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- Ade, Peter, et al.
(author)
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The Simons Observatory : science goals and forecasts
- 2019
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In: Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics. - : IOP Publishing. - 1475-7516. ; :2
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The Simons Observatory (SO) is a new cosmic microwave background experiment being built on Cerro Toco in Chile, due to begin observations in the early 2020s. We describe the scientific goals of the experiment, motivate the design, and forecast its performance. SO will measure the temperature and polarization anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background in six frequency bands centered at: 27, 39, 93, 145, 225 and 280 GHz. The initial con figuration of SO will have three small-aperture 0.5-m telescopes and one large-aperture 6-m telescope, with a total of 60,000 cryogenic bolometers. Our key science goals are to characterize the primordial perturbations, measure the number of relativistic species and the mass of neutrinos, test for deviations from a cosmological constant, improve our understanding of galaxy evolution, and constrain the duration of reionization. The small aperture telescopes will target the largest angular scales observable from Chile, mapping approximate to 10% of the sky to a white noise level of 2 mu K-arcmin in combined 93 and 145 GHz bands, to measure the primordial tensor-to-scalar ratio, r, at a target level of sigma(r) = 0.003. The large aperture telescope will map approximate to 40% of the sky at arcminute angular resolution to an expected white noise level of 6 mu K-arcmin in combined 93 and 145 GHz bands, overlapping with the majority of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope sky region and partially with the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument. With up to an order of magnitude lower polarization noise than maps from the Planck satellite, the high-resolution sky maps will constrain cosmological parameters derived from the damping tail, gravitational lensing of the microwave background, the primordial bispectrum, and the thermal and kinematic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effects, and will aid in delensing the large-angle polarization signal to measure the tensor-to-scalar ratio. The survey will also provide a legacy catalog of 16,000 galaxy clusters and more than 20,000 extragalactic sources.
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- Dong, Yiran, et al.
(author)
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Physiology, Metabolism, and Fossilization of Hot-Spring Filamentous Microbial Mats
- 2019
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In: Astrobiology. - : MARY ANN LIEBERT, INC. - 1531-1074 .- 1557-8070. ; 19:12
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The evolutionarily ancient Aquificales bacterium Sulfurihydrogenibium spp. dominates filamentous microbial mat communities in shallow, fast-flowing, and dysoxic hot-spring drainage systems around the world. In the present study, field observations of these fettuccini-like microbial mats at Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park are integrated with geology, geochemistry, hydrology, microscopy, and multi-omic molecular biology analyses. Strategic sampling of living filamentous mats along with the hot-spring CaCO3 (travertine) in which they are actively being entombed and fossilized has permitted the first direct linkage of Sulfurihydrogenibium spp. physiology and metabolism with the formation of distinct travertine streamer microbial biomarkers. Results indicate that, during chemoautotrophy and CO2 carbon fixation, the 87-98% Sulfurihydrogenibium-dominated mats utilize chaperons to facilitate enzyme stability and function. High-abundance transcripts and proteins for type IV pili and extracellular polymeric substances (EPSs) are consistent with their strong mucus-rich filaments tens of centimeters long that withstand hydrodynamic shear as they become encrusted by more than 5mm of travertine per day. Their primary energy source is the oxidation of reduced sulfur (e.g., sulfide, sulfur, or thiosulfate) and the simultaneous uptake of extremely low concentrations of dissolved O-2 facilitated by bd-type cytochromes. The formation of elevated travertine ridges permits the Sulfurihydrogenibium-dominated mats to create a shallow platform from which to access low levels of dissolved oxygen at the virtual exclusion of other microorganisms. These ridged travertine streamer microbial biomarkers are well preserved and create a robust fossil record of microbial physiological and metabolic activities in modern and ancient hot-spring ecosystems.
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