by supersonic turbulence. Our results also suggest that star formation in the LMC is scale-free from 10 to 700 pc.
We present an astrometric and photometric wide-field study of the Galactic open star cluster M37 (NGC 2099). The studied field was observed with ground-based images covering a region of about four square degrees in the Sloan-like filters ugi. We exploited the Gaia catalogue to calibrate the geometric distortion of the large field mosaics, developing software routines that can be also applied to other wide-field instruments. The data are used to identify the hottest white dwarf (WD) member candidates of M37. Thanks to the Gaia EDR3 exquisite astrometry we identified seven such WD candidates, one of which, besides being a high-probability astrometric member, is the putative central star of a planetary nebula. To our knowledge, this is a unique object in an open cluster, and we have obtained follow-up low-resolution spectra that are used for a qualitative characterization of this young WD. Finally, we publicly release a three-colour atlas and a catalogue of the sources in the field of view, which represents a complement of existing material.
Magnetic fields can play an important role in stellar evolution. Among white dwarfs, the most common stellar remnant, the fraction of magnetic systems is more than 20 per cent. The origin of magnetic fields in white dwarfs, which show strengths ranging from 40 kG to hundreds of MG, is still a topic of debate. In contrast, only one magnetic hot subdwarf star has been identified out of thousands of known systems. Hot subdwarfs are formed from binary interaction, a process often associated with the generation of magnetic fields, and will evolve to become white dwarfs, which makes the lack of detected magnetic hot subdwarfs a puzzling phenomenon. Here we report the discovery of three new magnetic hot subdwarfs with field strengths in the range 300-500 kG. Like the only previously known system, they are all helium-rich O-type stars (He-sdOs). We analysed multiple archival spectra of the three systems and derived their stellar properties. We find that they all lack radial velocity variability, suggesting formation via a merger channel. However, we derive higher than typical hydrogen abundances for their spectral type, which are in disagreement with current model predictions. Our findings suggest a lower limit to the magnetic fraction of hot subdwarfs of 0.147(+0.143)(-0.047) per cent, and provide evidence for merger-induced magnetic fields which could explain white dwarfs with field strengths of 50-150 MG, assuming magnetic flux conservation.
Auger-photoelectron coincidence spectroscopy (APECS) has been used to examine the electron correlation and itinerance effects in transition metals Cu, Ni and Co.
It is shown that the LVV Auger, in coincidence with 2p photoelectrons, spectra can be represented using atomic multiplet positions if the 3d-shell is localized (atomic-like) and with a self-convoluted valence band for band-like (itinerant) materials as explained using the Cini-Sawatzky model.
For transition metals, the 3d band changes from band-like to localized with increasing atomic number, with the possibility of a mixed behavior.
Our result shows that the LVV spectra of Cu can be represented by atomic multiplet calculations, those of Co resemble the self-convolution of the valence band and those of Ni are a mixture of both, consistent with the Cini-Sawatzky model.
Context.
Thermonuclear supernovae (SNe), a subset of which are the highly important SNe of Type Ia and Iax, are relatively poorly understood phenomena. One of the more promising scenarios leading up to the creation of a thermonuclear SN involves accretion of helium-rich material from a binary companion. Following the SN, the binary companion is then ejected from the location of the progenitor binary at velocities possibly large enough to unbind it from the gravitational potential of the Galaxy. Ejected companion stars should form a detectable population, if their production mechanism is not exceedingly rare.
Aims.
This study builds on previous works, producing the most extensive prediction of the properties of such a hypothetical population to date, taking both Chandrasekhar and non-Chandrasekhar mass events into account. These results are then used to define criteria for membership of this population and characterise putative subpopulations.
Methods.
This study contains 6 x 10(6) individual ejection trajectories out of the Galactic plane calculated with the stellar kinematics framework SHyRT, which are analysed with regard to their bulk observational properties. These are then put into context with the only previously identified population member US 708 and applied to a number of other possible candidate objects.
Results.
We find that two additional previously observed objects possess properties to warrant a designation as candidate objects. Characterisation of these object with respect to the predicted population finds all of them to be extreme in at least one astrometric observable. Higher mass ( >0 :7 M-circle dot) objects should be over-represented in the observationally accessible volume, with the ratio of bound to unbound objects being an accessible observable for the determination of the dominant terminal accretor mass. We find that current observations of runaway candidates within 10 kpc support a Galactic SN rate of the order of similar to 3 x 10(-7) yr(-1) to similar to 2 x 10(-6) yr(-1), three orders of magnitude below the inferred Galactic SN Ia rate and two orders of magnitude below the formation rate of predicted He-donor progenitors.
Conclusions.
The number of currently observed population members suggests that the He-donor scenario, as suspected before, is not a dominant contributor to the number of observed SNe Ia. However, even at the low event rate suggested, we find that the majority of possibly detectable population members is still undetected. The extreme nature of current population members suggests that a still larger number of objects has simply evaded detection up to this point, hinting at a higher contribution than is currently supported by observation.
Diffusion with stochastic resetting is a paradigm of resetting processes. Standard renewal or master equation approach are typically used to study steady state and other transport properties such as average, mean squared displacement etc.
What remains less explored is the two time point correlation functions whose evaluation is often daunting since it requires the implementation of the exact time dependent probability density functions of the resetting processes which are unknown for most of the problems.
We adopt a different approach that allows us to write a stochastic solution for a single trajectory undergoing resetting.
Moments and the autocorrelation functions between any two times along the trajectory can then be computed directly using the laws of total expectation. Estimation of autocorrelation functions turns out to be pivotal for investigating the ergodic properties of various observables for this canonical model.
In particular, we investigate two observables (i) sample mean which is widely used in economics and (ii) time-averaged-mean-squared-displacement (TAMSD) which is of acute interest in physics.
We find that both diffusion and drift-diffusion processes with resetting are ergodic at the mean level unlike their reset-free counterparts. In contrast, resetting renders ergodicity breaking in the TAMSD while both the stochastic processes are ergodic when resetting is absent. We quantify these behaviors with detailed analytical study and corroborate with extensive numerical simulations.
Our results can be verified in experimental set-ups that can track single particle trajectories and thus have strong implications in understanding the physics of resetting.
Losses of radiation belt energetic particles by encounters with four of the inner Moons of Jupiter
(2022)
Based on an improved model of the moon absorption of Jovian radiation belt particles, we investigate quantitatively and comprehensively the absorption probabilities and particle lifetimes due to encounters with four of the inner moons of Jupiter (Amalthea, Thebe, Io, and Europa) inside L < 10. Our results demonstrate that the resultant average lifetimes of energetic protons and electrons vary dramatically between similar to 0.1 days and well above 1,000 days, showing a strong dependence on the particle equatorial pitch angle, kinetic energy and moon orbit. The average lifetimes of energetic protons and electrons against moon absorption are shortest for Io (i.e., similar to 0.1-10 days) and longest for Thebe (i.e., up to thousands of days), with the lifetimes in between for Europa and Amalthea. Due to the diploe tilt angle absorption effect, the average lifetimes of energetic protons and electrons vary markedly below and above alpha eq ${\alpha }_{\mathrm{e}\mathrm{q}}$ = 67 degrees. Overall, the average electron lifetimes exhibit weak pitch angle dependence, but the average proton lifetimes are strongly dependent on equatorial pitch angle. The average lifetimes of energetic protons decrease monotonically and substantially with the kinetic energy, but the average lifetimes of energetic electrons are roughly constant at energies <similar to 10 MeV, increase substantially around the Kepler velocities of the moons (similar to 10-50 MeV), and decrease quickly at even higher energies. Compared with the averaged electron lifetimes, the average proton lifetimes are longer at energies below a few MeV and shorter at energies above tens of MeV.
We present a reconstruction of the dynamics of the radiation belts from solar cycles 17 to 24 which allows us to study how radiation belt activity has varied between the different solar cycles. The radiation belt simulations are produced using the Versatile Electron Radiation Belt (VERB)-3D code. The VERB-3D code simulations incorporate radial, energy, and pitch angle diffusion to reproduce the radiation belts. Our simulations use the historical measurements of Kp (available since solar cycle 17, i.e., 1933) to model the evolution radiation belt dynamics between L* = 1-6.6. A nonlinear auto regressive network with exogenous inputs (NARX) neural network was trained off GOES 15 measurements (January 2011-March 2014) and used to supply the upper boundary condition (L* = 6.6) over the course of solar cycles 17-24 (i.e., 1933-2017). Comparison of the model with long term observations of the Van Allen Probes and CRRES demonstrates that our model, driven by the NARX boundary, can reconstruct the general evolution of the radiation belt fluxes. Solar cycle 24 (January 2008-2017) has been the least active of the considered solar cycles which resulted in unusually low electron fluxes. Our results show that solar cycle 24 should not be used as a representative solar cycle for developing long term environment models. The developed reconstruction of fluxes can be used to develop or improve empirical models of the radiation belts.
Context. The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is the most luminous satellite galaxy of the Milky Way and, owing to its companion, the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), represents an excellent laboratory to study the interaction of dwarf galaxies. Aims. The aim of this study is to investigate the kinematics of the outer regions of the LMC by using stellar proper motions to understand the impact of interactions, for example with the SMC about 250 Myr ago. Methods. We calculate proper motions using multi-epoch K s -band images from the VISTA survey of the Magellanic Cloud system (VMC). Observations span a time baseline of 2-5 yr. We combine the VMC data with data from the Gaia Early Data Release 3 and introduce a new method to distinguish between Magellanic and Milky Way stars based on a machine learning algorithm. This new technique enables a larger and cleaner sample selection of fainter sources as it reaches below the red clump of the LMC. Results. We investigate the impact of the SMC on the rotational field of the LMC and find hints of stripped SMC debris. The southeastern region of the LMC shows a slow rotational speed compared to the overall rotation. N-body simulations suggest that this could be caused by a fraction of stripped SMC stars located in that particular region that move opposite to the expected rotation.
With the increasing sensitivity of gravitational-wave detectors, we expect to observe multiple binary neutron-star systems through gravitational waves in the near future. The combined analysis of these gravitational-wave signals offers the possibility to constrain the neutron-star radius and the equation of state of dense nuclear matter with unprecedented accuracy. However, it is crucial to ensure that uncertainties inherent in the gravitational-wave models will not lead to systematic biases when information from multiple detections is combined. To quantify waveform systematics, we perform an extensive simulation campaign of binary neutron-star sources and analyze them with a set of four different waveform models. For our analysis with 38 simulations, we find that statistical uncertainties in the neutron-star radius decrease to 1250 m (2% at 90% credible interval) but that systematic differences between currently employed waveform models can be twice as large. Hence, it will be essential to ensure that systematic biases will not become dominant in inferences of the neutron-star equation of state when capitalizing on future developments.
