Oxygen‑Coordinated Single Mn Sites for Efficient Electrocatalytic Nitrate Reduction to Ammonia

Electrocatalytic nitrate reduction reaction has attracted increasing attention due to its goal of low carbon emission and environmental protection.Here,we report an efficient NitRR catalyst composed of single Mn sites with atomically dispersed oxygen(O)coordination on bacterial cellulose-converted graphitic carbon(Mn-O-C).Evidence of the atomically dispersed Mn-(O-C_(2))_(4)moieties embedding in the exposed basal plane of carbon surface is confirmed by X-ray absorption spectroscopy.As a result,the as-synthesized Mn-O-C catalyst exhibits superior NitRR activity with an NH_(3)yield rate(RNH_(3))of 1476.9±62.6μg h^(−1)cm^(−2)at−0.7 V(vs.reversible hydrogen electrode,RHE)and a faradaic efficiency(FE)of 89.0±3.8%at−0.5 V(vs.RHE)under ambient conditions.Further,when evaluated with a practical flow cell,Mn-O-C shows a high RNH_(3)of 3706.7±552.0μg h^(−1)cm^(−2)at a current density of 100 mA cm−2,2.5 times of that in the H cell.The in situ FT-IR and Raman spectroscopic studies combined with theoretical calculations indicate that the Mn-(O-C_(2))_(4)sites not only effectively inhibit the competitive hydrogen evolution reaction,but also greatly promote the adsorption and activation of nitrate(NO_(3)^(−)),thus boosting both the FE and selectivity of NH_(3)over Mn-(O-C_(2))_(4)sites.

Spectroscopy and molecule opacity investigation on excited states of SiS

The SiS molecule,which plays a significant role in space,has attracted a great deal of attention for many years.Due to complex interactions among its low-lying electronic states,precise information regarding the molecular structure of SiS is limited.To obtain accurate information about the structure of its excited states,the high-precision multireference configuration interaction(MRCI)method has been utilized.This method is used to calculate the potential energy curves(PECs)of the 18Λ–S states corresponding to the lowest dissociation limit of SiS.The core–valence correlation effect,Davidson’s correction and the scalar relativistic effect are also included to guarantee the precision of the MRCI calculation.Based on the calculated PECs,the spectroscopic constants of quasi-bound and bound electronic states are calculated and they are in accordance with previous experimental results.The transition dipole moments(TDMs)and dipole moments(DMs)are determined by the MRCI method.In addition,the abrupt variations of the DMs for the 1^(5)Σ^(+)and 2^(5)Σ^(+)states at the avoided crossing point are attributed to the variation of the electronic configuration.The opacity of SiS at a pressure of 100 atms is presented across a series of temperatures.With increasing temperature,the expanding population of excited states blurs the band boundaries.

Pressure-Driven Energy Band Gap Narrowing of λ-N_(2)

Probing the energy band gap of solid nitrogen at high pressures is of importance for understanding pressuredriven changes in electronic structures and insulator-to-metal transitions under high pressure.The λ-N_(2) formed by cold compression is known to be the most stable one in all solid nitrogen phases observed so far.By optimizing the optical system,we successfully measured the high-pressure absorption spectra of λ-N_(2) covering the polymericnitrogen synthetic pressures(124 GPa-165 GPa).The measured optical band gap decreases with increasing pressure,from 2.23 eV at 124 GPa to 1.55 eV at 165 GPa,with a negative pressure coefficient of-18.4 meV/GPa,which is consistent with the result from our ab initio total-energy calculations(-22.6 meV/GPa).The extrapolative metallization pressure for theλ-N_(2) is around 288(18)GPa,which is close to the metallization pressure(280 GPa)for the η-N_(2) expected by previous absorption edge and direct electrical measurements.Our results provide a direct spectroscopic evidence for the pressure-driven band gap narrowing of solid nitrogen.

