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2013

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Articles 151 - 180 of 371

Full-Text Articles in Astrophysics and Astronomy

Analyses Of Nonlinearity Measures In High-Amplitude Sound Propagation, Michael B. Muhlestein Jul 2013

Analyses Of Nonlinearity Measures In High-Amplitude Sound Propagation, Michael B. Muhlestein

Theses and Dissertations

Military aircraft generate high-amplitude noise which can cause injury to attending personnel. Efforts to mitigate the effects of this noise require a detailed understanding of the propagation of the noise, which was shown previously to be nonlinear. This thesis presents an analysis of high-amplitude noise propagation, emphasizing measures used to quantify the importance of considering nonlinearity. Two measures of the importance of nonlinearity are compared. These measures are the wave steepening factor and a skewness estimate. The wave steepening factor is a measure of how much nonlinear waveform steepening has occurred in a waveform. The skewness estimate is the skewness …

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Understanding The Origin Of The [Oi] Low-Velocity Component From T Tauri Stars, Elisabetta Rigliaco, Ilaria Pascucci, Uma Gorti, Suzan Edwards, D. Hollenbach Jul 2013

Understanding The Origin Of The [Oi] Low-Velocity Component From T Tauri Stars, Elisabetta Rigliaco, Ilaria Pascucci, Uma Gorti, Suzan Edwards, D. Hollenbach

Astronomy: Faculty Publications

The formation time, masses, and location of planets are strongly impacted by the physical mechanisms that disperse protoplanetary disks and the timescale over which protoplanetary material is cleared out. Accretion of matter onto the central star, protostellar winds/jets, magnetic disk winds, and photoevaporative winds operate concurrently. Hence, disentangling their relative contribution to disk dispersal requires identifying diagnostics that trace different star–disk environments. Here, we analyze the low-velocity component (LVC) of the oxygen optical forbidden lines, which is found to be blueshifted by a few km s−1 with respect to the stellar velocity. We find that the [O i] LVC …

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Characterization Of Ingaas Quantum Dot Chains, Tyler Drue Park Jul 2013

Characterization Of Ingaas Quantum Dot Chains, Tyler Drue Park

Theses and Dissertations

InGaAs quantum dot chains were grown with a low-temperature variation of the Stranski-Krastanov method, the conventional epitaxial method. This new method seeks to reduce indium segregation and intermixing in addition to giving greater control in the growth process. We used photoluminescence spectroscopy techniques to characterize the quality and electronic structure of these samples. We have recently used a transmission electron microscope to show how the quantum dots vary with annealing temperature. Some questions relating to the morphology of the samples cannot be answered by photoluminescence spectroscopy alone. Using transmission electron microscopy, we verified flattening of the quantum dots with annealing …

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Revision Of Empirical Electric Field Modeling In The Inner Magnetosphere Using Cluster Data, Hiroshi Matsui, Harlan E. Spence, Y. V. Khotyaintsev, P. A. Lindqvist Jul 2013

Revision Of Empirical Electric Field Modeling In The Inner Magnetosphere Using Cluster Data, Hiroshi Matsui, Harlan E. Spence, Y. V. Khotyaintsev, P. A. Lindqvist

Physics & Astronomy

Using Cluster data from the Electron Drift (EDI) and the Electric Field and Wave (EFW) instruments, we revise our empirically-based, inner-magnetospheric electric field (UNH-IMEF) model at 22.662 mV/m; K-p<1, 1K(p)<2, 2K(p)<3, 3K(p)<4, 4K(p)<5, and K(p)4(+). Patterns consist of one set of data and processing for smaller activities, and another for higher activities. As activity increases, the skewed potential contour related to the partial ring current appears on the nightside. With the revised analysis, we find that the skewed potential contours get clearer and potential contours get denser on the nightside and morningside. Since the fluctuating components are not negligible, standard deviations from the modeled values are included in the model. In this study, we perform validation of the derived model more extensively. We find experimentally that the skewed contours are located close to the last closed equipotential, consistent with previous theories. This gives physical context to our model and serves as one validation effort. As another validation effort, the derived results are compared with other models/measurements. From these comparisons, we conclude that our model has some clear advantages over the others.

