To evaluate the urinary levels of inositol phosphates (InsPs) in rats that received different salts of myo-inositol hexaphosphate (InsP6) by gavage or by oral administration.
Thirty rats received ...AIN-76A diet (in which InsPs are undetectable) for 15 days. Then, 12 rats received InsP6 by gavage as a Na salt or a Ca/Mg salt; after 4 days, the Na or Ca/Mg InsP6 was administered with water containing 15 g/L sucrose and urine samples were collected. The other 18 rats received oral InsP6, in which 0.5 g of sugar was combined with InsP6 as a Na salt, a Ca/Mg salt, or a Na salt with CaCO3; daily urine samples were collected. Urine levels of InsPs were determined using a nonspecific method and a specific method (polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, PAGE), and different InsPs were identified by mass spectroscopy (MS).
After 15 days of the InsP6-free diet, the non-specific method detected no urinary InsPs, and MS detected only InsP2. After administration of Na-InsP6 by gavage, the non-specific method indicated more urinary InsPs than the amount of InsP6 determined by PAGE. MS indicated the presence of urinary InsP2, InsP3, InsP4, InsP5, and InsP6 in these rats, with notable variations among animals. Use of the same treatment to administer Ca/Mg-InsP6 led to a lower overall content of urinary InsPs and a lower level of InsP6. Oral administration of InsP6 as a sugar pill led to lower urinary levels of InsPs than administration of InsP6 by gavage, and administration as a Ca/Mg pill or a Ca/Mg pill with CaCO3 led to lower levels than administration as a Na pill.
Administration of InsP6 to rats leads to the excretion of a mixture of different InsPs. Rats more effectively absorb InsP6 when supplied without dietary components that interfere with its uptake, such as the Ca ion and sugar.
Abstract
We present a study of the effective (half-light) radii and other structural properties of a systematically selected sample of young, massive star clusters (≥5 × 10
3
and ≤200 Myr) in two ...nearby spiral galaxies, NGC 628 and NGC 1313. We use
Hubble Space Telescope
(
HST
) WFC3/UVIS and archival ACS/WFC data obtained by the Legacy Extragalactic UV Survey (LEGUS), an
HST
Treasury Program. We measure effective radii with GALFIT, a two-dimensional image-fitting package, and with a new technique to estimate effective radii from the concentration index of observed clusters. The distribution of effective radii from both techniques spans ∼0.5–10 pc and peaks at 2–3 pc for both galaxies. We find slight positive correlations between effective radius and cluster age in both galaxies, but no significant relationship between effective radius and galactocentric distance. Clusters in NGC 1313 display a mild increase in effective radius with cluster mass, but the trend disappears when the sample is divided into age bins. We show that the vast majority of the clusters in both galaxies are much older than their dynamical times, suggesting they are gravitationally bound objects. We find that about half of the clusters in NGC 628 are underfilling their Roche lobes, based on their Jacobi radii. Our results suggest that the young, massive clusters in NGC 628 and NGC 1313 are expanding, due to stellar mass loss or two-body relaxation, and are not significantly influenced by the tidal fields of their host galaxies.
Abstract
Eridanus II (Eri II) is an ultrafaint dwarf (UFD) galaxy (
M
V
= −7.1) located at a distance close to the Milky Way virial radius. Early shallow color–magnitude diagrams (CMDs) indicated ...that it possibly hosted an intermediate-age or even young stellar population, which is unusual for a galaxy of this mass. In this paper, we present new Hubble Space Telescope/Advanced Camera for Surveys CMDs reaching the oldest main-sequence turnoff with excellent photometric precision and derive a precise star formation history (SFH) for this galaxy through CMD fitting. This SFH shows that the bulk of the stellar mass in Eri II formed in an extremely short star formation burst at the earliest possible time. The derived star formation rate profile has a width at half maximum of 500 Myr and reaches a value compatible with null star formation 13 Gyr ago. However, tests with mock stellar populations and with the CMD of the globular cluster M92 indicate that the star formation period could be shorter than 100 Myr. From the quantitative determination of the amount of mass turned into stars in this early star formation burst ( ∼2 × 10
5
M
⊙
) we infer the number of supernova (SN) events and the corresponding energy injected into the interstellar medium. For reasonable estimates of the Eri II virial mass and values of the coupling efficiency of the SN energy, we conclude that Eri II could be quenched by SN feedback alone, thus casting doubts on the need to invoke cosmic reionization as the preferred explanation for the early quenching of old UFD galaxies.
