We report a study of one-dimensional subband splitting in a bilayer graphene quantum point contact in which quantized conductance in steps of 4e^{2}/h is clearly defined down to the lowest subband. ...While our source-drain bias spectroscopy measurements reveal an unconventional confinement, we observe a full lifting of the valley degeneracy at high magnetic fields perpendicular to the bilayer graphene plane for the first two lowest subbands where confinement and Coulomb interactions are the strongest and a peculiar merging or mixing of K and K^{'} valleys from two nonadjacent subbands with indices (N,N+2), which are well described by our semiphenomenological model.
We present Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array and Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer observations of the brightest cluster galaxy in Abell 2597, a nearby (z = 0.0821) cool core cluster of ...galaxies. The data map the kinematics of a three billion solar mass filamentary nebula that spans the innermost 30 kpc of the galaxy's core. Its warm ionized and cold molecular components are both cospatial and comoving, consistent with the hypothesis that the optical nebula traces the warm envelopes of many cold molecular clouds that drift in the velocity field of the hot X-ray atmosphere. The clouds are not in dynamical equilibrium, and instead show evidence for inflow toward the central supermassive black hole, outflow along the jets it launches, and uplift by the buoyant hot bubbles those jets inflate. The entire scenario is therefore consistent with a galaxy-spanning "fountain," wherein cold gas clouds drain into the black hole accretion reservoir, powering jets and bubbles that uplift a cooling plume of low-entropy multiphase gas, which may stimulate additional cooling and accretion as part of a self-regulating feedback loop. All velocities are below the escape speed from the galaxy, and so these clouds should rain back toward the galaxy center from which they came, keeping the fountain long lived. The data are consistent with major predictions of chaotic cold accretion, precipitation, and stimulated feedback models, and may trace processes fundamental to galaxy evolution at effectively all mass scales.
We estimate total mass (M500), intracluster medium (ICM) mass (MICM), and stellar mass (M*) in a Sunyaev–Zel’dovich effect (SZE) selected sample of 91 galaxy clusters with masses M500 ≳ 2.5 × 1014 M⊙ ...and redshift 0.2 < z < 1.25 from the 2500 deg^2 South Pole Telescope SPT-SZ survey. The total masses M500 are estimatedfrom the SZE observable, the ICM masses MICM are obtained from the analysis of Chandra X-ray observations, and the stellar masses M* are derived by fitting spectral energy distribution templates to Dark Energy Survey griz optical photometry and WISE or Spitzer near-infrared photometry. We study trends in the stellar mass, the ICM mass, the total baryonic mass, and the cold baryonic fraction with cluster halo mass and redshift. We find significant departures from self-similarity in the mass scaling for all quantities, while the redshift trends are all statistically consistent with zero, indicating that the baryon content of clusters at fixed mass has changed remarkably little over the past ≈9 Gyr. We compare our results to the mean baryon fraction (and the stellar mass fraction) in the field, finding that these values lie above (below) those in cluster virial regions in all but the most massive clusters at low redshift. Using a simple model of the matter assembly of clusters from infalling groups with lower masses and from infalling material from the low-density environment or field surrounding the parent haloes, we show that the measured mass trends without strong redshift trends in the stellar mass scaling relation could be explained by a mass and redshift dependent fractional contribution from field material. Similar analyses of the ICM and baryon mass scaling relations provide evidence for the so-called ‘missing baryons’ outside cluster virial regions.
We report L-band VLA observations of 1RXS J0603.3+4214, a cluster that hosts a bright radio relic, known as the Toothbrush, and an elongated giant radio halo. These new observations allow us to study ...the surface brightness distribution down to 1 arcsec resolution with very high sensitivity. Our images provide an unprecedented detailed view of the Toothbrush, revealing enigmatic filamentary structures. To study the spectral index distribution, we complement our analysis with published LOFAR and GMRT observations. The bright "brush" of the Toothbrush shows a prominent narrow ridge to its north with a sharp outer edge. The spectral index at the ridge is in the range −0.70 ≤ ≤ −0.80. We suggest that the ridge is caused by projection along the line of sight. With a simple toy model for the smallest region of the ridge, we conclude that the magnetic field is below 5 G and varies significantly across the shock front. Our model indicates that the actual Mach number is higher than that obtained from the injection index and agrees well with the one derived from the overall spectrum, namely . The radio halo shows an average spectral index of = −1.16 0.05 and a slight gradient from north to south. The southernmost part of the halo is steeper and possibly related to a shock front. Excluding the southernmost part, the halo morphology agrees very well with the X-ray morphology. A power-law correlation is found between the radio and X-ray surface brightness.