Confirmation of a Sub-Saturn-size Transiting Exoplanet Orbiting a G Dwarf:TOI-1194 b and a Very Low Mass Companion Star: TOI-1251 B from TESS

We report the confirmation of a sub-Saturn-size exoplanet,TOI-1194 b,with a mass of about 0.456+0.055-0.051M_(J),and a very low mass companion star with a mass of about 96.5±1.5 MJ,TOI-1251 B.Exoplanet candidates provided by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite(TESS)are suitable for further follow-up observations by ground-based telescopes with small and medium apertures.The analysis is performed based on data from several telescopes worldwide,including telescopes in the Sino-German multiband photometric campaign,which aimed at confirming TESS Objects of Interest(TOIs)using ground-based small-aperture and medium-aperture telescopes,especially for long-period targets.TOI-1194 b is confirmed based on the consistent periodic transit depths from the multiband photometric data.We measure an orbital period of 2.310644±0.000001 days,the radius is 0.767+0.045-0.041RJ and the amplitude of the RV curve is 69.4_(-7.3)^(+7.9)m s^(-1).TOI-1251 B is confirmed based on the multiband photometric and high-resolution spectroscopic data,whose orbital period is 5.963054+0.000002-0.000001days,radius is 0.947+0.035-0.033 R_(J) and amplitude of the RV curve is 9849_(-40)^(+42)ms^(-1).

On the Identification of N-rich Metal-poor Field Stars with Future Chinese Space Station Telescope

During the long term evolution of globular clusters(GCs), some member stars are lost to the field. The recently found nitrogen-rich(N-rich) metal-poor field stars are promising candidates of these GC escapees, since N enhancement is the fingerprint of chemically enhanced populations in GCs. In this work, we discuss the possibility of identifying N-rich metal-poor field stars with the upcoming Chinese Space Station Telescope(CSST). We focus on the main survey camera with NUV, u, g, r, i, z, y filters and slitless spectrograph with a resolution about 200.The combination of UV sensitive equipment and prominent N-related molecular lines in the UV band bodes well for the identification: the color–color diagram of(u-g) versus(g-r) is capable of separating N-rich field stars from normal halo stars, if metallicity can be estimated without using the information on u-band photometry.Besides, the synthetic spectra show that a signal-to-noise ratio of 10 is sufficient to identify N-rich field stars. In the near future, a large sample of N-rich field stars found by CSST, combined with state-of-the-art N-body simulations will be crucial to deciphering GC-Galaxy co-evolution.

Application of a microscopic optical potential of chiral effective field theory in (p, d) transfer reactions

The microscopic global nucleon–nucleus optical model potential(OMP)proposed by Whitehead,Lim,and Holt,the WLH potential(Whitehead et al.,Phys Rev Lett 127:182502,2021),which was constructed in the framework of many-body per-turbation theory with state-of-the-art nuclear interactions from chiral effective field theory(EFT),was tested with(p,d)transfer reactions calculated using adiabatic wave approximation.The target nuclei included both stable and unstable nuclei,and the incident energies reached 200 MeV.The results were compared with experimental data and predictions using the phenomenological global optical potential of Koning and Delaroche,the KD02 potential.Overall,we found that the micro-scopic WLH potential described the(p,d)reaction angular distributions similarly to the phenomenological KD02 potential;however,the former was slightly better than the latter for radioactive targets.On average,the obtained spectroscopic factors(SFs)using both microscopic and phenomenological potentials were similar when the incident energies were below approxi-mately 120 MeV.However,their difference tended to increase at higher incident energies,which was particularly apparent for the doubly magic target nucleus 40Ca.

Analysis of the Impact of the Blazhko Effect Both on the Van Hoof Effect and Radial Velocity Amplitude in the Star RR Lyr

The Van Hoof effect is a phase shift existing between the radial velocity curves of hydrogen and metallic lines within the atmosphere of pulsating stars.In this article,we present a study of this phenomenon through the spectra of the brightest pulsating star RR Lyr of RR Lyrae stars recorded for 22 yr.We based ourselves,on the one hand,on 1268 spectra(41 nights of observation)recorded between the years 1994 and 1997 at the Observatory of Haute Provence(OHP,France)previously observed by Chadid and Gillet,and on the other hand on 1569 spectra(46nights of observation)recorded at our Oukaimeden Observatory(Morocco)between 2015 and 2016.Through this study,we have detected information on atmospheric dynamics that had not previously been detected.Indeed,the Van Hoof effect which results in a clear correlation between the radial velocities of hydrogen and those of the metallic lines has been observed and analyzed at different Blazhko phases.A correlation between the radial velocities of different metallic lines located in the lower atmosphere has been observed as well.For the first time,we were able to show that the amplitude of the radial velocity curves deduced from the lines of hydrogen and that of FeⅡ(λ4923.921?)increases toward the minimum of the Blazhko cycle and decreases toward the maximum of the same Blazhko cycle.Furthermore,we found that the Van Hoof effect is also modulated by the Blazhko effect.Thus,toward the minimum of the Blazhko cycle the Van Hoof effect is more visible and at the maximum of the Blazhko cycle,this effect is minimal.We also observed the temporal evolution of the amplitudes of the radial velocities of the lower and upper atmosphere.When observed over a long time,we can interpret it as a function of the Blazhko phases.

