Astrophysics and Astronomy Commons^™

Evidence For The Onset Of Color Transparency In Ρ0 Electroproduction Off Nuclei, L. El Fassi, L. Zana, H. Hafidi, M. Holtrop, B. Mustapha, W. K. Brooks, H. Hakobyan, Z. Zheng, K. P. Adhikari, D. Adikaram, M. J. Amaryan, H. Baghdasaryan, S. Bültmann, G. E. Dodge, C. E. Hyde, A. Klein, S. E. Kuhn, M. Mayer, H. Seraydaryan, L. B. Weinstein

Physics Faculty Publications

We have measured the nuclear transparency of the incoherent diffractive A( e , e ′ ρ⁰ ) process in ¹²C and ⁵⁶Fe targets relative to ²H using a 5 GeV electron beam. The nuclear transparency, the ratio of the produced ρ⁰ ʼs on a nucleus relative to deuterium, which is sensitive to ρA interaction, was studied as function of the coherence length (lc), a lifetime of the hadronic fluctuation of the virtual photon, and the four-momentum transfer squared (Q²). While the transparency for both ¹²C and ⁵⁶Fe …

The Ongoing Assembly Of A Central Cluster Galaxy: Phase-Space Substructures In The Halo Of M87, Aaron J. Romanowsky, J. Strader, J. P. Brodie, C. Mihos, L. R. Spitler, D. A. Forbes, C. Foster, J. A. Arnold

Faculty Publications

The halos of galaxies preserve unique records of their formation histories. We carry out the first combined observational and theoretical study of phase-space halo substructure in an early-type galaxy: M87, the central galaxy in the Virgo cluster. We analyze an unprecedented wide-field, high-precision photometric and spectroscopic data set for 488 globular clusters (GCs), which includes new, large-radius Subaru/Suprime-Cam and Keck/DEIMOS observations. We find signatures of two substructures in position-velocity phase space. One is a small, cold stream associated with a known stellar filament in the outer halo; the other is a large shell-like pattern in the inner halo that implies …

Radially Extended Kinematics In The S0 Galaxy Ngc 2768 From Planetary Nebulae, Globular Clusters And Starlight, D. A. Forbes, A. Cortesi, V. Pota, C. Foster, Aaron J. Romanowsky, M. R. Merrifield, J. P. Strader, L. Coccato, N. Napolitano

Faculty Publications

There are only a few tracers available to probe the kinematics of individual early-type galaxies beyond one effective radius. Here we directly compare a sample of planetary nebulae (PNe), globular clusters (GCs) and galaxy starlight velocities out to approximately four effective radii, in the S0 galaxy NGC 2768. Using a bulge-to-disc decomposition of a K-band image we assign PNe and starlight to either the disc or the bulge. We show that the bulge PNe and bulge starlight follow the same radial density distribution as the red subpopulation of GCs, whereas the disc PNe and disc starlight are distinct components. We …

Deciphering The Arrangement Of Dust In The Clumpy Tori Of Active Galactic Nuclei, Grant David Thompson

Theses and Dissertations--Physics and Astronomy

In the framework of active galactic nuclei (AGNs), a galaxy’s supermassive black hole is surrounded by a dusty torus whose clumpy configuration allows for either direct or obscured views toward the central engine. Viewing AGNs from different angles gives rise to a variety of AGN classifications; for example, the generic Type 1 AGN class requires the detection of optically broad emission lines, which arise from quickly moving material within the torus, whereas Type 2 AGNs lack these observations. While these viewing angles are not directly observable, synthetic torus models generated with CLUMPY provide a means to determine them along with …

Magnetic Fields And Other Physical Conditions In The Interstellar Medium, Furea Kiuchi

Theses and Dissertations--Physics and Astronomy

This document consists of two very different projects but the common thread is in the interest of magnetic fields. It describes the effect of magnetic fields in two Interstellar Medium regions in the Galaxy. Electromagnetic force is one of the four fundamental forces in physics. It is not known where magnetic field has initially risen in the Universe, but what is certain is that it has significant effect in the dynamics of star formation and galaxy formation. The studies aim to better understand the effects of field in an active star forming region and in the halo of the Galaxy. …

