Puppies and Cheetahs: An Unlikely Sibling-in-Law Pair

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svke-k2h9ve

A charming duo, Rozi the Cheetah Cub and Ziggy the Labrador-Kelpie-Collie mix, demonstrate that the bonds of brotherhood can cross species lines.

Logi was brought into the world via an emergency cesarean section in late February at the Western Plains Zoo in Dubbo, Australia, after her mother, Siri, went into labor ahead of schedule.

Unfortunately, Siri was unable to produce milk. Rozi struggled with health issues during her initial weeks, which necessitated the separation of mother and cub.

As Rozi’s two siblings were stillborn, she became the only surviving cub, facing at least 18 months before she could participate in the zoo’s breeding program.

The zookeepers determined that in order for Rozi to grow and socialize adequately, thus improving her chances of breeding in the future, she would need companions.

Ten years prior, Logi’s mother had a dog for companionship, along with a puppy. This created a successful dynamic with the American Cheetah Cubs, according to Jordan Michelmore, Cheetah Keeper at Dubbo Zoo.

Domestic cats wouldn’t be suitable, she notes, as Logi’s playmates need to be sturdy enough to engage with a cheetah for at least a year.

“Dogs possess greater resilience and energy. Their size also aligns more closely with the cheetah as she matures,” Michelle adds.

3 Months of Ziggy and Logi

Sharon McDreddie

When both were about two months old, Ziggy and Logi were gradually introduced. Initially, Ziggy needed careful quarantine and vaccination, but after two weeks, they were playing and cuddling together.

“Their energy levels, play styles, and sizes complement each other well,” says Michelmore. “The liveliness and playfulness of puppies mesh nicely with Logi’s current stage.”

As female cheetahs tend to become solitary after 12-18 months, Michelmore anticipates a future separation for Ziggy, which will involve placing him in a new home.

“We will take cues from their relationship and can start to transition Ziggy out when Logi shows she doesn’t desire his company as much,” shares Michelle.

However, she is also considering the possibility of keeping Ziggy around. This way, Rozi and Ziggy could maintain their bond. Several zoos in the United States have found that cheetahs and their adopted siblings can coexist into adulthood.

She likens Ziggy to a “nuisance brother,” stating, “The joy she expresses upon his return to her space is unmistakable.”

“I also want Ziggy to grow into a well-rounded dog. His upbringing is truly unique for a puppy.”

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Source: www.newscientist.com

Physicists at CERN investigate potential Lorentz symmetry violations in top quark pair production

A physicist in charge of CERN’s large -scale Hadronco Rider has tested whether top queks follow Albert Einstein’s special theory.

Installation of CMS beam pipe. Image credit: CERN / CMS collaboration.

In addition to quantum mechanics, Albert Einstein’s special relativity is functioning as the basis of the standard model of particle physics.

In that mind, there is a concept called Lorentz symmetry. The experimental results do not depend on the direction or speed of the experiment in which they were taken.

Special relativity has endured the trials of time. However, some theories, including specific models in string rationale, predict that very high energy does not work with special relativity and experimental observation depends on the direction of space -time experiments.

Lorentz’s remnants of the symmetry destruction can be observed with low -energy, such as the energy of a large hoodron co -rider (LHC), but has not been found on LHC or other colliders despite previous efforts.

In a new study, CMS physicists have searched for Lorentz symmetry on LHC using the top quark pair, the most known basic particles.

“In this case, relying on the direction of the experiment means that the speed at which the top quark pair is generated by the LHC collision in the LHC is different over time,” they said.

“To be more accurate, the average direction of the top quark generated in the center of the LHC proton beam and the center of the CMS experiment also changes because the earth rotates around the axis.”

“As a result, and if there is a priority in space -time, the production rate of the highest pair varies by era.”

“Therefore, finding a deviation from a certain speed will discover the direction of space -time priority.”

