We have numerically studied the instability of the spherically symmetric standing accretion shock wave against non-spherical perturbations. We have in mind the application to the collapse-driven supernovae in the post bounce phase, where the prompt shock wave generated by core bounce is commonly stalled. We take an experimental stand point in this paper. Using spherically symmetric, completely steady, shocked accretion flows as unperturbed states, we have clearly observed both the linear growth and the subsequent nonlinear saturation of the instability. In so doing, we have employed a realistic equation of state together with heating and cooling via neutrino reactions with nucleons. We have done a mode analysis based on the spherical harmonics decomposition and found that the modes with ℓ = 1, 2 are dominant not only in the linear regime, but also after the nonlinear couplings generate various modes and the saturation occurs. Varying the neutrino luminosity, we have constructed the unperturbed states both with and without a negative entropy-gradient. We have found that in both cases the growth of the instability is similar, suggesting the convection does not play a dominant role, which also appears to be supported by the recent linear analysis of the convection in accretion flows by Foglizzo et al. The real part of the eigen frequency seems to be mainly determined by the advection time rather than by the sound-crossing time. Whatever the cause may be, the instability is favorable for the shock revival.

The mammalian circadian system is comprised of a central clock in the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) and a network of peripheral oscillators located in all of the major organ systems. The SCN is traditionally thought to be positioned at the top of the hierarchy, with SCN lesions resulting in an arrhythmic organism. However, recent work has demonstrated that the SCN and peripheral tissues generate independent circadian oscillations in Per1 clock gene expression in vitro. In the present study, we sought to clarify the role of the SCN in the intact system by recording rhythms in clock gene expression in vivo. A practical imaging protocol was developed that enables us to measure circadian rhythms easily, noninvasively, and longitudinally in individual mice. Circadian oscillations were detected in the kidney, liver, and submandibular gland studied in about half of the SCN-lesioned, behaviorally arrhythmic mice. However, their amplitude was decreased in these organs. Free-running periods of peripheral clocks were identical to those of activity rhythms recorded before the SCN lesion. Thus, we can report for the first time that many of the fundamental properties of circadian oscillations in peripheral clocks in vivo are maintained in the absence of SCN control.

We have studied nonaxisymmetric standing accretion shock instabilities, or SASI, using three-dimensional (3D) hydrodynamical simulations. This is an extension of our previous study of axisymmetric SASI. We have prepared a spherically symmetric and steady accretion flow through a standing shock wave onto a protoYneutron star, taking into account a realistic equation of state and neutrino heating and cooling. This unperturbed model is meant to represent approximately the typical postbounce phase of core-collapse supernovae. We then added a small perturbation ($1%) to the radial velocity and computed the ensuing evolutions. Both axisymmetric and nonaxisymmetric perturbations have been imposed. We have applied mode analysis to the nonspherical deformation of the shock surface, using spherical harmonics. We have found that (1) the growth rates of SASI are degenerate with respect to the azimuthal index m of the spherical harmonics Y m l , just as expected for a spherically symmetric background; (2) nonlinear mode couplings produce only m ¼ 0 modes for axisymmetric perturbations, whereas m 6 ¼ 0 modes are also generated in the nonaxisymmetric cases, according to the selection rule for quadratic couplings; (3) the nonlinear saturation level of each mode is lower in general for 3D than for 2D, because a larger number of modes contribute to turbulence in 3D; (4) low-l modes are dominant in the nonlinear phase; (5) equipartition is nearly established among different m modes in the nonlinear phase; (6) spectra with respect to l obey power laws with a slope slightly steeper for 3D; and (7) although these features are common to the models with and without a shock revival at the end of the simulation, the dominance of low-l modes is more remarkable in the models with a shock revival.

We present the results of numerical experiments, in which we study how the asphericities induced by the growth of the standing accretion shock instability (SASI) produce the gravitational waveforms in the postbounce phase of corecollapse supernovae. To obtain the neutrino-driven explosions, we parameterize the neutrino fluxes emitted from the central protoneutron star and approximate the neutrino transfer by a light-bulb scheme. We find that the waveforms due to the anisotropic neutrino emissions show the monotonic increase with time, whose amplitudes are up to two order-of-magnitudes larger than the ones from the convective matter motions outside the protoneutron stars. We point out that the amplitudes begin to become larger when the growth of the SASI enters the nonlinear phase, in which the deformation of the shocks and the neutrino anisotropy become large. From the spectrum analysis of the waveforms, we find that the amplitudes from the neutrinos are dominant over the ones from the matter motions at the frequency below ∼ 100 Hz, which are suggested to be within the detection limits of the detectors in the next generation such as LCGT and the advanced LIGO for a supernova at 10 kpc. As a contribution to the gravitational wave background, we show that the amplitudes from this source could be larger at the frequency above ∼ 1 Hz than the primordial gravitational wave backgrounds, but unfortunately, invisible to the proposed space-based detectors.