Numerical studies of the dynamics of gravitational systems, e.g., black hole-neutron star systems, require physical and constraint-satisfying initial data. In this article, we present the newly developed pseudospectral code ELLIPTICA, an infrastructure for construction of initial data for various binary and single gravitational systems of all kinds. The elliptic equations under consideration are solved on a single spatial hypersurface of the spacetime manifold. Using coordinate maps, the hypersurface is covered by patches whose boundaries can adapt to the surface of the compact objects. To solve elliptic equations with arbitrary boundary condition, ELLIPTICA deploys a Schur complement domain decomposition method with a direct solver. In this version, we use cubed sphere coordinate maps and the fields are expanded using Chebyshev polynomials of the first kind. Here, we explain the building blocks of ELLIPTICA and the initial data construction algorithm for a black hole-neutron star binary system. We perform convergence tests and evolve the data to validate our results. Within our framework, the neutron star can reach spin values close to breakup with arbitrary direction, while the black hole can have arbitrary spin with dimensionless spin magnitude ∼0.8.
The geomagnetic activity index Kp is widely used but is restricted by low time resolution (3-hourly) and an upper limit. To address this, new geomagnetic activity indices, Hpo, are introduced. Similar to Kp, Hpo expresses the level of planetary geomagnetic activity in units of thirds (0o, 0+, 1-, 1o, 1+, 2-, horizontal ellipsis ) based on the magnitude of geomagnetic disturbances observed at subauroral observatories. Hpo has a higher time resolution than Kp. 30-min (Hp30) and 60-min (Hp60) indices are produced. The frequency distribution of Hpo is designed to be similar to that of Kp so that Hpo may be used as a higher time-resolution alternative to Kp. Unlike Kp, which is capped at 9o, Hpo is an open-ended index and thus can characterize severe geomagnetic storms more accurately. Hp30, Hp60 and corresponding linearly scaled ap30 and ap60 are available, in near real time, at the GFZ website (https://www.gfz-potsdam.de/en/hpo-index).
We perform numerical studies of a thermally driven, overdamped particle in a random quenched force field, known as the Sinai model. We compare the unbounded motion on an infinite 1-dimensional domain to the motion in bounded domains with reflecting boundaries and show that the unbounded motion is at every time close to the equilibrium state of a finite system of growing size. This is due to time scale separation: inside wells of the random potential, there is relatively fast equilibration, while the motion across major potential barriers is ultraslow. Quantities studied by us are the time dependent mean squared displacement, the time dependent mean energy of an ensemble of particles, and the time dependent entropy of the probability distribution. Using a very fast numerical algorithm, we can explore times up top 10(17) steps and thereby also study finite-time crossover phenomena.
Recent observations have revealed remarkable insights into the gas reservoir in the circumgalactic medium (CGM) of galaxy haloes. In this paper, we characterise the gas in the vicinity of Milky Way and Andromeda analogues in the hestia (High resolution Environmental Simulations of The Immediate Area) suite of constrained Local Group (LG) simulations. The hestia suite comprise of a set of three high-resolution arepo-based simulations of the LG, run using the Auriga galaxy formation model.
For this paper, we focus only on the 𝑧 = 0 simulation datasets and generate mock skymaps along with a power spectrum analysis to show that the distributions of ions tracing low-temperature gas (H i and Si iii) are more clumpy in comparison to warmer gas tracers (O vi, O vii and O viii). We compare to the spectroscopic CGM observations of M31 and low-redshift galaxies.
hestia under-produces the column densities of the M31 observations, but the simulations are consistent with the observations of low-redshift galaxies. A possible explanation for these findings is that the spectroscopic observations of M31 are contaminated by gas residing in the CGM of the Milky Way.
Improving permafrost dynamics in land surface models: insights from dual sensitivity experiments
(2024)
The thawing of permafrost and the subsequent release of greenhouse gases constitute one of the most significant and uncertain positive feedback loops in the context of climate change, making predictions regarding changes in permafrost coverage of paramount importance. To address these critical questions, climate scientists have developed Land Surface Models (LSMs) that encompass a multitude of physical soil processes. This thesis is committed to advancing our understanding and refining precise representations of permafrost dynamics within LSMs, with a specific focus on the accurate modeling of heat fluxes, an essential component for simulating permafrost physics.
The first research question overviews fundamental model prerequisites for the representation of permafrost soils within land surface modeling. It includes a first-of-its-kind comparison between LSMs in CMIP6 to reveal their differences and shortcomings in key permafrost physics parameters. Overall, each of these LSMs represents a unique approach to simulating soil processes and their interactions with the climate system. Choosing the most appropriate model for a particular application depends on factors such as the spatial and temporal scale of the simulation, the specific research question, and available computational resources.
The second research question evaluates the performance of the state-of-the-art Community Land Model (CLM5) in simulating Arctic permafrost regions. Our approach overcomes traditional evaluation limitations by individually addressing depth, seasonality, and regional variations, providing a comprehensive assessment of permafrost and soil temperature dynamics. I compare CLM5's results with three extensive datasets: (1) soil temperatures from 295 borehole stations, (2) active layer thickness (ALT) data from the Circumpolar Active Layer Monitoring Network (CALM), and (3) soil temperatures, ALT, and permafrost extent from the ESA Climate Change Initiative (ESA-CCI). The results show that CLM5 aligns well with ESA-CCI and CALM for permafrost extent and ALT but reveals a significant global cold temperature bias, notably over Siberia. These results echo a persistent challenge identified in numerous studies: the existence of a systematic 'cold bias' in soil temperature over permafrost regions. To address this challenge, the following research questions propose dual sensitivity experiments.
The third research question represents the first study to apply a Plant Functional Type (PFT)-based approach to derive soil texture and soil organic matter (SOM), departing from the conventional use of coarse-resolution global data in LSMs. This novel method results in a more uniform distribution of soil organic matter density (OMD) across the domain, characterized by reduced OMD values in most regions. However, changes in soil texture exhibit a more intricate spatial pattern. Comparing the results to observations reveals a significant reduction in the cold bias observed in the control run. This method shows noticeable improvements in permafrost extent, but at the cost of an overestimation in ALT. These findings emphasize the model's high sensitivity to variations in soil texture and SOM content, highlighting the crucial role of soil composition in governing heat transfer processes and shaping the seasonal variation of soil temperatures in permafrost regions.
Expanding upon a site experiment conducted in Trail Valley Creek by \citet{dutch_impact_2022}, the fourth research question extends the application of the snow scheme proposed by \citet{sturm_thermal_1997} to cover the entire Arctic domain. By employing a snow scheme better suited to the snow density profile observed over permafrost regions, this thesis seeks to assess its influence on simulated soil temperatures. Comparing this method to observational datasets reveals a significant reduction in the cold bias that was present in the control run. In most regions, the Sturm run exhibits a substantial decrease in the cold bias. However, there is a distinctive overshoot with a warm bias observed in mountainous areas. The Sturm experiment effectively addressed the overestimation of permafrost extent in the control run, albeit resulting in a substantial reduction in permafrost extent over mountainous areas. ALT results remain relatively consistent compared to the control run. These outcomes align with our initial hypothesis, which anticipated that the reduced snow insulation in the Sturm run would lead to higher winter soil temperatures and a more accurate representation of permafrost physics.
In summary, this thesis demonstrates significant advancements in understanding permafrost dynamics and its integration into LSMs. It has meticulously unraveled the intricacies involved in the interplay between heat transfer, soil properties, and snow dynamics in permafrost regions. These insights offer novel perspectives on model representation and performance.
Non-fullerene acceptors (NFAs) as used in state-of-the-art organic solar cells feature highly crystalline layers that go along with low energetic disorder.
Here, the crucial role of energetic disorder in blends of the donor polymer PM6 with two Y-series NFAs, Y6, and N4 is studied.
By performing temperature-dependent charge transport and recombination studies, a consistent picture of the shape of the density of state distributions for free charges in the two blends is developed, allowing an analytical description of the dependence of the open-circuit voltage V-OC on temperature and illumination intensity.
Disorder is found to influence the value of the V-OC at room temperature, but also its progression with temperature. Here, the PM6:Y6 blend benefits substantially from its narrower state distributions.
The analysis also shows that the energy of the equilibrated free charge population is well below the energy of the NFA singlet excitons for both blends and possibly below the energy of the populated charge transfer manifold, indicating a down-hill driving force for free charge formation.
It is concluded that energetic disorder of charge-separated states has to be considered in the analysis of the photovoltaic properties, even for the more ordered PM6:Y6 blend.
Perovskite/silicon tandem photovoltaics (PVs) promise to accelerate the decarbonization of our energy systems. Here, we present a thorough subcell diagnosis methodology to reveal deep insights into the practical efficiency limitations of state-of-the-art perovskite/silicon tandem PVs. Our subcell selective intensity-dependent photoluminescence (PL) and injection-dependent electroluminescence (EL) measurements allow independent assessment of pseudo-V-OC and power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) for both subcells. We reveal identical metrics from PL and EL, which implies well-aligned energy levels throughout the entire cell. Relatively large ideality factors and insufficient charge extraction, however, cause each a fill factor penalty of about 6% (absolute). Using partial device stacks, we then identify significant losses in standard perovskite subcells due to bulk and interfacial recombination. Lastly, we present strategies to minimize these losses using triple halide (CsFAPb(IBrCI)(3)) based perovskites. Our results give helpful feedback for device development and lay the foundation toward advanced perovskite/silicon tandem PVs capable of exceeding 33% PCE.
The H alpha spectral line is a well-studied absorption line revealing properties of the highly structured and dynamic solar chromosphere. Typical features with distinct spectral signatures in H alpha include filaments and prominences, bright active-region plages, superpenumbrae around sunspots, surges, flares, Ellerman bombs, filigree, and mottles and rosettes, among others. This study is based on high-spectral resolution H alpha spectra obtained with the Echelle spectrograph of the Vacuum Tower Telescope (VTT) located at Observatorio del Teide, Tenerife, Spain. The t-distributed stochastic neighbor embedding (t-SNE) is a machine-learning algorithm, which is used for nonlinear dimensionality reduction. In this application, it projects H alpha spectra onto a two-dimensional map, where it becomes possible to classify the spectra according to results of cloud model (CM) inversions. The CM parameters optical depth, Doppler width, line-of-sight velocity, and source function describe properties of the cloud material. Initial results of t-SNE indicate its strong discriminatory power to separate quiet-Sun and plage profiles from those that are suitable for CM inversions. In addition, a detailed study of various t-SNE parameters is conducted, the impact of seeing conditions on the classification is assessed, results for various types of input data are compared, and the identified clusters are linked to chromospheric features. Although t-SNE proves to be efficient in clustering high-dimensional data, human inference is required at each step to interpret the results. This exploratory study provides a framework and ideas on how to tailor a classification scheme toward specific spectral data and science questions.
