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We report the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite detection of a multi-planet system orbiting the V = 10.9 K0 dwarf TOI-125. We find evidence for up to five planets, with varying confidence. Three transit signals with high signal-to-noise ratio correspond to sub-Neptune-sized planets (2.76, 2.79, and 2.94 R⊕), and we statistically validate the planetary nature of the two inner planets (Pb = 4.65 days, Pc = 9.15 days). With only two transits observed, we report the outer object (P.03 = 19.98 days) as a planet candidate with high signal-to-noise ratio. We also detect a candidate transiting super-Earth (1.4 R⊕) with an orbital period of only 12.7 hr and a candidate Neptune-sized planet (4.2 R⊕) with a period of 13.28 days, both at low signal-to-noise ratio. This system is amenable to mass determination via radial velocities and transit-timing variations, and provides an opportunity to study planets of similar size while controlling for age and environment. The ratio of orbital periods between TOI-125 b and c (Pc/Pb = 1.97) is slightly lower than an exact 2:1 commensurability and is atypical of multiple planet systems from Kepler, which show a preference for period ratios just wide of first-order period ratios. A dynamical analysis refines the allowed parameter space through stability arguments and suggests that despite the nearly commensurate periods, the system is unlikely to be in resonance.

We present preliminary fundamental stellar parameters and multiplicity rates of M dwarf stars using a combination of speckle imaging and adaptive optics. Our survey mainly uses the Differential Speckle Survey Instrument (DSSI) at Lowell Observatory's Discovery Channel Telescope (DCT). DSSI observes speckle patterns simultaneously at two separate wavelengths and the data for this project are composed of observations which span from 2016 to 2018. More recently, the speckle data for some of the target stars that have been found to be binary have been supplemented with observations using Adaptive Optics (AO) at Palomar Observatory. The combination of speckle data in the visible and AO data in the near-infrared allows us to make robust determinations of the luminosities and effective temperatures of the components in each case. Using the known Mass-Luminosity Relation, we also estimate the component masses. A discussion of interesting systems will be given.

While at first glance multi-star systems seem quite extreme, they are in fact the most common type of star system in our galaxy, throughout the stellar mass distribution. In particular, 40 to 50% of exoplanet host stars reside within multiple star systems. Given the degree to which initially undetected multiplicity has skewed Kepler results, high-resolution imaging of our nearby low-mass neighbors is necessary for both accurate characterization of transiting exoplanets, as well as a better understanding of stellar astrophysics. To address this frequent gap in our knowledge of exoplanet hosts, we will utilize speckle interferometry to directly image TESS exoplanet host candidates to complete our knowledge of individual star multiplicity. Our investigation will expand upon the speckle observations taken as a part of the POKEMON speckle survey of nearby M-dwarfs to better constrain the multiplicity of low-mass TESS exoplanet host candidates, and to constrain M-dwarf multiplicity by subtype across the entire M-dwarf sequence.

QWSSI, the Quad-camera Wavefront-Sensing Speckle Imager, is a next-generation speckle imager that is being developed for Lowell Observatory's 4.3-meter Discovery Channel Telescopes. The principle behind QWSSI is to extend the capabilities of the speckle camera currently resident at Lowell, the Differential Speckle Survey Instrument (DSSI), in two ways. First, while DSSI currently observes in two visible channels, QWSSI will simultaneously observe in six narrow-band channels: four in the visible (0.5-0.9um), and one each in J- and H-band (1.2 and 1.6um). Second, the visible light unused for speckle imaging is carefully preserved and feeds a wavefront sensor (WFS), which is also run simultaneously with the speckle imaging. Simulations by Löbb (2016) indicate WFS data will provide significant gains in exploring stellar multiplicity, with marked improvements in primary-secondary contrast ratios and inner working angle (Horch et al. 2018). QWSSI will also be mountable on one of the three 1-meter telescopes being installed on the NPOI Array for engineering tests and preliminary science observations. QWSSI will expand on the already considerable exoplanetary work of the speckle imagers DSSI, NESSI (@ WIYN), Alopeke (Gemini-N), and Zorro (Gemini-S), improving the discovery space for existing targets, as well opening up new regions of that discovery space with its NIR channels.

