We report on the latest discovery of the HATNet project; a very hot giant planet orbiting a bright (V = 10.5) star with a small semi-major axis of a = 0.0377 +/- 0.0005 AU. Ephemeris for the system is P = 2.2047299 +/- 0.0000040 days, mid-transit time E = 2,453,790.2593 +/- 0.0010 (BJD). Based on the available spectroscopic data on the host star and photometry of the system, the planet has a mass of Mp = 1.78+/-^{0.08}_{0.05} MJup and radius of Rp = 1.36+/-^{0.20}_{0.09} RJup. The parent star is a slightly evolved F6 star with M = 1.47+/-^{0.08}_{-0.05} Msun,R = 1.84+/-^{0.23}_{0.11} Rsun, Teff = 6350 +/- 80 K, and metallicity [Fe/H] = +0.26 +/- 0.08. The relatively hot and large host star, combined with the close orbit of the planet, yield a very high planetary irradiance of (4.71+/-^{1.44}_{0.05}) 10^9 erg cm^{-2}s^{-1}, which places the planet near the top of the pM class of irradiated planets as defined by Fortney et al. (2007). If as predicted by Fortney et al. (2007) the planet re-radiates its absorbed energy before distributing it to the night side, the day-side temperature should be about (2730+/-^{150}_{100}) K. Because the host star is quite bright, measurement of the secondary eclipse should be feasible for ground-based telescopes, providing a good opportunity to compare the predictions of current hot Jupiter atmospheric models with the observations. Moreover, the host star falls in the field of the upcoming Kepler mission; hence extensive space-borne follow-up, including not only primary transit and secondary eclipse observations but also asteroseismology, will be possible.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ, 8 pages, 2 figure

Inertial Confinement Fusion is a promising option to provide massive, clean, and affordable energy for mankind in the future. The present status of research and development is hindered by hydrodynamical instabilities occurring at the intense compression of the target fuel by energetic laser beams. A recent patent combines advances in two fields: Detonations in relativistic fluid dynamics (RFD) and radiative energy deposition by plasmonic nano-shells. The initial compression of the target pellet can be decreased, not to reach the Rayleigh–Taylor or other instabilities, and rapid volume ignition can be achieved by a final and more energetic laser pulse, which can be as short as the penetration time of the light across the pellet. The reflectivity of the target can be made negligible as in the present direct drive and indirect drive experiments, and the absorptivity can be increased by one or two orders of magnitude by plasmonic nano-shells embedded in the target fuel. Thus, higher ignition temperature and radiation dominated dynamics can be achieved with the limited initial compression. Here, we propose that a short final light pulse can heat the target so that most of the interior will reach the ignition temperature simultaneously based on the results of RFD. This makes the development of any kind of instability impossible, which would prevent complete ignition of the target.

We report on the discovery of HAT-P-38b, a Saturn-mass exoplanet, transiting the $ V$$ =$ 12.56 dwarf star GSC 2314-00559 on a $ P$$ =$ 4.6404 d circular orbit. The host star is a 0.89 $ M_{\odot}$ late G dwarf, with solar metallicity and a radius of 0.92 $ R_{\odot}$ . The planetary companion has a mass of 0.27 $ M_{\rm J}$ and a radius of 0.82 $ R_{\rm J}$ . HAT-P-38b is one of the planets the mass and radius of which have ever been discovered to be the closest to those of Saturn.

In this work, the effects of femtosecond laser irradiation and doping with plasmonic gold nanorods on the degree of conversion (DC) of a urethane dimethacrylate (UDMA)–triethylene glycol dimethacrylate (TEGDMA) nanocomposite were investigated. The UDMA-TEGDMA photopolymer was prepared in a 3:1 weight ratio and doped with dodecanethiol- (DDT) capped gold nanorods of 25 × 75 or 25 × 85 nm nominal diameter and length. It was found that the presence of the gold nanorods alone (without direct plasmonic excitation) can increase the DC of the photopolymer by 6–15%. This increase was found to be similar to what could be achieved with a control heat treatment of 30 min at 180 °C. It was also shown that femtosecond laser impulses (795 nm, 5 mJ pulse energy, 50 fs pulse length, 2.83 Jcm⁻² fluence), applied after the photopolymerization under a standard dental curing lamp, can cause a 2–7% increase in the DC of undoped samples, even after thermal pre-treatment. The best DC values (12–15% increase) were obtained with combined nanorod doping and subsequent laser irradiation close to the plasmon resonance peak of the nanorods (760–800 nm), which proves that the excited plasmon field can directly facilitate double bond breakage (without thermoplasmonic effects due to the short pulse length) and increase the crosslink density independently from the initial photopolymerization process.

Studies of resilience of light-resonant nanoantennas in vacuum are extended to consider the case of polymer embedding. This modifies the nanoantenna’s lifetime and resonant laser pulse energy absorption. The effective resonance wavelength is shortened, the peak momentum of resonantly oscillating electrons in the nanorod is reduced by one-third, while the available lifespan of the resonance condition remains the same. This response is expected to strengthen the laser pulse induced nuclear fusion processes. Related numerical simulations were performed using particle-in-cell method in a simulation box of the size 0.223 μm³, treating the conduction electrons as strongly coupled plasma. In the modeling the polymer background was added with the experimentally measured refractive index of 1.53.