@article{1078, abstract = {One of the key questions in understanding plant development is how single cells behave in a larger context of the tissue. Therefore, it requires the observation of the whole organ with a high spatial- as well as temporal resolution over prolonged periods of time, which may cause photo-toxic effects. This protocol shows a plant sample preparation method for light-sheet microscopy, which is characterized by mounting the plant vertically on the surface of a gel. The plant is mounted in such a way that the roots are submerged in a liquid medium while the leaves remain in the air. In order to ensure photosynthetic activity of the plant, a custom-made lighting system illuminates the leaves. To keep the roots in darkness the water surface is covered with sheets of black plastic foil. This method allows long-term imaging of plant organ development in standardized conditions. }, author = {Von Wangenheim, Daniel and Hauschild, Robert and Friml, Jirí}, journal = {Journal of visualized experiments JoVE}, number = {119}, publisher = {Journal of Visualized Experiments}, title = {{Light sheet fluorescence microscopy of plant roots growing on the surface of a gel}}, doi = {10.3791/55044}, volume = {2017}, year = {2017}, } @article{1079, abstract = {We study the ionization problem in the Thomas-Fermi-Dirac-von Weizsäcker theory for atoms and molecules. We prove the nonexistence of minimizers for the energy functional when the number of electrons is large and the total nuclear charge is small. This nonexistence result also applies to external potentials decaying faster than the Coulomb potential. In the case of arbitrary nuclear charges, we obtain the nonexistence of stable minimizers and radial minimizers.}, author = {Nam, Phan and Van Den Bosch, Hanne}, issn = {1385-0172}, journal = {Mathematical Physics, Analysis and Geometry}, number = {2}, publisher = {Springer}, title = {{Nonexistence in Thomas Fermi-Dirac-von Weizsäcker theory with small nuclear charges}}, doi = {10.1007/s11040-017-9238-0}, volume = {20}, year = {2017}, } @article{1080, abstract = {Reconstructing the evolutionary history of metastases is critical for understanding their basic biological principles and has profound clinical implications. Genome-wide sequencing data has enabled modern phylogenomic methods to accurately dissect subclones and their phylogenies from noisy and impure bulk tumour samples at unprecedented depth. However, existing methods are not designed to infer metastatic seeding patterns. Here we develop a tool, called Treeomics, to reconstruct the phylogeny of metastases and map subclones to their anatomic locations. Treeomics infers comprehensive seeding patterns for pancreatic, ovarian, and prostate cancers. Moreover, Treeomics correctly disambiguates true seeding patterns from sequencing artifacts; 7% of variants were misclassified by conventional statistical methods. These artifacts can skew phylogenies by creating illusory tumour heterogeneity among distinct samples. In silico benchmarking on simulated tumour phylogenies across a wide range of sample purities (15–95%) and sequencing depths (25-800 × ) demonstrates the accuracy of Treeomics compared with existing methods.}, author = {Reiter, Johannes and Makohon Moore, Alvin and Gerold, Jeffrey and Božić, Ivana and Chatterjee, Krishnendu and Iacobuzio Donahue, Christine and Vogelstein, Bert and Nowak, Martin}, issn = {2041-1723}, journal = {Nature Communications}, publisher = {Nature Publishing Group}, title = {{Reconstructing metastatic seeding patterns of human cancers}}, doi = {10.1038/ncomms14114}, volume = {8}, year = {2017}, } @inproceedings{313, abstract = {Tunneling of a particle through a potential barrier remains one of the most remarkable quantum phenomena. Owing to advances in laser technology, electric fields comparable to those electrons experience in atoms are readily generated and open opportunities to dynamically investigate the process of electron tunneling through the potential barrier formed by the superposition of both laser and atomic fields. Attosecond-time and angstrom-space resolution of the strong laser-field technique allow to address fundamental questions related to tunneling, which are still open and debated: Which time is spent under the barrier and what momentum is picked up by the particle in the meantime? In this combined experimental and theoretical study we demonstrate that for strong-field ionization the leading quantum mechanical Wigner treatment for the time resolved description of tunneling is valid. We achieve a high sensitivity on the tunneling barrier and unambiguously isolate its effects by performing a differential study of two systems with almost identical tunneling geometry. Moreover, working with a low frequency laser, we essentially limit the non-adiabaticity of the process as a major source of uncertainty. The agreement between experiment and theory implies two substantial corrections with respect to the widely employed quasiclassical treatment: In addition to a non-vanishing longitudinal momentum along the laser field-direction we provide clear evidence for a non-zero tunneling time delay. This addresses also the fundamental question how the transition occurs from the tunnel barrier to free space classical evolution of the ejected electron.