Core formation in giant gaseous protoplanets

Sedimentation rates of silicate grains in gas giant protoplanets formed by disk instability are calculated for protoplanetary masses between 1 MSaturn to 10 MJupiter. Giant protoplanets with masses of 5 MJupiter or larger are found to be too hot for grain sedimentation to form a silicate core. Smaller protoplanets are cold enough to allow grain settling and core formation. Grain sedimentation and core formation occur in the low mass protoplanets because of their slow contraction rate and low internal temperature. It is predicted that massive giant planets will not have cores, while smaller planets will have small rocky cores whose masses depend on the planetary mass, the amount of solids within the body, and the disk environment. The protoplanets are found to be too hot to allow the existence of icy grains, and therefore the cores are predicted not to contain any ices. It is suggested that the atmospheres of low mass giant planets are depleted in refractory elements compared with the atmospheres of more massive planets. These predictions provide a test of the disk instability model of gas giant planet formation. The core masses of Jupiter and Saturn were found to be ∼0.25 M_⊕ and ∼0.5 M_⊕, respectively. The core masses of Jupiter and Saturn can be substantially larger if planetesimal accretion is included. The final core mass will depend on planetesimal size, the time at which planetesimals are formed, and the size distribution of the material added to the protoplanet. Jupiter's core mass can vary from 2 to 12 M_⊕. Saturn's core mass is found to be ∼8 M_⊕.     

哈大巨型城市带要素集聚程度与生态环境水平关系演变

基于耦合模型和象限图法,从整体和内部分异2个角度对2000~2012年哈大巨型城市带要素集聚程度与生态环境水平演变及其关系进行分析,结果表明：哈大巨型城市带要素集聚程度呈波动上升的演变特征,生态环境则“先波动上升,后缓慢下降”,城市带整体要素集聚程度与生态环境水平间关系趋于协调,产业结构演变、资源消耗水平、经济密度是导致城市带要素集聚程度与生态环境水平协调度提高的主要驱动因子,其中产业结构演变的影响作用更加明显。城市带内部要素集聚的“四城市”格局已经形成,呈现出“核心-边缘”结构,要素集聚程度与生态环境水平可分为高级协调、要素集聚滞后、低级协调、生态环境滞后4种类型。4个区域中心城市要素集聚程度与生态环境水平关系趋向不协调,中心城市周边地区主要向要素集聚滞后型转变,资源型城市和重工业城市要素集聚程度与生态环境水平多表现为低级协调。     

哈大巨型城市带空间开发-经济发展-环境演变的耦合分异机制

通过构建空间开发、经济发展、资源环境水平的评价指标体系,引入耦合度概念,并应用变异系数、趋势面分析、回归分析等定量模型研究2000~2014年哈大巨型城市带空间开发-经济发展-环境演变的耦合分异特征及其影响机制,主要得到以下结论：① 2000年以来哈大巨型城市带各城市空间开发-经济发展-环境演变的耦合度均处在不同程度失调状态,且整体表现为“西高东低-南高北低”的空间格局,但耦合度水平总体趋于上升。哈长次区域和辽中南次区域以及哈大巨型城市带整体的耦合度波动性均先升高后下降,总体趋势不断向好;② 政府投入强度是2000年影响哈大巨型城市带各城市耦合度差异的重要作用因素,资本投入强度与科技投入规模是2007年、2014年2个阶段的主导影响因素,且城市发展能级差异与2007年各城市间的耦合度差异表现出一致性;③ 在政府投入强度、科技投入规模、资本投入强度等因素的共同作用下,哈长次区域空间开发-经济发展-环境演变的耦合程度出现空间分异。辽中南次区域耦合度分异的影响因素由人力资本效率和行政等级逐渐演变为以资本投入强度主导。     

Cosmic-ray positrons: are there primary sources?

