New Constructions of Zero-Correlation Zone Sequences

In this paper, we propose three classes of systematic approaches for constructing zero correlation zone (ZCZ) sequence families. In most cases, these approaches are capable of generating sequence families that achieve the upper bounds on the family size ($K$) and the ZCZ width ($T$) for a given sequence period ($N$). Our approaches can produce various binary and polyphase ZCZ families with desired parameters $(N,K,T)$ and alphabet size. They also provide additional tradeoffs amongst the above four system parameters and are less constrained by the alphabet size. Furthermore, the constructed families have nested-like property that can be either decomposed or combined to constitute smaller or larger ZCZ sequence sets. We make detailed comparisons with related works and present some extended properties. For each approach, we provide examples to numerically illustrate the proposed construction procedure.Comment: 37 pages, submitted to IEEE Transactions on Information Theor

Large Families of Ternary Sequences with Aperiodic Zero Correlation Zone Sequences for a Multi-Carrier DS-CDMA System

A new method for generating families of ternary spreading sequences is presented. The sequences have aperiodic zero correlation zones and large families are created for a specific sequence length. The sequences are proposed as spreading sequences to provide high capacity and cancel multipath and multiple access interference (MAI) in a single carrier (SC) or multi-carrier (MC) direct-spread code division multiple access (DS-CDMA) system. A Multi-carrier DS-CDMA system is simulated that employs the new sequences as spreading sequences in a multipath channel. Bit error rates (BER) and frame error rates (FER) for a range of Eb/No values are presented and it is demonstrated that the proposed sequences improve the BER and FER performance when used in place of masked Walsh Codes for the frequency selective fading channel evaluated, when a single correlator receiver is used on each sub-carrier

Large Zero Autocorrelation Zone of Golay Sequences and 4q4^q-QAM Golay Complementary Sequences

Sequences with good correlation properties have been widely adopted in modern communications, radar and sonar applications. In this paper, we present our new findings on some constructions of single $H$-ary Golay sequence and $4^q$-QAM Golay complementary sequence with a large zero autocorrelation zone, where $H\ge 2$ is an arbitrary even integer and $q\ge 2$ is an arbitrary integer. Those new results on Golay sequences and QAM Golay complementary sequences can be explored during synchronization and detection at the receiver end and thus improve the performance of the communication system

Limits on Stellar and Planetary Companions in Microlensing Event OGLE-1998-BUL-14

We present the PLANET photometric data set for \ob14, a high magnification ($A_{\rm max}\sim 16$) event alerted by the OGLE collaboration toward the Galactic bulge in 1998. The PLANET data set consists a total of 461 I-band and 139 $V-$band points, the majority of which was taken over a three month period. The median sampling interval during this period is about 1 hour, and the $1\sigma$ scatter over the peak of the event is 1.5%. The excellent data quality and high maximum magnification of this event make it a prime candidate to search for the short duration, low amplitude perturbations that are signatures of a planetary companion orbiting the primary lens. The observed light curve for \ob14 is consistent with a single lens (no companion) within photometric uncertainties. We calculate the detection efficiency of the light curve to lensing companions as a function of the mass ratio and angular separation of the two components. We find that companions of mass ratio $\ge 0.01$ are ruled out at the 95% confidence level for projected separations between 0.4-2.4 \re, where \re is the Einstein ring radius of the primary lens. Assuming that the primary is a G-dwarf with \re\sim3 {\rm AU} our detection efficiency for this event is $\sim 60$ for a companion with the mass and separation of Jupiter and $\sim5$ for a companion with the mass and separation of Saturn. Our efficiencies for planets like those around Upsilon And and 14 Her are > 75%.Comment: Data available at http://www.astro.rug.nl/~planet/planetpapers.html 20 pages, 10 figures. Minor changes. ApJ, accepte

Modelling the observed properties of carbon-enhanced metal-poor stars using binary population synthesis

The stellar population in the Galactic halo is characterised by a large fraction of CEMP stars. Most CEMP stars are enriched in $s$-elements (CEMP-$s$ stars), and some of these are also enriched in $r$-elements (CEMP-$s/r$ stars). One formation scenario proposed for CEMP stars invokes wind mass transfer in the past from a TP-AGB primary star to a less massive companion star which is presently observed. We generate low-metallicity populations of binary stars to reproduce the observed CEMP-star fraction. In addition, we aim to constrain our wind mass-transfer model and investigate under which conditions our synthetic populations reproduce observed abundance distributions. We compare the CEMP fractions and the abundance distributions determined from our synthetic populations with observations. Several physical parameters of the binary stellar population of the halo are uncertain, e.g. the initial mass function, the mass-ratio and orbital-period distributions, and the binary fraction. We vary the assumptions in our model about these parameters, as well as the wind mass-transfer process, and study the consequent variations of our synthetic CEMP population. The CEMP fractions calculated in our synthetic populations vary between 7% and 17%, a range consistent with the CEMP fractions among very metal-poor stars recently derived from the SDSS/SEGUE data sample. The results of our comparison between the modelled and observed abundance distributions are different for CEMP-$s/r$ stars and for CEMP-$s$ stars. For the latter, our simulations qualitatively reproduce the observed distributions of C, Na, Sr, Ba, Eu, and Pb. Contrarily, for CEMP-$s/r$ stars our model cannot reproduce the large abundances of neutron-rich elements such as Ba, Eu, and Pb. This result is consistent with previous studies, and suggests that CEMP-$s/r$ stars experienced a different nucleosynthesis history to CEMP-$s$ stars.Comment: 17 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication on Astronomy and Astrophysic

Examination of the mass-dependent Li depletion hypothesis by the Li abundances of the very metal-poor double-lined spectroscopic binary G166-45

The Li abundances of the two components of the very metal-poor ([Fe/H]=-2.5) double-lined spectroscopic binary G166-45 (BD+26 2606) are determined separately based on high resolution spectra obtained with the Subaru Telescope High Dispersion Spectrograph and its image slicer. From the photometric colors and the mass ratio the effective temperatures of the primary and secondary components are estimated to be 6350+/-100K and 5830+/-170K, respectively. The Li abundance of the primary (A(Li)=2.23) agrees well with the Spite plateau value, while that of the secondary is slightly lower (A(Li)=2.11). Such a discrepancy of the Li abundances between the two components is previously found in the extremely metal-poor, double-lined spectroscopic binary CS22876-032, however, the discrepancy in G166-45 is much smaller. The results agree with the trends found for Li abundance as a function of effective temperature (and of stellar mass) of main-sequence stars with -3.0<[Fe/H]<-2.0, suggesting that the depletion of Li at Teff ~ 5800K is not particularly large in this metallicity range. The significant Li depletion found in CS22876-032B is a phenomenon only found in the lowest metallicity range ([Fe/H]<-3).Comment: 3 figures, 1 table, to appear in ApJ

Illumination invariant stationary object detection

A real-time system for the detection and tracking of moving objects that becomes stationary in a restricted zone. A new pixel classification method based on the segmentation history image is used to identify stationary objects in the scene. These objects are then tracked using a novel adaptive edge orientation-based tracking method. Experimental results have shown that the tracking technique gives more than a 95% detection success rate, even if objects are partially occluded. The tracking results, together with the historic edge maps, are analysed to remove objects that are no longer stationary or are falsely identified as foreground regions because of sudden changes in the illumination conditions. The technique has been tested on over 7 h of video recorded at different locations and time of day, both outdoors and indoors. The results obtained are compared with other available state-of-the-art methods