}, author = {Camus, Nicolas and Yakaboylu, Enderalp and Fechner, Lutz and Klaiber, Michael and Laux, Martin and Mi, Yonghao and Hatsagortsyan, Karen and Pfeifer, Thomas and Keitel, Cristoph and Moshammer, Robert}, issn = {1742-6588}, location = {Kazan, Russian Federation}, number = {1}, publisher = {American Physical Society}, title = {{Experimental evidence for Wigner's tunneling time}}, doi = {10.1088/1742-6596/999/1/012004}, volume = {999}, year = {2017}, } @article{373, abstract = {This review captures the synthesis, assembly, properties, and applications of copper chalcogenide NCs, which have achieved significant research interest in the last decade due to their compositional and structural versatility. The outstanding functional properties of these materials stems from the relationship between their band structure and defect concentration, including charge carrier concentration and electronic conductivity character, which consequently affects their optoelectronic, optical, and plasmonic properties. This, combined with several metastable crystal phases and stoichiometries and the low energy of formation of defects, makes the reproducible synthesis of these materials, with tunable parameters, remarkable. Further to this, the review captures the progress of the hierarchical assembly of these NCs, which bridges the link between their discrete and collective properties. Their ubiquitous application set has cross-cut energy conversion (photovoltaics, photocatalysis, thermoelectrics), energy storage (lithium-ion batteries, hydrogen generation), emissive materials (plasmonics, LEDs, biolabelling), sensors (electrochemical, biochemical), biomedical devices (magnetic resonance imaging, X-ray computer tomography), and medical therapies (photochemothermal therapies, immunotherapy, radiotherapy, and drug delivery). The confluence of advances in the synthesis, assembly, and application of these NCs in the past decade has the potential to significantly impact society, both economically and environmentally. }, author = {Coughlan, Claudia and Ibanez Sabate, Maria and Dobrozhan, Oleksandr and Singh, Ajay and Cabot, Andreu and Ryan, Kevin}, issn = {1520-6890}, journal = {Chemical Reviews}, number = {9}, pages = {5865 -- 6109}, publisher = {American Chemical Society}, title = {{Compound copper chalcogenide nanocrystals}}, doi = {10.1021/acs.chemrev.6b00376}, volume = {117}, year = {2017}, } @article{374, abstract = {The conversion of thermal energy to electricity and vice versa by means of solid state thermoelectric devices is extremely appealing. However, its cost-effectiveness is seriously hampered by the relatively high production cost and low efficiency of current thermoelectric materials and devices. To overcome present challenges and enable a successful deployment of thermoelectric systems in their wide application range, materials with significantly improved performance need to be developed. Nanostructuration can help in several ways to reach the very particular group of properties required to achieve high thermoelectric performances. Nanodomains inserted within a crystalline matrix can provide large charge carrier concentrations without strongly influencing their mobility, thus allowing to reach very high electrical conductivities. Nanostructured materials contain numerous grain boundaries that efficiently scatter mid- and long-wavelength phonons thus reducing the thermal conductivity. Furthermore, nanocrystalline domains can enhance the Seebeck coefficient by modifying the density of states and/or providing type- and energy-dependent charge carrier scattering. All these advantages can only be reached when engineering a complex type of material, nanocomposites, with exquisite control over structural and chemical parameters at multiple length scales. Since current conventional nanomaterial production technologies lack such level of control, alternative strategies need to be developed and adjusted to the specifics of the field. A particularly suitable approach to produce nanocomposites with unique level of control over their structural and compositional parameters is their bottom-up engineering from solution-processed nanoparticles. In this work, we review the state-of-the-art of this technology applied to the thermoelectric field, including the synthesis of nanoparticles of suitable materials with precisely engineered composition and surface chemistry, their combination and consolidation into nanostructured materials, the strategies to electronically dope such materials and the attempts to fabricate thermoelectric devices using nanoparticle-based nanopowders and inks.