The formation of large polarons has been proposed as reason for the high defect tolerance, low mobility, low charge carrier trapping, and low nonradiative recombination rates of lead halide perovskites. Recently, direct evidence for large-polaron formation has been reported from a 50% effective mass enhancement in angle-resolved photoemission of CsPbBr3 over theory for the orthorhombic structure. We present in-depth band dispersion measurements of CsPbBr3 and GW calculations, which lead to similar effective masses at the valence band maximum of 0.203 1 0.016 m0 in experiment and 0.226 m0 in orthorhombic theory. We argue that the effective mass can be explained solely on the basis of electron-electron correlation and largepolaron formation cannot be concluded from photoemission data.
Only a fast and global transformation towards decarbonization and sustainability can keep the Earth in a civilization-friendly state. As hotspots for (green) innovation and experimentation, cities could play an important role in this transition. They are also known to profit from each other's ideas, with policy and technology innovations spreading to other cities. In this way, cities can be conceptualized as nodes in a globe-spanning learning network. The dynamics of this process are important for society's response to climate change and other challenges, but remain poorly understood on a macroscopic level. In this contribution, we develop an approach to identify whether network-based complex contagion effects are a feature of sustainability policy adoption by cities, based on dose-response contagion and surrogate data models. We apply this methodology to an exemplary data set, comprising empirical data on the spreading of a public transport innovation (Bus Rapid Transit Systems) and a global inter-city connection network based on scheduled flight routes. Although our approach is not able to identify detailed mechanisms, our results point towards a contagious spreading process, and cannot be explained by either the network structure or the increase in global adoption rate alone. Further research on the role of a city's abstract "global neighborhood" regarding its policy and innovation decisions is thus both needed and promising, and may connect with research on social tipping processes. The methodology is generic, and can be used to compare the predictive power for innovation spreading of different kinds of inter-city network connections, e.g. via transport links, trade, or co-membership in political networks.
The determination of residual stresses becomes more complicated with increasing complexity of the structures investigated. Additive manufacturing techniques generally allow the production of 'lattice structures' without any additional manufacturing step. These lattice structures consist of thin struts and are thus susceptible to internal stress-induced distortion and even cracks. In most cases, internal stresses remain locked in the structures as residual stress. The determination of the residual stress in lattice structures through nondestructive neutron diffraction is described in this work. It is shown how two difficulties can be overcome: (a) the correct alignment of the lattice structures within the neutron beam and (b) the correct determination of the residual stress field in a representative part of the structure. The magnitude and the direction of residual stress are discussed. The residual stress in the strut was found to be uniaxial and to follow the orientation of the strut, while the residual stress in the knots was more hydrostatic. Additionally, it is shown that strain measurements in at least seven independent directions are necessary for the estimation of the principal stress directions. The measurement directions should be chosen according to the sample geometry and an informed choice on the possible strain field. If the most prominent direction is not measured, the error in the calculated stress magnitude increases considerably.
We investigate the effects of Markovian resetting events on continuous time random walks where the waiting times and the jump lengths are random variables distributed according to power-law probability density functions.
We prove the existence of a nonequilibrium stationary state and finite mean first arrival time.
However, the existence of an optimum reset rate is conditioned to a specific relationship between the exponents of both power-law tails.
We also investigate the search efficiency by finding the optimal random walk which minimizes the mean first arrival time in terms of the reset rate, the distance of the initial position to the target, and the characteristic transport exponents.
Leptonic nonthermal emission from supernova remnants evolving in the circumstellar magnetic field
(2022)
The very-high-energy (VHE; E > 100 GeV) gamma-ray emission observed from a number of supernova remnants (SNRs) indicates particle acceleration to high energies at the shock of the remnants and a potentially significant contribution to Galactic cosmic rays. It is extremely difficult to determine whether protons (through hadronic interactions and subsequent pion decay) or electrons (through inverse Compton scattering on ambient photon fields) are responsible for this emission. For a successful diagnostic, a good understanding of the spatial and energy distribution of the underlying particle population is crucial. Most SNRs are created in core-collapse explosions and expand into the wind bubble of their progenitor stars. This circumstellar medium features a complex spatial distribution of gas and magnetic field which naturally strongly affects the resulting particle population. In this work, we conduct a detailed study of the spectro-spatial evolution of the electrons accelerated at the forward shock of core-collapse SNRs and their nonthermal radiation, using the RATPaC code that is designed for the time- and spatially dependent treatment of particle acceleration at SNR shocks. We focus on the impact of the spatially inhomogeneous magnetic field through the efficiency of diffusion and synchrotron cooling. It is demonstrated that the structure of the circumstellar magnetic field can leave strong signatures in the spectrum and morphology of the resulting nonthermal emission.
Ultrafast X-ray diffraction is used to quantify the transport of energy in laser-excited nanoscale gold-nickel (Au-Ni) bilayers.
Electron transport and efficient electron-phonon coupling in Ni convert the laser-deposited energy in the conduction electrons within a few picoseconds into a strong non-equilibrium between hot Ni and cold Au phonons at the bilayer interface.
Modeling of the subsequent equilibration dynamics within various two-temperature models confirms that for ultrathin Au films, the thermal transport is dominated by phonons instead of conduction electrons because of the weak electron-phonon coupling in Au.
Magnetic reconnection is a multi-faceted process of energy conversion in astrophysical, space and laboratory plasmas that operates at microscopic scales but has macroscopic drivers and consequences.
Solar flares present a key laboratory for its study, leaving imprints of the microscopic physics in radiation spectra and allowing the macroscopic evolution to be imaged, yet a full observational characterization remains elusive.
Here we combine high resolution imaging and spectral observations of a confined solar flare at multiple wavelengths with data-constrained magnetohydrodynamic modeling to study the dynamics of the flare plasma from the current sheet to the plasmoid scale. The analysis suggests that the flare resulted from the interaction of a twisted magnetic flux rope surrounding a filament with nearby magnetic loops whose feet are anchored in chromospheric fibrils. Bright cusp-shaped structures represent the region around a reconnecting separator or quasi-separator (hyperbolic flux tube).
The fast reconnection, which is relevant for other astrophysical environments, revealed plasmoids in the current sheet and separatrices and associated unresolved turbulent motions.
Solar flares provide wide range of observational details about fundamental processes involved. Here, the authors show evidence for magnetic reconnection in a strong confined solar flare displaying all four reconnection flows with plasmoids in the current sheet and the separatrices.
The simultaneous detection of gravitational waves and light from the binary neutron star merger GW170817 led to independent measurements of distance and redshift, providing a direct estimate of the Hubble constant H-0 that does not rely on a cosmic distance ladder, nor assumes a specific cosmological model.
By using gravitational waves as "standard sirens", this approach holds promise to arbitrate the existing tension between the H-0 value inferred from the cosmic microwave background and those obtained from local measurements.
However, the known degeneracy in the gravitational-wave analysis between distance and inclination of the source led to a H-0 value from GW170817 that was not precise enough to resolve the existing tension.
In this review, we summarize recent works exploiting the viewing-angle dependence of the electromagnetic signal, namely the associated short gamma-ray burst and kilonova, to constrain the system inclination and improve on H-0.
We outline the key ingredients of the different methods, summarize the results obtained in the aftermath of GW170817 and discuss the possible systematics introduced by each of these methods.
Context
Thermonuclear supernovae (SNe), a subset of which are the highly important SNe Type Ia, remain one of the more poorly understood phenomena known to modern astrophysics.
In recent years, the single degenerate helium (He) donor channel, where a white dwarf star accretes He-rich matter from a hydrogen-depleted companion, has emerged as a promising candidate progenitor scenario for these events.
An unresolved question in this scenario is the fate of the companion star, which would be evident as a runaway hot subdwarf O/B stars (He sdO/B) in the aftermath of the SN event.
Aims
Previous studies have shown that the kinematic properties of an ejected companion provide an opportunity to closer examine the properties of an SN progenitor system. However, with the number of observed objects not matching predictions by theory, the viability of this mechanism is called into question.
In this study, we first synthesize a population of companion stars ejected by the aforementioned mechanism, taking into account predicted ejection velocities, the inferred population density in the Galactic mass distribution, and subsequent kinematics in the Galactic potential. We then discuss the astrometric properties of this population.
Methods
We present 10(6) individual ejection trajectories, which were numerically computed with a newly developed, lightweight simulation framework. Initial conditions were randomly generated, but weighted according to the Galactic mass density and ejection velocity data. We then discuss the bulk properties (Galactic distribution and observational parameters) of our sample.
Results
Our synthetic population reflects the Galactic mass distribution.
A peak in the density distribution for close objects is expected in the direction of the Galactic centre. Higher mass runaways should outnumber lower mass ones. If the entire considered mass range is realised, the radial velocity distribution should show a peak at 500 km s(-1).
If only close US 708 analogues are considered, there should be a peak at (similar to 750-850) km s(-1). In either case, US 708 should be a member of the high-velocity tail of the distribution.
Conclusions
We show that the puzzling lack of confirmed surviving companion stars of thermonuclear SNe, though possibly an observation-related selection effect, may indicate a selection against high mass donors in the SD He donor channel.
In the last years, electron density profile functions characterized by a linear dependence on the scale height showed good results when approximating the topside ionosphere. The performance above 800 km, however, is not yet well investigated.
This study investigates the capability of the semi-Epstein functions to represent electron density profiles from the peak height up to 20,000 km. Electron density observations recorded by the Van Allen Probes were used to resolve the scale height dependence in the plasmasphere.
It was found that the linear dependence of the scale height in the topside ionosphere cannot be directly used to extrapolate profiles above 800 km.
We find that the dependence of scale heights on altitude is quadratic in the plasmasphere. A statistical model of the scale heights is therefore proposed. After combining the topside ionosphere and plasmasphere by a unified model, we have obtained good estimations not only in the profile shapes, but also in the Total Electron Content magnitude and distributions when compared to actual measurements from 2013, 2014, 2016 and 2017.
Our investigation shows that Van Allen Probes can be merged to radio-occultation data to properly represent the upper ionosphere and plasmasphere by means of a semi-Epstein function.
A large Rashba effect is essential for future applications in spintronics. Particularly attractive is understanding and controlling nonequilibrium properties of ferroelectric Rashba semiconductors. Here, time- and angle-resolved photoemission is utilized to access the ultrafast dynamics of bulk and surface transient Rashba states after femtosecond optical excitation of GeTe. A complex thermalization pathway is observed, wherein three different timescales can be clearly distinguished: intraband thermalization, interband equilibration, and electronic cooling. These dynamics exhibit an unconventional temperature dependence: while the cooling phase speeds up with increasing sample temperature, the opposite happens for interband thermalization. It is demonstrated how, due to the Rashba effect, an interdependence of these timescales on the relative strength of both electron-electron and electron-phonon interactions is responsible for the counterintuitive temperature dependence, with spin-selection constrained interband electron-electron scatterings found both to dominate dynamics away from the Fermi level, and to weaken with increasing temperature. These findings are supported by theoretical calculations within the Boltzmann approach explicitly showing the opposite behavior of all relevant electron-electron and electron-phonon scattering channels with temperature, thus confirming the microscopic mechanism of the experimental findings. The present results are important for future applications of ferroelectric Rashba semiconductors and their excitations in ultrafast spintronics.
