2,690 research outputs found
Signal Reconstruction via H-infinity Sampled-Data Control Theory: Beyond the Shannon Paradigm
This paper presents a new method for signal reconstruction by leveraging
sampled-data control theory. We formulate the signal reconstruction problem in
terms of an analog performance optimization problem using a stable
discrete-time filter. The proposed H-infinity performance criterion naturally
takes intersample behavior into account, reflecting the energy distributions of
the signal. We present methods for computing optimal solutions which are
guaranteed to be stable and causal. Detailed comparisons to alternative methods
are provided. We discuss some applications in sound and image reconstruction
Structural and dynamical uncertainties in modeling axisymmetric elliptical galaxies
Quantitative dynamical models of galaxies require deprojecting the observed
surface brightness to determine the luminosity density of the galaxy. Existing
deprojection methods for axisymmetric galaxies assume that a unique
deprojection exists for any given inclination, even though the projected
density is known to be degenerate to the addition of "konus densities" that are
invisible in projection. We develop a deprojection method based on linear
regularization that can explore the range of luminosity densities statistically
consistent with an observed surface brightness distribution. The luminosity
density is poorly constrained at modest inclinations (i > ~30 deg), even in the
limit of vanishing observational errors. In constant mass-to-light ratio,
axisymmetric, two-integral dynamical models, the uncertainties in the
luminosity density result in large uncertainties in the meridional plane
velocities. However, the projected line-of-sight velocities show variations
comparable to current typical observational uncertainties.Comment: 20 pages, 8 Postscript figures, LaTeX, aaspp4.sty, submitted to
MNRAS; paper w/figs (600 kb) also available at
http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/~romanow/ell.mn.ps.gz GIF-format figures replaced
by PostScrip
X-ray reverberation around accreting black holes
Luminous accreting stellar mass and supermassive black holes produce
power-law continuum X-ray emission from a compact central corona. Reverberation
time lags occur due to light travel time-delays between changes in the direct
coronal emission and corresponding variations in its reflection from the
accretion flow. Reverberation is detectable using light curves made in
different X-ray energy bands, since the direct and reflected components have
different spectral shapes. Larger, lower frequency, lags are also seen and are
identified with propagation of fluctuations through the accretion flow and
associated corona. We review the evidence for X-ray reverberation in active
galactic nuclei and black hole X-ray binaries, showing how it can be best
measured and how it may be modelled. The timescales and energy-dependence of
the high frequency reverberation lags show that much of the signal is
originating from very close to the black hole in some objects, within a few
gravitational radii of the event horizon. We consider how these signals can be
studied in the future to carry out X-ray reverberation mapping of the regions
closest to black holes.Comment: 72 pages, 32 figures. Accepted for publication in The Astronomy and
Astrophysics Review. Corrected for mostly minor typos, but in particular
errors are corrected in the denominators of the covariance and rms spectrum
error equations (Eqn. 14 and 15
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