Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Late time cosmic acceleration: ABCD of dark energy and modified theories of gravity

We briefly review the problems and prospects of the standard lore of dark energy and notice that the cosmological constant problems are often over emphasized. In order to keep the discussion pedagogical aimed at a wider audience, we have avoided technical complications in several places and resorted to heuristic arguments based on physical perceptions. We presented underlying ideas of modified theories based upon chameleon mechanism and Vainshtein screening. We have given a lucid illustration of recently investigated ghost free non linear massive gravity. Again we have sacrificed rigor and confined to the basic ideas that led to the formulation of $dRGT$. The review ends with a brief discussion on the difficulties of the theory applied to cosmology with an optimism that a consistent solution of the problem is round the corner.
INFRARED NON-DETECTION OF FOMALHAUT b: IMPLICATIONS FOR THE PLANET INTERPRETATION

The nearby A4-type star Fomalhaut hosts a debris belt in the form of an eccentric ring, which is thought to be caused by dynamical influence from a giant planet companion. In 2008, a detection of a point source inside the inner edge of the ring was reported and was interpreted as a direct image of the planet, named Fomalhaut b. The detection was made at ∼600–800 nm, but no corresponding signatures were found in the near-infrared range, where the bulk emission of such a planet should be expected. Here, we present deep observations of Fomalhaut with Spitzer/IRAC at 4.5 μm, using a novel point-spread function subtraction technique based on angular differential imaging and Locally Optimized Combination of Images, in order to substantially improve the Spitzer contrast at small separations. The results provide more than an order of magnitude improvement in the upper flux limit of Fomalhaut b and exclude the possibility that any flux from a giant planet surface contributes to the observed flux at visible wavelengths. This renders any direct connection between the observed light source and the dynamically inferred giant planet highly unlikely. We discuss several possible interpretations of the total body of observations of the Fomalhaut system and find that the interpretation that best matches the available data for the observed source is scattered light from a transient or semi-transient dust cloud.
Survey of Water and Ammonia in Nearby Galaxies (SWAN): Resolved Ammonia Thermometry, and Water and Methanol Masers in the Nuclear Starburst of NGC 253

We present Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array molecular line observations of the nearby starburst galaxy NGC 253, from SWAN, the Survey of Water and Ammonia in Nearby galaxies. SWAN is a molecular line survey at centimeter wavelengths designed to reveal the physical conditions of star-forming gas over a range of star-forming galaxies. NGC 253 has been observed in four 1 GHz bands from 21 to 36 GHz at 6″ ∼ 100 pc) spatial and 3.5 km s−1 spectral resolution. In total we detect 19 transitions from 7 molecular and atomic species. We have targeted the metastable inversion transitions of ammonia (NH3) from (1, 1) to (5, 5) and the (9, 9) line, the 22.2 GHz water (H2O) ( ) maser, and the 36.1 GHz methanol (CH3OH) ( ) maser. Using NH3 as a thermometer, we present evidence for uniform heating over the central kpc of NGC 253. The molecular gas is best described by a two kinetic temperature model with a warm 130 K and a cooler 57 K component. A comparison of these observations with previous ALMA results suggests that the molecular gas is not heated in photon-dominated regions or shocks. It is possible that the gas is heated by turbulence or cosmic rays. In the galaxy center we find evidence for NH3(3, 3) masers. Furthermore, we present velocities and luminosities of three water maser features related to the nuclear starburst. We partially resolve CH3OH masers seen at the edges of the bright molecular emission, which coincides with expanding molecular superbubbles. This suggests that the masers are pumped by weak shocks in the bubble surfaces.
AGN feedback in the nucleus of M51