ABSTRACT
We present the star formation history (SFH) of the extremely metal-poor dwarf galaxy DDO 68, based on our photometry with the Advanced Camera for Surveys. With a metallicity of only
and a ...very isolated location, DDO 68 is one of the most metal-poor galaxies known. It has been argued that DDO 68 is a young system that started forming stars only ∼0.15 Gyr ago. Our data provide a deep and uncontaminated optical color–magnitude diagram (CMD) that allows us to disprove this hypothesis since we find a population of at least ∼1 Gyr old stars. The star formation activity has been fairly continuous over all the look-back time. The current rate is quite low, and the highest activity occurred between 10 and 100 Myr ago. The average star formation rate over the whole Hubble time is ≃0.01
M
⊙
yr
−1
, corresponding to a total astrated mass of ≃1.3 × 10
8
M
⊙
. Our photometry allows us to infer the distance from the tip of the red giant branch,
D
= 12.08 ± 0.67 Mpc; however, to let our synthetic CMD reproduce the observed ones, we need a slightly higher distance,
D
= 12.65 Mpc, or (
m
−
M
)
0
= 30.51, still inside the errors of the previous determination, and we adopt the latter. DDO 68 shows a very interesting and complex history, with its quite disturbed shape and a long tail, probably due to tidal interactions. The SFH of the tail differs from that of the main body mainly for enhanced activity at recent epochs likely triggered by the interaction.
We present and describe the astro-photometric catalog of more than 800,000 sources found in the Hubble Tarantula Treasury Project (HTTP). HTTP is a Hubble Space Telescope Treasury program designed to ...image the entire 30 Doradus region down to the sub-solar (~0.5 M sub(middot in circle)) mass regime using the Wide Field Camera 3 and the Advanced Camera for Surveys. We observed 30 Doradus in the near-ultraviolet (F275W, F336W), optical (F555W, F658N, F775W), and near-infrared (F110W, F160W) wavelengths. The stellar photometry was measured using point-spread function fitting across all bands simultaneously. The relative astrometric accuracy of the catalog is 0.4 mas. The astro-photometric catalog, results from artificial star experiments, and the mosaics for all the filters are available for download. Color-magnitude diagrams are presented showing the spatial distributions and ages of stars within 30 Dor as well as in the surrounding fields. HTTP provides the first rich and statistically significant sample of intermediate- and low-mass pre-main sequence candidates and allows us to trace how star formation has been developing through the region. The depth and high spatial resolution of our analysis highlight the dual role of stellar feedback in quenching and triggering star formation on the giant H II region scale. Our results are consistent with stellar sub-clustering in a partially filled gaseous nebula that is offset toward our side of the Large Magellanic Cloud.
Globular clusters (GCs) have been proposed as promising sites for discovering intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs), offering the possibility to gain crucial insights into the formation and evolution ...of these elusive objects. The Galactic GC 47 Tucanae (also known as NGC 104) has been suggested as a potential IMBH host, yet previous studies have yielded conflicting results. Therefore, we present a set of self-consistent dynamical models based on distribution functions (DFs) that depend on action integrals to assess the presence (or absence) of an IMBH in 47 Tucanae. Leveraging the state-of-the-art Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) and
Hubble
Space Telescope (HST) data, we analyzed the three-dimensional (3D) kinematics of the cluster’s central regions, fitting individual star velocities down to the sub-arcsec scale (approximately 10
−2
pc). According to our analysis, the inner kinematics of 47 Tucanae is incompatible with a central BH more massive than 578
M
⊙
(at 3
σ
). This is the most stringent upper limit placed thus far on the mass of a putative IMBH in 47 Tucanae via a dynamical study.
We have derived the Galactic bulge initial mass function (IMF) of the Sagittarius Window Eclipsing Extrasolar Planet Search field in the mass range 0.15 < M/M 1.0, using deep photometry collected ...with the Advanced Camera for Surveys on the Hubble Space Telescope. In deriving the mass function, we took into account the presence of unresolved binaries, errors in photometry, distance modulus and reddening, as well as the metallicity dispersion and the uncertainties caused by adopting different theoretical color-temperature relations. In the high-mass range, our derived mass function agrees well with the mass function derived for other regions of the bulge. In the low-mass range however, our mass function is slightly shallower, which suggests that separating the disk and bulge components is particularly important in the low-mass range.