}, author = {Ortega, Silvia and Ibanez Sabate, Maria and Liu, Yu and Zhang, Yu and Kovalenko, Maksym and Cadavid, Doris and Cabot, Andreu}, issn = {1460-4744}, journal = {Chemical Society Reviews}, number = {12}, pages = {3510 -- 3528}, publisher = {Royal Society of Chemistry}, title = {{Bottom up engineering of thermoelectric nanomaterials and devices from solution processed nanoparticle building blocks}}, doi = {10.1039/c6cs00567e}, volume = {46}, year = {2017}, } @article{375, abstract = {Branched nanocrystals (NCs) enable high atomic surface exposure within a crystalline network that provides avenues for charge transport. This combination of properties makes branched NCs particularly suitable for a range of applications where both interaction with the media and charge transport are involved. Herein we report on the colloidal synthesis of branched ceria NCs by means of a ligand-mediated overgrowth mechanism. In particular, the differential coverage of oleic acid as an X-type ligand at ceria facets with different atomic density, atomic coordination deficiency, and oxygen vacancy density resulted in a preferential growth in the [111] direction and thus in the formation of ceria octapods. Alcohols, through an esterification alcoholysis reaction, promoted faster growth rates that translated into nanostructures with higher geometrical complexity, increasing the branch aspect ratio and triggering the formation of side branches. On the other hand, the presence of water resulted in a significant reduction of the growth rate, decreasing the reaction yield and eliminating side branching, which we associate to a blocking of the surface reaction sites or a displacement of the alcoholysis reaction. Overall, adjusting the amounts of each chemical, well-defined branched ceria NCs with tuned number, thickness, and length of branches and with overall size ranging from 5 to 45 nm could be produced. We further demonstrate that such branched ceria NCs are able to provide higher surface areas and related oxygen storage capacities (OSC) than quasi-spherical NCs. }, author = {Berestok, Taisiia and Guardia, Pablo and Blanco, Javier and Nafria, Raquel and Torruella, Pau and López Conesa, Luis and Estradé, Sònia and Ibanez Sabate, Maria and De Roo, Jonathan and Luo, Zhishan and Cadavid, Doris and Martins, José and Kovalenko, Maksym and Peiró, Francesca and Cabot, Andreu}, issn = {1520-5002}, journal = {Chemistry of Materials}, number = {10}, pages = {4418 -- 4424}, publisher = {American Chemical Society}, title = {{Tuning branching in ceria nanocrystals}}, doi = {10.1021/acs.chemmater.7b00896}, volume = {29}, year = {2017}, } @article{391, abstract = {Three-dimensional topological insulators are bulk insulators with Z 2 topological electronic order that gives rise to conducting light-like surface states. These surface electrons are exceptionally resistant to localization by non-magnetic disorder, and have been adopted as the basis for a wide range of proposals to achieve new quasiparticle species and device functionality. Recent studies have yielded a surprise by showing that in spite of resisting localization, topological insulator surface electrons can be reshaped by defects into distinctive resonance states. Here we use numerical simulations and scanning tunnelling microscopy data to show that these resonance states have significance well beyond the localized regime usually associated with impurity bands. At native densities in the model Bi2X3 (X=Bi, Te) compounds, defect resonance states are predicted to generate a new quantum basis for an emergent electron gas that supports diffusive electrical transport. }, author = {Xu, Yishuai and Chiu, Janet and Miao, Lin and He, Haowei and Alpichshev, Zhanybek and Kapitulnik, Aharon and Biswas, Rudro and Wray, Lewis}, issn = {2041-1723}, journal = {Nature Communications}, publisher = {Springer Nature}, title = {{Disorder enabled band structure engineering of a topological insulator surface}}, doi = {10.1038/ncomms14081}, volume = {8}, year = {2017}, } @article{392, abstract = {We used femtosecond optical pump-probe spectroscopy to study the photoinduced change in reflectivity of thin films of the electron-doped cuprate La2-xCexCuO4 (LCCO) with dopings of x=0.08 (underdoped) and x=0.11 (optimally doped). Above Tc, we observe fluence-dependent relaxation rates that begin at a temperature similar to the one where transport measurements first show signatures of antiferromagnetic correlations. Upon suppressing superconductivity with a magnetic field, it is found that the fluence and temperature dependence of relaxation rates are consistent with bimolecular recombination of electrons and holes across a gap (2ΔAF) originating from antiferromagnetic correlations which comprise the pseudogap in electron-doped cuprates. This can be used to learn about coupling between electrons and high-energy (ω>2ΔAF) excitations in these compounds and set limits on the time scales on which antiferromagnetic correlations are static.