Theoretical uncertainties of(d,^(3)He)and(^(3)He,d)reactions owing to the uncertainties of optical model potentials

The theoretical uncertainties of single proton transfer cross sections of the(^(3)He,d)and(d,^(3)He)reactions,owing to the uncertainties of the entrance-and exit-channel optical model potentials,are examined with the^(30)Si(^(3)He,d)^(31)P,^(13)B(d,^(3)He)^(12)Be,and^(34)S(^(3)He,d)^(35)Cl reactions at incident energies of 25,46,and 25 MeV,respectively,within the framework of the distorted wave Born approximation.The differential cross sections at the first peaks in the angular distributions of these reactions are found to have uncertainties of approximately 5%,owing to the uncertainties in the optical model potentials from 20,000 calculations of randomly sampled parameters.This amount of uncertainty is found to be nearly independent of the angular momentum transfer and the target masses within the studied range of incident energies.Uncertainties in the single proton spectroscopic factors obtained by matching the theoretical and experimental cross sections at different scattering angles are also discussed.

Fault Diagnosis of the LAMOST Fiber Positioner Based on a Long Short-term Memory(LSTM)Deep Neural Network

The Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope(LAMOST)has been in normal operation for more than 10 yr,and routine maintenance is performed on the fiber positioner every summer.The positioning accuracy of the fiber positioner directly affects the observation performance of LAMOST,and incorrect fiber positioner positioning accuracy will not only increase the interference probability of adjacent fiber positioners but also reduces the observation efficiency of LAMOST.At present,during the manual maintenance process of the positioner,the fault cause of the positioner is determined and analyzed when the positioning accuracy does not meet the preset requirements.This causes maintenance to take a long time,and the efficiency is low.To quickly locate the fault cause of the positioner,the repeated positioning accuracy and open-loop calibration curve data of each positioner are obtained in this paper through the photographic measurement method.Based on a systematic analysis of the operational characteristics of the faulty positioner,the fault causes are classified.After training a deep learning model based on long short-term memory,the positioner fault causes can be quickly located to effectively improve the efficiency of positioner fault cause analysis.The relevant data can also provide valuable information for annual routine maintenance methods and positioner designs in the future.The method of using a deep learning model to analyze positioner operation failures introduced in this paper is also of general significance for the maintenance and design optimization of fiber positioners using a similar double-turn gear transmission system.

NGC 4117:A New Compton-thick AGN Revealed by Broadband X-Ray Spectral Analysis

In this paper,we present the broadband(0.5–195 keV)X-ray spectral analysis for one of the newly detected AGNs in the Swift-BAT 105 month Hard X-ray Survey Catalog,NGC 4117.According to our ongoing research on low luminosity AGNs from the Swift-BAT 105 month catalog,we examine whether they are indeed low luminosity or heavily obscured AGNs.One of the AGNs in our sample is NGC 4117,where we discover it could be potentially a CTAGN.Therefore to examine NGC 4117 in detail,we combined the high energy Swift-BAT data with low energy data from XMM-Newton and Swift-XRT,and fitted the spectra simultaneously using physically-motivated models.A high absorption occurred at lower energies,i.e.,below 3 keV.Past studies suggested that NGC 4117was heavily obscured with a large column density(~10^(23)cm^(-2)).Our fitting suggests that this AGN is in the Compton-thick regime with a predicted line-of-sight column density(N_(H,los))of 3.82×1024cm^(-2)and a torus column density(N_(H,tor))of 3.07×10^(24)cm^(-2).Both models yield intrinsic luminosity of 1.03×10^(42)erg s^(-1)at 2–10 keV while our bolometric luminosity is 2.05×10^(43)erg s^(-1),indicating that NGC 4117 is not an intrinsically low luminosity AGN.Rather,it is a standard AGN.The value of Eddington ratio that we obtained is 0.22,suggesting a very high accretion rate for this AGN.

