Infrared study of the charge-ordered multiferroic LuFe(2)O(4)

The reflectivity of a large LuFe(2)O(4) single crystal has been measured with the radiation field either perpendicular or parallel to the c axis of its rhombohedral structure, from 10 to 500K, and from 7 to 16000 cm-1. The transition between the two-dimensional and the three-dimensional charge order at T_(CO) = 320 K is found to change dramatically the phonon spectrum in both polarizations. The number of the observed modes above and below T_(CO), according to a factor-group analysis, is in good agreement with a transition from the rhombohedral space group R{bar 3}m to the monoclinic C2/m. In the sub-THz region a peak becomes evident at low temperature, whose origin is discussed in relation with previous experiments.Comment: Physical Review B in pres

The Gravitational Lens CFRS03.1077

An exquisite gravitational arc with a radius of 2.1" has been discovered around the z = 0.938 field elliptical galaxy CFRS03.1077 during HST observations of Canada-France Redshift Survey (CFRS) fields. Spectroscopic observations of the arc show that the redshift of the resolved lensed galaxy is z = 2.941. This gravitational lens-source system is well-fitted using the position angle and ellipticity derived from the visible matter distribution and an isothermal mass profile with a mass corresponding to sigma =387+-5 km/s. Surprisingly, given the evidence for passive evolution of elliptical galaxies, this is in good agreement with an estimate based on the fundamental plane for z = 0 ellipticals. This, perhaps, indicates that this galaxy has not shared in the significant evolution observed for average elliptical galaxies at z ~ 1. A second elliptical galaxy with similar luminosity from the CFRS survey, CFRS 14.1311 at z=0.807, is also a lens but in this case the lens model gives a much smaller mass-to-light ratio, i.e., it appears to confirm the expected evolution. This suggests that this pair of field elliptical galaxies may have very different evolutionary histories, a significant result if confirmed. Clearly, CFRS03.1077 demonstrates that these "Einstein rings" are powerful probes of high redshift galaxies.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures, accepted by Ap.

Half adder capabilities of a coupled quantum dot device

We gratefully acknowledge nancial support from the European Union (FPVII, 2007- 2013) under grant agreement no 256959 NANOPOWER and grant agreement no 318287 LANDAUER as well as from the state of Bavaria.In this paper we demonstrate two realizations of a half adder based on a voltage-rectifying mechanism involving two Coulomb-coupled quantum dots. First, we examine the ranges of operation of the half adder's individual elements, the AND and XOR gates, for a single rectifying device. It allows a switching between the two gates by a control voltage and thus enables a clocked half adder operation. The logic gates are shown to be reliably operative in a broad noise amplitude range with negligible error probabilities. Subsequently, we study the implementation of the half adder in a combined double-device consisting of two individually tunable rectifiers. We show that this double device allows a simultaneous operation of both relevant gates at once. The presented devices draw their power solely from electronic fluctuations and are therefore an advancement in the field of energy efficient and autonomous electronics.PostprintPeer reviewe

A major electronics upgrade for the H.E.S.S. Cherenkov telescopes 1-4

The High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.) is an array of imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes (IACTs) located in the Khomas Highland in Namibia. It consists of four 12-m telescopes (CT1-4), which started operations in 2003, and a 28-m diameter one (CT5), which was brought online in 2012. It is the only IACT system featuring telescopes of different sizes, which provides sensitivity for gamma rays across a very wide energy range, from ~30 GeV up to ~100 TeV. Since the camera electronics of CT1-4 are much older than the one of CT5, an upgrade is being carried out; first deployment was in 2015, full operation is planned for 2016. The goals of this upgrade are threefold: reducing the dead time of the cameras, improving the overall performance of the array and reducing the system failure rate related to aging. Upon completion, the upgrade will assure the continuous operation of H.E.S.S. at its full sensitivity until and possibly beyond the advent of CTA. In the design of the new components, several CTA concepts and technologies were used and are thus being evaluated in the field: The upgraded read-out electronics is based on the NECTAR readout chips; the new camera front- and back-end control subsystems are based on an FPGA and an embedded ARM computer; the communication between subsystems is based on standard Ethernet technologies. These hardware solutions offer good performance, robustness and flexibility. The design of the new cameras is reported here.Comment: Proceedings of the 34th International Cosmic Ray Conference, 30 July- 6 August, 2015, The Hague, The Netherland