}, author = {Vishik, Inna and Mahmood, Fahad and Alpichshev, Zhanybek and Gedik, Nuh and Higgins, Joshu and Greene, Richard}, issn = {2469-9969}, journal = {Physical Review B}, number = {11}, publisher = {American Physical Society}, title = {{Ultrafast dynamics in the presence of antiferromagnetic correlations in electron doped cuprate La2 xCexCuO4±δ}}, doi = {10.1103/PhysRevB.95.115125}, volume = {95}, year = {2017}, } @article{393, abstract = {We use a three-pulse ultrafast optical spectroscopy to study the relaxation processes in a frustrated Mott insulator Na2IrO3. By being able to independently produce the out-of-equilibrium bound states (excitons) of doublons and holons with the first pulse and suppress the underlying antiferromagnetic order with the second one, we were able to elucidate the relaxation mechanism of quasiparticles in this system. By observing the difference in the exciton dynamics in the magnetically ordered and disordered phases we found that the mass of this quasiparticle is mostly determined by its interaction with the surrounding spins. }, author = {Alpichshev, Zhanybek and Sie, Edbert and Mahmood, Fahad and Cao, Gang and Gedik, Nuh}, journal = {Physical Review B}, number = {23}, publisher = {American Physical Society}, title = {{Origin of the exciton mass in the frustrated Mott insulator Na2IrO3}}, doi = {10.1103/PhysRevB.96.235141}, volume = {96}, year = {2017}, } @inbook{424, abstract = {We show that very weak topological assumptions are enough to ensure the existence of a Helly-type theorem. More precisely, we show that for any non-negative integers b and d there exists an integer h(b, d) such that the following holds. If F is a finite family of subsets of Rd such that βi(∩G)≤b for any G⊊F and every 0 ≤ i ≤ [d/2]-1 then F has Helly number at most h(b, d). Here βi denotes the reduced Z2-Betti numbers (with singular homology). These topological conditions are sharp: not controlling any of these [d/2] first Betti numbers allow for families with unbounded Helly number. Our proofs combine homological non-embeddability results with a Ramsey-based approach to build, given an arbitrary simplicial complex K, some well-behaved chain map C*(K)→C*(Rd).}, author = {Goaoc, Xavier and Paták, Pavel and Patakova, Zuzana and Tancer, Martin and Wagner, Uli}, booktitle = {A Journey through Discrete Mathematics: A Tribute to Jiri Matousek}, editor = {Loebl, Martin and Nešetřil, Jaroslav and Thomas, Robin}, isbn = {978-331944479-6}, pages = {407 -- 447}, publisher = {Springer}, title = {{Bounding helly numbers via betti numbers}}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-319-44479-6_17}, year = {2017}, } @inproceedings{431, abstract = {Parallel implementations of stochastic gradient descent (SGD) have received significant research attention, thanks to its excellent scalability properties. A fundamental barrier when parallelizing SGD is the high bandwidth cost of communicating gradient updates between nodes; consequently, several lossy compresion heuristics have been proposed, by which nodes only communicate quantized gradients. Although effective in practice, these heuristics do not always converge. In this paper, we propose Quantized SGD (QSGD), a family of compression schemes with convergence guarantees and good practical performance. QSGD allows the user to smoothly trade off communication bandwidth and convergence time: nodes can adjust the number of bits sent per iteration, at the cost of possibly higher variance. We show that this trade-off is inherent, in the sense that improving it past some threshold would violate information-theoretic lower bounds. QSGD guarantees convergence for convex and non-convex objectives, under asynchrony, and can be extended to stochastic variance-reduced techniques. When applied to training deep neural networks for image classification and automated speech recognition, QSGD leads to significant reductions in end-to-end training time. For instance, on 16GPUs, we can train the ResNet-152 network to full accuracy on ImageNet 1.8 × faster than the full-precision variant. }, author = {Alistarh, Dan-Adrian and Grubic, Demjan and Li, Jerry and Tomioka, Ryota and Vojnović, Milan}, issn = {1049-5258}, location = {Long Beach, CA, United States}, pages = {1710--1721}, publisher = {Neural Information Processing Systems Foundation}, title = {{QSGD: Communication-efficient SGD via gradient quantization and encoding}}, volume = {2017}, year = {2017}, } @inproceedings{432, abstract = {Recently there has been significant interest in training machine-learning models at low precision: by reducing precision, one can reduce computation and communication by one order of magnitude. We examine training at reduced precision, both from a theoretical and practical perspective, and ask: is it