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The Spacetime Geometry Of A Null Electromagnetic Field, Charles G. Torre Jul 2013

The Spacetime Geometry Of A Null Electromagnetic Field, Charles G. Torre

Presentations and Publications

We give a set of local geometric conditions on a spacetime metric which are necessary and sufficient for it to be a null electrovacuum, that is, the metric is part of a solution to the Einstein-Maxwell equations with a null electromagnetic field. These conditions are restrictions on a null congruence canonically constructed from the spacetime metric, and can involve up to five derivatives of the metric. The null electrovacuum conditions are counterparts of the Rainich conditions, which geometrically characterize non-null electrovacua. Given a spacetime satisfying the conditions for a null electrovacuum, a straightforward procedure builds the null electromagnetic field from …

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Magnetic Field Generation In A Jet-Sheath Plasma Via The Kinetic Kelvin-Helmholtz Instability, K.-I. Nishikawa, P. Hardee, B. Zhang, I. Dutan, M. Medvedev, E. J. Choi, K. W. Min, J. Niemiec, Y. Mizuno, A Nordlund, J T. Frederiksen, H Sol, M Pohl, Dieter H. Hartmann Jul 2013

Magnetic Field Generation In A Jet-Sheath Plasma Via The Kinetic Kelvin-Helmholtz Instability, K.-I. Nishikawa, P. Hardee, B. Zhang, I. Dutan, M. Medvedev, E. J. Choi, K. W. Min, J. Niemiec, Y. Mizuno, A Nordlund, J T. Frederiksen, H Sol, M Pohl, Dieter H. Hartmann

Publications

We have investigated the generation of magnetic fields associated with velocity shear between an unmagne-tized relativistic jet and an unmagnetized sheath plasma. We have examined the strong magnetic fields generated by ki-netic shear (Kelvin–Helmholtz) instabilities. Compared to the previous studies using counter-streaming performed by Alves et al. (2012), the structure of the kinetic Kelvin– Helmholtz instability (KKHI) of our jet-sheath configura-tion is slightly different, even for the global evolution of the strong transverse magnetic field. In our simulations the major components of growing modes are the electric field Ez, perpendicular to the flow boundary, and the magnetic field By, transverse …

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The Impact Of Bars On Disk Breaks As Probed By S⁴G Imaging, Juan Carlos Muñoz-Mateos, Trisha Mizusawa Jul 2013

The Impact Of Bars On Disk Breaks As Probed By S⁴G Imaging, Juan Carlos Muñoz-Mateos, Trisha Mizusawa

Aerospace, Physics, and Space Science Faculty Publications

We have analyzed the radial distribution of old stars in a sample of 218 nearby face-on disks, using deep 3.6μm images from the Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies. In particular, we have studied the structural properties of those disks with a broken or down-bending profile. We find that, on average, disks with a genuine single-exponential profile have a scale length and a central surface brightness which are intermediate to those of the inner and outer components of a down-bending disk with the same total stellar mass. In the particular case of barred galaxies, the ratio between the break …

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A Long-Term Variability Study Of Dying Low And Intermediate Mass Stars, Allyse Appel, Justin Reed Jul 2013

A Long-Term Variability Study Of Dying Low And Intermediate Mass Stars, Allyse Appel, Justin Reed

Symposium on Research and Creative Expression (SORCE)

We are studying the long-term light variation of dying stars (similar to the sun). These stars pulsate, causing them to vary in light. Our purpose is to better understand the internal structure of these objects though light curve and period analysis. These dying stars are in the proto-planetary nebula (PPN) phase, which lasts only a few thousand years between the red giant phase and the planetary nebula phase. First discovered with the Infrared Astronomical Satellite Survey in 1983, PPN emit strongly in the region, but the central stars of PPN can be studied in visible light. This summer we have …