The new results of the team based on the LHC’s second execution data consistent with a certain speed. In other words, Lorentz’s symmetry is not broken, and Einstein’s special relativity remains effective.

Researchers have used results to limit the size of the parameters that are predicted to be null when symmetry is maintained.

The obtained restrictions have improved up to 100 times with the previous search results, which were destroyed by Lorentz symmetry in the previous Tevatron accelerator.

“The results will open a way to search for the future in which Lorentz symmetry will be destroyed based on the top quark data from the third run of LHC,” said scientists.

“Open the door to scrutinization of processes including other heavy particles that can only be investigated on LHC, such as Higgs Boson, W and Z Bosons.”

study Published in the October 2024 issue of the journal Physics B.

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CMS collaboration. 2024. Use the Dilepton Event in the 13 TEV Proton Proton collision to search for Lorentz invaluity in the production of top quark pairs. Physics B 857: 138979; DOI: 10.1016/j.physletb.2024.138979

Source: www.sci.news

Physicists at CERN witness a top quark pair in lead-lead collision

The generation of top quark pairs is observed This process of interaction between atomic nuclei was observed for the first time in lead-lead collisions at CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and the ATLAS detector.

We show lead-lead collisions at 5.02 TeV per nucleon pair, resulting in the production of candidate pairs of top quarks that decay into other particles. This event contains four particle jets (yellow cone), one electron (green line), and one muon (red line). The inlay shows an axial view of the event. Image credit: ATLAS/CERN.

In quark-gluon plasma, quarks (matter particles) and gluons (strong force transmitters), which are the basic constituents of protons and neutrons, are not bound within particles and exist in an unconfined state of matter, and almost It forms a complete dense fluid.

Physicists believe that quark-gluon plasma filled the universe shortly after the Big Bang, and their study provides a glimpse into conditions at earlier times in the universe's history.

However, the lifespan of quark-gluon plasma produced by heavy ion collisions is extremely short, approximately 10 years.-twenty three Seconds — means not directly observable.

Instead, physicists study the particles produced in these collisions that pass through the quark-gluon plasma and use them as probes of the plasma's properties.

In particular, the top quark is a very promising probe of the evolution of quark-gluon plasmas over time.

The top quark, the heaviest elementary particle known, decays into other particles an order of magnitude faster than the time required to form a quark-gluon plasma.

The delay between the collision and the decay products of the top quark interacting with the quark-gluon plasma may serve as a “time marker” and provide a unique opportunity to study the temporal dynamics of the plasma.

In addition, physicists could potentially extract new information about the nuclear parton distribution function, which describes how the momentum of a nucleon (proton or neutron) is distributed among its constituent quarks and gluons.

In the new study, physicists from the ATLAS collaboration studied lead ion collisions that occurred during LHC Experiment 2 at a collision energy of 5.02 teraelectronvolts (TeV) per nucleon pair.

They observed the production of a top quark in a dilepton channel, where the top quark decays into a bottom quark and a W boson, which then decays into an electron or muon and its associated neutrino.

This result has statistical significance with a standard deviation of 5.0, and is the first observation of the production of a top quark pair in a nucleus-nucleus collision.

“We measured the production rate, or cross section, of the top quark pair with a relative uncertainty of 35%,” the physicists said.

“The overall uncertainty is primarily driven by the size of the dataset, which means new heavy ion data from the ongoing Experiment 3 will improve the accuracy of the measurements.”

“The new results open the door to the study of quark-gluon plasmas,” the researchers added.

“Future studies will also consider semi-leptonic decay channels for top quark pairs in heavy ion collisions. This may provide the first glimpse of the evolution of quark-gluon plasmas over time.” ”

Source: www.sci.news

Astronomers find the farthest merging quasar pair ever recorded

Astronomers have discovered a pair of merging quasars observed just 900 million years after the Big Bang. Not only is this the most distant pair of merging quasars ever found, but it’s also the first pair identified during a period in the history of the universe known as the “cosmic dawn.”



