University of Rijeka

About: University of Rijeka is a education organization based out in Rijeka, Croatia. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Tourism. The organization has 3471 authors who have published 7993 publications receiving 110386 citations. The organization is also known as: Rijeka University & Sveučilište u Rijeci.

Morphological and spectral properties of the W51 region measured with the MAGIC telescopes

Abstract: The W51 complex hosts the supernova remnant W51C which is known to interact with the molecular clouds in the star forming region W51B. In addition, a possible pulsar wind nebula CXO J192318.5+140305 was found likely associated with the supernova remnant. Gamma-ray emission from this region was discovered by Fermi/LAT (between 0.2 and 50 GeV) and H. E. S. S. (>1 TeV). The spatial distribution of the events could not be used to pinpoint the location of the emission among the pulsar wind nebula, the supernova remnant shell and/or the molecular cloud. However, the modeling of the spectral energy distribution presented by the Fermi/LAT collaboration suggests a hadronic emission mechanism. The possibility that the gamma-ray emission from such an object is of hadronic origin can contribute to solvingthe long-standing problem of the contribution to galactic cosmic rays by supernova remnants. Aims. Our aim is to determine the morphology of the very-high-energy gamma-ray emission of W51 and measure its spectral properties. Methods. We performed observations of the W51 complex with the MAGIC telescopes for more than 50 h. The energy range accessible with MAGIC extends from 50 GeV to several TeV, allowing for the first spectral measurement at these energies. In addition, the good angular resolution in the medium (few hundred GeV) to high (above 1 TeV) energies allow us to perform morphological studies. We look for underlying structures by means of detailed morphological studies. Multi-wavelength data from this source have been sampled to model the emission with both leptonic and hadronic processes. Results. We detect an extended emission of very-high-energy gamma rays, with a significance of 11 standard deviations. We extend the spectrum from the highest Fermi/LAT energies to similar to 5 TeV and find that it follows a single power law with an index of 2.58 +/- 0.07(stat) +/- 0.22(syst). The main part of the emission coincides with the shocked cloud region, while we find a feature extending towards the pulsar wind nebula. The possible contribution of the pulsar wind nebula, assuming a point-like source, shows no dependence on energy and it is about 20% of the overall emission. The broad band spectral energy distribution can be explained with a hadronic model that implies proton acceleration above 100 TeV. This result, together with the morphology of the source, tentatively suggests that we observe ongoing acceleration of ions in the interaction zone between supernova remnant and cloud.

Phase-resolved energy spectra of the Crab Pulsar in the range of 50-400 GeV measured with the MAGIC Telescopes

Abstract: We use 73 h of stereoscopic data taken with the MAGIC telescopes to investigate the very high-energy (VHE) gamma-ray emission of the Crab pulsar. Our data show a highly significant pulsed signal in the energy range from 50 to 400 GeV in both the main pulse (P1) and the interpulse (P2) phase regions. We provide the widest spectra to date of the VHE components of both peaks, and these spectra extend to the energy range of satellite-borne observatories. The good resolution and background rejection of the stereoscopic MAGIC system allows us to cross-check the correctness of each spectral point of the pulsar by comparison with the corresponding (strong and well-known) Crab nebula flux. The spectra of both P1 and P2 are compatible with power laws with photon indices of 4.0 ± 0.8 (P1) and 3.42 ± 0.26 (P2), respectively, and the ratio P1/P2 between the photon counts of the two pulses is 0.54 ± 0.12. The VHE emission can be understood as an additional component produced by the inverse Compton scattering of secondary and tertiary e± pairs on IR-UV photons. © 2012 ESO.

Cytomegalovirus pUL50 is the multi-interacting determinant of the core nuclear egress complex (NEC) that recruits cellular accessory NEC components.

Abstract: Nuclear egress of herpesvirus capsids through the nuclear envelope is mediated by the multimeric nuclear egress complex (NEC). The human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) core NEC is defined by an interaction between the membrane-anchored pUL50 and its nuclear co-factor pUL53, tightly associated through heterodimeric corecruitment to the nuclear envelope. Cellular proteins, such as p32/gC1qR, emerin and protein kinase C (PKC), are recruited by direct interaction with pUL50 for the multimeric extension of the NEC. As a functionally important event, the recruitment of both viral and cellular protein kinases leads to site-specific lamin phosphorylation and nuclear lamina disassembly. In this study, interaction domains within pUL50 for its binding partners were defined by co-immunoprecipitation. The interaction domain for pUL53 is located within the pUL50 N-terminus (residues 10-169), interaction domains for p32/gC1qR (100-358) and PKC (100-280) overlap in the central part of pUL50, and the interaction domain for emerin is located in the C-terminus (265-397). Moreover, expression and formation of core NEC proteins at the nuclear rim were consistently detected in cells permissive for productive HCMV replication, including two trophoblast-cell lines. Importantly, regular nuclear-rim formation of the core NEC was blocked by inhibition of cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) activity. In relation to the recently published crystal structure of the HCMV core NEC, our findings result in a refined view of NEC assembly. In particular, we suggest that CDKs may play an important regulatory role in NEC formation during HCMV replication.

Spectrum of the Koopman Operator, Spectral Expansions in Functional Spaces, and State-Space Geometry

Abstract: We examine spectral operator-theoretic properties of linear and nonlinear dynamical systems with globally stable attractors. Using the Kato decomposition, we develop a spectral expansion for general linear autonomous dynamical systems with analytic observables and define the notion of generalized eigenfunctions of the associated Koopman operator. We interpret stable, unstable and center subspaces in terms of zero-level sets of generalized eigenfunctions. We then utilize conjugacy properties of Koopman eigenfunctions and the new notion of open eigenfunctions—defined on subsets of state space—to extend these results to nonlinear dynamical systems with an equilibrium. We provide a characterization of (global) center manifolds, center-stable, and center-unstable manifolds in terms of joint zero-level sets of families of Koopman operator eigenfunctions associated with the nonlinear system. After defining a new class of Hilbert spaces, that capture the on- and off-attractor properties of dissipative dynamics, and introducing the concept of modulated Fock spaces, we develop spectral expansions for a class of dynamical systems possessing globally stable limit cycles and limit tori, with observables that are square-integrable in on-attractor variables and analytic in off-attractor variables. We discuss definitions of stable, unstable, and global center manifolds in such nonlinear systems with (quasi)-periodic attractors in terms of zero-level sets of Koopman operator eigenfunctions. We define the notion of isostables for a general class of nonlinear systems. In contrast with the systems that have discrete Koopman operator spectrum, we provide a simple example of a measure-preserving system that is not chaotic but has continuous spectrum, and discuss experimental observations of spectrum on such systems. We also provide a brief characterization of the data types corresponding to the obtained theoretical results and define the coherent principal dimension for a class of datasets based on the lattice-type principal spectrum of the associated Koopman operator.