On September 14, 2015 at 09:50:45 UTC the two detectors of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory simultaneously observed a transient gravitational-wave signal. The signal sweeps upwards in frequency from 35 to 250 Hz with a peak gravitational-wave strain of 1.0×10(-21). It matches the waveform predicted by general relativity for the inspiral and merger of a pair of black holes and the ringdown of the resulting single black hole. The signal was observed with a matched-filter signal-to-noise ratio of 24 and a false alarm rate estimated to be less than 1 event per 203,000 years, equivalent to a significance greater than 5.1σ. The source lies at a luminosity distance of 410(-180)(+160)  Mpc corresponding to a redshift z=0.09(-0.04)(+0.03). In the source frame, the initial black hole masses are 36(-4)(+5)M⊙ and 29(-4)(+4)M⊙, and the final black hole mass is 62(-4)(+4)M⊙, with 3.0(-0.5)(+0.5)M⊙c(2) radiated in gravitational waves. All uncertainties define 90% credible intervals. These observations demonstrate the existence of binary stellar-mass black hole systems. This is the first direct detection of gravitational waves and the first observation of a binary black hole merger.

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The Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Merger

日本物理学会誌及びJournal of the Physical Society of Japanの月刊について

This program was supported by the the Kavli Foundation, Danish National Research Foundation, the Niels Bohr International Academy, and the DARK Cosmology Centre. The UCSC group is supported in part by NSF grant AST-1518052, the Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation, the Heising-Simons Foundation, generous donations from many individuals through a UCSC Giving Day grant, and from fellowships from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation (R.J.F.), the David and Lucile Packard Foundation (R.J.F. and E.R.) and the Niels Bohr Professorship from the DNRF (E.R.). AMB acknowledges support from a UCMEXUS-CONACYT Doctoral Fellowship. Support for this work was provided by NASA through Hubble Fellowship grants HST-HF-51348.001 (B.J.S.) and HST-HF-51373.001 (M.R.D.) awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA, under contract NAS5-26555. This paper includes data gathered with the 1 meter Swope and 6.5 meter Magellan Telescopes located at Las Campanas Observatory, Chile.r (AGILE) The AGILE Team thanks the ASI management, the technical staff at the ASI Malindi ground station, the technical support team at the ASI Space Science Data Center, and the Fucino AGILE Mission Operation Center. AGILE is an ASI space mission developed with programmatic support by INAF and INFN. We acknowledge partial support through the ASI grant No. I/028/12/2. We also thank INAF, Italian Institute of Astrophysics, and ASI, Italian Space Agency.r (ANTARES) The ANTARES Collaboration acknowledges the financial support of: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Commissariat a l'energie atomique et aux energies alternatives (CEA), Commission Europeenne (FEDER fund and Marie Curie Program), Institut Universitaire de France (IUF), IdEx program and UnivEarthS Labex program at Sorbonne Paris Cite (ANR-10-LABX-0023 and ANR-11-IDEX-0005-02), Labex OCEVU (ANR-11-LABX-0060) and the A*MIDEX project (ANR-11-IDEX-0001-02), Region Ile-de-France (DIM-ACAV), Region Alsace (contrat CPER), Region Provence-Alpes-Cite d'Azur, Departement du Var and Ville de La Seyne-sur-Mer, France; Bundesministerium fur Bildung und Forschung (BMBF), Germany; Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN), Italy; Nederlandse organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO), the Netherlands; Council of the President of the Russian Federation for young scientists and leading scientific schools supporting grants, Russia; National Authority for Scientific Research (ANCS), Romania;...

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Multi-messenger Observations of a Binary Neutron Star

Improved performance in a photovoltaic device made of colloidal quantum dots is achieved through a combination of passivation by halide anions and organic crosslinking.

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Hybrid passivated colloidal quantum dot solids

Nanostructures have attracted huge interest as a rapidly growing class of materials for many applications. Several techniques have been used to characterize the size, crystal structure, elemental composition and a variety of other physical properties of nanoparticles. In several cases, there are physical properties that can be evaluated by more than one technique. Different strengths and limitations of each technique complicate the choice of the most suitable method, while often a combinatorial characterization approach is needed. In addition, given that the significance of nanoparticles in basic research and applications is constantly increasing, it is necessary that researchers from separate fields overcome the challenges in the reproducible and reliable characterization of nanomaterials, after their synthesis and further process (e.g. annealing) stages. The principal objective of this review is to summarize the present knowledge on the use, advances, advantages and weaknesses of a large number of experimental techniques that are available for the characterization of nanoparticles. Different characterization techniques are classified according to the concept/group of the technique used, the information they can provide, or the materials that they are destined for. We describe the main characteristics of the techniques and their operation principles and we give various examples of their use, presenting them in a comparative mode, when possible, in relation to the property studied in each case.