Optical Spectroscopy of Classical Be Stars in Old Open Clusters

We performed the optical spectroscopy of 16 classical Be stars in 11 open clusters older than 100 Myr.Ours is the first spectroscopic study of classical Be stars in open clusters older than 100 Myr.We found that the Hαemission strength of most of the stars is less than 40?,in agreement with previous studies.Our analysis further suggests that one of the stars,[KW97]35–12,might be a weak Hαemitter in nature,showing Hαequivalent width of-0.5?.Interestingly,we also found that the newly detected classical Be star LSⅢ+4737b might be a component of the possible visual binary system LSⅢ+4737,where the other companion is also a classical Be star.Hence,the present study indicates the possible detection of a binary Be system.Moreover,it is observed that all 16 stars exhibit a lesser number of emission lines compared to classical Be stars younger than 100 Myr.Furthermore,the spectral type distribution analysis of B-type and classical Be stars for the selected clusters points out that the existence of CBe stars can depend on the spectral type distribution of B-type stars present in these clusters.

Identifying Symbiotic Stars with Machine Learning

Symbiotic stars are interacting binary systems, making them valuable for studying various astronomical phenomena, such as stellar evolution, mass transfer, and accretion processes. Despite recent progress in the discovery of symbiotic stars, a significant discrepancy between the observed population of symbiotic stars and the number predicted by theoretical models. To bridge this gap, this study utilized machine learning techniques to efficiently identify new symbiotic star candidates. Three algorithms(XGBoost, LightGBM, and Decision Tree)were applied to a data set of 198 confirmed symbiotic stars and the resulting model was then used to analyze data from the LAMOST survey, leading to the identification of 11,709 potential symbiotic star candidates. Out of these potential symbiotic star candidates listed in the catalog, 15 have spectra available in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey(SDSS) survey. Among these 15 candidates, two candidates, namely V^(*)V603 Ori and V^(*)GN Tau, have been confirmed as symbiotic stars. The remaining 11 candidates have been classified as accreting-only symbiotic star candidates. The other two candidates, one of which has been identified as a galaxy by both SDSS and LAMOST surveys, and the other identified as a quasar by SDSS survey and as a galaxy by LAMOST survey.

Vibrational spectroscopy-are we close to finding a solution for early pancreatic cancer diagnosis?

Pancreatic cancer(PC)is an aggressive and lethal neoplasm,ranking seventh in the world for cancer deaths,with an overall 5-year survival rate of below 10%.The knowledge about PC pathogenesis is rapidly expanding.New aspects of tumor biology,including its molecular and morphological heterogeneity,have been reported to explain the complicated“cross-talk”that occurs between the cancer cells and the tumor stroma or the nature of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma-associated neural remodeling.Nevertheless,currently,there are no specific and sensitive diagnosis options for PC.Vibrational spectroscopy(VS)shows a promising role in the development of early diagnosis technology.In this review,we summarize recent reports about improvements in spectroscopic methodologies,briefly explain and highlight the drawbacks of each of them,and discuss available solutions.The important aspects of spectroscopic data evaluation with multivariate analysis and a convolutional neural network methodology are depicted.We conclude by presenting a study design for systemic verification of the VS-based methods in the diagnosis of PC.

Identification of a Reliable DFT Calculation Method to Predict the Ground-and Excited-State Properties of Nickel(Ⅱ) Complexes with Porphyrin in Crude Oil