possible to train models at end-to-end low precision with provable guarantees? Can this lead to consistent order-of-magnitude speedups? We mainly focus on linear models, and the answer is yes for linear models. We develop a simple framework called ZipML based on one simple but novel strategy called double sampling. Our ZipML framework is able to execute training at low precision with no bias, guaranteeing convergence, whereas naive quanti- zation would introduce significant bias. We val- idate our framework across a range of applica- tions, and show that it enables an FPGA proto- type that is up to 6.5 × faster than an implemen- tation using full 32-bit precision. We further de- velop a variance-optimal stochastic quantization strategy and show that it can make a significant difference in a variety of settings. When applied to linear models together with double sampling, we save up to another 1.7 × in data movement compared with uniform quantization. When training deep networks with quantized models, we achieve higher accuracy than the state-of-the- art XNOR-Net. }, author = {Zhang, Hantian and Li, Jerry and Kara, Kaan and Alistarh, Dan-Adrian and Liu, Ji and Zhang, Ce}, booktitle = {Proceedings of Machine Learning Research}, isbn = {978-151085514-4}, location = {Sydney, Australia}, pages = {4035 -- 4043}, publisher = {ML Research Press}, title = {{ZipML: Training linear models with end-to-end low precision, and a little bit of deep learning}}, volume = { 70}, year = {2017}, } @article{17616, abstract = {The optical and UV emission from sub-parsec massive black hole binaries (MBHBs) in active galactic nuclei (AGNs) is believed to vary periodically, on time-scales comparable to the binary's orbital time. If driven by accretion rate fluctuations, the variability could be isotropic. If dominated by relativistic Doppler modulation, the variability should instead be anisotropic, resembling a rotating forward-beamed lighthouse. We consider the infrared (IR) reverberation of either type of periodic emission by pc-scale circumbinary dust tori. We predict the phase and amplitude of IR variability as a function of the ratio of dust light crossing time to the source variability period, and of the torus inclination and opening angle. We enumerate several differences between the isotropic and anisotropic cases. Interestingly, for a nearly face-on binary with an inclined dust torus, the Doppler boost can produce IR variability without any observable optical/UV variability. Such orphan-IR variability would have been missed in optical searches for periodic AGNs. We apply our models to time-domain WISE IR data from the MBHB candidate PG 1302−102 and find consistency with dust reverberation by both isotropically emitting and Doppler-boosted sources in the shorter wavelength W1–W2 (2.8 → 5.3 μm) bands. We constrain the dust torus to be thin (aspect ratio ∼ 0.1), with an inner radius at 1–5 pc. More generally, our dust-echo models will aid in identifying new MBHB candidates, determining their nature and constraining the physical properties of MBHBs and their dust tori.}, author = {D'Orazio, Daniel J. and Haiman, Zoltán}, issn = {0035-8711}, journal = {Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society}, number = {1}, pages = {1198--1217}, publisher = {Oxford University Press}, title = {{Lighthouse in the dust: infrared echoes of periodic emission from massive black hole binaries★}}, doi = {10.1093/mnras/stx1269}, volume = {470}, year = {2017}, } @article{17629, abstract = {We propose an observational test for gravitationally recoiling supermassive black holes in active galactic nuclei, based on a positive correlation between the velocities of black holes relative to their host galaxies, |Δv|, and their obscuring dust column densities, Σdust, both measured along the line of sight. Our findings using a set of toy models implemented to a Monte Carlo simulation imply that models of the galactic centre and of recoil dynamics can be tested by future observations of the potential Σdust–|Δv| correlation. We have also found that the fraction of obscured quasars decreases with |Δv|, for which the predicted trend can be compared to the observed fraction of type II quasars, and can further test combinations of models we may implement.}, author = {Raffai, P. and Bécsy, B. and Haiman, Zoltán and Frei, Z.