Galactic cosmic rays consist of primary and secondary particles. Primary cosmic rays are thought to be energized by first order Fermi acceleration processes at supernova shock fronts within our Galaxy. The cosmic rays that eventually reach the Earth from this source are mainly protons and atomic nuclei, but also include electrons. Secondary cosmic rays are created in collisions of primary particles with the diffuse interstellar gas. They are relatively rare but carry important information on the Galactic propagation of the primary particles. The secondary component includes a small fraction of antimatter particles, positrons and antiprotons. In addition, positrons and antiprotons may also come from unusual sources and possibly provide insight into new physics. For instance, the annihilation of heavy supersymmetric dark matter particles within the Galactic halo could lead to positrons or antiprotons with distinctive energy signatures. With the High-Energy Antimatter Telescope (HEAT) balloon-borne instrument, we have measured the abundances of positrons and electrons at energies between 1 and 50 GeV. The data suggest that indeed a small additional antimatter component may be present that cannot be explained by a purely secondary production mechanism. Here we describe the signature of the effect and discuss its possible origin.     

Gravitationally unstable protoplanetary discs

The possibility that protoplanetary gaseous discs are dynamically unstable to axisymmetric and non-axisymmetric gravity perturbations (e.g. those produced by spontaneous disturbances) with characteristic scales larger than the vertical scale height is discussed analytically, using a local Wentzel–Kramers–Brillouin (WKB) approach. It is shown that such discs might be clumpy, and these gravitationally bound clumps may later collapse to become giant planets ('hot Jupiters'). The chief aim in this paper is to underscore a fact of vital importance for application in the planetary formation process: gravitationally unstable non-axisymmetric (spiral) perturbations can effectively transport both the angular momentum and the mass in a spatially inhomogeneous disc.     

Volatile element chemistry during accretion of the earth

We review some issues relevant to volatile element chemistry during accretion of the Earth with an emphasis on historical development of ideas during the past century and on issues we think are important. These ideas and issues include the following: (1) whether or not the Earth accreted hot and the geochemical evidence for high temperatures during its formation, (2) some chemical consequences of the Earth’s formation before dissipation of solar nebular gas, (3) the building blocks of the Earth, (4) the composition of the Earth and its lithophile volatility trend, (5) chemistry of silicate vapor and steam atmospheres during Earth’s formation, (6) vapor - melt partitioning and possible loss of volatile elements, (7) insights from hot rocky extrasolar planets. We include tabulated chemical kinetic data for high-temperature elementary reactions in silicate vapor and steam atmospheres. We finish with a summary of the known and unknown issues along with suggestions for future work.     

Atmospheric circulations of terrestrial planets orbiting low-mass stars

Circulations and habitable zones of planets orbiting low-mass stars are investigated. Many of these planets are expected to rotate synchronously relative to their parent stars, thereby raising questions about their surface temperature distributions and habitability. We use a global circulation model to study idealized, synchronously rotating (tidally locked) planets of various rotation periods, with surfaces of all land or all water, but with an Earth-like atmosphere and solar insolation. The dry planets exhibit wide variations in surface temperature: >80 °C on the dayside to <−110 °C on the nightside for the 240-h rotator, for example. The water-covered aquaplanets are warmer and exhibit narrower ranges of surface temperatures, e.g., ∼40 °C to >−60 °C for the 240-h orbiter. They also have a larger habitable area, defined here as the region where average surface temperatures are between 0 °C and 50 °C. This concept has little relevance for either dry or aquaplanets, but might become relevant on a planet with both land area and oceans.The circulations on these tidally locked planets exhibit systematic changes as the rotation period is varied. However, they also reveal abrupt transitions between two different circulation regimes and multiple equilibria. For the dry planet, the transition occurs between a 4-day and a 5-day period, while for the aquaplanet, it occurs between a 3-day and a 4-day period. For both dry and aqua planets, this transition occurs when the Rossby deformation radius exceeds half the planetary radius. Further investigation on the dry planet reveals that multiple equilibria exist between 100- and 221-h periods. These multiple equilibria may be relevant for real planets within the habitable zones of late K and M stars, because these planets are expected to have rotation periods between 8 and 100 Earth days.     