Metalloporphyrins have devastating effects on the deep processing and efficient utilization of petroleum resources. Various porphyrins are derived from porphin by substitution at the β, meso, or both positions. Herein, we focus on the interaction between nickel(Ⅱ) and the porphyrin skeleton. Five different density functionals were selected for determining a reliable approach to simulate porphyrin-nickel(Ⅱ) complexes. At D4h symmetry, the 10b1g, 15a1g, 4e1g and 9b2g were dominated by the 3d character of nickel. Compared with pure density functional, the hybrid functional gave larger highest occupied molecular orbital(HOMO) and lowest unoccupied molecular orbital(LUMO) gap, and the higher HOMO-LUMO gap also corresponded to a higher excitation energy. The characteristic Soret and Q bands modeled by timedependent density functional theory(TDDFT) calculations matched well with experimental results, and the absorption was discussed in detail with natural transition orbitals(NTO) analysis. Furthermore, the binding character of nickel(Ⅱ) with various substituted porphyrins were calculated at perdew-burke-ernzerhof(PBE) level, showed that the geometry and complexation behavior of porphyrin-nickel(Ⅱ) complexes could be significantly tuned by different substituents. The symmetry of the complex was reduced and the skeleton ring get distortion when introducing different substituents. Compared with ETIO porphyrin, the introduction of phenyl on the β position can expand the conjugated system and promote the covalent character of Ni-N bond.

Sodium Abundances in Very Metal-poor Stars

Chemical composition of very metal-poor(VMP)stars can provide observational constraints on current models of nucleosynthesis and the chemical evolution of the Galaxy.It has been found that the scatter of[Na/Fe]versus[Fe/H]in VMP stars is very large in contrast with most other elements.Moreover,a negative slope in[Na/Fe]versus[Fe/H]was found for giants,which is very unlikely according to the theory of nucleosynthesis.For the sample of93 VMP stars in the metallicity range-4.25<[Fe/H]<-1.64 we obtained NLTE sodium abundances using the line profile fitting method by employing accurate atmospheric parameters determined when taking into account NLTE line formation for both FeⅠand FeⅡ.Originally selected from the LAMOST low-resolution spectral database,the spectra of stars were obtained with the High Dispersion Spectrograph of the Subaru Telescope.For 57turn-off stars in metallicity domain-3.04<[Fe/H]<-1.64,we obtained mean[Na/Fe]=-0.29±0.14 and positive slope 0.09±0.06.For 21 giants distributed over metallicity-3.59<[Fe/H]<-2.19,we found mean[Na/Fe]=-0.35±0.1 and positive slope 0.07±0.07.Our[Na/Fe]trend is lower by~0.2 dex,compared to the modern GCE model.We believe the GCE model should be adjusted,by considering the associated scatter.Twelve stars in our sample are found to be outliers,with too low or too high Na abundances.

Benchmarking calculations of excitation energies and transition properties with spectroscopic accuracy of highly charged ions used for the fusion plasma and astrophysical plasma

Atomic radiative data such as excitation energies, transition wavelengths, radiative rates, and level lifetimes with high precision are the essential parameters for the abundance analysis, simulation, and diagnostics in fusion and astrophysical plasmas. In this work, we mainly focus on reviewing our two projects performed in the past decade. One is about the ions with Z■30 that are generally of astrophysical interest, and the other one is about the highly charged krypton(Z = 36)and tungsten(Z = 74) ions that are relevant in research of magnetic confinement fusion. Two different and independent methods, namely, multiconfiguration Dirac–Hartree–Fock(MCDHF) and the relativistic many-body perturbation theory(RMBPT) are usually used in our studies. As a complement/extension to our previous works for highly charged tungsten ions with open M-shell and open N-shell, we also mainly focus on presenting and discussing our complete RMBPT and MCDHF calculations for the excitation energies, wavelengths, electric dipole(E1), magnetic dipole(M1), electric quadrupole(E2), and magnetic quadrupole(M2) transition properties, and level lifetimes for the lowest 148 levels belonging to the 3l3configurations in Al-like W61+. We also summarize the uncertainties of our systematical theoretical calculations, by cross-checking/validating our datasets from our RMBPT and MCDHF calculations, and by detailed comparisons with available accurate observations and other theoretical calculations. The data are openly available in Science Data Bank at https://doi.org/10.57760/sciencedb.10569.