}, issn = {1743-9213}, journal = {Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union}, number = {S324}, pages = {227--230}, publisher = {Cambridge University Press}, title = {{A statistical method for detecting gravitational recoils of supermassive black holes in active galactic nuclei}}, doi = {10.1017/s1743921317000734}, volume = {12}, year = {2017}, } @article{17630, abstract = {In symmetric gravitating systems experiencing rapid mass-loss, particle orbits change almost instantaneously, which can lead to the development of a sharply contoured density profile, including singular caustics for collisionless systems. This framework can be used to model a variety of dynamical systems, such as accretion discs following a massive black hole merger and dwarf galaxies following violent early star formation feedback. Particle interactions in the high-density peaks seem a promising source of observable signatures of these mass-loss events (i.e. a possible EM counterpart for black hole mergers or strong gamma-ray emission from dark matter annihilation around young galaxies), because the interaction rate depends on the square of the density. We study post-mass-loss density profiles, both analytic and numerical, in idealized cases and present arguments and methods to extend to any general system. An analytic derivation is presented for particles on Keplerian orbits responding to a drop in the central mass. We argue that this case, with initially circular orbits, gives the most sharply contoured profile possible. We find that despite the presence of a set of singular caustics, the total particle interaction rate is reduced compared to the unperturbed system; this is a result of the overall expansion of the system dominating over the steep caustics. Finally, we argue that this result holds more generally, and the loss of central mass decreases the particle interaction rate in any physical system.}, author = {Penoyre, Zephyr and Haiman, Zoltán}, issn = {0035-8711}, journal = {Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society}, number = {1}, pages = {498--512}, publisher = {Oxford University Press}, title = {{A drop in the pond: The effect of rapid mass-loss on the dynamics and interaction rate of collisionless particles}}, doi = {10.1093/mnras/stx2469}, volume = {473}, year = {2017}, } @article{17632, abstract = {We assess the contribution of dynamical hardening by direct three-body scattering interactions to the rate of stellar-mass black hole binary (BHB) mergers in galactic nuclei. We derive an analytic model for the single-binary encounter rate in a nucleus with spherical and disc components hosting a super-massive black hole (SMBH). We determine the total number of encounters NGW needed to harden a BHB to the point that inspiral due to gravitational wave emission occurs before the next three-body scattering event. This is done independently for both the spherical and disc components. Using a Monte Carlo approach, we refine our calculations for NGW to include gravitational wave emission between scattering events. For astrophysically plausible models, we find that typically NGW ≲ 10. We find two separate regimes for the efficient dynamical hardening of BHBs: (1) spherical star clusters with high central densities, low-velocity dispersions, and no significant Keplerian component and (2) migration traps in discs around SMBHs lacking any significant spherical stellar component in the vicinity of the migration trap, which is expected due to effective orbital inclination reduction of any spherical population by the disc. We also find a weak correlation between the ratio of the second-order velocity moment to velocity dispersion in galactic nuclei and the rate of BHB mergers, where this ratio is a proxy for the ratio between the rotation- and dispersion-supported components. Because discs enforce planar interactions that are efficient in hardening BHBs, particularly in migration traps, they have high merger rates that can contribute significantly to the rate of BHB mergers detected by the advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory.}, author = {Leigh, N W C and Geller, A M and McKernan, B and Ford, K E S and Mac Low, M-M and Bellovary, J and Haiman, Zoltán and Lyra, W and Samsing, J and O'Dowd, M and Kocsis, B and Endlich, S}, issn = {0035-8711}, journal = {Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society}, number = {4}, pages = {5672--5683}, publisher = {Oxford University Press}, title = {{On the rate of black hole binary mergers in galactic nuclei due to dynamical hardening}}, doi = {10.1093/mnras/stx3134}, volume = {474}, year = {2017}, } @article{17633, abstract = {Using few-body simulations, we investigate the evolution of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in galaxies (M* = 1010–1012 M⊙ at z = 0) at 0 < z < 4. Following galaxy merger trees from the Millennium simulation, we model BH mergers with two extreme binary decay scenarios for the ‘hard binary’ stage: a full or an empty loss cone. These two models should bracket the true evolution, and allow us to separately explore the role of dynamical friction and that of multibody BH interactions on BH mergers. Using the computed merger rates, we infer the stochastic gravitational wave background (GWB). Our dynamical approach is a first attempt to study the dynamical evolution of multiple SMBHs in the host galaxies undergoing mergers with various mass ratios (10−4 < q* < 1). Our main result demonstrates that SMBH binaries are able to merge in both scenarios. In the empty loss cone case, we find that BHs merge via multibody interactions, avoiding the ‘final parsec’ problem, and entering the pulsar timing arrays band with substantial orbital eccentricity. Our full loss cone treatment, albeit more approximate, suggests that the eccentricity becomes even higher when GWs become dominant, leading to rapid coalescences (binary lifetime ≲1 Gyr). Despite the lower merger rates in the empty loss cone case, due to their higher mass ratios and lower redshifts, the GWB in the full/empty loss cone models are comparable (0.70 × 10−15 and 0.53 × 10−15 at a frequency of 1 yr−1, respectively). Finally, we compute the effects of high eccentricities on the GWB spectrum.