The Southern Connecticut Stellar Interferometer is an astronomical intensity interferometer consisting of two telescopes. Each is currently equipped with a single-photon avalanche diode (SPAD) detector, and an ultra-fast timing module correlates counts between both photon detectors. The interferometer has previously demonstrated intensity correlations using the 1-pixel SPADs and extremely narrow band pass filters but was limited in the amount of light that could be collected, and therefore the signal-to-noise ratio that could be achieved. SCSU's recent acquisition of an 8-pixel SPAD detector has allowed for a new possibility: a different wavelength of light could be directed towards each of the 8 pixels of the detector, thus conducting 8 independent intensity interferometry experiments at the same time, if this could be implemented at both telescopes. Using materials and resources available in the Astronomical Instrumentation Laboratory at Southern Connecticut State University, an optical system has been developed to work toward this goal but outfitting the first telescope in this way. The light from the telescope is collimated and directed toward a reflective diffraction grating. This is then re-imaged using a second lens and directed onto the pixels of the photon detector. These optical components have been placed inside an aluminum housing and can be mounted to the telescope for test observations. A status report will be given on the observations so far. If this can be replicated at the other telescope, the signal-to-noise ratio achievable with the instrument could be improved by a factor of 2.8.

ZnO and Fe-doped ZnO nanoparticles were analyzed in ethanol solution and dry powder form using fluorescence spectroscopy. Near-band-edge emission (NBE) and defect emission (DE) peaks were studied. A blue-shift was observed with the NBE emission peak. © OSA 2019. The Author(s).

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are a viable product for many different markets. One specific area of promise is the use of CNTs in supercapacitors. The CNT synthesis is a two-step process with the first being the formation of a thin film layer. The thin film substrate is created by means of the Thermal Evaporation Physical Vapor Deposition (TPVD) process. After the thin film substrate is deposited, the CNTs are grown in a Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) growth chamber. Analysis of the thin film substrate and CNTs is performed primarily using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). The results show the inclusion of ultrapure water in the CVD process contributed to the success of CNT growth. Multiple prong CNT grow is seen for CVDs trails of silver thin film layer deposited on silicon substrates. The silver nanoparticle had a large diameter with an acute contact angle. The single prong growth indicates the iron nanoparticles formed an obtuse contact angle due to the amorphic surface of alumina substrate. The focus of this project is to explore and investigate different materials and conditions for optimal CNT synthesis in the hopes of creating a uniform forest of vertically aligned carbon nanotubes. © 2019 World Scientific Publishing Company.

Intrinsic fluorescence spectra of fresh normal and cancerous human breast tissues were measured using two selective excitation wavelengths including 290nm and 340nm. Dual-wavelength excitation may reveal more molecular information than single-wavelength excitation. In the meantime, it is significantly faster than the acquisition of excitation-emission (EEM) matrix. Unsupervised machine learning algorithms principal component analysis (PCA) and non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) were used to reduce the dimensionality of the spectral data. The relative concentrations of the basis spectra retrieved by PCA and NMF were considered features of the samples and used to distinguish normal and malignant tissues. The performances of classification using support vector machine (SVM) based on PCA and NMF features were compared. The classification using spectral data with dual-wavelength excitation was compared with single-wavelength excitation. Classification based on NMF-retrieved components from spectral data with dual-wavelength excitation yielded the best performance. © 2019 SPIE.