Using over-5-year EMFISIS wave measurements from Van Allen Probes, we present a detailed survey to identify the controlling factors among the geomagnetic indices and solar wind parameters for the 1-min root mean square amplitudes of lower band chorus (LBC) and upper band chorus (UBC).
A set of important features are automatically determined by feature selection techniques, namely, Random Forest and Maximum Relevancy Minimum Redundancy. Our analysis results indicate the AE index with zero-time-delay dominates the intensity evolution of LBC and UBC, consistent with the evidence that chorus waves prefer to occur and amplify during enhanced substorm periods. Regarding solar wind parameters, solar wind speed and IMF B-z are identified as the controlling factors for chorus wave intensity. Using the combination of all these important features, a predictive neural network model of chorus wave intensity is established to reconstruct the temporal variations of chorus wave intensity, for which application of Random Forest produces the overall best performance.
Plain Language Summary
Whistler mode chorus waves are electromagnetic waves observed in the low-density region near the geomagnetic equator outside the plasmapause. The dynamics of Earth's radiation belts are largely influenced by chorus waves owing to their dual contributions to both radiation belt electron acceleration and loss. In this study, we use feature selection techniques to identify the controlling geomagnetic and solar wind factors for magnetospheric chorus waves. Feature selection techniques implement the processes which can select the features most influential to the output.
In this study, the inputs are geomagnetic indices and solar wind parameters and the output is the chorus wave intensity. The results indicate that AE index with zerotime delay dominates the chorus wave intensity. Furthermore, solar wind speed and IMF B-z are identified as the most important solar wind drivers for chorus wave intensity.
On basis of the combination of all these important geomagnetic and solar wind controlling factors, we develop a neural network model of chorus wave intensity, and find that the model with the inputs identified using the Random Forest method produces the overall best performance.
Solar H alpha excess during Solar Cycle 24 from full-disk filtergrams of the Chromospheric Telescope
(2022)
Context
The chromospheric H alpha spectral line is a strong line in the spectrum of the Sun and other stars. In the stellar regime, this spectral line is already used as a powerful tracer of stellar activity. For the Sun, other tracers, such as Ca II K, are typically used to monitor solar activity. Nonetheless, the Sun is observed constantly in H alpha with globally distributed ground-based full-disk imagers.
Aims
The aim of this study is to introduce the imaging H alpha excess and deficit as tracers of solar activity and compare them to other established indicators. Furthermore, we investigate whether the active region coverage fraction or the changing H alpha excess in the active regions dominates temporal variability in solar H alpha observations.
Methods
We used observations of full-disk H alpha filtergrams of the Chromospheric Telescope and morphological image processing techniques to extract the imaging H alpha excess and deficit, which were derived from the intensities above or below 10% of the median intensity in the filtergrams, respectively. These thresholds allowed us to filter for bright features (plage regions) and dark absorption features (filaments and sunspots). In addition, the thresholds were used to calculate the mean intensity I-mean(E/D) for H alpha excess and deficit regions. We describe the evolution of the H alpha excess and deficit during Solar Cycle 24 and compare it to the mean intensity and other well established tracers: the relative sunspot number, the F10.7 cm radio flux, and the Mg II index. In particular, we tried to determine how constant the H alpha excess and number density of H alpha excess regions are between solar maximum and minimum. The number of pixels above or below the intensity thresholds were used to calculate the area coverage fraction of H alpha excess and deficit regions on the Sun, which was compared to the imaging H alpha excess and deficit and the respective mean intensities averaged for the length of one Carrington rotation. In addition, we present the H alpha excess and mean intensity variation of selected active regions during their disk passage in comparison to the number of pixels of H alpha excess regions.
Results.
The H alpha excess and deficit follow the behavior of the solar activity over the course of the cycle. They both peak around solar maximum, whereby the peak of the H alpha deficit is shortly after the solar maximum. Nonetheless, the correlation of the monthly averages of the H alpha excess and deficit is high with a Spearman correlation of rho = 0.91. The H alpha excess is closely correlated to the chromospheric Mg II index with a correlation of 0.95. The highest correlation of the H alpha deficit is found with the F10.7 cm radio flux, with a correlation of 0.89, due to their peaks after the solar activity maximum. Furthermore, the H alpha deficit reflects the cyclic behavior of polar crown filaments and their disappearance shortly before the solar maximum. We investigated the mean intensity distribution for H alpha excess regions for solar minimum and maximum. The shape of the distributions for solar minimum and maximum is very similar, but with different amplitudes. Furthermore, we found that the area coverage fraction of H alpha excess regions and the H alpha excess are strongly correlated with an overall Spearman correlation of 0.92. The correlation between the H alpha excess and the mean intensity of H alpha excess regions is 0.75. The correlation of the area coverage fraction and the mean intensity of H alpha excess regions is in general relatively low (rho = 0.45) and only for few active regions is this correlation above 0.7. The weak correlation between the area coverage fraction and mean intensity leaves us pessimistic that the degeneracy between these two quantities can be broken for the modeling of unresolved stellar surfaces.
In this work we consider the first encounter problems between a fixed and/or mobile target A and a moving trap B on Bethe lattices and Cayley trees. The survival probabilities (SPs) of the target A on the both kinds of structures are considered analytically and compared. On Bethe lattices, the results show that the fixed target will still prolong its survival time, whereas, on Cayley trees, there are some initial positions where the target should move to prolong its survival time. The mean first encounter time (MFET) for mobile target A is evaluated numerically and compared with the mean first passage time (MFPT) for the fixed target A. Different initial settings are addressed and clear boundaries are obtained. These findings are helpful for optimizing the strategy to prolong the survival time of the target or to speed up the search process on Cayley trees, in relation to the target's movement and the initial position configuration of the two walkers. We also present a new method, which uses a small amount of memory, for simulating random walks on Cayley trees. (C) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
The determination of the spin state of iron-bearing compounds at high pressure and temperature is crucial for our understanding of chemical and physical properties of the deep Earth. Studies on the relationship between the coordination of iron and its electronic spin structure in iron-bearing oxides, silicates, carbonates, iron alloys, and other minerals found in the Earth's mantle and core are scarce because of the technical challenges to simultaneously probe the sample at high pressures and temperatures. We used the unique properties of a pulsed and highly brilliant x-ray free electron laser (XFEL) beam at the High Energy Density (HED) instrument of the European XFEL to x-ray heat and probe samples contained in a diamond anvil cell. We heated and probed with the same x-ray pulse train and simultaneously measured x-ray emission and x-ray diffraction of an FeCO3 sample at a pressure of 51 GPa with up to melting temperatures. We collected spin state sensitive Fe K beta(1,3) fluorescence spectra and detected the sample's structural changes via diffraction, observing the inverse volume collapse across the spin transition. During x-ray heating, the carbonate transforms into orthorhombic Fe4C3O12 and iron oxides. Incipient melting was also observed. This approach to collect information about the electronic state and structural changes from samples contained in a diamond anvil cell at melting temperatures and above will considerably improve our understanding of the structure and dynamics of planetary and exoplanetary interiors.
Characterization of binding interactions of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and DNA-peptide nanostructures
(2022)
Binding interactions of the spike proteins of the severe acute respiratory syndrome corona virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) to a peptide fragment derived from the human angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (hACE2) receptor are investigated.
The peptide is employed as capture moiety in enzyme linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA) and quantitative binding interaction measurements that are based on fluorescence proximity sensing (switchSENSE).
In both techniques, the peptide is presented on an oligovalent DNA nanostructure, in order to assess the impact of mono- versus trivalent binding modes.
As the analyte, the spike protein and several of its subunits are tested as well as inactivated SARS-CoV-2 and pseudo viruses. While binding of the peptide to the full-length spike protein can be observed, the subunits RBD and S1 do not exhibit binding in the employed concentrations.
Variations of the amino acid sequence of the recombinant full-length spike proteins furthermore influence binding behavior. The peptide was coupled to DNA nanostructures that form a geometric complement to the trimeric structure of the spike protein binding sites.
An increase in binding strength for trimeric peptide presentation compared to single peptide presentation could be generally observed in ELISA and was quantified in switchSENSE measurements. Binding to inactivated wild type viruses could be shown as well as qualitatively different binding behavior of the Alpha and Beta variants compared to the wild type virus strain in pseudo virus models.
We present a study of the control of electric field induced strain on the magnetic and electrical transport properties in a magnetoelastically coupled artificial multiferroic Fe3O4/BaTiO3 heterostructure.
In this Fe3O4/BaTiO3 heterostructure, the Fe3O4 thin film is epitaxially grown in the form of bilateral domains, analogous to a-c stripe domains of the underlying BaTiO3(001) substrate.
By in situ electric field dependent magnetization measurements, we demonstrate the extrinsic control of the magnetic anisotropy and the characteristic Verwey metal-insulator transition of the epitaxial Fe3O4 thin film in a wide temperature range between 20-300 K, via strain mediated converse magnetoelectric coupling.
In addition, we observe strain induced modulations in the magnetic and electrical transport properties of the Fe3O4 thin film across the thermally driven intrinsic ferroelectric and structural phase transitions of the BaTiO3 substrate.
In situ electric field dependent Raman measurements reveal that the electric field does not significantly modify the antiphase boundary defects in the Fe3O4 thin film once it is thermodynamically stable after deposition and that the modification of the magnetic properties is mainly caused by strain induced lattice distortions and magnetic anisotropy.
These results provide a framework to realize electrical control of the magnetization in a classical highly correlated transition metal oxide.
Fast-localized electron loss, resulting from interactions with electromagnetic ion cyclotron (EMIC) waves, can produce deepening minima in phase space density (PSD) radial profiles. Here, we perform a statistical analysis of local PSD minima to quantify how readily these are associated with radiation belt depletions. The statistics of PSD minima observed over a year are compared to the Versatile Electron Radiation Belts (VERB) simulations, both including and excluding EMIC waves. The observed minima distribution can only be achieved in the simulation including EMIC waves, indicating their importance in the dynamics of the radiation belts. By analyzing electron flux depletions in conjunction with the observed PSD minima, we show that, in the heart of the outer radiation belt (L* < 5), on average, 53% of multi-MeV electron depletions are associated with PSD minima, demonstrating that fast localized loss by interactions with EMIC waves are a common and crucial process for ultra-relativistic electron populations.