}, author = {Ryu, Taeho and Perna, Rosalba and Haiman, Zoltán and Ostriker, Jeremiah P. and Stone, Nicholas C.}, issn = {0035-8711}, journal = {Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society}, number = {3}, pages = {3410--3433}, publisher = {Oxford University Press}, title = {{Interactions between multiple supermassive black holes in galactic nuclei: A solution to the final parsec problem}}, doi = {10.1093/mnras/stx2524}, volume = {473}, year = {2017}, } @article{17667, abstract = {The Direct Collapse Black Hole (DCBH) scenario provides a solution for forming the massive black holes powering bright quasars observed in the early Universe. A prerequisite for forming a DCBH is that the formation of (much less massive) Population III stars be avoided - this can be achieved by destroying H2 via Lyman-Werner (LW) radiation (ELW = 12.6 eV). We find that two conditions must be met in the proto-galaxy that will host the DCBH. First, prior star formation must be delayed; this can be achieved with a background LW flux of JBG≳100 J21. Second, an intense burst of LW radiation from a neighbouring star-bursting proto-galaxy is required, just before the gas cloud undergoes gravitational collapse, to finally suppress star formation completely. We show here for the first time using high-resolution hydrodynamical simulations, including full radiative transfer, that this low-level background, combined with tight synchronisation and irradiation of a secondary proto-galaxy by a primary proto-galaxy, inevitably moves the secondary proto-galaxy onto the isothermal atomic cooling track, without the deleterious effects of either photo-evaporating the gas or polluting it by heavy elements. These, atomically cooled, massive proto-galaxies are expected to ultimately form a DCBH of mass 104−105M⊙.}, author = {Regan, John A. and Visbal, Eli and Wise, John H. and Haiman, Zoltán and Johansson, Peter H. and Bryan, Greg L.}, issn = {2397-3366}, journal = {Nature Astronomy}, number = {4}, publisher = {Springer Science and Business Media LLC}, title = {{Rapid formation of massive black holes in close proximity to embryonic protogalaxies}}, doi = {10.1038/s41550-017-0075}, volume = {1}, year = {2017}, } @article{17668, abstract = {Suppression of H2-cooling in early protogalaxies has important implications for the formation of supermassive black holes seeds, the first generation of stars, and the epoch of reionization. This suppression can occur via photodissociation of H2 (by ultraviolet Lyman-Werner [LW] photons) or by photodetachment of H-, a precursor in H2 formation (by infrared [IR] photons). Previous studies have typically adopted idealised spectra, with a blackbody or a power-law shape, in modeling the chemistry of metal-free protogalaxies, and utilised a single parameter, the critical UV flux, or Jcrit, to determine whether H2-cooling is prevented. This can be misleading, and that independent of the spectral shape, there is a critical curve in the (kLW , kH^- ) plane, where kLW and kH^- are the H2-dissocation rates by LW and IR photons, which determines whether a protogalaxy can cool below ~1000 Kelvin. We use a one-zone model to follow the chemical and thermal evolution of gravitationally collapsing protogalactic gas, to compute this critical curve, and provide an accurate analytical fit for it. We improve on previous works by considering a variety of more realistic Pop III or Pop II-type spectra from population synthesis models and perform fully frequency-dependent calculations of the H2-photodissociation rates for each spectrum. We compute the ratio kLW/kH^- for each spectrum, as well as the minimum stellar mass M_star, for various IMFs and metallicities, required to prevent cooling in a neighboring halo a distance d away. We provide critical M_star/d2 values for suppression of H2-cooling, with analytic fits, which can be used in future studies.}, author = {Wolcott-Green, J. and Haiman, Zoltán and Bryan, G. L.}, issn = {0035-8711}, journal = {Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society}, publisher = {Oxford University Press}, title = {{Beyond Jcrit: A critical curve for suppression of H2-cooling in protogalaxies}}, doi = {10.1093/mnras/stx167}, year = {2017}, }