Rheological structure of the mantle of a super-Earth: Some insights from mineral physics

The rheological properties of the mantle of super-Earths have important influences on their orbital and thermal evolution. Mineral physics observations are reviewed to obtain some insights into the rheological properties of deep mantles of these planets where pressure can be as high as ∼1 TPa. It is shown that, in contrast to a conventional view that the viscosity of a solid increases with pressure (at a fixed temperature), viscosity will decrease with pressure (and depth) when pressure exceeds ∼0.1 TPa. The causes for pressure-weakening include: (i) the transition in diffusion mechanisms from vacancy to interstitial mechanism (at ∼0.1 TPa), (ii) the phase transition in MgO from B1 to B2 structure (at ∼0.5 TPa), (iii) the dissociation of MgSiO₃ into MgO and SiO₂ (at ∼1 TPa), and (iv) the transition to the metallic state (at ∼1 TPa). Some (or all) of them individually or in combination reduce the effective viscosity of constituent materials in the deep interior of super-Earths. Taken together, super-Earths are likely to have low viscosity deep mantle by at least 2-3 orders of magnitude less than the maximum viscosity in the lower mantle of Earth. Because viscosity likely decreases with pressure above ∼0.1 TPa (in addition to higher temperatures for larger planets), deep mantle viscosity of super-Earths will decrease with increasing planetary mass. The inferred low viscosity of the deep mantle results in high tidal dissipation and resultant rapid orbital evolution, and affects thermal history and hence generation of the magnetic field and the style of mantle convection.     

EURONEAR—Recovery, follow-up and discovery of NEAs and MBAs using large field 1–2 m telescopes

We report on the follow-up and recovery of 100 program NEAs, PHAs and VIs using the ESO/MPG 2.2 m, Swope 1 m and INT 2.5 m telescopes equipped with large field cameras. The 127 fields observed during 11 nights covered 29 square degrees. Using these data, we present the incidental survey work which includes 558 known MBAs and 628 unknown moving objects mostly consistent with MBAs from which 58 objects became official discoveries. We planned the runs using six criteria and four servers which focus mostly on faint and poorly observed objects in need of confirmation, follow-up and recovery. We followed 62 faint NEAs within one month after discovery and we recovered 10 faint NEAs having big uncertainties at their second or later opposition. Using the INT we eliminated four PHA candidates and VIs. We observed in total 1286 moving objects and we reported more than 10,000 positions. All data were reduced by the members of our network in a team effort, and reported promptly to the MPC. The positions of the program NEAs were published in 27 MPC and MPEC references and used to improve their orbits. The O−C residuals for known MBAs and program NEAs are smallest for the ESO/MPG and Swope and about four times larger for the INT whose field is more distorted. For the astrometric reduction, the UCAC-2 catalog is recommended instead of USNO-B1. The incidental survey allowed us to study statistics of the MBA and NEA populations observable today with 1–2 m facilities. We calculate preliminary orbits for all unknown objects, classifying them as official discoveries, later identifications and unknown outstanding objects. The orbital elements a, e, i calculated by FIND_ORB software for the official discoveries and later identified objects are very similar with the published elements which take into account longer observational arcs; thus preliminary orbits were used in statistics for the whole unknown dataset. We present a basic model which can be used to distinguish between MBAs and potential NEAs in any sky survey. Based on three evaluation methods, most of our unknown objects are consistent with MBAs, while up to 16 unknown objects could represent NEO candidates and four represent our best NEO candidates. We assessed the observability of the unknown MBA and NEA populations using 1 and 2 m surveys. Employing a 1 m facility, one can observe today fewer unknown objects than known MBAs and very few new NEOs. Using a 2 m facility, a slightly larger number of unknown than known asteroids could be detected in the main belt. Between 0.1 and 0.8 new NEO candidates per square degree could be discovered using a 2 m telescope.