AGN feedback is invoked as one of the most relevant mechanisms that shape the evolution of galaxies. Our goal is to understand the interplay between AGN feedback and the interstellar medium in M51, a nearby spiral galaxy with a modest AGN and a kpc-scale radio jet expanding through the disc of the galaxy. For that purpose, we combine molecular gas observations in the CO(1-0) and HCN(1-0) lines from the Plateau de Bure interferometer with archival radio, X-ray, and optical data. We show that there is a significant scarcity of CO emission in the ionisation cone, while molecular gas emission tends to accumulate towards the edges of the cone. The distribution and kinematics of CO and HCN line emission reveal AGN feedback effects out to r~500pc, covering the whole extent of the radio jet, with complex kinematics in the molecular gas which displays strong local variations. We propose that this is the result of the almost coplanar jet pushing on molecular gas in different directions as it expands; the effects are more pronounced in HCN than in CO emission, probably as the result of radiative shocks. Following previous interpretation of the redshifted molecular line in the central 5" as caused by a molecular outflow, we estimate the outflow rates to be Mdot_H2~0.9Msun/yr and Mdot_dense~0.6Msun/yr, which are comparable to the molecular inflow rates (~1Msun/yr); gas inflow and AGN feedback could be mutually regulated processes. The agreement with findings in other nearby radio galaxies suggests that this is not an isolated case, and probably the paradigm of AGN feedback through radio jets, at least for galaxies hosting low-luminosity active nuclei.
Revealing the Phenotypic and Genomic Background for PHA Production from Rapeseed-Biodiesel Crude Glycerol Using Photobacterium ganghwense C2.2

Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) are promising biodegradable and biocompatible bioplastics, and extensive knowledge of the employed bacterial strain’s metabolic capabilities is necessary in choosing economically feasible production conditions. This study aimed to create an in-depth view of the utilization of Photobacterium ganghwense C2.2 for PHA production by linking a wide array of characterization methods: metabolic pathway annotation from the strain’s complete genome, high-throughput phenotypic tests, and biomass analyses through plate-based assays and flask and bioreactor cultivations. We confirmed, in PHA production conditions, urea catabolization, fatty acid degradation and synthesis, and high pH variation and osmotic stress tolerance. With urea as a nitrogen source, pure and rapeseed-biodiesel crude glycerol were analyzed comparatively as carbon sources for fermentation at 20 °C. Flask cultivations yielded 2.2 g/L and 2 g/L PHA at 120 h, respectively, with molecular weights of 428,629 g/mol and 81,515 g/mol. Bioreactor batch cultivation doubled biomass accumulation (10 g/L and 13.2 g/L) in 48 h, with a PHA productivity of 0.133 g/(L·h) and 0.05 g/(L·h). Thus, phenotypic and genomic analyses determined the successful use of Photobacterium ganghwense C2.2 for PHA production using urea and crude glycerol and 20 g/L NaCl, without pH adjustment, providing the basis for a viable fermentation process.
Fractional quantum Hall states versus Wigner crystals in wide quantum wells in the half-filled lowest and second Landau levels

We investigate numerically different phases that can occur at half filling in the lowest and the first excited Landau levels in wide-well twodimensional electron systems exposed to a perpendicular magnetic field. Within a twocomponent model that takes into account only the two lowest electronic subbands of the quantum well, we derive a phase diagram that compares favorably with an experimental one by Shabani et al. [Phys. Rev. B 88, 245413 (2013)]. In addition to the compressible composite-fermion Fermi liquid in narrow wells with a substantial subband gap and the incompressible twocomponent (331) Halperin state, we identify in the lowest Landau level a rectangular Wigner crystal occupying the second subband. This crystal may be the origin of the experimentally observed insulating phase in the limit of wide wells and high electronic densities. In the second Landau level, the incompressible Pfaffian state, which occurs in narrow wells and large subband gaps, is also separated by an intermediate region from a large-well limit in which a similar rectangular Wigner crystal in the excited subband is the ground state, as for the lowest Landau level. However, the intermediate region is characterized by an incompressible state that consists of two four-flux Pfaffians in each of the components.
Strongly coupled perturbations in two-field inflationary models