This image taken with the Subaru Telescope’s HyperSupreme-Cam shows a pair of quasars in the process of merging, HSC J121503.42-014858.7 (C1) and HSC J121503.55-014859.3 (C2). Image courtesy NOIRLab / NSF / AURA / TA Rector, University of Alaska Anchorage & NSF NOIRLab / D. de Martin, NSF NOIRLab / M. Zamani, NSF NOIRLab.

The dawn of the universe lasted from about 50 million to 1 billion years after the Big Bang.

During this period the first stars and galaxies began to appear and the dark universe was filled with light for the first time.

The appearance of the first stars and galaxies marked the beginning of a new era in the formation of the universe, known as the Reionization Epoch.

The epoch of reionization that occurred during the cosmic dawn was a period of cosmic transition.

About 400 million years after the Big Bang, ultraviolet light from the first stars, galaxies, and quasars spread throughout the universe, interacting with intergalactic matter and beginning a process called ionization, which stripped electrons from the universe’s primordial hydrogen atoms.

The reionization epoch is a crucial period in the history of the universe, marking the end of the cosmic dark ages and sowing the seeds of the large structures we observe in the local universe today.

To understand exactly what role quasars played during the reionization period, astronomers are interested in discovering and studying quasars that existed during this earlier, distant era.

“The statistical properties of quasars during the reionization stage can tell us a lot, including the progress and origin of reionization, the formation of supermassive black holes at the dawn of the universe, and the earliest evolution of the quasars’ host galaxies,” said Dr Yoshiki Matsuoka, an astronomer at Ehime University.

About 300 quasars have been discovered during the reionization period, but none have been found in pairs.

But as Dr. Matsuoka and his team were reviewing images taken with the Subaru Telescope’s HyperSupreme-Cam, a faint red spot caught their eye.

“While screening images for potential quasars, we noticed two similar, very red sources next to each other. This discovery was pure coincidence,” Dr Matsuoka said.

The distant quasar candidates are contaminated by many other sources, including foreground stars and galaxies and gravitational lensing, so the authors were unsure whether they were quasar pairs.

To confirm the nature of these objects, named HSC J121503.42-014858.7 and HSC J121503.55-014859.3, the team carried out follow-up spectroscopic measurements using the Faint Object Camera and Spectrograph (FOCAS) on the Subaru Telescope and the Gemini Near-Infrared Spectrograph (GNIRS) on the Gemini North Telescope.

The spectra obtained by GNIRS resolved the light emitted by the source into its constituent wavelengths and were crucial for characterizing the properties of the quasar pair and its host galaxy.

“GNIRS observations have shown that quasars are too faint to be detected in near-infrared light, even with the largest ground-based telescopes,” said Dr Matsuoka.

This allowed astronomers to deduce that some of the light detected in the visible wavelength range comes not from the quasar itself, but from ongoing star formation in its host galaxy.

The two black holes were also found to be enormous, with masses 100 million times that of the Sun.

This, combined with the presence of a bridge of gas extending between the two quasars, suggests that the two quasars and their host galaxies are undergoing a major merger.

“The existence of merging quasars during the reionization period has long been predicted, but this has now been confirmed for the first time,” said Dr Matsuoka.

This discovery paper In Astrophysical Journal Letters.

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Yoshiki Matsuoka others2024. Discovery of twin quasars merging at z = 6.05. Apu JL 965, L4; doi: 10.3847/2041-8213/ad35c7

Source: www.sci.news

Astronomers discover the heaviest supermassive black hole pair ever measured

Astronomers are gemini north telescope measured a binary supermassive black hole located within the elliptical galaxy B2 0402+379.

Artist's impression of the supermassive black hole binary in elliptical galaxy B2 0402+379. Image credit: NOIRLab / NSF / AURA / J. daSilva / M. Zamani.