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Binary Stars In Planetary Nebulae, Hannah Rotter Jul 2013

Binary Stars In Planetary Nebulae, Hannah Rotter

Symposium on Research and Creative Expression (SORCE)

When a star like the sun dies, it swells into a red giant and then expels its outer layers to form a planetary nebula. Eventually the outer layers leave the leftover core and it becomes a white dwarf. The cause of the many exotic shapes in the planetary nebulae is unknown; however, it is thought that binary stars may play a role in the shaping process. In this project we are studying the central stars of planetary nebulae to see if they vary in brightness, and to see if that variability is due to the central star having a binary …

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Hot Gas Lines In T Tauri Stars, David R. Ardila, Gregory J. Herczeg, Scott G. Gregory, Laura Ingleby, Kevin France, Alexander Brown, Suzan Edwards, Christopher Johns-Krull, Jeffrey L. Linsky, Hao Yang, Jeff A. Valenti, Hervé Abgrall, Richard D. Alexander, Edwin Bergin, Thomas Bethell, Joanna M. Brown, Nuria Calvet, Catherine Espaillat, Lynne A. Hillenbrand, Gaitee Hussain, Evelyne Roueff, Eric R. Schindhelm, Frederick M. Walter Jul 2013

Hot Gas Lines In T Tauri Stars, David R. Ardila, Gregory J. Herczeg, Scott G. Gregory, Laura Ingleby, Kevin France, Alexander Brown, Suzan Edwards, Christopher Johns-Krull, Jeffrey L. Linsky, Hao Yang, Jeff A. Valenti, Hervé Abgrall, Richard D. Alexander, Edwin Bergin, Thomas Bethell, Joanna M. Brown, Nuria Calvet, Catherine Espaillat, Lynne A. Hillenbrand, Gaitee Hussain, Evelyne Roueff, Eric R. Schindhelm, Frederick M. Walter

Astronomy: Faculty Publications

For Classical T Tauri Stars (CTTSs), the resonance doublets of N v, Si iv, and Civ, as well as the He ii 1640 Å line, trace hot gas flows and act as diagnostics of the accretion process. In this paper we assemble a large high-resolution, high-sensitivity data set of these lines in CTTSs and Weak T Tauri Stars (WTTSs). The sample comprises 35 stars: 1 Herbig Ae star, 28 CTTSs, and 6 WTTSs. We find that the Civ, Si iv, and N v lines in CTTSs all have similar shapes. We decompose the Civ and He ii lines into broad …

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Distribution Of Plasmoids In Post-Coronal Mass Ejection Current Sheets, L.-J. Guo, A. Bhattacharjee, Y.-M. Huang Jul 2013

Distribution Of Plasmoids In Post-Coronal Mass Ejection Current Sheets, L.-J. Guo, A. Bhattacharjee, Y.-M. Huang

Dartmouth Scholarship

Recently, the fragmentation of a current sheet in the high-Lundquist-number regime caused by the plasmoid instability has been proposed as a possible mechanism for fast reconnection. In this work, we investigate this scenario by comparing the distribution of plasmoids obtained from Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph (LASCO) observational data of a coronal mass ejection event with a resistive magnetohydrodynamic simulation of a similar event. The LASCO/C2 data are analyzed using visual inspection, whereas the numerical data are analyzed using both visual inspection and a more precise topological method. Contrasting the observational data with numerical data analyzed with both methods, we …

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Counting Photons To Calibrate A Photometer For Stellar Intensity Interferometry, Jason Chew Jul 2013

Counting Photons To Calibrate A Photometer For Stellar Intensity Interferometry, Jason Chew

Physics

We use a telescope and photometer to observe stellar photons and measure the rate of observed photons. Based on intensity spectra from the Spectrophotometric Catalogue of Stars, we also predict expected values for the photon rates, which we compare to our measurements. From this comparison, we measure the local optical depth to be τ = 0.60±0.25, a reasonable value. We find that our predictions are directly proportional to our measurements by a factor of 0.98 (+0.02, -0.27) . The similarity between our measurements and expectations shows that we are able to both predict and measure photon rates with accuracy.