We report a new measurement of D0-meson production at mid-rapidity (|y|<1) in Au + Au collisions at sNN=200GeV utilizing the heavy flavor tracker, a high resolution silicon detector at the STAR experiment. Invariant yields of D0 mesons with transverse momentum pT9GeV/c are reported in various centrality bins (0-10%, 10-20%, 20-40%, 40-60%, and 60-80%). Blast-wave thermal models are used to fit the D0-meson pT spectra to study D0 hadron kinetic freeze-out properties. The average radial flow velocity extracted from the fit is considerably smaller than that of light hadrons (π,K, and p), but comparable to that of hadrons containing multiple strange quarks (φ,Ξ-), indicating that D0 mesons kinetically decouple from the system earlier than light hadrons. The calculated D0 nuclear modification factors reaffirm that charm quarks suffer a large amount of energy loss in the medium, similar to those of light quarks for pT>4GeV/c in central 0-10% Au + Au collisions. At low pT, the nuclear modification factors show a characteristic structure qualitatively consistent with the expectation from model predictions that charm quarks gain sizable collective motion during the medium evolution. The improved measurements are expected to offer new constraints to model calculations and help gain further insights into the hot and dense medium created in these collisions. © 2019 American Physical Society.

We report the first measurement of the inclusive jet and the dijet longitudinal double-spin asymmetries, ALL, at midrapidity in polarized pp collisions at a center-of-mass energy s=510 GeV. The inclusive jet ALL measurement is sensitive to the gluon helicity distribution down to a gluon momentum fraction of x≈0.015, while the dijet measurements, separated into four jet-pair topologies, provide constraints on the x dependence of the gluon polarization. Both results are consistent with previous measurements made at s=200 GeV in the overlapping kinematic region, x>0.05, and show good agreement with predictions from recent next-to-leading order global analyses. © 2019 authors. Published by the American Physical Society.

J/ψ suppression has long been considered a sensitive signature of the formation of the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) in relativistic heavy-ion collisions. In this letter, we present the first measurement of inclusive J/ψ production at mid-rapidity through the dimuon decay channel in Au+Au collisions at sNN=200 GeV with the STAR experiment. These measurements became possible after the installation of the Muon Telescope Detector was completed in 2014. The J/ψ yields are measured in a wide transverse momentum (pT) range of 0.15 GeV/c to 12 GeV/c from central to peripheral collisions. They extend the kinematic reach of previous measurements at RHIC with improved precision. In the 0-10% most central collisions, the J/ψ yield is suppressed by a factor of approximately 3 for pT&gt;5 GeV/c relative to that in p+p collisions scaled by the number of binary nucleon-nucleon collisions. The J/ψ nuclear modification factor displays little dependence on pT in all centrality bins. Model calculations can qualitatively describe the data, providing further evidence for the color-screening effect experienced by J/ψ mesons in the QGP. © 2019 The Author(s)

We report new STAR measurements of the single-spin asymmetries AL for W+ and W- bosons produced in polarized proton-proton collisions at s=510 GeV as a function of the decay-positron and decay-electron pseudorapidity. The data were obtained in 2013 and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 250 pb-1. The results are combined with previous results obtained with 86 pb-1. A comparison with theoretical expectations based on polarized lepton-nucleon deep-inelastic scattering and prior polarized proton-proton data suggests a difference between the ū and d quark helicity distributions for 0.05<x<0.25. In addition, we report new results for the double-spin asymmetries ALL for W±, as well as AL for Z/γ∗ production and subsequent decay into electron-positron pairs. © 2019 authors. Published by the American Physical Society.

We present measurements of the differential cross sections of inclusive J/ψ meson production as a function of transverse momentum (pTJ/ψ) using the μ+μ- and e+e- decay channels in proton+proton collisions at center-of-mass energies of 510 and 500 GeV, respectively, recorded by the STAR detector at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. The measurement from the μ+μ- channel is for 0<pTJ/ψ<9 GeV/c and rapidity range |yJ/ψ|<0.4, and that from the e+e- channel is for 4<pTJ/ψ<20 GeV/c and |yJ/ψ|<1.0. The ψ(2S) to J/ψ ratio is also measured for 4<pTmeson<12 GeV/c through the e+e- decay channel. Model calculations, which incorporate different approaches toward the J/ψ production mechanism, are compared with experimental results and show reasonable agreement within uncertainties. © 2019 authors. Published by the American Physical Society.