Zeeman Effect Studies Of Magnetic Fields In The Milky Way, Kristen Lynn Thompson

Theses and Dissertations--Physics and Astronomy

The interstellar medium (ISM) of our Galaxy, and of others, is pervaded by ultra low-density gas and dust, as well as magnetic fields. Embedded magnetic fields have been known to play an important role in the structure and dynamics of the ISM. However, the ability to accurately quantify these fields has plagued astronomers for many decades. Unfortunately, the experimental techniques for measuring the strength and direction of magnetic fields are few, and they are observationally challenging. The only direct method of measuring the magnetic field is through the Zeeman effect.

The goal of this dissertation is to expand upon the …

Time-Dependent Systems And Chaos In String Theory, Archisman Ghosh

Theses and Dissertations--Physics and Astronomy

One of the phenomenal results emerging from string theory is the AdS/CFT correspondence or gauge-gravity duality: In certain cases a theory of gravity is equivalent to a "dual" gauge theory, very similar to the one describing non-gravitational interactions of fundamental subatomic particles. A difficult problem on one side can be mapped to a simpler and solvable problem on the other side using this correspondence. Thus one of the theories can be understood better using the other.

The mapping between theories of gravity and gauge theories has led to new approaches to building models of particle physics from string …

Obscuration In Active Galactic Nuclei, Robert Nikutta

Theses and Dissertations--Physics and Astronomy

All classes of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) are fundamentally powered by accretion of gas onto a supermassive black hole. The process converts the potential energy of the infalling matter to X-ray and ultraviolet (UV) radiation, releasing up to several 10¹² solar luminosities.

Observations show that the accreting "central engines" in AGN are surrounded by dusty matter. The dust occupies a "torus" around the AGN which is comprised of discrete clumps. If the AGN radiation is propagating through the torus on its way to an observer, it will be heavily re-processed by the dust, i.e. converted from UV to infrared …

Book Review: New Eyes On The Universe: Twelve Cosmic Mysteries And The Tools We Need To Solve Them, T. D. Oswalt

Publications

This document is Dr. Oswalt’s review of New Eyes on the Universe : Twelve Cosmic Mysteries and the Tools We Need to Solve Them by Stephen Webb. Springer/Praxis, 2012 371p, 9781461421931 $44.95, 9781461421948

Book Review: The International Atlas Of Mars Exploration: The First Five Decades: V.1: 1953 To 2003, T. D. Oswalt

Publications

This document is Dr. Oswalt’s review of The International Atlas of Mars Exploration: the First Five Decades : V.1: 1953 to 2003 by Philip J. Stooke. Cambridge, 2012 359p, 0521765536 $140.00, 9780521765534 $140.00.

Correlation Of Inflation-Produced Magnetic Fields With Scalar Fluctuations, Robert R. Caldwell, Leonardo Motta, Marc Kamionkowski

Dartmouth Scholarship

If the conformal invariance of electromagnetism is broken during inflation, then primordial magnetic fields may be produced. If this symmetry breaking is generated by the coupling between electromagnetism and a scalar field—e.g. the inflaton, curvaton, or Ricci scalar—then these magnetic fields may be correlated with primordial density perturbations, opening a new window to the study of non-Gaussianity in cosmology. In order to illustrate, we couple electromagnetism to an auxiliary scalar field in a de Sitter background. We calculate the power spectra for scalar-field perturbations and magnetic fields, showing how a scale-free magnetic-field spectrum with rms amplitude of ∼nG at Mpc …