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Emission-Line Galaxies From The Hubble Space Telescope Probing Evolution And Reionization Spectroscopically (Pears) Grism Survey. Ii. The Complete Sample., N. Pirzkal, Barry Rothberg, Chun Ly, Sangeeta Malhotra, James E. Rhoads, Norman A. Grogin, Tomas Dahlen, Kai G. Noeske, Gerhardt R. Meurer, Jeremy R. Walsh, Nimish P. Hathi, Seth H. Cohen, Andrea Bellini, Benne W. Holwerda, Amber N. Straughn, Matthew Mechtley, Rogier A. Windhorst Jul 2013

Emission-Line Galaxies From The Hubble Space Telescope Probing Evolution And Reionization Spectroscopically (Pears) Grism Survey. Ii. The Complete Sample., N. Pirzkal, Barry Rothberg, Chun Ly, Sangeeta Malhotra, James E. Rhoads, Norman A. Grogin, Tomas Dahlen, Kai G. Noeske, Gerhardt R. Meurer, Jeremy R. Walsh, Nimish P. Hathi, Seth H. Cohen, Andrea Bellini, Benne W. Holwerda, Amber N. Straughn, Matthew Mechtley, Rogier A. Windhorst

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

We present a full analysis of the Probing Evolution And Reionization Spectroscopically (PEARS) slitess grism spectroscopic data obtained with the Advanced Camera for Surveys on board Hubble Space Telescope. PEARS covers fields within both the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey (GOODS) North and South fields, making it ideal as a random survey of galaxies, as well as the availability of a wide variety of ancillary observations complemented by the spectroscopic results. Using the PEARS data, we are able to identify star-forming galaxies (SFGs) within the redshift volume 0 < z < 1.5. Star-forming regions in the PEARS survey are pinpointed independently of the host galaxy. This method allows us to detect the presence of multiple emission-line regions (ELRs) within a single galaxy. We identified a total of 1162 Hα, [O iii], and/or [O ii] emission lines in the PEARS sample of 906 galaxies to a limiting flux of ∼10−18 erg s−1 cm−2. The ELRs have also been compared to the properties of the host galaxy, including morphology, luminosity, and mass. From this analysis, we find three key results: (1) the computed line luminosities show evidence of a flattening in the luminosity function with increasing redshift; (2) the star-forming systems show evidence of complex morphologies with star formation occurring predominantly within one effective (half-light) radius. However, the morphologies show no correlation with host stellar mass. (3) Also, the number density of SFGs with M∗ 109 M decreases by an order of magnitude at z 0.5 relative to the number at 0.5 < z < 0.9, supporting the argument of galaxy downsizing.

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Peace: Pulsar Evaluation Algorithm For Candidate Extraction-A Software Package For Post-Analysis Processing Of Pulsar Survey Candidates, K. J. Lee, Kevin Stovall, Fredrick Jenet, Jose Guadalupe Martinez, Louis Percy Dartez, Alberto Mata, Grady Lunsford, Stephanie Cohen, C. M. Biwer, M. Rohr Jul 2013

Peace: Pulsar Evaluation Algorithm For Candidate Extraction-A Software Package For Post-Analysis Processing Of Pulsar Survey Candidates, K. J. Lee, Kevin Stovall, Fredrick Jenet, Jose Guadalupe Martinez, Louis Percy Dartez, Alberto Mata, Grady Lunsford, Stephanie Cohen, C. M. Biwer, M. Rohr