The time instant-the first-passage time (FPT)-when a diffusive particle (e.g., a ligand such as oxygen or a signalling protein) for the first time reaches an immobile target located on the surface of a bounded three-dimensional domain (e.g., a hemoglobin molecule or the cellular nucleus) is a decisive characteristic time-scale in diverse biophysical and biochemical processes, as well as in intermediate stages of various inter- and intra-cellular signal transduction pathways. Adam and Delbruck put forth the reduction-of-dimensionality concept, according to which a ligand first binds non-specifically to any point of the surface on which the target is placed and then diffuses along this surface until it locates the target. In this work, we analyse the efficiency of such a scenario and confront it with the efficiency of a direct search process, in which the target is approached directly from the bulk and not aided by surface diffusion. We consider two situations: (i) a single ligand is launched from a fixed or a random position and searches for the target, and (ii) the case of 'amplified' signals when N ligands start either from the same point or from random positions, and the search terminates when the fastest of them arrives to the target. For such settings, we go beyond the conventional analyses, which compare only the mean values of the corresponding FPTs. Instead, we calculate the full probability density function of FPTs for both scenarios and study its integral characteristic-the 'survival' probability of a target up to time t. On this basis, we examine how the efficiencies of both scenarios are controlled by a variety of parameters and single out realistic conditions in which the reduction-of-dimensionality scenario outperforms the direct search.
How related are the ergodic properties of the over- and underdamped Langevin equations driven by fractional Gaussian noise? We here find that for massive particles performing fractional Brownian motion (FBM) inertial effects not only destroy the stylized fact of the equivalence of the ensemble-averaged mean-squared displacement (MSD) to the time-averaged MSD (TAMSD) of overdamped or massless FBM, but also dramatically alter the values of the ergodicity-breaking parameter (EB). Our theoretical results for the behavior of EB for underdamped or massive FBM for varying particle mass m, Hurst exponent H, and trace length T are in excellent agreement with the findings of stochastic computer simulations. The current results can be of interest for the experimental community employing various single-particle-tracking techniques and aiming at assessing the degree of nonergodicity for the recorded time series (studying, e.g., the behavior of EB versus lag time). To infer FBM as a realizable model of anomalous diffusion for a set single-particle-tracking data when massive particles are being tracked, the EBs from the data should be compared to EBs of massive (rather than massless) FBM.
We employ Langevin-dynamics simulations to unveil non-Brownian and non-Gaussian center-of-mass self-diffusion of massive flexible dumbbell-shaped particles in crowded two-dimensional solutions. We study the intradumbbell dynamics of the relative motion of the two constituent elastically coupled disks. Our main focus is on effects of the crowding fraction phi and of the particle structure on the diffusion characteristics. We evaluate the time-averaged mean-squared displacement (TAMSD), the displacement probability-density function (PDF), and the displacement autocorrelation function (ACF) of the dimers. For the TAMSD at highly crowded conditions of dumbbells, e.g., we observe a transition from the short-time ballistic behavior, via an intermediate subdiffusive regime, to long-time Brownian-like spreading dynamics. The crowded system of dimers exhibits two distinct diffusion regimes distinguished by the scaling exponent of the TAMSD, the dependence of the diffusivity on phi, and the features of the displacement-ACF. We attribute these regimes to a crowding-induced transition from viscous to viscoelastic diffusion upon growing phi. We also analyze the relative motion in the dimers, finding that larger phi suppress their vibrations and yield strongly non-Gaussian PDFs of rotational displacements. For the diffusion coefficients D(phi) of translational and rotational motion of the dumbbells an exponential decay with phi for weak and a power-law variation D(phi) proportional to (phi - phi(star))(2.4) for strong crowding is found. A comparison of simulation results with theoretical predictions for D(phi) is discussed and some relevant experimental systems are overviewed.
We consider the spatiotemporal states of an ensemble of nonlocally coupled nonidentical phase oscillators, which correspond to different regimes of the long-term evolution of such a system. We have obtained homogeneous, twisted, and nonhomogeneous stationary solutions to the Ott-Antonsen equations corresponding to key variants of the realized collective rotational motion of elements of the medium in question with nonzero mesoscopic characteristics determining the degree of coherence of the dynamics of neighboring particles. We have described the procedures of the search for the class of nonhomogeneous solutions as stationary points of the auxiliary point map and of determining the stability based on analysis of the eigenvalue spectrum of the composite operator. Static and breather cluster regimes have been demonstrated and described, as well as the regimes with an irregular behavior of averaged complex fields including, in particular, the local order parameter.
The field of movement ecology has seen a rapid increase in high-resolution data in recent years, leading to the development of numerous statistical and numerical methods to analyse relocation trajectories. Data are often collected at the level of the individual and for long periods that may encompass a range of behaviours.
Here, we use the power spectral density (PSD) to characterise the random movement patterns of a black-winged kite (Elanus caeruleus) and a white stork (Ciconia ciconia). The tracks are first segmented and clustered into different behaviours (movement modes), and for each mode we measure the PSD and the ageing properties of the process.
For the foraging kite we find 1/f noise, previously reported in ecological systems mainly in the context of population dynamics, but not for movement data. We further suggest plausible models for each of the behavioural modes by comparing both the measured PSD exponents and the distribution of the single-trajectory PSD to known theoretical results and simulations.
Lennard-Jones mixtures represent one of the popular systems for the study of glass-forming liquids.
Spatio/temporal heterogeneity and rare (activated) events are at the heart of the slow dynamics typical of these systems. Such slow dynamics is characterised by the development of a plateau in the mean-squared displacement (MSD) at intermediate times, accompanied by a non-Gaussianity in the displacement distribution identified by exponential tails.
As pointed out by some recent works, the non-Gaussianity persists at times beyond the MSD plateau, leading to a Brownian yet non-Gaussian regime and thus highlighting once again the relevance of rare events in such systems.
Single-particle motion of glass-forming liquids is usually interpreted as an alternation of rattling within the local cage and cage-escape motion and therefore can be described as a sequence of waiting times and jumps. In this work, by using a simple yet robust algorithm, we extract jumps and waiting times from single-particle trajectories obtained via molecular dynamics simulations.
We investigate the presence of correlations between waiting times and find negative correlations, which becomes more and more pronounced when lowering the temperature.
A novel idea for an optimal time delay state space reconstruction from uni- and multivariate time series is presented. The entire embedding process is considered as a game, in which each move corresponds to an embedding cycle and is subject to an evaluation through an objective function. This way the embedding procedure can be modeled as a tree, in which each leaf holds a specific value of the objective function. By using a Monte Carlo ansatz, the proposed algorithm populates the tree with many leafs by computing different possible embedding paths and the final embedding is chosen as that particular path, which ends at the leaf with the lowest achieved value of the objective function. The method aims to prevent getting stuck in a local minimum of the objective function and can be used in a modular way, enabling practitioners to choose a statistic for possible delays in each embedding cycle as well as a suitable objective function themselves. The proposed method guarantees the optimization of the chosen objective function over the parameter space of the delay embedding as long as the tree is sampled sufficiently. As a proof of concept, we demonstrate the superiority of the proposed method over the classical time delay embedding methods using a variety of application examples. We compare recurrence plot-based statistics inferred from reconstructions of a Lorenz-96 system and highlight an improved forecast accuracy for map-like model data as well as for palaeoclimate isotope time series. Finally, we utilize state space reconstruction for the detection of causality and its strength between observables of a gas turbine type thermoacoustic combustor.
Organic solar cells (OSCs) have progressed rapidly in recent years through the development of novel organic photoactive materials, especially non-fullerene acceptors (NFAs). Consequently, OSCs based on state-of-the-art NFAs have reached significant milestones, such as similar to 19% power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) and small energy losses (less than 0.5 eV). Despite these significant advances, understanding of the interplay between molecular structure and optoelectronic properties lags significantly behind. For example, despite the theoretical framework for describing the energetic disorder being well developed for the case of inorganic semiconductors, the question of the applicability of classical semiconductor theories in analyzing organic semiconductors is still under debate. A general observation in the inorganic field is that inorganic photovoltaic materials possessing a polycrystalline microstructure exhibit suppressed disorder properties and better charge carrier transport compared to their amorphous analogs. Accordingly, this principle extends to the organic semiconductor field as many organic photovoltaic materials are synthesized to pursue polycrystalline-like features. Yet, there appears to be sporadic examples that exhibit an opposite trend. However, full studies decoupling energetic disorder from aggregation effects have largely been left out. Hence, the potential role of the energetic disorder in OSCs has received little attention. Interestingly, recently reported state-of-the-art NFA-based devices could achieve a small energetic disorder and high PCE at the same time; and interest in this investigation related to the disorder properties in OSCs was revived. In this contribution, progress in terms of the correlation between molecular design and energetic disorder is reviewed together with their effects on the optoelectronic mechanism and photovoltaic performance. Finally, the specific challenges and possible solutions in reducing the energetic disorder of OSCs from the viewpoint of materials and devices are proposed.
In organic solar cells, the resulting device efficiency depends strongly on the local morphology and intermolecular interactions of the blend film. Optical spectroscopy was used to identify the spectral signatures of interacting chromophores in blend films of the donor polymer PM6 with two state-of-the-art nonfullerene acceptors, Y6 and N4, which differ merely in the branching point of the side chain. From temperature-dependent absorption and luminescence spectroscopy in solution, it is inferred that both acceptor materials form two types of aggregates that differ in their interaction energy. Y6 forms an aggregate with a predominant J-type character in solution, while for N4 molecules the interaction is predominantly in a H-like manner in solution and freshly spin-cast film, yet the molecules reorient with respect to each other with time or thermal annealing to adopt a more J-type interaction. The different aggregation behavior of the acceptor materials is also reflected in the blend films and accounts for the different solar cell efficiencies reported with the two blends.
The mobile-immobile model (MIM) has been established in geoscience in the context of contaminant transport in groundwater. Here the tracer particles effectively immobilise, e.g., due to diffusion into dead-end pores or sorption. The main idea of the MIM is to split the total particle density into a mobile and an immobile density. Individual tracers switch between the mobile and immobile state following a two-state telegraph process, i.e., the residence times in each state are distributed exponentially. In geoscience the focus lies on the breakthrough curve (BTC), which is the concentration at a fixed location over time. We apply the MIM to biological experiments with a special focus on anomalous scaling regimes of the mean squared displacement (MSD) and non-Gaussian displacement distributions. As an exemplary system, we have analysed the motion of tau proteins, that diffuse freely inside axons of neurons. Their free diffusion thereby corresponds to the mobile state of the MIM. Tau proteins stochastically bind to microtubules, which effectively immobilises the tau proteins until they unbind and continue diffusing. Long immobilisation durations compared to the mobile durations give rise to distinct non-Gaussian Laplace shaped distributions. It is accompanied by a plateau in the MSD for initially mobile tracer particles at relevant intermediate timescales. An equilibrium fraction of initially mobile tracers gives rise to non-Gaussian displacements at intermediate timescales, while the MSD remains linear at all times. In another setting bio molecules diffuse in a biosensor and transiently bind to specific receptors, where advection becomes relevant in the mobile state. The plateau in the MSD observed for the advection-free setting and long immobilisation durations persists also for the case with advection. We find a new clear regime of anomalous diffusion with non-Gaussian distributions and a cubic scaling of the MSD. This regime emerges for initially mobile and for initially immobile tracers. For an equilibrium fraction of initially mobile tracers we observe an intermittent ballistic scaling of the MSD. The long-time effective diffusion coefficient is enhanced by advection, which we physically explain with the variance of mobile durations. Finally, we generalize the MIM to incorporate arbitrary immobilisation time distributions and focus on a Mittag-Leffler immobilisation time distribution with power-law tail ~ t^(-1-mu) with 0<mu<1 and diverging mean immobilisation durations. A fit of our model to the BTC of experimental data from tracer particles in aquifers matches the BTC including the power-law tail. We use the fit parameters for plotting the displacement distributions and the MSD. We find Gaussian normal diffusion at short times and long-time power-law decay of mobile mass accompanied by anomalous diffusion at long times. The long-time diffusion is subdiffusive in the advection-free setting, while it is either subdiffusive for 0<mu<1/2 or superdiffusive for 1/2<mu<1 when advection is present. In the long-time limit we show equivalence of our model to a bi-fractional diffusion equation.
