Positive curvature and the elliptic genus

We prove several results about the vanishing of the elliptic genus on positively curved Spin manifolds with logarithmic symmetry rank. The proofs are based on the rigidity of the elliptic genus and Kennard's improvement of the Connectedness Lemma for transversely intersecting, totally geodesic submanifolds.Comment: 15 pages. Paper was rewritten. To appear in New York Journal of Mathematic

X-Ray Polarimetry: Historical Remarks and Other Considerations

We briefly discuss the history of X-ray polarimetry for astronomical applications including a guide to the appropriate statistics. We also provide an introduction to some of the new techniques discussed in more detail elsewhere in these proceedings. We conclude our discussion with our concerns over adequate ground calibration, especially with respect to unpolarized beams, and at the system level.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure presented at "The Coming of Age if X-ray Polarimetry", Rome, Italy April 27, 200

New Results from an old Friend: The Crab Nebula and its Pulsar

We summarize here the results, most of which are preliminary, of a number of recent observations of the Crab nebula system with the Chandra X-Ray Observatory. We discuss four different topics: (1) The motion on long (> 1yr) time scales of the southern jet. (2) The discovery that pulsar is not at the center of the projected ring on the sky and that the ring may well lie on the axis of symmetry but appears to be displaced at a latitude of about 5 degrees. (Note that this deprojection is by no means unique.) (3) The results and puzzling implications of the Chandra phase-resolved spectroscopy of the pulsar when compared to observations of pulse-phase variations of similar and dissimilar measures in other regions of the spectrum. (4) The search for the X-ray location of the site of the recently-discovered gamma-ray flaring. We also comment briefly on our plan to use the Chandra data we obtained for the previous project to study the nature of the low-energy flux variations recently detected at hard X-ray energies.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, submitted to the proceedings of the conference: "The Extreme and Variable High Energy Sky", 19-23 September 2011, Chia Laguna (Cagliari) - Ital

The Making of the Chandra X-ray Observatory: the Project Scientist's Perspective

We review the history of the development of the Chandra X-ray Observatory from our personal perspective. This review is necessarily biased and limited by space since it attempts to cover a time span approaching 5 decades.Comment: 6 pages, 17 figures. To be published in the Proceedings of the national Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

Monitor proportional counter

An Uhuru class Ar-CO2 gas filled proportional counter sealed with a 1.5 mil beryllium window and sensitive to X-rays in the energy bandwidth from 1.5 to 22 keV is presented. This device is coaligned with the X-ray telescope aboard the Einstein Observatory and takes data as a normal part of the Observatory operations

The Complicated Evolution of the ACIS Contamination Layer over the Mission Life of the Chandra X-ray Observatory

The Chandra X-ray Observatory was launched almost 19 years ago and has been delivering spectacular science over the course of its mission. The Advanced CCD Imager Spectrometer is the prime instrument on the satellite, conducting over 90% of the observations. The CCDs operate at a temperature of -120 C and the optical blocking filter in front of the CCDs is at a temperature of approximately -60C. The surface of the OBF has accumulated a layer of contamination over the course of the mission. We have been characterizing the thickness, chemical composition, and spatial distribution of the contamination layer as a function of time over the mission. All three have exhibited significant changes with time. There has been a dramatic decrease in the accumulation rate of the contaminant starting in 2017. The lower accumulation rate may be due to a decrease in the deposition rate or an increase in the vaporization rate or a combination of the two. We show that the current calibration file which models the additional absorption of the contamination layer is significantly overestimating that additional absorption by using the standard model spectrum for the supernova remnant 1E 0102.2-7219 developed by the International Astronomical Consortium for High Energy Calibration. In addition, spectral data from the cluster of galaxies known as Abell 1795 and the Blazar Markarian 421 are used to generate a model of the absorption produced by the contamination layer. The Chandra X-ray Center calibration team is preparing a revised calibration file that more accurately represents the complex time dependence of the accumulation rate, the spatial dependence, and the chemical composition of the contaminant. Given the rapid changes in the contamination layer over the past year, future calibration observations at a higher cadence will be necessary to more accurately monitor such changes.Comment: 15 pages, 10 figures, SPIE Astronomical Instruments and Telescopes 2018, Conference Series, 1069