Methods of detecting exoplanets

Any planet is an extremely faint light source compared to its parent star. For example, a star like the Sun is about a billion times as bright as the reflected light from any of the planets orbiting it. In addition to the intrinsic difficulty of detecting such a faint light source, the light from the parent star causes a glare that washes it out. For those reasons, very few of the exoplanets reported have been observed directly, with even fewer being resolved from their host star. Instead, astronomers have generally had to resort to indirect methods to detect extrasolar planets. As of 2016, several different indirect methods have yielded success. Established detection methods The following methods have at least once proved successful for discovering a new planet or detecting an already discovered planet: Radial velocity Doppler spectroscopy and List of exoplanets detected by radial velocity A star with a planet will move in its own small orbit in response t

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Shape staggering of midshell mercury isotopes from in-source laser spectroscopy compared with density-functional-theory and Monte Carlo shell-model calculations

Neutron-deficient Hg177-185 isotopes were studied using in-source laser resonance-ionization spectroscopy at the CERN-ISOLDE radioactive ion-beam facility in an experiment combining different detection methods tailored to the studied isotopes. These include either alpha-decay tagging or multireflection time-of-flight gating for isotope identification. The endpoint of the odd-even nuclear shape staggering in mercury was observed directly by measuring for the first time the isotope shifts and hyperfine structures of Hg177-185. Changes in the meansquare charge radii for all mentioned isotopes, magnetic dipole, and electric quadrupole moments of the odd-A isotopes and arguments in favor of I = 7/2 spin assignment for Hg-177,Hg-179 were deduced. Experimental results are compared with density functional theory (DFT) and Monte Carlo shell model (MCSM) calculations. DFT calculations using Skyrme parametrizations predict a jump in the charge radius around the neutron N = 104 midshell, with an odd-even staggering pattern related to the coexistence of nearly degenerate oblate and prolate minima This near-degeneracy is highly sensitive to many aspects of the effective interaction, a fact that renders perfect agreement with experiments out of reach for current functionals. Despite this inherent difficulty, the SLy5s1 and a modified UNEDF1(SO) parametrization predict a qualitatively correct staggering that is off by two neutron numbers. MCSM calculations of states with the experimental spins and parities show good agreement for both electromagnetic moments and the observed charge radii. A clear mechanism for the origin of shape staggering within this context is identified: a substantial change in occupancy of the proton pi h(9/2) and neutron nu i(13/2) orbitals.

AMER PHYSICAL SOC2019

Fast and automatic processing of multi-level events in nanopore translocation experiments

Michael Graf, Aleksandra Radenovic, Camille Alice Raillon, Lorenz Jan Steinbock

We have developed a method to analyze in detail, translocation events providing a novel and flexible tool for data analysis of nanopore experiments. Our program, called OpenNanopore, is based on the cumulative sums algorithm (CUSUM algorithm). This algorithm is an abrupt change detection algorithm that provides fitting of current blockages, allowing the user to easily identify the different levels in each event. Our method detects events using adaptive thresholds that adapt to low-frequency variations in the baseline. After event identification, our method uses the CUSUM algorithm to fit the levels inside every event and automatically extracts their time and amplitude information. This facilitates the statistical analysis of an event population with a given number of levels. The obtained information improves the interpretation of interactions between the molecule and nanopore. Since our program does not require any prior information about the analyzed molecules, novel molecule-nanopore interactions can be characterized. In addition our program is very fast and stable. With the progress in fabrication and control of the translocation speed, in the near future, our program could be useful in identification of the different bases of DNA.

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Fire Detection and Localization Using Wireless Sensor Networks

Martin Hasler, Alireza Khadivi

A Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is a network of usually a large number of small sensor nodes that are wirelessly connected to each other in order to remotely monitor an environment or phenomena. Sensor nodes use the data aggregation method as an effective tool for estimating the desired parameters accurately and trustfully. In this paper, we have applied a cellular-automata-like algorithm and an averaging consensus algorithm for fire detection and localization with sensor networks. Indeed, when fire is detected somewhere in the network, our algorithm makes aware all the nodes in the network with a very short delay. Afterwards, the algorithm estimates the parameters of the circle surrounding the fire. To simulate the fire outbreak and the reaction of the sensor network equipped with our algorithm, we enabled the data exchange between the fire simulation software FARSITE and the communication software Castalia. The results show that our method detects the fire rapidly and monitors the extension of the fire in real time. The information about the outbreak and the extension of the fire is available from every live sensor in the network, even when part of the sensors are destroyed by the fire.

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