We study models of inflation with two scalar fields and non-canonical kinetic terms, focusing on the case in which the curvature and isocurvature perturbations are strongly coupled to each other. In the regime where a heavy mode can be identified and integrated out, we clarify the passage from the full two-field model to an effectively single-field description. However, the strong coupling sets a new scale in the system, and affects the evolution of the perturbations as well as the beginning of the regime of validity of the effective field theory. In particular, the predictions of the model are sensitive to the relative hierarchy between the coupling and the mass of the heavy mode. As a result, observables are not given unambiguously in terms of the parameters of an effectively single field model with non-trivial sound speed. Finally, the requirement that the sound horizon crossing occurs within the regime of validity of the effective theory leads to a lower bound on the sound speed. Our analysis is done in an extremely simple toy model of slow-roll inflation, which is chosen for its tractability, but is non-trivial enough to illustrate the richness of the dynamics in non-canonical multi-field models.
DETERMINATION OF ANTIMICROBIAL PROPERTIES OF Plumbago zeylanica L.

Background: Numerous studies have been conducted on antimicrobial properties that may be useful to overcome the emerging antimicrobial resistance. Plumbago zeylanica (Ela nitul) is especially known as Ceylon leadwort. Plumbago zeylanica has been used in traditional medicine to treat various diseases, including skin rashes, scabies, ringworm, hookworms, dermatitis, acne, sores, and ulcers. Objectives: The objective of this study was to study the antimicrobial activity of P. zeylanica against a selected panel of pathogenic microorganisms in vitro and to screen the presence of phytochemicals in the aqueous extracts of P. zeylanica root, leaf, stem qualitatively. Material and Methods: The antibacterial effect of aqueous extracts of roots, leaves and stems of Plumbago zeylanica against Staphylococcus aureus, Acinetobacter baumanniii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Escherichia coli and antifungal effect against Candida albicans were studied using well diffusion assay and macro-dilution method. Qualitative screening of the phytochemicals was done using standard methods. Results: Among the panel of organisms, Candida albicans exhibited the highest susceptibility against root extract of P. zeylanica followed by other organisms including Staphylococcus aureus and Acinetobacter baumannii, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Escherichia coli, respectively. In qualitative analysis, secondary phytochemicals including alkaloids, flavonoids, steroids, saponins, taninns, chalcones, were determined in the aqueous extract root, leaf and stem, respectively. Conclusion: Plumbago zeylanica root extract has exhibited stronger antifungal and antibacterial activity rather than the leaf extract. Stem extract of Plumbago zeylanica didn't show antimicrobial activity against selected organisms. The presence and absence of phytochemicals in different plant materials explain the antimicrobial properties of root, leaf and stem of P. zeylanica.
Scattering matrix approach to the description of quantum electron transport

We consider the scattering matrix approach to quantum electron transport in meso- and nanoconductors. This approach is an alternative to the more conventional kinetic equation and Green's function approaches, and is often more efficient for coherent conductors (especially when proving general relations) and typically more transparent. We provide a description of both time-averaged quantities (for example, current–voltage characteristics) and current fluctuations in time — noise, as well as full counting statistics of charge transport in a finite time. In addition to normal conductors, we consider contacts with superconductors and Josephson junstions.
A RADIAL VELOCITY AND CALCIUM TRIPLET ABUNDANCE SURVEY OF FIELD SMALL MAGELLANIC CLOUD GIANTS

We present the results of a pilot wide-field radial velocity and metal abundance survey of red giants in 10 fields in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). The targets lie at projected distances of 0.9 and 1.9 kpc from the SMC center (m − M = 18.79) to the north, east, south, and west. Two more fields are to the east at distances of 3.9 and 5.1 kpc. In this last field, we find only a few to no SMC giants, suggesting that the edge of the SMC in this direction lies approximately at 6 kpc from its center. In all eastern fields, we observe a double peak in the radial velocities of stars, with a component at the classical SMC recession velocity of ∼160 km s−1 and a high-velocity component at about 200 km s−1, similar to observations in H i. In the most distant field (3.9 kpc), the low-velocity component is at 106 km s−1. The metal abundance distribution in all fields is broad and centered at about [Fe/H] ∼−1.25, reaching to solar and possibly slightly supersolar values and down to [Fe/H] of about −2.5. In the two innermost (0.9 kpc) northern and southern fields, we observe a secondary peak at metallicities of about ∼−0.6. This may be evidence of a second episode of star formation in the center, possibly triggered by the interactions that created the Stream and Bridge.
Are there two types of pulsars