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Publications

Modern radio pulsar surveys produce a large volume of prospective candidates, the majority of which are polluted by human-created radio frequency interference or other forms of noise. Typically, large numbers of candidates need to be visually inspected in order to determine if they are real pulsars. This process can be labour intensive. In this paper, we introduce an algorithm called Pulsar Evaluation Algorithm for Candidate Extraction (peace) which improves the efficiency of identifying pulsar signals. The algorithm ranks the candidates based on a score function. Unlike popular machine-learning-based algorithms, no prior training data sets are required. This algorithm has been …

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Measuring The Evolutionary Rate Of Cooling Of Zz Ceti, Anjum S. Mukadam, Ted Von Hippel, Et Al. Jul 2013

Measuring The Evolutionary Rate Of Cooling Of Zz Ceti, Anjum S. Mukadam, Ted Von Hippel, Et Al.

Publications

We have finally measured the evolutionary rate of cooling of the pulsating hydrogen atmosphere (DA) white dwarf ZZ Ceti (Ross 548), as reflected by the drift rate of the 213.13260694 s period. Using 41 yr of time-series photometry from 1970 November to 2012 January, we determine the rate of change of this period with time to be dP/dt = (5.2 ± 1.4) × 10–15 s s–1 employing the O – C method and (5.45 ± 0.79) × 10–15 s s–1 using a direct nonlinear least squares fit to the entire lightcurve. We adopt the dP/dt obtained …

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The Impact Of Bars On Disk Breaks As Probed By S4g Imaging., Juan Carlos Munoz-Mateos, Kartik Sheth, Armando Gil De Paz, Sharon Meidt, E. Athanassoula, Albert Bosma, Sebastien Comeron, Debra M. Elmegreen, Bruce G. Elmegreen, Santiago Erroz-Ferrer, Dimitri A. Gadotti, Joannah L. Hinz, Luis C. Ho, Benne W. Holwerda, Thomas H. Jarrett, Taehyun Kim, Johan H. Knapen, Jarkko Laine, Eija Laurikainen, Barry F. Madore, Karin Menendez-Delmestre, Trisha Mizusawa, Michael Regan, Heikki Salo, Eva Schinnerer, Mark Seibert, Ramin Skibba, Dennis Zaritsky Jul 2013

The Impact Of Bars On Disk Breaks As Probed By S4g Imaging., Juan Carlos Munoz-Mateos, Kartik Sheth, Armando Gil De Paz, Sharon Meidt, E. Athanassoula, Albert Bosma, Sebastien Comeron, Debra M. Elmegreen, Bruce G. Elmegreen, Santiago Erroz-Ferrer, Dimitri A. Gadotti, Joannah L. Hinz, Luis C. Ho, Benne W. Holwerda, Thomas H. Jarrett, Taehyun Kim, Johan H. Knapen, Jarkko Laine, Eija Laurikainen, Barry F. Madore, Karin Menendez-Delmestre, Trisha Mizusawa, Michael Regan, Heikki Salo, Eva Schinnerer, Mark Seibert, Ramin Skibba, Dennis Zaritsky

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

We have analyzed the radial distribution of old stars in a sample of 218 nearby face-on disks, using deep 3.6μm images from the Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies. In particular, we have studied the structural properties of those disks with a broken or down-bending profile. We find that, on average, disks with a genuine single-exponential profile have a scale length and a central surface brightness which are intermediate to those of the inner and outer components of a down-bending disk with the same total stellar mass. In the particular case of barred galaxies, the ratio between the break …

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Galaxy Cluster Bulk Flows And Collision Velocities In Qumond, Stacy S. Mcgaugh Jun 2013

Galaxy Cluster Bulk Flows And Collision Velocities In Qumond, Stacy S. Mcgaugh

Faculty Scholarship

We examine the formation of clusters of galaxies in numerical simulations of a QUMOND cosmogony with massive sterile neutrinos. Clusters formed in these exploratory simulations develop higher velocities than those found in ΛCDM simulations. The bulk motions of clusters attain ∼1000 km s -1 by low redshift, comparable to observations whereas ΛCDM simulated clusters tend to fall short. Similarly, high pairwise velocities are common in cluster-cluster collisions like the Bullet Cluster. There is also a propensity for the most massive clusters to be larger in QUMOND and to appear earlier than in ΛCDM, potentially providing an explanation for "pink elephants" …