Directional Limits On Persistent Gravitational Waves Using Ligo S5 Science Data, J. Abadie, B. P. Abbott, R. Abbott, M. Abernathy, T. Accadia, F. Acernese, C. Adams, R. Adhikari, P. Ajith, B. Allen, G. S. Allen, E. Amador Ceron, R. S. Amin, S. B. Anderson, W. G. Anderson, F. Antonucci, M. A. Arain, M. C. Araya, M. Aronsson, K. G. Arun, Y. Aso, S. M. Aston, P. Astone, D. Atkinson, P. Aufmuth, C. Aulbert, S. Babak, P. Baker, G. Ballardin, S. Ballmer, D. Barker, Tiffany Z. Summerscales

Faculty Publications

The gravitational-wave (GW) sky may include nearby pointlike sources as well as stochastic backgrounds. We perform two directional searches for persistent GWs using data from the LIGO S5 science run: one optimized for pointlike sources and one for arbitrary extended sources. Finding no evidence to support the detection of GWs, we present 90% confidence level (C.L.) upper-limit maps of GW strain power with typical values between 2-20×10-50strain2Hz-1 and 5-35×10 -49strain2Hz-1sr-1 for pointlike and extended sources, respectively. The latter result is the first of its kind. We also set 90% C.L. limits on the narrow-band root-mean-square GW strain from interesting targets …

The Hubble Space Telescope * Cluster Supernova Survey. Ii. The Type Ia Supernova Rate In High-Redshift Galaxy Clusters, K Barbary, G Aldering, R Amanullah, M Brodwin, N Connolly, Ks Dawson, M Doi, P Eisenhardt, L Faccioli, V Fadeyev, Hk Fakhouri, As Fruchter, D G. Gilbank, Md Gladders, G Goldhaber, A Goobar, T Hattori, E Hsiao, Xiaosheng Huang, Y Ihara, K Kashikawa, B Koester, K Konishi, M Kowalski, C Lidman, L Lubin, J Meyers, T Morokuma, T Oda, N Panagia, S Perlmutter, M Postman, P Ripoche, P Rosati, D Rubin, Dj Schlegel, Al Spadafora, Sa Stanford, M Strovink, N Suzuki, N Takanashi, K Tokita, N Yasuda

Physics and Astronomy

We report a measurement of the Type Ia supernova (SN Ia) rate in galaxy clusters at 0.9 < z < 1.46 from the Hubble Space Telescope Cluster Supernova Survey. This is the first cluster SN Ia rate measurement with detected z > 0.9 SNe. Finding 8 ± 1 cluster SNe Ia, we determine an SN Ia rate of 0.50+0.23 –0.19 (stat) +0.10 –0.09 (sys) h 2 70 SNuB (SNuB ≡ 10–12 SNe L –1 ☉, B yr–1). In units of stellar mass, this translates to 0.36+0.16 –0.13 (stat) +0.07 –0.06 (sys) h 2 70 SNuM (SNuM ≡ 10–12 SNe M –1 ☉ yr–1). This represents a …

A Search For The Transit Of Hd 168443b: Improved Orbital Parameters And Photometry, G. Pilyavsky, S. Mahadevan, S. R. Kane, A. W. Howard, D. R. Ciardi, C. De Pree, D. Dragomir, D. A. Fischer, G. W. Henry, Eric L.N. Jensen, G. Laughlin, H. Marlowe, M. Rabus, K. Von Braun, J. T. Wright, X. X. Wang

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Works

The discovery of transiting planets around bright stars holds the potential to greatly enhance our understanding of planetary atmospheres. In this work we present the search for transits of HD 168443b, a massive planet orbiting the bright star HD 168443 (V = 6.92) with a period of 58.11 days. The high eccentricity of the planetary orbit (e = 0.53) significantly enhances the a priori transit probability beyond that expected for a circular orbit, making HD168443 a candidate for our ongoing Transit Ephemeris Refinement and Monitoring Survey. Using additional radial velocities from Keck High Resolution Echelle Spectrometer, we refined the orbital …

Optical Polarization And Spectral Variability In The M87 Jet, Eric S. Perlman, Mihai Cara, Matthew Bourque, Raymond C. Simons