In order to investigate the importance of dissipation in the pulsar magnetosphere we decided to combine Force-Free with Aristotelian Electrodynamics. We obtain solutions that are ideal (non-dissipative) everywhere except in an equatorial current sheet where Poynting flux from both hemispheres converges and is dissipated into particle acceleration and radiation. We find significant dissipative losses (up to about 50% of the pulsar spindown luminosity), similar to what is found in global PIC simulations in which particles are provided only on the stellar surface. We conclude that there might indeed exist two types of pulsars, strongly dissipative ones with particle injection only from the stellar surface, and ideal (weakly dissipative) ones with particle injection in the outer magnetosphere and in particular at the Y-point.
Jets in d (p )-A collisions: Color transparency or energy conservation

The production of jets, and high momentum hadrons from jets, produced in deuteron ($d$)-$Au$ collisions at the relativistic heavy-ion collider (RHIC) and proton ($p$)-$Pb$ collisions at the large hadron collider (LHC) are studied as a function of centrality, a measure of the impact parameter of the collision. A modified version of the event generator PYTHIA, widely used to simulate $p$-$p$ collisions, is used in conjunction with a nuclear Monte-Carlo event generator which simulates the locations of the nucleons within a large nucleus. We demonstrate how events with a hard jet may be simulated, in such a way that the parton distribution function of the projectile is frozen during its interaction with the extended nucleus. Using our approach, we demonstrate that the puzzling enhancement seen in peripheral events at RHIC and the LHC, as well as the suppression seen in central events at the LHC are mainly due to mis-binning of central and semi-central events, containing a jet, as peripheral events. This occurs due to the suppression of soft particle production away from the jet, caused by the depletion of energy available in a nucleon of the deuteron (in $d$-$Au$ at RHIC) or in the proton (in $p$-$Pb$ at LHC), after the production of a hard jet. We conclude that partonic correlations built out of simple energy conservation are mostly responsible for such an effect.
Physical Activity Frequency and Depression in the Spanish Population

Introduction: Depression is a concerning mental health disorder. It is the first cause of inability worldwide, which entails high economic costs for the public system. Current evidence suggests that physical activity is an effective tool for the prevention and treatment of depressive symptoms. Objective: To examine the relationship between the cases of depressive symptoms and depression presented by the adult Spanish population and the days per week of physical activity and strength training that they perform. Design: It is a cross-sectional study with data from the European Health Survey of Spain 2020 (EESE 2020), consisting of 10,024 males and 11,126 females, between 18 and 84 years, which conformed the sample of 21,150 participants. Results: Depressive symptoms and depression were related to days of PA per week, PA frequency per week and strength training days per week (p < 0.001), depressive symptoms and depression were found to have higher prevalence in the inactive groups than in the active groups (p < 0.05); this phenomenon was found in both sexes and age groups. Conclusions: The prevalence of depressive symptoms and depression were associated with physical activity in the general population, by sex and by age group too. The prevalence of both were higher in the inactive population than in the active population of all ages and sexes. Future studies are required to confirm the relationship between PA and depression prevalence, in order to establish the scope of the effect of PA on depressive symptoms and depression.
A correlation between hard gamma-ray sources and cosmic voids along the line of sight