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Characterization techniques for nanoparticles: comparison and complementarity upon studying nanoparticle properties

The increasing demand for heterogeneous materials prompts the interest for the physics and chemistry of organic–inorganic interfaces. Within this field of interest we have investigated the electronic states of L-cysteine (Cys) adsorbed on Au(111) from aqueous solution with synchrotron-based, high resolution X-ray photoemission spectroscopy. The analysis of the S 2p core level region in pristine samples prepared with purified Cys indicates that Cys adsorbs on gold as a thiolate. The absence of a signal related to physisorbed sulfur indicates that Cys forms a monomolecular layer. The high resolution allowed us to resolve two components in the C 1s spectral region related to carboxyl. The comparative analysis of C 1s, N 1s and O 1s core level regions indicates the presence of the neutral and ionic form for both the carboxyl and the amine groups. From the quantitative analysis of the C 1s and N 1s data we can infer that the zwitterionic form is the prevalent one, with a ratio of zwitterionic to neutral molecules of 3∶1. This value is quite different from that in the deposition solution. Prolonged exposure to the X-ray beam and thermal annealing induce the formation of atomic sulfur through S–C bond breaking and molecular fragment desorption. This response to X-ray irradiation differs from the results recently reported on long chain alkanethiols.

High resolution X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy of L-cysteine self-assembled films

L-cysteine self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) have been deposited on gold from the liquid and vapour phase. Synchrotron based high resolution x-ray photoemission spectroscopy has been used to characterize the sulfur chemical states at the SAM/gold interface. Results obtained from pristine and x-ray irradiated samples, prepared with both as-received and purified L-cysteine, are reported. Pristine samples prepared with purified cysteine are characterized by an intense, largely dominant S 2p state at a binding energy around 162 eV (2p3/2 level) assigned to thiolates. A second doublet around 161 eV develops during irradiation. By comparison with the literature, this doublet is assigned to atomic sulfur present either as impurity or generated by S–C bond scission. Comparative measurements performed, under similar experimental conditions, on pristine 3-mercaptopropionic acid [HS(CH2)2COOH] layers deposited from the liquid phase are also presented and discussed.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0953-8984/16/26/021/pdf

High resolution XPS of the S 2p core level region of the L-cysteine/gold interface

We have studied the vapor-phase deposition of l-cysteine on the Au(110) surface by means of synchrotron-based techniques. Relying on a comparison with previous X-ray photoemission analysis, we have assigned the fine structure of the C K-shell X-ray absorption spectra to the nonequivalent carbon bonds within the molecule. In particular, the C1s → σ* transition, where the σ* state is mainly localized on the C−S bond, is shifted well below the ionization treshold, at ∼ −5 eV from the characteristic π* transition line related to carboxylic group. From the polarization dependence of the absorption spectra in the monolayer coverage range, the molecules are found to lay flat on the surface with both the C−S bond and the carboxylic group almost parallel to the surface. We performed in situ complementary surface X-ray diffraction, SXRD, measurements to probe the rearrangement of the Au atoms beneath the l-cysteine molecules. Since the early stage of deposition, l-cysteine domains are formed which display an interm...

Electronic and Geometric Characterization of the l-Cysteine Paired-Row Phase on Au(110)

We report the results of a synchrotron-based high-resolution XPS study of the interaction of L-cysteine (Cys) with well-characterized colloidal gold nanoparticles (NPs, typical size 3–4 nm), which were pre-deposited on highly oriented pyrolytic graphite and then brought into contact with the aqueous solution of Cys by drop-casting. By comparison with data previously obtained for Cys deposition on flat Au substrates (single crystals and high quality films), we demonstrate the formation of a strong Cys/NP thiolate bond. The analysis of the line shape and adsorbate-induced Au 4f core level shift, backed by simulations of the NP structure, reveals the interaction of Cys with low-coordinated Au atoms belonging to the NP edge and corners. The analysis of the N 1s core-level indicates that neutral molecules are the most abundant species. The small facet size limits the formation of extended networks of zwitterionic molecules, typical of single crystal surfaces. This study provides a spectroscopic insight into the intense poisoning effect caused by a limited amount of Cys on Au catalysts described in previous reports.

Interaction of L-cysteine with naked gold nanoparticles supported on HOPG: a high resolution XPS investigation.

Impact collision ion scattering spectroscopy using ${\mathrm{Ne}}^{+}$ has been employed to determine the structure of the O(2\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}1)-Ag(110) phase. The analysis of experimental data by Monte Carlo simulation of the ion trajectories confirms the missing-row reconstruction with the formation of -Ag-O-Ag- chains (added rows) along the 〈001〉 direction. Oxygen is found to occupy the long-bridge site 0.03\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.08 \AA{} below the silver atoms, while the first-to-second and the second-to-third interlayer spacings are 1.66\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.03 \AA{} and 1.32\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.03 \AA{}, respectively. A lateral displacement (0.08\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.03 \AA{}) of the second-layer Ag atoms towards the missing rows is observed in addition to a vertical buckling in the third layer: the atoms lying under the missing rows are held about 0.08 \AA{} above those positioned under the added rows.

S. Terreni

Papers

High resolution X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy of L-cysteine self-assembled films

High resolution XPS of the S 2p core level region of the L-cysteine/gold interface

Electronic and Geometric Characterization of the l-Cysteine Paired-Row Phase on Au(110)

Interaction of L-cysteine with naked gold nanoparticles supported on HOPG: a high resolution XPS investigation.

O(2 x 1)-Ag(110) missing-row reconstruction: Structure determination by low-energy ion scattering.