We present the discovery from Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) data of LTT 1445Ab. At a distance of 6.9 pc, it is the second nearest transiting exoplanet system found to date, and the closest one known for which the primary is an M dwarf. The host stellar system consists of three mid-to-late M dwarfs in a hierarchical configuration, which are blended in one TESS pixel. We use MEarth data and results from the Science Processing Operations Center data validation report to determine that the planet transits the primary star in the system. The planet has a radius of, an orbital period of days, and an equilibrium temperature of K. With radial velocities from the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher, we place a 3σ upper mass limit of 8.4 on the planet. LTT 1445Ab provides one of the best opportunities to date for the spectroscopic study of the atmosphere of a terrestrial world. We also present a detailed characterization of the host stellar system. We use high-resolution spectroscopy and imaging to rule out the presence of any other close stellar or brown dwarf companions. Nineteen years of photometric monitoring of A and BC indicate a moderate amount of variability, in agreement with that observed in the TESS light-curve data. We derive a preliminary astrometric orbit for the BC pair that reveals an edge-on and eccentric configuration. The presence of a transiting planet in this system hints that the entire system may be co-planar, implying that the system may have formed from the early fragmentation of an individual protostellar core. © 2019. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved..

Laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) technique was used to generate spectral signatures of endogenous fluorophores relevant to the tissue molecular composition changes in human brain glioma tumors. The goal is to study the changes of fluorescence emission spectra from endogenous fluorophores in human brain glioma of different grades, and to find new biomarkers for prognostic optical molecular pathological diagnosis. Two hundred and thirty-seven (237) native fluorescence spectra from 61 subjects were measured using LabRAM HR Evolution micro photoluminescence (PL) system for four grades of glioma tumors in ex-vivo. The differences of four grades of glioma tumors were identified by the characteristic fluorophores fingerprints under the excitation laser wavelength at UV 325nm. To our best knowledge, this is the first report for human brain study using this technique. The fluorescence peaks of biomarkers with major contribution were found, including tryptophan, collagen, elastin, reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NADH), flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD) and phospholipids that play important roles in the cellular energy metabolism and glycolysis pathway. The ratios of peak intensities and the peak positions in fluorescence spectra of may be used to diagnose human brain diseases or to guide biopsy during surgical resection. © 2019 SPIE.

A VRR-LRR analyzer with handheld fiber‐optic probe is reported for the first time for diagnosis of brain GBM in vivo. The sensitivity for identification is 80% compared with histopathology examination. © OSA 2019. The Author(s).

The Λ (Λ̄) hyperon polarization along the beam direction has been measured in Au+Au collisions at sNN=200 GeV, for the first time in heavy-ion collisions. The polarization dependence on the hyperons' emission angle relative to the elliptic flow plane exhibits a second harmonic sine modulation, indicating a quadrupole pattern of the vorticity component along the beam direction, expected due to elliptic flow. The polarization is found to increase in more peripheral collisions, and shows no strong transverse momentum (pT) dependence at pT greater than 1 GeV/c. The magnitude of the signal is about 5 times smaller than those predicted by hydrodynamic and multiphase transport models; the observed phase of the emission angle dependence is also opposite to these model predictions. In contrast, the kinematic vorticity calculations in the blast-wave model tuned to reproduce particle spectra, elliptic flow, and the azimuthal dependence of the Gaussian source radii measured with the Hanbury Brown-Twiss intensity interferometry technique reproduce well the modulation phase measured in the data and capture the centrality and transverse momentum dependence of the polarization signal. © 2019 American Physical Society.