We estimate the galaxy density along lines of sight to hard extragalactic gamma-ray sources by correlating source positions on the sky with a void catalog based on the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Extragalactic gamma-ray sources that are detected at very high energy (VHE; E > 100 GeV) or have been highlighted as VHE-emitting candidates in the Fermi Large Area Telescope hard source catalog (together referred to as “VHE-like” sources) are distributed along underdense lines of sight at the 2. 4σ level. There is a less suggestive correlation for the Fermi hard source population (1.7σ). A correlation between 10-500 GeV flux and underdense fraction along the line of sight for VHE-like and Fermi hard sources is found at 2. 4σ and 2. 6σ, calculated from the Pearson correlation coefficients of r = 0.57 and 0.47, respectively. The preference for underdense sight lines is not displayed by gamma-ray emitting galaxies within the second Fermi catalog, containing sources detected above 100 MeV, or the SDSS DR7 quasar catalog. We investigate whether this marginal correlation might be a result of lower extragalactic background light (EBL) photon density within the underdense regions and find that, even in the most extreme case of a entirely underdense sight line,more » the EBL photon density is only 2% less than the nominal EBL density. Translating this into gamma-ray attenuation along the line of sight for a highly attenuated source with opacity τ(E, z) ~ 5, we estimate that the attentuation of gamma-rays decreases no more than 10%. This decrease, although non-neglible, is unable to account for the apparent hard source correlation with underdense lines of sight. « less
Structure of accretion flows in nova-like cataclysmic variables: RW Sextantis and 1RXS J064434.5+334451

New time-resolved optical spectroscopic echelle observations of the nova-like cataclysmic variable RW Sextantis were obtained, with the aim to study the properties of emission features in the system. The profile of the H_alpha emission line can be clearly divided into two (`narrow' and `wide') components. Similar emission profiles are observed in another nova-like system, 1RXS~J064434.5+33445, for which we also reanalysed the spectral data and redetermined the system parameters. The source of the `narrow', low-velocity component is the irradiated face of the secondary star. We disentangled and removed the `narrow' component from the H_alpha profile to study the origin and structure of the region emitting the wide component. We found that the `wide' component is not related to the white dwarf or the wind from the central part of the accretion disc, but is emanated from the outer side of the disc. Inspection of literature on similar systems indicates that this feature is common for some other long-period nova-like variables. We propose that the source of the `wide' component is an extended, low-velocity region in the outskirts of the opposite side of the accretion disc, with respect to the collision point of the accretion stream and the disc.
Isochronal age-mass discrepancy of young stars: SCExAO/CHARIS integral field spectroscopy of the HIP 79124 triple system

We present SCExAO/CHARIS 1.1–2.4 μm integral field direct spectroscopy of the young HIP 79124 triple system. HIP 79124 is a member of the Scorpius-Centaurus association, consisting of an A0V primary with two low-mass companions at a projected separation of < 1″. Thanks to the high quality wavefront corrections provided by SCExAO, both companions are decisively detected without the employment of any PSF-subtraction algorithm to eliminate quasi-static noise. The spectrum of the outer C object is very well matched by Upper Scorpius M4 ± 0.5 standard spectra, with a Teff = 2945 ± 100 K and a mass of ∼350 MJup. HIP 79124 B is detected at a separation of only 180 mas in a highly-correlated noise regime, and it falls in the spectral range M6 ± 0.5 with Teff = 2840 ± 190 K and ∼100 MJup. Previous studies of stellar populations in Sco-Cen have highlighted a discrepancy in isochronal ages between the lower-mass and higher-mass populations. This could be explained either by an age spread in the region, or by conventional isochronal models failing to reproduce the evolution of low-mass stars. The HIP 79124 system should be coeval, and therefore it provides an ideal laboratory to test these scenarios. We place the three components in a color–magnitude diagram and find that the models predict a younger age for the two low-mass companions (∼3 Myr) than for the primary star (∼6 Myr). These results imply that the omission of magnetic effects in conventional isochronal models inhibit them from reproducing early low-mass stellar evolution, which is further supported by the fact that new models that include such effects provide more consistent ages in the HIP 79124 system.