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Data Assimilation For Stratified Convection, Andreas Svedin, Milena C. Cuéllar, Axel Brandenburg Jun 2013

Data Assimilation For Stratified Convection, Andreas Svedin, Milena C. Cuéllar, Axel Brandenburg

Publications and Research

We show how the 3DVAR data assimilation methodology can be used in the astrophysical context of a two-dimensional convection flow. We study the way in which this variational approach finds best estimates of the current state of the flow from a weighted average of model states and observations. We use numerical simulations to generate synthetic observations of a vertical two-dimensional slice of the outer part of the solar convection zone for varying noise levels, and implement 3DVAR when the co-variance matrices are diagonal and proportional to the identity matrix. Our simulation results demonstrate the capability of 3DVAR to produce error …

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Simulation Of 810 Nm Light Propagation Through The Human Finger For Non-Invasive Blood Analysis, Nichole Millward Maughan Jun 2013

Simulation Of 810 Nm Light Propagation Through The Human Finger For Non-Invasive Blood Analysis, Nichole Millward Maughan

Theses and Dissertations

Non-invasive blood analysis devices that can measure characteristics less prominent than the oxygenation of hemoglobin are of interest in the medical community. An important step in creating these devices is to model the interaction of photons with human tissue in increasingly greater physiological detail. We have modeled, using a Monte Carlo technique, the interaction of photons through epidermis, blood and water arranged both in layers and in a homogeneous mixture. We confirm the expected linear relation between photon attenuation and material volumetric percentage in our two-layer models. We discovered that this relationship becomes non-linear in the homogeneously mixed models where …

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Constraints On Porosity And Mass Loss In O-Star Winds From The Modeling Of X-Ray Emission Line Profile Shapes, M. A. Leutenegger, David H. Cohen, J. O. Sundqvist, S. P. Owocki Jun 2013

Constraints On Porosity And Mass Loss In O-Star Winds From The Modeling Of X-Ray Emission Line Profile Shapes, M. A. Leutenegger, David H. Cohen, J. O. Sundqvist, S. P. Owocki

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Works

We fit X-ray emission line profiles in high resolution XMM-Newton and Chandra grating spectra of the early O supergiant zeta Pup with models that include the effects of porosity in the stellar wind. We explore the effects of porosity due to both spherical and flattened clumps. We find that porosity models with flattened clumps oriented parallel to the photosphere provide poor fits to observed line shapes. However, porosity models with isotropic clumps can provide acceptable fits to observed line shapes, but only if the porosity effect is moderate. We quantify the degeneracy between porosity effects from isotropic clumps and the …

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A Spectroscopic Analysis Of The Eclipsing Short-Period Binary V505 Persei And The Origin Of The Lithium Dip, Patrick Baugh, Jeremy R. King, Constantine P. Deliyannis, Ann Merchant Boesgaard Jun 2013

A Spectroscopic Analysis Of The Eclipsing Short-Period Binary V505 Persei And The Origin Of The Lithium Dip, Patrick Baugh, Jeremy R. King, Constantine P. Deliyannis, Ann Merchant Boesgaard

Publications

As a test of rotationally-induced mixing causing the well-known Li dip in older mid-F dwarfs in the local Galactic disk, we utilize high-resolution and -S/N Keck/HIRES spectroscopy to measure the Li abundance in the components of the ∼1 Gyr, [Fe/H]= −0.15 eclipsing short-period binary V505 Per. We find A(Li) ∼ 2.7 ± 0.1 and 2.4 ± 0.2 in the Teff∼6500 and 6450K primary and sec-ondary components, respectively. Previous Teff determinations and uncertainties suggest that each component is located in the midst of the Li dip. If so, their A(Li) are ≥2–5 times larger than A(Li) detections and upper limits observed …