We investigate a class of diffusion-controlled reactions that are initiated at the time instance when a prescribed number K among N particles independently diffusing in a solvent are simultaneously bound to a target region.
In the irreversible target-binding setting, the particles that bind to the target stay there forever, and the reaction time is the Kth fastest first-passage time to the target, whose distribution is well-known. In turn, reversible binding, which is common for most applications, renders theoretical analysis much more challenging and drastically changes the distribution of reaction times.
We develop a renewal-based approach to derive an approximate solution for the probability density of the reaction time.
This approximation turns out to be remarkably accurate for a broad range of parameters.
We also analyze the dependence of the mean reaction time or, equivalently, the inverse reaction rate, on the main parameters such as K, N, and binding/unbinding constants. Some biophysical applications and further perspectives are briefly discussed.
Hot, compact, hydrogen-deficient pre-white dwarfs (pre-WDs) with effective temperatures of Teff > 70 000 K and a surface gravity of 5.0 < logg < 7.0 are rather rare objects despite recent and ongoing surveys. It is believed that they are the outcome of either single star evolution (late helium-shell flash or late helium-core flash) or binary star evolution (double WD merger). Their study is interesting because the surface elemental abundances reflect the physics of thermonuclear flashes and merger events. Spectroscopically they are divided in three different classes, namely PG1159, O(He), or He-sdO. We present a spectroscopic analysis of five such stars that turned out to have atmospheric parameters in the range Teff = 70 000-80 000 K and logg = 5.2-6.3. The three investigated He-sdOs have a relatively high hydrogen mass fraction (10%) that is unexplained by both single (He core flash) and binary evolution (He-WD merger) scenarios. The O(He) star JL 9 is probably a binary helium-WD merger, but its hydrogen content (6%) is also at odds with merger models. We found that RL 104 is the 'coolest' (Teff = 80 000 K) member of the PG1159 class in a pre-WD stage. Its optical spectrum is remarkable because it exhibits C※ IV lines involving Rydberg states with principal quantum numbers up to n = 22. Its rather low mass (0.48-0.02+0.03 M·) is difficult to reconcile with the common evolutionary scenario for PG1159 stars due to it being the outcome of a (very) late He-shell flash. The same mass-problem faces a merger model of a close He-sdO plus CO WD binary that predicts PG1159-like abundances. Perhaps RL 104 originates from a very late He-shell flash in a CO/He WD formed by a merger of two low-mass He-WDs.
We consider an array of nonlocally coupled oscillators on a ring, which for equally spaced units possesses a Kuramoto-Battogtokh chimera regime and a synchronous state. We demonstrate that disorder in oscillators positions leads to a transition from the synchronous to the chimera state. For a static (quenched) disorder we find that the probability of synchrony survival depends on the number of particles, from nearly zero at small populations to one in the thermodynamic limit. Furthermore, we demonstrate how the synchrony gets destroyed for randomly (ballistically or diffusively) moving oscillators. We show that, depending on the number of oscillators, there are different scalings of the transition time with this number and the velocity of the units.
We report generation of ultra-broadband longitudinal acoustic coherent phonon wavepackets in SrTiO3 (STO) with frequency components extending throughout the first Brillouin zone. The wavepackets are efficiently generated in STO using femtosecond infrared laser excitation of an atomically flat 1.6 nm-thick epitaxial SrRuO3 film. We use femtosecond x-ray diffraction at the European X-Ray Free Electron Laser Facility to study the dispersion and damping of phonon wavepackets. The experimentally determined damping constants for multi-THz frequency phonons compare favorably to the extrapolation of a simple ultrasound damping model over several orders of magnitude.
We address the effect of stochastic resetting on diffusion and subdiffusion process. For diffusion we find that mean square displacement relaxes to a constant only when the distribution of reset times possess finite mean and variance. In this case, the leading order contribution to the probability density function (PDF) of a Gaussian propagator under resetting exhibits a cusp independent of the specific details of the reset time distribution. For subdiffusion we derive the PDF in Laplace space for arbitrary resetting protocol. Resetting at constant rate allows evaluation of the PDF in terms of H function. We analyze the steady state and derive the rate function governing the relaxation behavior. For a subdiffusive process the steady state could exist even if the distribution of reset times possesses only finite mean.
We study the first-arrival (first-hitting) dynamics and efficiency of a one-dimensional random search model performing asymmetric Levy flights by leveraging the Fokker-Planck equation with a delta-sink and an asymmetric space-fractional derivative operator with stable index alpha and asymmetry (skewness) parameter beta.
We find exact analytical results for the probability density of first-arrival times and the search efficiency, and we analyse their behaviour within the limits of short and long times.
We find that when the starting point of the searcher is to the right of the target, random search by Brownian motion is more efficient than Levy flights with beta <= 0 (with a rightward bias) for short initial distances, while for beta>0 (with a leftward bias) Levy flights with alpha -> 1 are more efficient.
When increasing the initial distance of the searcher to the target, Levy flight search (except for alpha=1 with beta=0) is more efficient than the Brownian search. Moreover, the asymmetry in jumps leads to essentially higher efficiency of the Levy search compared to symmetric Levy flights at both short and long distances, and the effect is more pronounced for stable indices alpha close to unity.
HCNO is a molecule of considerable astrochemical interest as a precursor to prebiotic molecules. It is synthesized by preparative pyrolysis and is unstable at room temperature. Here, we investigate its spectroscopy in the soft X-ray regime at the C 1s, N 1s and O 1s edges. All 1s ionization energies are reported and X-ray absorption spectra reveal the transitions from the 1s to the pi* state. Resonant and normal Auger electron spectra for the decay of the core hole states are recorded in a hemispherical analyzer. An assignment of the experimental spectra is provided with the aid of theoretical counterparts. The latter are using a valence configuration interaction representation of the intermediate and final state energies and wavefunctions, the one-center approximation for transition rates and band shapes according to the moment theory. The computed spectra are in very good agreement with the experimental data and most of the relevant bands are assigned. Additionally, we present a simple approach to estimate relative Auger transition rates on the basis of a minimal basis representation of the molecular orbitals. We demonstrate that this provides a qualitatively good and reliable estimate for several signals in the normal and resonant Auger electron spectra which have significantly different intensities in the decay of the three core holes.
The interplay between free charge carriers, charge transfer (CT) states and singlet excitons (S-1) determines the recombination pathway and the resulting open circuit voltage (V-OC) of organic solar cells.
By combining a well-aggregated low bandgap polymer with different blend ratios of the fullerenes PCBM and ICBA, the energy of the CT state (E-CT) is varied by 130 meV while leaving the S-1 energy of the polymer (ES1\[{E_{{{\rm{S}}_1}}}\]) unaffected.
It is found that the polymer exciton dominates the radiative properties of the blend when ECT\[{E_{{\rm{CT}}}}\] approaches ES1\[{E_{{{\rm{S}}_1}}}\], while the V-OC remains limited by the non-radiative decay of the CT state.
It is concluded that an increasing strength of the exciton in the optical spectra of organic solar cells will generally decrease the non-radiative voltage loss because it lowers the radiative V-OC limit (V-OC,V-rad), but not because it is more emissive.
The analysis further suggests that electronic coupling between the CT state and the S-1 will not improve the V-OC, but rather reduce the V-OC,V-rad.
It is anticipated that only at very low CT state absorption combined with a fairly high CT radiative efficiency the solar cell benefit from the radiative properties of the singlet excitons.
The subsequent observing runs of the advanced gravitational-wave detector network will likely provide us with various gravitational-wave observations of binary neutron star systems. For an accurate interpretation of these detections, we need reliable gravitational-wave models. To test and to point out how existing models could be improved, we perform a set of high-resolution numerical relativity simulations for four different physical setups with mass ratios q = 1.25, 1.50, 1.75, 2.00, and total gravitational mass M = 2.7 M???. Each configuration is simulated with five different resolutions to allow a proper error assessment. Overall, we find approximately second-order converging results for the dominant (2,2) mode, but also the subdominant (2,1), (3,3), and (4,4) modes, while generally, the convergence order reduces slightly for an increasing mass ratio. Our simulations allow us to validate waveform models, where we find generally good agreement between state-of-the-art models and our data, and to prove that scaling relations for higher modes currently employed for binary black hole waveform modeling also apply for the tidal contribution. Finally, we also test if the current NRTidal model used to describe tidal effects is a valid description for high-mass-ratio systems. We hope that our simulation results can be used to further improve and test waveform models in preparation for the next observing runs.
Free base 5,10,15,20-tetrakis(4-carboxylatophenyl)porphyrin stands for the class of powerful porphyrin photosensitizers for singlet oxygen generation and light-harvesting. The atomic level selectivity of dynamic UV pump - N K-edge probe X-ray absorption spectroscopy in combination with time-dependent density functional theory (TD-DFT) gives direct access to the crucial excited molecular states within the unusual relaxation pathway.
The efficient intersystem crossing, that is El-Sayed forbidden and not facilitated by a heavy atom is confirmed to be the result of the long singlet excited state lifetime (Q(x) 4.9 ns) and thermal effects.
Overall, the interplay of stabilization by conservation of angular momenta and vibronic relaxation drive the de-excitation in these chromophores.
EC 22536-5304
(2021)
Helium-burning hot subdwarf stars of spectral types O and B (sdO/B) are thought to be produced through various types of binary interactions. The helium-rich hot subdwarf star EC 22536-5304 was recently found to be extremely enriched in lead. Here, we show that EC 22536-5304 is a binary star with a metal-poor subdwarf F-type (sdF) companion. We performed a detailed analysis of high-resolution SALT/HRS and VLT/UVES spectra, deriving metal abundances for the hot subdwarf, as well as atmospheric parameters for both components. Because we consider the contribution of the sdF star, the derived lead abundance for the sdOB, + 6.3 +/- 0.3 dex relative to solar, is even higher than previously thought. We derive T-eff = 6210 +/- 70 K, log g = 4.64 +/- 0.10, [FE/H] = - 1.95 +/- 0.04, and [alpha/Fe] = + 0.40 +/- 0.04 for the sdF component. Radial velocity variations, although poorly sampled at present, indicate that the binary system has a long orbital period of about 457 days. This suggests that the system was likely formed through stable Roche lobe overflow (RLOF). A kinematic analysis shows that EC 22536-5304 is on an eccentric orbit around the Galactic centre. This, as well as the low metallicity and strong alpha enhancement of the sdF-type companion, indicate that EC 22536-5304 is part of the Galactic halo or metal-weak thick disc. As the first long-period hot subdwarf binary at [FE/H] less than or similar to- 1, EC 22536-5304 may help to constrain the RLOF mechanism for mass transfer from low-mass, low-metallicity red giant branch (RGB) stars to main-sequence companions.
