Be Stars in the Open Cluster NGC 6830

We report the discovery of 2 new Be stars, and re-identify one known Be star in the open cluster NGC 6830. Eleven H-alpha emitters were discovered using the H-alpha imaging photometry of the Palomar Transient Factory Survey. Stellar membership of the candidates was verified with photometric and kinematic information using 2MASS data and proper motions. The spectroscopic confirmation was carried out by using the Shane 3-m telescope at Lick observatory. Based on their spectral types, three H-alpha emitters were confirmed as Be stars with H-alpha equivalent widths > -10 Angstrom. Two objects were also observed by the new spectrograph SED-Machine on the Palomar 60 inch Telescope. The SED-Machine results show strong H-alpha emission lines, which are consistent with the results of the Lick observations. The high efficiency of the SED-Machine can provide rapid observations for Be stars in a comprehensive survey in the future.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures, AJ in pres

The Information Of The Milky Way From 2MASS Whole Sky Star Count: The Bimodal Color Distributions

The J-Ks color distribution (CD) with a bin size of 0.05 magnitude for the entire Milky Way has been carried out by using the Two Micron All Sky Survey Point Source Catalog (2MASS PSC). The CDs are bimodal, which has a red peak at 0.8 < J-Ks < 0.85 and a blue peak at 0.3 < J-Ks < 0.4. The colors of the red peak are more or less the same for the whole sky, but that of the blue peak depend on Galactic latitude, (J-Ks ~ 0.35 at low Galactic latitudes and 0.35 < J-Ks < 0.4 for other sky areas). The blue peak dominates the bimodal CDs at low Galactic latitudes and becomes comparable with the red peak in other sky regions. In order to explain the bimodal distribution and the global trend shown by the all sky 2MASS CDs, we assemble an empirical HR diagram, which is composed by observational-based near infrared HR diagrams and color magnitude diagrams, and incorporate a Milky Way model. In the empirical HR diagram, the main sequence stars turnoff the thin disk is relatively bluer, (J-Ks)0 = 0.31, when we compare with the thick disk which is (J-Ks)0 = 0.39. The age of the thin/thick disk is roughly estimated to be around 4-5/8-9 Gyr according to the color-age relation of the main sequence turnoff. In general, the 2MASS CDs can be treated as a tool to census the age of stellar population of the Milky Way in a statistical manner and to our knowledge this is a first attempt to measure the age.Comment: Accepted by ApJ on Sept. 11 201

Discovery of a New Member of the Inner Oort Cloud from The Next Generation Virgo Cluster Survey

We report the discovery of 2010 GB$_{174}$, a likely new member of the Inner Oort Cloud (IOC). 2010 GB$_{174}$ is one of 91 Trans Neptunian Objects (TNOs) and Centaurs discovered in a 76 deg$^2$ contiguous region imaged as part of the Next Generation Virgo Cluster Survey (NGVS) --- a moderate ecliptic latitude survey reaching a mean limiting magnitude of $g^\prime \simeq 25.5$ --- using MegaPrime on the 3.6m Canada France Hawaii Telescope. 2010 GB$_{174}$ is found to have an orbit with semi-major axis $a\simeq350.8$ AU, inclination $i \simeq 21.6^\circ$ and pericentre $q\sim48.5$ AU. This is the second largest perihelion distance among known solar system objects. Based on the sky coverage and depth of the NGVS, we estimate the number of IOC members with sizes larger than 300 km ($H_V \le 6.2$ mag) to be $\simeq 11\,000$. A comparison of the detection rate from the NGVS and the PDSSS (a characterized survey that `re-discovered' the IOC object Sedna) gives, for an assumed a power-law LF for IOC objects, a slope of $\alpha \simeq 0.7 \pm 0.2$, with only two detections in this region this slope estimate is highly uncertain.Comment: 20 pages, 3 figures, 1 table. Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Letter

Asymmetric Exchange Rate Exposure and Industry Characteristics : Evidence from Japanese Data

This paper investigates the asymmetric effects of exchange rate exposure on Japanese stock returns at the industry level.Using the asymmetric correlation test of Hong et al.(2007), we examine five major currencies against the yen and thirty-three Japanese sectoral stock returns.Signi ficant asymmetric responses in stock returns to exchange rate changes are found in the pharmaceutical, real estate, and air transportation industries.These findings are consistent with the pricing-to-market and hysteretic behavior for the pharmaceutical and air transportation industries and with the hedging behavior for the real estate industry.The results for the threshold models confirm that the asymmetric exposures are based on industry characteristics.exchange rate exposure, asymmetric correlation, threshold model

TEC enhancement due to energetic electrons above Taiwan and the West Pacific

The energetic electrons of the inner radiation belt during a geomagnetic disturbance can penetrate in the forbidden range of drift shells located at the heights of the topside equatorial ionosphere (<1000 km). A good correlation was previously revealed between positive ionospheric storms and intense fluxes of quasi-trapped 30-keV electrons at ~900 km height in the forbidden zone. In the present work, we use statistics to validate an assumption that the intense electron fluxes in the topside equatorial ionosphere can be an important source of the ionization in the low-latitude ionosphere. The data on the energetic electrons were obtained from polar orbiting satellites over the periods of the 62 strong geomagnetic storms from 1999 to 2006. Ionospheric response to the selected storms was determined using global ionospheric maps of vertical total electron content (VTEC). A case-event study of a major storm on 9 November 2004 provided experimental evidence in support to the substantial ionization effect of energetic electrons during positive ionospheric storms at the low latitudes. Statistical analysis of nine magnetic storms indicated that the VTEC increases coincided with and coexisted with intense 30-keV electron fluxes irrespective of local time and phase of geomagnetic storm. We concluded that extremely intense fluxes of the 30-keV electrons in the topside low-latitude ionosphere can contribute ~ 10 - 30 TECU to the localized positive ionospheric storms.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures, 1 table accepted for publication in Terrestrial, Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences (TAO), Dec. 2012 A special issue on "Connection of solar and heliospheric activities with near-Earth space weather: Sun-Earth connection