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Observation Of Asymmetric Transport In Structures With Active Nonlinearities, N. Bender, S. Factor, J. D. Bodyfelt, Hamidreza Ramezani, D. N. Christodoulides, F. M. Ellis, T. Kottos Jun 2013

Observation Of Asymmetric Transport In Structures With Active Nonlinearities, N. Bender, S. Factor, J. D. Bodyfelt, Hamidreza Ramezani, D. N. Christodoulides, F. M. Ellis, T. Kottos

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Publications

A mechanism for asymmetric transport which is based on parity-time- symmetric nonlinearities is presented. We show that in contrast to the case of conservative nonlinearities, an increase of the complementary conductance strength leads to a simultaneous increase of asymmetry and transmittance intensity. We experimentally demonstrate the phenomenon using a pair of coupled Van der Pol oscillators as a reference system, each with complementary anharmonic gain and loss conductances, connected to transmission lines. An equivalent optical setup is also proposed. © 2013 American Physical Society.

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Astronomy Talk, Sherry Wallace Jun 2013

Astronomy Talk, Sherry Wallace

News and Events (Discontinued Series)

No abstract provided.

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70 Da White Dwarfs Identified In Lamost Pilot Survey, J K. Zhao, A L. Luo, Terry D. Oswalt, G Zhao Jun 2013

70 Da White Dwarfs Identified In Lamost Pilot Survey, J K. Zhao, A L. Luo, Terry D. Oswalt, G Zhao

Aerospace, Physics, and Space Science Faculty Publications

We present a spectroscopically identified catalog of 70 DA white dwarfs (WDs) from the LAMOST pilot survey. Thirty-five are found to be new identifications after cross-correlation with the Eisenstein et al. and Villanova catalogs. The effective temperature and gravity of these WDs are estimated by Balmer lines fitting. Most of them are hot WDs. The cooling times and masses of these WDs are estimated by interpolation in theoretical evolution tracks. The peak of the mass distribution is found to be ∼0.6 M⊙, which is consistent with prior work in the literature. The distances of these WDs are estimated using the …

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Maximum Likelihood Analysis Of Systematic Errors In Interferometric Observations Of The Cosmic Microwave Background, Le Zhang, Ata Karakci, Paul M. Sutter, Emory F. Bunn, Andrei Korotkov, Peter Timbie, Gregory S. Tucker, Benjamin D. Wandelt Jun 2013

Maximum Likelihood Analysis Of Systematic Errors In Interferometric Observations Of The Cosmic Microwave Background, Le Zhang, Ata Karakci, Paul M. Sutter, Emory F. Bunn, Andrei Korotkov, Peter Timbie, Gregory S. Tucker, Benjamin D. Wandelt

Physics Faculty Publications

We investigate the impact of instrumental systematic errors in interferometric measurements of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature and polarization power spectra. We simulate interferometric CMB observations to generate mock visibilities and estimate power spectra using the statistically optimal maximum likelihood technique. We define a quadratic error measure to determine allowable levels of systematic error that does not induce power spectrum errors beyond a given tolerance. As an example, in this study we focus on differential pointing errors. The effects of other systematics can be simulated by this pipeline in a straightforward manner. We find that, in order to accurately …

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Determining The Location Of The Coronal Line Region Within Local Active Galactic Nuclei Using [Fe Vii] Emission Line Properties, Charles Grant Showley Jun 2013

Determining The Location Of The Coronal Line Region Within Local Active Galactic Nuclei Using [Fe Vii] Emission Line Properties, Charles Grant Showley

Physics

Given a sample of 99 local AGNs, we study the characteristics of the forbidden [Fe VII] coronal line for the purpose of determining the location of the coronal line region (CLR) within the AGN. We calculate the velocity of the clouds emitting [Fe VII] using the width of the [Fe VII] emission lines compared to [O II] emission lines to establish whether the clouds are inflowing or outflowing. We plot the [Fe VII] and [O II] flux ratios against the AGNs' known black hole masses and stellar velocity dispersions in order to see if there are any correlations between them. …

