Filtyp
In insects, the surface area of the compound eye increases with body size both within and between species with only a slight negative allometry. This increase in surface area permits changes in eye structure that affect the eye's acuity and sensitivity, two features of eye performance that cannot be simultaneously maximized. Hence, as eye size varies within a lineage, so will the compromises betwe
Background Transcriptional regulation of the genes in metabolic pathways is a highly successful strategy, which is virtually universal in microorganisms. The lac operon of E. coli is but one example of how enzyme and transporter production can be made conditional on the presence of a nutrient to catabolize. Methodology With a minimalist model of metabolism, cell growth and transcriptional regula
Context: Multiple stellar systems play a fundamental role in the formation and evolution of stellar populations in galaxies. Recent and ongoing large ground-based multi-object spectroscopic surveys significantly increase the sample of spectroscopic binaries (SBs) allowing analyses of their statistical properties. Aims: We investigate the repeated spectral observations of the Gaia-ESO Survey intern
Recent surveys have revealed that protoplanetary discs typically have dust masses that appear to be insufficient to account for the high occurrence rate of exoplanet systems. We demonstrate that this observed dust depletion is consistent with the radial drift of pebbles. Using a Monte Carlo method we simulate the evolution of a cluster of protoplanetary discs using a 1D numerical method to viscous
The first stages of planet formation take place in protoplanetary disks that are largely made up of gas. Understanding how the gas affects planetesimals in the protoplanetary disk is therefore essential. In this paper, we discuss whether or not gas flow can erode planetesimals. We estimated how much shear stress is exerted onto the planetesimal surface by the gas as a function of disk and planetes
We study how star formation is regulated in low-mass field dwarf galaxies (105≤M⋆≤106M⊙), using cosmological high-resolution (3pc) hydrodynamical simulations. Cosmic reionization quenches star formation in all our simulated dwarfs, but three galaxies with final dynamical masses of 3×109M⊙ are subsequently able to replenish their interstellar medium by slowly accreting gas. Two of these galaxie
We conduct a pebble-driven planet population synthesis study to investigate the formation of planets around very low-mass stars and brown dwarfs in the (sub)stellar mass range between 0.01 M- and 0.1 M-. Based on the extrapolation of numerical simulations of planetesimal formation by the streaming instability, we obtain the characteristic mass of the planetesimals and the initial mass of the proto
Nearly axisymmetric gaps and rings are commonly observed in protoplanetary discs. The leading theory regarding the origin of these patterns is that they are due to dust trapping at the edges of gas gaps induced by the gravitational torques from embedded planets. If the concentration of solids at the gap edges becomes high enough, it could potentially result in planetesimal formation by the streami
Large multiobject spectroscopic surveys require automated algorithms to optimize their observing strategy. One of the most ambitious upcoming spectroscopic surveys is the 4MOST survey. The 4MOST survey facility is a fibre-fed spectroscopic instrument on the VISTA telescope with a large enough field of view to survey a large fraction of the southern sky within a few years. Several Galactic and extr
We introduce the 'Engineering Dwarfs at Galaxy Formation's Edge' (EDGE) project to study the cosmological formation and evolution of the smallest galaxies in the Universe. In this first paper, we explore the effects of resolution and sub-grid physics on a single low-mass halo (Mhalo = 109M⊙), simulated to redshift z = 0 at amass and spatial resolution of ∼ 20 M⊙ and ∼3 pc. We consider different st
The dynamics of planetesimals plays an important role in planet formation because their velocity distribution sets the growth rate to larger bodies. When planetesimals form in the gaseous environment of protoplanetary discs, their orbits are nearly circular and planar due to the effect of gas drag. However, mutual close encounters of the planetesimals increase eccentricities and inclinations until
The stellar-to-halo mass relation (SHMR) is not only one of the main sources of information we have on the connection between galaxies and their dark matter haloes, but also an important indicator of the performance of galaxy formation models. Here, we use one of the largest sample of galaxies with both high-quality rotation curves and near-infrared surface photometry, and perform a detailed compa
The origin of the population of very massive stars observed within ∼0.4 pc of the supermassive black hole in the Galactic Centre is a mystery. Tidal forces from the black hole would likely inhibit in situ star formation whilst the youth of the massive stars would seem to exclude formation elsewhere followed by transportation (somehow) into the Galactic Centre. Here, we consider a third way to prod
Circumplanetary discs (CPDs) form around young gas giants and are thought to be the sites of moon formation as well as an intermediate reservoir of gas that feeds the growth of the gas giant. How the physical properties of such CPDs are affected by the planetary mass and the overall opacity is relatively poorly understood. In order to clarify this, we use the global radiation hydrodynamics code FA
We analyze the size evolution of pebbles accreted into the gaseous envelope of a protoplanet growing in a protoplanetary disk, taking into account collisions driven by the relative sedimentation speed as well as the convective gas motion. Using a simple estimate of the convective gas speed based on the pebble accretion luminosity, we find that the speed of the convective gas is higher than the sed
The detections of 1I/‘Oumuamua and 2I/Borisov within just two years of each other impressively demonstrate that interstellar objects (ISOs) must be common in the Milky Way. Once released from their parent system, these ISOs travel for billions of years through interstellar space. While often imagined as empty, interstellar space contains gas and dust most prominent in the form of molecular clouds.
The forthcoming Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) will probe the population of coalescing massive black hole (MBH) binaries up to the onset of structure formation. Here, we simulate the galactic-scale pairing of ∼106 M☉ MBHs in a typical, non-clumpy main-sequence galaxy embedded in a cosmological environment at z = 7-6. In order to increase our statistical sample, we adopt a strategy that
The latest Gaia data release enables us to accurately identify stars that are more luminous than would be expected on the basis of their spectral type and distance. During an investigation of the 329 best solar twin candidates uncovered among the spectra acquired by the GALAH survey, we identified 64 such overluminous stars. In order to investigate their exact composition, we developed a data-driv
Context. Previous studies of open clusters have shown that lithium depletion is not only strongly age dependent but also shows a complex pattern with other parameters that is not yet understood. For pre- and main-sequence late-type stars, these parameters include metallicity, mixing mechanisms, convection structure, rotation, and magnetic activity. Aims. We perform a thorough membership analysis f
Most stars form in a clustered environment. Both single and binary stars will sometimes encounter planetary systems in such crowded environments. Encounter rates for binaries may be larger than for single stars, even for binary fractions as low as 10-20 per cent. In this work, we investigate scatterings between a Sun-Jupiter pair and both binary and single stars as in young clusters.We first perfo