Modified Masses and Parallaxes of Close Binary Systems: HD 39438

We present the detailed fundamental stellar parameters of the close visual binary system HD 39438 for the first time. We used Al-Wardat's method for analyzing binary and multiple stellar systems. The method implements Kurucz's plane parallel model atmospheres to construct synthetic spectral energy distributions(SEDs) for both components of the system. It then combines the results of the spectroscopic analysis with the photometric analysis and compares them with the observed ones to construct the best synthetic SED for the combined system. The analysis gives the precise fundamental parameters of the individual components of the system. Based on the positions of the components of HD 39438 on the H-R diagram, and evolutionary and isochrone tracks, we found that the system belongs to the main sequence stars with masses of 1.24 and 0.98 solar masses for the components A and B, respectively, and age of 1.995 Gyr for both components. The main result of HD 39438 is new dynamical parallax, which is estimated to be 16.689 ± 0.03 mas.

Detection of TiO and VO in the Atmosphere of WASP-121b and Evidence For its Temporal Variation

We report the transit observations of the ultra-hot Jupiter WASP-121b using the Goodman High Throughput Spectrograph at the 4 m ground-based Southern Astrophysical Research Telescope,covering the wavelength range502-900 nm.By dividing the target and reference star into 19 spectroscopic passbands and applying differential spectrophotometry,we derive spectroscopic transit light curves and fit them using a Gaussian process framework to determine transit depths for every passband.The obtained optical transmission spectrum shows a steep increased slope toward the blue wavelength,which seems to be too steep to be accounted for by Rayleigh scattering alone.We note that the transmission spectrum from this work and other works differ obviously from each other,which was pointed out previously by Wilson et al.as evidence for temporal atmospheric variation.We perform a free chemistry retrieval analysis on the optical transmission spectra from this work and the literature HST/WFC3 NIR spectrum.We determine TiO,VO and H_(2)O with abundances of-5.95_(-0.42)^(+0.47)dex,-6.72_(-1.79)^(+0.51)dex and-4.13_(-0.46)^(+0.63)dex,respectively.We compare the abundances of all three of these molecules derived from this work and previous works,and find that they are not consistent with each other,indicating the chemical compositions of the terminator region may change over long timescales.Future multi-epoch and high-precision transit observations are required to further confirm this phenomenon.We note that when combining the transmission spectra in the optical and in NIR in retrieval analysis,the abundances of V and VO,the NIR-to-optical offset and the cloud deck pressure may be coupled with each other.

Effective technology for processing industrial volatile organic compounds by the atmospheric pressure microwave plasma torch

In this study,we investigated the abatement of volatile organic compounds(VOCs)by the atmospheric pressure microwave plasma torch(AMPT).To study the treatment efficiency of AMPT,we used the toluene and water-based varnish to simulate VOCs,respectively.By measuring the compounds and contents of the mixture gas before/after the microwave plasma process,we have calculated the treatment efficiency of AMPT.The experimental results show that the treatment efficiency of AMPT for toluene with a concentration of 17.32×10^(4) ppm is up to 60 g/kWh with the removal rate of 86%.For the volatile compounds of water-based varnish,the removal efficiency is up to 97.99%.We have demonstrated the higher potential for VOCs removal of the AMPT process.

Speckle-interferometric Study of Close Visual Binary System HIP 11253(HD 14874)using Gaia(DR2 and EDR3)

We present a comprehensive set of physical and geometrical parameters for each of the components of the close visual binary system HIP 11253(HD 14874).We present an analysis for the binary and multiple stellar systems with the aim to obtain a match between the overall observational spectral energy distribution of the system and the spectral synthesis created from model atmospheres using Al-Wardat's method for analyzing binary and multiple stellar systems.The epoch positions are used to determine the orbital parameters and the total mass.The parameters of both components are derived as:T_(eff)^(a)=6025,T_(eff)^(b)=4710,logg_(a)=4.55,logg_(b)=4.60,R_(a)=1.125 R_(⊙),R_(b)=0.88R_(⊙),L_(a)=1.849 L_(⊙),L_(b)=0.342 L_(⊙).Our analysis shows that the spectral types of the components are F9 and K3.By combining the orbital solution with the parallax measurements of Gaia DR2 and EDR3,we estimate the individual masses using the H-R diagram as M_(a)=1.09 M_(⊙)and M_(b)=0.59 M_(⊙)for using Gaia DR2 parallax and M_(a)=1.10 M_(⊙)and M_(b)=0.61 M_(⊙)for using Gaia EDR3 parallax.Finally,the location of both system's components on the stellar evolutionary tracks is presented.