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Selecting Island Pixels With A Likelihood Ratio, Jordan Tweddale Jun 2013

Selecting Island Pixels With A Likelihood Ratio, Jordan Tweddale

Physics

A new method, called the Log Likelihood Ratio (LLR), was employed in place of a Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) to pick out signal pixels on the VERITAS (Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System ) telescopes. The LLR test was performed on both photoelectrons and timing for VERITAS to select island pixels in Stage 2 cleaning, which is where the camera image is processed to determine which pixels on the camera are signal, and which are background. The two LLRs were combined to form a final LLR, which has a numerical cut, LLR = 11.5, between signal and background pixels. The …

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Finding Rare Agn: X-Ray Number Counts Of Chandra Sources In Stripe 82, Stephanie M. Lamassa, C. Megan Urry, Eilat Glikman, Nico Cappelluti, Francesca Civano Jun 2013

Finding Rare Agn: X-Ray Number Counts Of Chandra Sources In Stripe 82, Stephanie M. Lamassa, C. Megan Urry, Eilat Glikman, Nico Cappelluti, Francesca Civano

Dartmouth Scholarship

We present the first results of a wide area X-ray survey within the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Stripe 82, a 300 deg2 region of the sky with a substantial investment in multi-wavelength coverage. We analyzed archival {\it Chandra} observations that cover 7.5 deg2 within Stripe 82 ("Stripe 82 ACX"), reaching 4.5σ flux limits of 7.9×10−16, 3.4×10−15 and 1.8×10−15 erg s−1 cm−2 in the soft (0.5-2 keV), hard (2-7 keV) and full (0.5-7 keV) bands, to find 774, 239 and 1118 X-ray sources, respectively. Three hundred twenty-one sources are detected only in the full band and 9 sources are detected …

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70 Da White Dwarfs Identified In Lamost Pilot Survey, J. K. Zhao, A. L. Luo, Terry D. Oswalt, G. Zhao Jun 2013

70 Da White Dwarfs Identified In Lamost Pilot Survey, J. K. Zhao, A. L. Luo, Terry D. Oswalt, G. Zhao

Publications

We present a spectroscopically identified catalog of 70 DA white dwarfs (WDs) from the LAMOST pilot survey. Thirty-five are found to be new identifications after cross-correlation with the Eisenstein et al. and Villanova catalogs. The effective temperature and gravity of these WDs are estimated by Balmer lines fitting. Most of them are hot WDs. The cooling times and masses of these WDs are estimated by interpolation in theoretical evolution tracks. The peak of the mass distribution is found to be ∼0.6M, which is consistent with prior work in the literature. The distances of these WDs are estimated using the method …

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Vlt/Vimos Observations Of An Occulting Galaxy Pair : Redshifts And Effective Extinction Curve., Benne W. Holwerda, T. Boker, J. J. Dalcanton, W. C. Keel, R. S. De Jong Jun 2013

Vlt/Vimos Observations Of An Occulting Galaxy Pair : Redshifts And Effective Extinction Curve., Benne W. Holwerda, T. Boker, J. J. Dalcanton, W. C. Keel, R. S. De Jong

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

We present Very Large Telescope/Visible Multiobject Spectrograph Integral Field Unit observations of an occulting galaxy pair previously discovered in Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observations. The foreground galaxy is a low-inclination spiral disc, which causes clear attenuation features seen against the bright bulge and disc of the background galaxy. We find redshifts of z = 0.064 ± 0.003 and 0.065 for the foreground and background galaxy, respectively. This relatively small difference does not rule out gravitational interaction between the two galaxies. Emission line ratios point to a star-forming, not active galactic nuclei dominated foreground galaxy. We fit the Cardelli, Clayton and …

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