We study properties of gravitational waves based on the three-dimensional simulations, which demonstrate the neutrino-driven explosions aided by the standing accretion shock instability (SASI). Pushed by evidence supporting slow rotation prior to core-collapse, we focus on the asphericities in neutrino emissions and matter motions outside the protoneutron star. By performing a ray-tracing calculation in 3D, we estimate accurately the gravitational waveforms from anisotropic neutrino emissions. In contrast to the previous work assuming axisymmetry, we find that the gravitational waveforms vary much more stochastically because the explosion anisotropies depend sensitively on the growth of the SASI which develops chaotically in all directions. Our results show that the gravitational-wave spectrum has its peak near ∼ 100 Hz, reflecting the SASI-induced matter overturns of ∼ O(10) ms. We point out that the detection of such signals, possibly visible to the LIGO-class detectors for a Galactic supernova, could be an important probe into the long-veiled explosion mechanism.

Peripheral circadian clocks in mammals are strongly entrained by light-dark and eating cycles. Their physiological functions are maintained by the synchronization of the phase of organs via clock gene expression patterns. However, little is known about the adaptation of peripheral clocks to the timing of multiple daily meals. Here, we investigated the effect of irregular eating patterns, in terms of timing and volume, on their peripheral clocks in vivo. We found that the phase of the peripheral clocks was altered by the amount of food and the interval between feeding time points but was unaffected by the frequency of feeding, as long as the interval remained fixed. Moreover, our results suggest that a late dinner should be separated into 2 half-dinners in order to alleviate the effect of irregular phases of peripheral clocks.

We propose a ray-tracing method to estimate gravitational waves (GWs) generated by anisotropic neutrino emission in supernova cores. To calculate the gravitational waveforms, we derive analytic formulae in a useful form, which are applicable also for three-dimensional computations. Pushed by evidence of slow rotation prior to core-collapse, we focus on asphericities in neutrino emission and matter motions outside the protoneutron star. Based on the two-dimensional (2D) models, which mimic SASI-aided neutrino heating explosions, we compute the neutrino anisotropies via the ray-tracing method in a post-processing manner and calculate the resulting waveforms. For simplicity, neutrino absorption and emission by free nucleons, dominant processes outside the PNSs, are only taken into account, while the neutrino scattering and the velocity-dependent terms in the transport equations are neglected. With these computations, it is found that the waveforms exhibit more variety in contrast to the ones previously estimated by the ray-by-ray analysis (e.g., Kotake et al. (2007)). In addition to a positively growing feature, which was predicted to determine the total wave amplitudes predominantly, the waveforms are shown to exhibit large negative growth for some epochs during the growth of SASI. These features are found to stem from the excess of neutrino emission in lateral directions, which can be precisely captured by the ray-tracing calculation. Reflecting the nature of SASI

We investigate explosive nucleosynthesis in a non-rotating 15M ⊙ star with solar metallicity that explodes by a neutrino-heating supernova (SN) mechanism aided by both standing accretion shock instability (SASI) and convection. To trigger explosions in our two-dimensional hydrodynamic simulations, we approximate the neutrino transport with a simple light-bulb scheme and systematically change the neutrino fluxes emitted from the protoneutron star. By a post-processing calculation, we evaluate abundances and masses of the SN ejecta for nuclei with the mass number ≤ 70 employing a large nuclear reaction network. Aspherical abundance distributions, which are observed in nearby core-collapse SN remnants, are obtained for the non-rotating spherically-symmetric progenitor, due to the growth of low-mode SASI. Abundance pattern of the supernova ejecta is similar to that of the solar system for models whose masses ranges (0.4 − 0.5)M ⊙ of the ejecta from the inner region (≤ 10, 000 km) of the precollapse core. For the models, the explosion energies and the 56 Ni masses are ≃ 10 51 erg and (0.05 − 0.06)M ⊙ , respectively; their estimated baryonic masses of the neutron star are comparable to the ones observed in neutron-star binaries. These findings may have little uncertainty because most of the ejecta is composed by matter that is heated via the shock wave and has relatively definite abundances. The abundance ratios for Ne, Mg, Si and Fe observed in Cygnus loop are well reproduced with the SN ejecta from an inner region of the 15M ⊙ progenitor.