The interactions between radio-loud AGN and their environments play an important rôle in galaxy and cluster evolution. Recent work has demonstrated fundamental differences between high- and ...low-excitation radio galaxies (HERGs and LERGs), and shown that they may have different relationships with their environments. In the Chandra Large Project ERA (Environments of Radio-loud AGN), we made the first systematic X-ray environmental study of the cluster environments of radio galaxies at a single epoch (z ∼ 0.5), and found tentative evidence for a correlation between radio luminosity and cluster X-ray luminosity. We also found that this relationship appeared to be driven by the LERG subpopulation. We have now repeated the analysis with a low-redshift sample (z ∼ 0.1), and found strong correlations between radio luminosity and environment richness and between radio luminosity and central density for the LERGs but not for the HERGs. These results are consistent with models in which the HERGs are fuelled from accretion discs maintained from local reservoirs of gas, while LERGs are fuelled more directly by gas ingested from the intracluster medium. Comparing the samples, we found that although the maximum environment richness of the HERG environments is similar in both samples, there are poorer HERG environments in the z ∼ 0.1 sample than in the z ∼ 0.5 sample. We have therefore tentative evidence of evolution of the HERG environments. We found no differences between the LERG subsamples for the two epochs, as would be expected if radio and cluster luminosities are related.
Despite the progress that has been made in understanding radio relics, there are still open questions regarding the underlying particle acceleration mechanisms. In this paper, we present deep 1-4 GHz ...Very Large Array (VLA) observations of CIZA J2242.8+5301 (z = 0.1921), a double radio relic cluster characterized by small projection on the plane of the sky. Our VLA observations reveal, for the first time, the complex morphology of the diffuse sources and the filamentary structure of the northern relic. We discover new, faint, diffuse radio emission extending north of the main northern relic. Our Mach number estimates for the northern and southern relics, based on the radio spectral index map obtained using the VLA observations and existing LOw Frequency ARray (LOFAR) and Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope data, are consistent with previous radio and X-ray studies ( and ). However, color-color diagrams and models suggest a flatter injection spectral index than the one obtained from the spectral index map, indicating that projection effects might be not entirely negligible. The southern relic consists of five "arms." Embedded in it, we find a tailed radio galaxy that seems to be connected to the relic. A spectral index flattening, where the radio tail connects to the relic, is also measured. We propose that the southern relic may trace AGN fossil electrons that are reaccelerated by a shock, with an estimated strength of . High-resolution mapping of other tailed radio galaxies also supports a scenario where AGN fossil electrons are revived by the merger event and could be related to the formation of some diffuse cluster radio emission.
Cellular and humoral immunity to SARS-CoV-2 is critical to control primary infection and correlates with severity of disease. The role of SARS-CoV-2-specific T cell immunity, its relationship to ...antibodies, and pre-existing immunity against endemic coronaviruses (huCoV), which has been hypothesized to be protective, were investigated in 82 healthy donors (HDs), 204 recovered (RCs), and 92 active COVID-19 patients (ACs). ACs had high amounts of anti-SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid and spike IgG but lymphopenia and overall reduced antiviral T cell responses due to the inflammatory milieu, expression of inhibitory molecules (PD-1, Tim-3) as well as effector caspase-3, -7, and -8 activity in T cells. SARS-CoV-2-specific T cell immunity conferred by polyfunctional, mainly interferon-γ-secreting CD4+ T cells remained stable throughout convalescence, whereas humoral responses declined. Immune responses toward huCoV in RCs with mild disease and strong cellular SARS-CoV-2 T cell reactivity imply a protective role of pre-existing immunity against huCoV.