Abstract
We report the large effort that is producing comprehensive high-level young star cluster (YSC) catalogs for a significant fraction of galaxies observed with the Legacy ExtraGalactic UV ...Survey (LEGUS)
Hubble
treasury program. We present the methodology developed to extract cluster positions, verify their genuine nature, produce multiband photometry (from NUV to NIR), and derive their physical properties via spectral energy distribution fitting analyses. We use the nearby spiral galaxy NGC 628 as a test case for demonstrating the impact that LEGUS will have on our understanding of the formation and evolution of YSCs and compact stellar associations within their host galaxy. Our analysis of the cluster luminosity function from the UV to the NIR finds a steepening at the bright end and at all wavelengths suggesting a dearth of luminous clusters. The cluster mass function of NGC 628 is consistent with a power-law distribution of slopes
and a truncation of a few times 10
5
. After their formation, YSCs and compact associations follow different evolutionary paths. YSCs survive for a longer time frame, confirming their being potentially bound systems. Associations disappear on timescales comparable to hierarchically organized star-forming regions, suggesting that they are expanding systems. We find mass-independent cluster disruption in the inner region of NGC 628, while in the outer part of the galaxy there is little or no disruption. We observe faster disruption rates for low mass (≤10
4
) clusters, suggesting that a mass-dependent component is necessary to fully describe the YSC disruption process in NGC 628.
Previous studies demonstrated a remarkable increase of urinary InsP6 by topical administration. However, the methodology used for InsP6 analysis was not specific. The aim of this paper is to measure ...urinary inositol phosphates InsPs using more advanced methodologies and to compare the results with those obtained by the non-specific method.
We fed 12 female rats with a diet without InsP6 for 16days. Then, we administered a topical InsP6 gel at high doses for 7days (50mgInsP6/day) or at low doses for 28days (20mgInsP6/day). We measured urine levels InsPs using a nonspecific method (based on the ability of InsPs to complex Al3+) and levels of InsP6 by a specific method (using polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis). Identification of different InsPs was performed by MS.
At baseline, after dietary deprivation of InsP6, rats only excreted InsP2 in their urine, and there was no detectable InsP6 or other InsPs. Rats given the high dose treatment for 7days had abundant urinary InsP6, but also had other InsPs in their urine; cessation of InsP6 administration led to decreased levels of urinary InsPs. Rats given the low dose treatment for 28days had increasing levels of urinary InsPs over time. The maximum urinary InsP6 was at 21days, after which InsPs excretion decreased.
We conclude that the skin can absorb InsP6 from a topical gel, and that InsP6 is excreted in the urine, along with other InsPs (InsP5, InsP4, InsP3, and InsP2).
ABSTRACT
Using Large Binocular Telescope deep imaging data from the Smallest Scale of Hierarchy Survey (SSH) and archival Hubble Space Telescope data, we reveal the presence of two elongated stellar ...features contiguous to a bar-like stellar structure in the inner regions of the dwarf irregular galaxy NGC 3741. These structures are dominated by stars younger than a few hundred Myr and collectively are about twice as extended as the old stellar component. These properties are very unusual for dwarf galaxies in the nearby Universe and difficult to explain by hydro-dynamical simulations. From the analysis of archival 21-cm observations, we find that the young stellar ‘bar’ coincides with an H i high-density region proposed by previous studies to be a purely gaseous bar; we furthermore confirm radial motions of a few km s−1, compatible with an inflow/outflow, and derive a steeply rising rotation curve and high H i surface density at the centre, indicating a very concentrated mass distribution. We propose that the peculiar properties of the stellar and gaseous components of NGC 3741 may be explained by a recent merger or ongoing gas accretion from the intergalactic medium, which caused gas inflows towards the galaxy centre and triggered star formation a few hundred Myr ago. This event may explain the young and extended stellar features, the bar-like structure, the very extended H i disc and the central H i spiral arms. The high central H i density and the steeply rising rotation curve suggest that NGC 3741 may be the progenitor or the descendant of a starburst dwarf.
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