Development of functional and stable solid polymer electrolytes (SPEs) for battery applications is an important step towards both safer batteries and for the realization of lithium-based or anode-less batteries. The interface between the lithium and the solid polymer electrolyte is one of the bottlenecks, where severe degradation is expected. Here, the stability of three different SPEs - poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO), poly(epsilon-caprolactone) (PCL) and poly(trimethylene carbonate) (PTMC) - together with lithium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide (LiTFSI) salt, is investigated after they have been exposed to lithium metal under UHV conditions. Degradation compounds, e.g. Li-O-R, LiF and LixSyOz, are identified for all SPEs using soft X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. A competing degradation between polymer and salt is identified in the outermost surface region (<7 nm), and is dependent on the polymer host. PTMC:LiTFSI shows the most severe decomposition of both polymer and salt followed by PCL:LiTFSI and PEO:LiTFSI. In addition, the movement of lithium species through the decomposed interface shows large variation depending on the polymer electrolyte system.
How different are the results of constant-rate resetting of anomalous-diffusion processes in terms of their ensemble-averaged versus time-averaged mean-squared displacements (MSDs versus TAMSDs) and how does stochastic resetting impact nonergodicity? We examine, both analytically and by simulations, the implications of resetting on the MSD- and TAMSD-based spreading dynamics of particles executing fractional Brownian motion (FBM) with a long-time memory, heterogeneous diffusion processes (HDPs) with a power-law space-dependent diffusivity D(x) = D0|x|gamma and their "combined" process of HDP-FBM. We find, inter alia, that the resetting dynamics of originally ergodic FBM for superdiffusive Hurst exponents develops disparities in scaling and magnitudes of the MSDs and mean TAMSDs indicating weak ergodicity breaking. For subdiffusive HDPs we also quantify the nonequivalence of the MSD and TAMSD and observe a new trimodal form of the probability density function. For reset FBM, HDPs and HDP-FBM we compute analytically and verify by simulations the short-time MSD and TAMSD asymptotes and long-time plateaus reminiscent of those for processes under confinement. We show that certain characteristics of these reset processes are functionally similar despite a different stochastic nature of their nonreset variants. Importantly, we discover nonmonotonicity of the ergodicitybreaking parameter EB as a function of the resetting rate r. For all reset processes studied we unveil a pronounced resetting-induced nonergodicity with a maximum of EB at intermediate r and EB similar to(1/r )-decay at large r. Alongside the emerging MSD-versus-TAMSD disparity, this r-dependence of EB can be an experimentally testable prediction. We conclude by discussing some implications to experimental systems featuring resetting dynamics.
Non-Markovian diffusion of excitons in layered perovskites and transition metal dichalcogenides
(2022)
The diffusion of excitons in perovskites and transition metal dichalcogenides shows clear anomalous, subdiffusive behaviour in experiments.
In this paper we develop a non-Markovian mobile-immobile model which provides an explanation of this behaviour through paired theoretical and simulation approaches.
The simulation model is based on a random walk on a 2D lattice with randomly distributed deep traps such that the trapping time distribution involves slowly decaying power-law asymptotics.
The theoretical model uses coupled diffusion and rate equations for free and trapped excitons, respectively, with an integral term responsible for trapping.
The model provides a good fitting of the experimental data, thus, showing a way for quantifying the exciton diffusion dynamics.
Inorganic perovskite solar cells show excellent thermal stability, but the reported power conversion efficiencies are still lower than for organic-inorganic perovskites. This is mainly caused by lower open-circuit voltages (V(OC)s). Herein, the reasons for the low V-OC in inorganic CsPbI2Br perovskite solar cells are investigated. Intensity-dependent photoluminescence measurements for different layer stacks reveal that n-i-p and p-i-n CsPbI2Br solar cells exhibit a strong mismatch between quasi-Fermi level splitting (QFLS) and V-OC. Specifically, the CsPbI2Br p-i-n perovskite solar cell has a QFLS-e center dot V-OC mismatch of 179 meV, compared with 11 meV for a reference cell with an organic-inorganic perovskite of similar bandgap. On the other hand, this study shows that the CsPbI2Br films with a bandgap of 1.9 eV have a very low defect density, resulting in an efficiency potential of 20.3% with a MeO-2PACz hole-transporting layer and 20.8% on compact TiO2. Using ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy measurements, energy level misalignment is identified as a possible reason for the QFLS-e center dot V-OC mismatch and strategies for overcoming this V-OC limitation are discussed. This work highlights the need to control the interfacial energetics in inorganic perovskite solar cells, but also gives promise for high efficiencies once this issue is resolved.
We consider an array of nearest-neighbor coupled nonlinear autonomous oscillators with quenched ran-dom frequencies and purely conservative coupling. We show that global phase-locked states emerge in finite lattices and study numerically their destruction. Upon change of model parameters, such states are found to become unstable with the generation of localized periodic and chaotic oscillations. For weak nonlinear frequency dispersion, metastability occur akin to the case of almost-conservative systems. We also compare the results with the phase-approximation in which the amplitude dynamics is adiabatically eliminated.
Thermal electrons have gyroradii many orders of magnitude smaller than the finite width of a shock, thus need to be pre-accelerated before they can cross it and be accelerated by diffusive shock acceleration. One region where pre-acceleration may occur is the inner foreshock, which upstream electrons must pass through before any potential downstream crossing. In this paper, we perform a large-scale particle-in-cell simulation that generates a single shock with parameters motivated from supernova remnants. Within the foreshock, reflected electrons excite the oblique whistler instability and produce electromagnetic whistler waves, which comove with the upstream flow and as nonlinear structures eventually reach radii of up to 5 ion-gyroradii. We show that the inner electromagnetic configuration of the whistlers evolves into complex nonlinear structures bound by a strong magnetic field around four times the upstream value. Although these nonlinear structures do not in general interact with cospatial upstream electrons, they resonate with electrons that have been reflected at the shock. We show that they can scatter, or even trap, reflected electrons, confining around 0.8% of the total upstream electron population to the region close to the shock where they can undergo substantial pre-acceleration. This acceleration process is similar to, yet approximately three times more efficient than, stochastic shock drift acceleration.
The Arctic is the hot spot of the ongoing, global climate change. Over the last decades, near-surface temperatures in the Arctic have been rising almost four times faster than on global average. This amplified warming of the Arctic and the associated rapid changes of its environment are largely influenced by interactions between individual components of the Arctic climate system. On daily to weekly time scales, storms can have major impacts on the Arctic sea-ice cover and are thus an important part of these interactions within the Arctic climate. The sea-ice impacts of storms are related to high wind speeds, which enhance the drift and deformation of sea ice, as well as to changes in the surface energy budget in association with air mass advection, which impact the seasonal sea-ice growth and melt.
The occurrence of storms in the Arctic is typically associated with the passage of transient cyclones. Even though the above described mechanisms how storms/cyclones impact the Arctic sea ice are in principal known, there is a lack of statistical quantification of these effects. In accordance with that, the overarching objective of this thesis is to statistically quantify cyclone impacts on sea-ice concentration (SIC) in the Atlantic Arctic Ocean over the last four decades. In order to further advance the understanding of the related mechanisms, an additional objective is to separate dynamic and thermodynamic cyclone impacts on sea ice and assess their relative importance. Finally, this thesis aims to quantify recent changes in cyclone impacts on SIC. These research objectives are tackled utilizing various data sets, including atmospheric and oceanic reanalysis data as well as a coupled model simulation and a cyclone tracking algorithm.
Results from this thesis demonstrate that cyclones are significantly impacting SIC in the Atlantic Arctic Ocean from autumn to spring, while there are mostly no significant impacts in summer. The strength and the sign (SIC decreasing or SIC increasing) of the cyclone impacts strongly depends on the considered daily time scale and the region of the Atlantic Arctic Ocean. Specifically, an initial decrease in SIC (day -3 to day 0 relative to the cyclone) is found in the Greenland, Barents and Kara Seas, while SIC increases following cyclones (day 0 to day 5 relative to the cyclone) are mostly limited to the Barents and Kara Seas.
For the cold season, this results in a pronounced regional difference between overall (day -3 to day 5 relative to the cyclone) SIC-decreasing cyclone impacts in the Greenland Sea and overall SIC-increasing cyclone impacts in the Barents and Kara Seas. A cyclone case study based on a coupled model simulation indicates that both dynamic and thermodynamic mechanisms contribute to cyclone impacts on sea ice in winter. A typical pattern consisting of an initial dominance of dynamic sea-ice changes followed by enhanced thermodynamic ice growth after the cyclone passage was found. This enhanced ice growth after the cyclone passage most likely also explains the (statistical) overall SIC-increasing effects of cyclones in the Barents and Kara Seas in the cold season.
Significant changes in cyclone impacts on SIC over the last four decades have emerged throughout the year. These recent changes are strongly varying from region to region and month to month. The strongest trends in cyclone impacts on SIC are found in autumn in the Barents and Kara Seas. Here, the magnitude of destructive cyclone impacts on SIC has approximately doubled over the last four decades. The SIC-increasing effects following the cyclone passage have particularly weakened in the Barents Sea in autumn. As a consequence, previously existing overall SIC-increasing cyclone impacts in this region in autumn have recently disappeared. Generally, results from this thesis show that changes in the state of the sea-ice cover (decrease in mean sea-ice concentration and thickness) and near-surface air temperature are most important for changed cyclone impacts on SIC, while changes in cyclone properties (i.e. intensity) do not play a significant role.
Traditional inorganic semiconductors can be electronically doped with high precision. Conversely, there is still conjecture regarding the assessment of the electronic doping density in metal-halide perovskites, not to mention of a control thereof. This paper presents a multifaceted approach to determine the electronic doping density for a range of different lead-halide perovskite systems. Optical and electrical characterization techniques, comprising intensity-dependent and transient photoluminescence, AC Hall effect, transfer-length-methods, and charge extraction measurements were instrumental in quantifying an upper limit for the doping density. The obtained values are subsequently compared to the electrode charge per cell volume under short-circuit conditions ( CUbi/eV), which amounts to roughly 10(16) cm(-3). This figure of merit represents the critical limit below which doping-induced charges do not influence the device performance. The experimental results consistently demonstrate that the doping density is below this critical threshold 10(12) cm(-3), which means << CUbi / e V) for all common lead-based metal-halide perovskites. Nevertheless, although the density of doping-induced charges is too low to redistribute the built-in voltage in the perovskite active layer, mobile ions are present in sufficient quantities to create space-charge-regions in the active layer, reminiscent of doped pn-junctions. These results are well supported by drift-diffusion simulations, which confirm that the device performance is not affected by such low doping densities.