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•high SARS-CoV-2 IgG but overall reduced T cell immunity in active COVID-19 patients•PD-1, Tim-3, and active caspases in T cells result in impaired T cell function•stable SARS-CoV-2 T cell repertoire yet declining humoral responses during recovery•potentially protective role of pre-existing anti-huCoV CD4+ and CD8+ T cell immunity
COVID-19 varies from asymptomatic infection to multiorgan failure, but data on cellular immunity against SARS-CoV-2 during disease and beyond are lacking. Bonifacius et al. show a beneficial effect of preexisting immunity to endemic coronaviruses during disease and stable cellular immunity with concomitant decrease of humoral responses early during convalescence.
Despite widespread speculation about the potential economic impacts of robotic technology, there has been little academic research on the topic. One barrier to this research is lack of data about the ...robotics industry or robotics employment. In light of this problem, the authors conducted a robotics 'census' designed to describe and map the US robotics industry. Several key robotic regions are identified, although they vary in the nature of the robotics industries they host. In addition to reporting the results of the census, it is discussed how the relational and knowledge-spanning qualities of the robotics industry can be important concepts for understanding and facilitating technological change and economic development at the regional level.
We investigate the origin and nature of the multiple sloshing cold fronts in the core of Abell 496 by direct comparison between observations and dedicated hydrodynamical simulations. Our simulations ...model a minor merger with a 4 × 1013 M⊙ subcluster crossing A496 from the south-west to the north-north-east, passing the cluster core in the south-east at a pericentre distance of 100 to a few × 100 kpc about 0.6-0.8 Gyr ago. The gas sloshing triggered by the merger can reproduce almost all observed features, e.g. the characteristic spiral-like brightness residual distribution in the cluster centre and its asymmetry out to 500 kpc, also the positions of and contrasts across the cold fronts. If the subcluster passes close (100 kpc) to the cluster core, the resulting shear flows are strong enough to trigger Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities that in projection resemble the peculiar kinks in the cold fronts of Abell 496. Finally, we show that sloshing does not lead to a significant modification of the global intracluster medium profiles but a mild oscillation around the initial profiles.
Diffuse cluster radio sources, in the form of radio halos and relics, reveal the presence of cosmic rays and magnetic fields in the intracluster medium (ICM). These cosmic rays are thought to be ...(re)accelerated through the ICM turbulence and shock waves generated by cluster merger events. Here we characterize the presence of diffuse radio emission in known galaxy clusters in the HETDEX Spring Field, covering 424 deg
2
. For this, we developed a method to extract individual targets from LOFAR observations processed with the LoTSS DDF-pipeline software. This procedure enables improved calibration as well as the joint imaging and deconvolution of multiple pointings of selected targets. The calibration strategy can also be used for LOFAR low-band antenna and international-baseline observations. The fraction of
Planck
PSZ2 catalog clusters with any diffuse radio emission apparently associated with the ICM is 73 ± 17%. We detect a total of ten radio halos and twelve candidate halos in the HETDEX Spring Field. Of these ten radio halos, four are new discoveries, two of which are located in PSZ2 clusters. Five clusters host radio relics, two of which are new discoveries. The fraction of radio halos in
Planck
PSZ2 clusters is 31 ± 11%, or 62 ± 15% when including the candidate radio halos. Based on these numbers, we expect that there will be at least 183 ± 65 radio halos found in the LoTSS survey in PSZ2 clusters, in agreement with past predictions. The integrated flux densities for the radio halos were computed by fitting exponential models to the radio images. From these flux densities, we determine the cluster mass (
M
500
) and Compton
Y
parameter (
Y
500
) 150 MHz radio power (
P
150 MHz
) scaling relations for
Planck
PSZ2-detected radio halos. Using bivariate correlated errors and intrinsic scatter orthogonal regression, we find slopes of 6.13 ± 1.11 and 3.32 ± 0.65 for the
M
500
–
P
150 MHz
and
M
500
–
P
150 MHz
relations, respectively. These values are consistent with the results of previous works.
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