The pair of compact objects at the center of B2 0402+379 are the only supermassive black hole binaries ever resolved in enough detail that both objects can be seen separately.

It holds the record for the smallest distance ever directly measured – just 24 light years.

While this close separation portends a strong merger, further research reveals that the pair has been stuck at this distance for more than 3 billion years, raising questions. What is the holdup?

To better understand the dynamics of this system and its stalled merger, Stanford University professor Roger Romani and his colleagues turned to archival data from Gemini North. Gemini multi-object spectrometer (GMOS) This allowed them to determine the speed of stars near the black hole.

“The excellent sensitivity of GMOS allowed us to map the increasing velocity of stars as they approach the center of the galaxy. This allowed us to estimate the total mass of black holes present there.” Professor Romani said.

The authors estimate that the binary star's mass is a whopping 28 billion times that of the Sun, making the pair the most massive binary black hole ever measured.

This measurement not only provides valuable background on the formation of binary systems and the history of their host galaxies, but also confirms the long-held belief that the mass of supermassive binary black holes plays a key role in preventing potential mergers. This supports the theory.

“The data archive provided by the International Gemini Observatory holds a goldmine of untapped scientific discoveries,” said Dr. Martin Still, NSF program director for the International Gemini Observatory.

“Measuring the mass of this extreme supermassive binary black hole is an awe-inspiring example of the potential impact of new research exploring its rich archive.”

Understanding how this binary formed can help predict if and when it will merge. Also, some clues indicate that the pair formed through multiple galaxy mergers.

First, B2 0402+379 is a “fossil cluster,” meaning it is the result of an entire galaxy cluster's worth of stars and gas merging into a single giant galaxy.

Additionally, the presence of two supermassive black holes, coupled with their large combined mass, suggests that they resulted from the merger of multiple smaller black holes from multiple galaxies.

After galaxies merge, supermassive black holes do not collide head-on. Instead, they start slingshotting each other as they settle into a certain trajectory.

Each time a black hole passes, energy is transferred from it to the surrounding stars.

Losing their energy, the pair are dragged together, and gravitational radiation takes over, merging them just a few light years away.

This process has been observed directly in pairs of stellar-mass black holes, first documented by the detection of gravitational waves in 2015, but has never been observed in binaries of supermassive black holes.

With new knowledge about the system's extremely large mass, astronomers concluded that it would take a very large number of stars to slow down the binary enough to make its orbits so close together. .

In the process, the black hole seems to have blown away almost all the material around it, depleting the galaxy's center of stars and gas.

The merger of the two companies stalled in the final stages, as there was nothing left to further slow the companies' trajectory.

“Galaxies with lighter black hole pairs usually seem to have enough stars and mass to quickly merge the two,” Professor Romani said.

“The pair is so massive that we needed a lot of stars and gas to get the job done. But binaries scour the galaxy for such material, causing it to stagnate, making it impossible for our research to do so.” has been made accessible.”

It remains to be determined whether the pair will overcome stasis and eventually merge on a timescale of millions of years, or remain in orbit forever in limbo.

If they merged, the resulting gravitational waves would be 100 million times more powerful than those produced by the merger of stellar-mass black holes.

The pair could potentially conquer that final distance via another galactic merger. In that case, additional material, or potentially a third black hole, could be injected into the galaxy, slowing the pair's orbits enough for a merger.

However, given that B2 0402+379 is a fossil cluster, further galaxy mergers are unlikely.

“We're looking forward to tracking the core of B2 0402+379 to find out how much gas is present,” said Tirth Surti, an undergraduate at Stanford University.

“This should give us more insight into whether supermassive black holes may eventually merge or remain stuck as binaries.”

of result will appear in astrophysical journal.

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Tirth Surti other. 2024. Central kinematics and black hole mass of 4C+37.11. APJ 960, 110; doi: 10.3847/1538-4357/ad14fa

Source: www.sci.news