Aerospace, Physics, and Space Science Faculty Publications

During the last decade, M87's jet has been the site of an extraordinary variability event, with one knot (HST-1) increasing by over a factor 100 in brightness. Variability has also been seen on timescales of months in the nuclear flux. Here we discuss the optical-UV polarization and spectral variability of these components, which show vastly different behavior. HST-1 shows a highly significant correlation between flux and polarization, with P increasing from 20% at minimum to >40% at maximum, while the orientation of its electric vector stayed constant. HST-1's optical-UV spectrum is very hard (αUV-O 0.5, F ν ∞ ν-α), and …

On The Radio And Optical Luminosity Evolution Of Quasars, Jack Singal, V. Petrosian, A. Lawrence, L. Stawarz

Physics Faculty Publications

We calculate simultaneously the radio and optical luminosity evolutions of quasars, and the distribution in radio loudness R defined as the ratio of radio and optical luminosities, using a flux-limited data set containing 636 quasars with radio and optical fluxes from White et al. We first note that when dealing with multi-variate data it is imperative to first determine the true correlations among the variables, not those introduced by the observational selection effects, before obtaining the individual distributions of the variables. We use the methods developed by Efron and Petrosian which are designed to obtain unbiased correlations, distributions, and evolution …

Ordered Phases In Ruthenium Binary Alloys From High-Throughput First-Principles Calculations, Gus L. W. Hart, Lance J. Nelson, Michal Jahnátek, Ohad Levy, Roman V. Chepulskii, J. Xue, Stephano Curtarolo

Faculty Publications

Despite the increasing importance of ruthenium in numerous technological applications, e.g., catalysis and electronic devices, experimental and computational data on its binary alloys are sparse. In particular, data are scant on those binary systems believed to be phase-separating. We performed a comprehensive study of ruthenium binary systems with the 28 transition metals, using high-throughput first-principles calculations. These computations predict novel unsuspected compounds in 7 of the 16 binary systems previously believed to be phase-separating and in two of the three systems reported with only a high-temperature σ phase. They also predict a few unreported compounds in five additional systems and …

Fragile Binary Candidates In The Sdss Dr8 Spectroscopic Archive, J. K. Zhao, Terry D. Oswalt, G. Zhao

Publications

We present a catalog of 80 very wide fragile binary candidates (projected separations >10,000 AU) from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release Eight spectral archive. The pairs were selected based on proper motion, radial velocity, metallicity, and photometric parallax criteria. The angular separations of these pairs range from 3'' to 250''. The peak in the metallicity distribution of these pairs is about −0.5 dex of solar metallicity. Space motions and reduced proper motion diagrams indicate that all these pairs are members of the disk. The chromospheric activity index S_HK of each component in 38 binary candidates having spectra …

Development Of A Strontium-87 Ion Interferometer, Christopher Joseph Erickson

Theses and Dissertations

I present the construction of a low-velocity intense source (LVIS) of laser-cooled neutral strontium using permanent ring magnets. The LVIS consists of a magneto-optical trap from which cold strontium is extracted in a well-collimated beam. I also present the development and implementation of a full suite of low-noise, high-bandwidth laser control electronics including a microcontroller unit. This microcontroller remotely controls and monitors the current driver, temperature controller, and PID lock circuit for each diode laser simultaneously. The current driver output is accurate to within 2 micro-amps and repeatable to with a few nano-amps. The noise spectral density of the current …

The Sn 393-Snr Rx J1713.7-3946 (G347.3-0.5) Connection, Robert A. Fesen, Richard Kremer, Daniel Patnaude, Dan Milisavljevic

Dartmouth Scholarship

Although the connection of the Chinese "guest" star of 393 AD with the Galactic supernova remnant RX J1713.7-3946 (G347.3-0.5) made by Wang et al. in 1997 is consistent with the remnant's relatively young properties and the guest star's projected position within the "tail" of the constellation Scorpius, there are difficulties with such an association. The brief Chinese texts concerning the 393 AD guest star make no comment about its apparent brightness, stating only that it disappeared after eight months. However, at the remnant's current estimated 1-1.3 kpc distance and A _V 3, its supernova (SN) should have been a visually …