With an increasing number of expected gravitational-wave detections of binary neutron star mergers, it is essential that gravitational-wave models employed for the analysis of observational data are able to describe generic compact binary systems. This includes systems in which the individual neutron stars are millisecond pulsars for which spin effects become essential. In this work, we perform numerical-relativity simulations of binary neutron stars with aligned and antialigned spins within a range of dimensionless spins of chi similar to [-0.28, 0.58]. The simulations are performed with multiple resolutions, show a clear convergence order and, consequently, can be used to test existing waveform approximants. We find that for very high spins gravitational-wave models that have been employed for the interpretation of GW170817 and GW190425 arc not capable of describing our numerical-relativity dataset. We verify through a full parameter estimation study in which clear biases in the estimate of the tidal deformability and effective spin are present. We hope that in preparation of the next gravitational-wave observing run of the Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo detectors our new set of numerical-relativity data can be used to support future developments of new gravitational-wave models.
Assessing the impact of hydrogen absorption on the characteristics of the Galactic center excess
(2022)
We present a new reconstruction of the distribution of atomic hydrogen in the inner Galaxy that is based on explicit radiation transport modeling of line and continuum emission and a gas-flow model in the barred Galaxy that provides distance resolution for lines of sight toward the Galactic center.
The main benefits of the new gas model are (a) the ability to reproduce the negative line signals seen with the HI4PI survey and (b) the accounting for gas that primarily manifests itself through absorption.
We apply the new model of Galactic atomic hydrogen to an analysis of the diffuse gamma-ray emission from the inner Galaxy, for which an excess at a few GeV was reported that may be related to dark matter.
We find with high significance an improved fit to the diffuse gamma-ray emission observed with the Fermi-LAT, if our new H i model is used to estimate the cosmic-ray induced diffuse gamma-ray emission.
The fit still requires a nuclear bulge at high significance. Once this is included there is no evidence of a dark-matter signal, be it cuspy or cored. But an additional so-called boxy bulge is still favored by the data.
This finding is robust under the variation of various parameters, for example, the excitation temperature of atomic hydrogen, and a number of tests for systematic issues.
Background
Due to physical coupling between mechanical stress and magnetization in ferromagnetic materials, it is assumed in the literature that the distribution of the magnetic stray field corresponds to the internal (residual) stress of the specimen.
The correlation is, however, not trivial, since the magnetic stray field is also influenced by the microstructure and the geometry of component.
The understanding of the correlation between residual stress and magnetic stray field could help to evaluate the integrity of welded components.
Objective
This study aims at understanding the possible correlation of subsurface and bulk residual stress with magnetic stray field in a low carbon steel weld.
Methods
The residual stress was determined by synchrotron X-ray diffraction (SXRD, subsurface region) and by neutron diffraction (ND, bulk region).
SXRD possesses a higher spatial resolution than ND. Magnetic stray fields were mapped by utilizing high-spatial-resolution giant magneto resistance (GMR) sensors.
Results
The subsurface residual stress overall correlates better with the magnetic stray field distribution than the bulk stress. This correlation is especially visible in the regions outside the heat affected zone, where the influence of the microstructural features is less pronounced but steep residual stress gradients are present.
Conclusions
It was demonstrated that the localized stray field sources without any obvious microstructural variations are associated with steep stress gradients.
The good correlation between subsurface residual stress and magnetic signal indicates that the source of the magnetic stray fields is to be found in the range of the penetration depth of the SXRD measurements.
Gravitational waves from the collision of binary neutron stars provide a unique opportunity to study the behaviour of supranuclear matter, the fundamental properties of gravity and the cosmic history of our Universe. However, given the complexity of Einstein's field equations, theoretical models that enable source-property inference suffer from systematic uncertainties due to simplifying assumptions. We develop a hypermodel approach to compare and measure the uncertainty of gravitational-wave approximants. Using state-of-the-art models, we apply this new technique to the binary neutron star observations GW170817 and GW190425 and to the sub-threshold candidate GW200311_103121. Our analysis reveals subtle systematic differences (with Bayesian odds of similar to 2) between waveform models. A frequency-dependence study suggests that this may be due to the treatment of the tidal sector. This new technique provides a proving ground for model development and a means to identify waveform systematics in future observing runs where detector improvements will increase the number and clarity of binary neutron star collisions we observe.
Accurate and precise characterization of cirrus cloud geometrical and optical properties is essential for better constraining their radiative footprint. A lidar-based retrieval scheme is proposed here, with its performance assessed on fine spatio-temporal observations over the Arctic site of Ny-Alesund, Svalbard. Two contributions related to cirrus geometrical (dynamic Wavelet Covariance Transform (WCT)) and optical properties (constrained Klett) are reported. The dynamic WCT rendered cirrus detection more robust, especially for thin cirrus layers that frequently remained undetected by the classical WCT method. Regarding optical characterization, we developed an iterative scheme for determining the cirrus lidar ratio (LRci) that is a crucial parameter for aerosol - cloud discrimination. Building upon the Klett-Fernald method, the LRci was constrained by an additional reference value. In established methods, such as the double-ended Klett, an aerosol-free reference value is applied. In the proposed constrained Klett, however, the reference value was approximated from cloud-free or low cloud optical depth (COD up to 0.2) profiles and proved to agree with independent Raman estimates. For optically thin cirrus, the constrained Klett inherent uncertainties reached 50% (60-74%) in terms of COD (LRci). However, for opaque cirrus COD (LRci) uncertainties were lower than 10% (15%). The detection method discrepancies (dynamic versus static WCT) had a higher impact on the optical properties of low COD layers (up to 90%) compared to optically thicker ones (less than 10%). The constrained Klett presented high agreement with two established retrievals. For an exemplary cirrus cloud, the constrained Klett estimated the COD355 (LRci355) at 0.28 +/- 0.17 (29 +/- 4 sr), the double-ended Klett at 0.27 +/- 0.15 (32 +/- 4 sr) and the Raman retrievals at 0.22 +/- 0.12 (26 +/- 11 sr). Our approach to determine the necessary reference value can also be applied in established methods and increase their accuracy. In contrast, the classical aerosol-free assumption led to 44 sr LRci overestimation in optically thin layers and 2-8 sr in thicker ones. The multiple scattering effect was corrected using Eloranta (1998) and accounted for 50-60% extinction underestimation near the cloud base and 20-30% within the cirrus layers.
We present the analysis of Very Large Telescope Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) observations of the planetary nebula (PN) IC 4406. MUSE images in key emission lines are used to unveil the presence of at least five ring-like structures north and south of the main nebula of IC4406. MUSE spectra are extracted from the rings to unambiguously assess for the first time in a PN their physical conditions, electron density (n(e)), and temperature (T-e). The rings are found to have similar T-e as the rim of the main nebula, but smaller n(e). Ratios between different ionic species suggest that the rings of IC4406 have a lower ionization state than the main cavity, in contrast to what was suggested for the rings in NGC 6543, the Cat's Eye Nebula.
The current paradigm of cosmic-ray (CR) origin states that the greater part of galactic CRs is produced by supernova remnants. The interaction of supernova ejecta with the interstellar medium after a supernova's explosions results in shocks responsible for CR acceleration via diffusive shock acceleration (DSA). We use particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations and a combined PIC-magnetohydrodynamic (PIC-MHD) technique to investigate whether DSA can occur in oblique high Mach number shocks. Using the PIC method, we follow the formation of the shock and determine the fraction of the particles that gets involved in DSA. With this result, we use PIC-MHD simulations to model the large-scale structure of the plasma and the magnetic field surrounding the shock and find out whether or not the reflected particles can generate upstream turbulence and trigger DSA. We find that the feasibility of this process in oblique shocks depends strongly on the Alfvenic Mach number, and the DSA process is more likely to be triggered at high Mach number shocks.
A detailed investigation of the energy levels of perylene-3,4,9,10-tetracarboxylic tetraethylester as a representative compound for the whole family of perylene esters was performed. It was revealed via electrochemical measurements that one oxidation and two reductions take place. The bandgaps determined via the electrochemical approach are in good agreement with the optical bandgap obtained from the absorption spectra via a Tauc plot. In addition, absorption spectra in dependence of the electrochemical potential were the basis for extensive quantum-chemical calculations of the neutral, monoanionic, and dianionic molecules. For this purpose, calculations based on density functional theory were compared with post-Hartree-Fock methods and the CAM-B3LYP functional proved to be the most reliable choice for the calculation of absorption spectra. Furthermore, spectral features found experimentally could be reproduced with vibronic calculations and allowed to understand their origins. In particular, the two lowest energy absorption bands of the anion are not caused by absorption of two distinct electronic states, which might have been expected from vertical excitation calculations, but both states exhibit a strong vibronic progression resulting in contributions to both bands.
We have analysed an archival XMM-Newton EPIC observation that serendipitously covered the sky position of a variable X-ray source AX J1714.1-3912, previously suggested to be a Supergiant Fast X-ray Transient (SFXT). During the XMM-Newton observation the source is variable on a timescale of hundred seconds and shows two luminosity states, with a flaring activity followed by unflared emission, with a variability amplitude of a factor of about 50. We have discovered an intense iron emission line with a centroid energy of 6.4 keV in the power law-like spectrum, modified by a large absorption (N-H similar to 10(24) cm(-2)), never observed before from this source. This X-ray spectrum is unusual for an SFXT, but resembles the so-called 'highly obscured sources', high mass X-ray binaries (HMXBs) hosting an evolved B[e] supergiant companion (sgB[e]). This might suggest that AX J1714.1-3912 is a new member of this rare type of HMXBs, which includes IGR J16318-4848 and CI Camelopardalis. Increasing this small population of sources would be remarkable, as they represent an interesting short transition evolutionary stage in the evolution of massive binaries. Nevertheless, AX J1714.1-3912 appears to share X-ray properties of both kinds of HMXBs (SFXT versus sgB[e] HMXB). Therefore, further investigations of the companion star are needed to disentangle the two hypothesis.
Phase equilibria that are relevant for the growth of Bi2MO4 have been studied experimentally, and the ternary phase diagrams of Bi2O3-PdO2-Pd and Bi2O3-Cu2O-CuO and its isopleth section Bi2O3-CuO were redetermined. It is shown that every melting and crystallization process is always accompanied by a redox process at the phase boundary and that for both title compounds, the valence of the transition metal is lowered during melting. Vice versa, during crystal growth, O-2 must be transported through the melt to the phase boundary. Based on these new insights provided by our thermodynamic studies, Bi2CuO4 single crystals with a length of up to 7 cm and a diameter of 6 mm were grown by the OFZ technique to be used for investigations of magnetic, electronic and thermal transport properties. The grown crystals were characterized by powder X-ray diffraction, Laue, magnetization and specific heat measurements.