Hubble Space Telescope study of resolved red giant stars in the outer halos of nearby dwarf starburst galaxies

[abridged] Aims. We observed the outer parts of NGC 1569 and NGC 4449, two of the closest and strongest dwarf starburst galaxies in the local universe, to characterize their stellar density and populations, and obtain new insights into the structure, formation, and evolution of starburst galaxies and galaxy halos. Methods. We obtained HST/WFPC2 images between 5 and 8 scale radii from the center, along the intermediate and minor axes. We performed point-source photometry to determine color magnitude diagrams of I vs. V-I. We compared the results at different radii, including also our prior HST/ACS results for more centrally located fields. Results. We detect stars in the RGB and TP-AGB (carbon star) phases in all outer fields, but not younger stars such as those present at smaller radii. The RGB star density profile is well fit by either a de Vaucouleurs profile or a power-law profile, but has more stars at large radii than a single exponential. To within the uncertainties, there are no radial gradients in the RGB color or carbon-to-RGB-star ratio at large radii. Conclusions. The galaxies have faint outer stellar envelopes that are not tidally truncated within the range of radii addressed by our study. The density profiles suggest that these are not outward extensions of the inner disks, but are instead distinct stellar halos. This agrees with other work on galaxies of similar morphology. The presence of such halos is consistent with predictions of hierarchical galaxy formation scenarios. The halos consist of intermediate-age/old stars, confirming the results of other studies that have shown the starburst phenomenon to be very centrally concentrated. There is no evidence for stellar-population age/metallicity gradients within the halos themselves.Comment: 13 pages, 13 figures and 2 tables. Accepted for publication in A&

A Survey of Volunteered Open Geo-Knowledge Bases in the Semantic Web

Over the past decade, rapid advances in web technologies, coupled with innovative models of spatial data collection and consumption, have generated a robust growth in geo-referenced information, resulting in spatial information overload. Increasing 'geographic intelligence' in traditional text-based information retrieval has become a prominent approach to respond to this issue and to fulfill users' spatial information needs. Numerous efforts in the Semantic Geospatial Web, Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI), and the Linking Open Data initiative have converged in a constellation of open knowledge bases, freely available online. In this article, we survey these open knowledge bases, focusing on their geospatial dimension. Particular attention is devoted to the crucial issue of the quality of geo-knowledge bases, as well as of crowdsourced data. A new knowledge base, the OpenStreetMap Semantic Network, is outlined as our contribution to this area. Research directions in information integration and Geographic Information Retrieval (GIR) are then reviewed, with a critical discussion of their current limitations and future prospects

Infrastructure for Detector Research and Development towards the International Linear Collider

The EUDET-project was launched to create an infrastructure for developing and testing new and advanced detector technologies to be used at a future linear collider. The aim was to make possible experimentation and analysis of data for institutes, which otherwise could not be realized due to lack of resources. The infrastructure comprised an analysis and software network, and instrumentation infrastructures for tracking detectors as well as for calorimetry.Comment: 54 pages, 48 picture

The VIMOS VLT Deep Survey: the faint type-1 AGN sample

We present the type-1 active galactic nuclei (AGN) sample extracted from the VIMOS VLT Deep Survey first observations of 21000 spectra in 1.75 square degree. This sample, which is purely magnitude limited, free of morphological or color selection biases, contains 130 broad line AGN (BLAGN) spectra with redshift up to 5. Our data are divided into a wide (Iab < 22.5) and a deep (Iab < 24) subsample containing 56 and 74 objects respectively. Because of its depth and selection criteria, this sample is uniquely suited to study the population of faint type-1 AGN. Our measured surface density (~ 472 +- 48 BLAGN per square degree with Iab < 24) is significantly higher than that of any other optically selected sample of BLAGN with spectroscopic confirmation. By applying a morphological and color analysis to our AGN sample we find that: (1)~23% of the AGN brighter than Iab=22.5 are classified as extended; this percentage increases to ~42% for those with z < 1.6; (2) a non-negligible fraction of our BLAGN are lying close to the color space area occupied by stars in u*-g' versus g'-r' color-color diagram. This leads us to the conclusion that classical optical ultraviolet preselection technique, if employed at such deep magnitudes (Iab=22.5) in conjuction with a preselection of point-like sources, can miss miss up to ~35% of the AGN population. Finally, we present a composite spectrum of our sample of objects. While the continuum shape is very similar to that of the SDSS composite at short wavelengths, it is much redder than it at lambda > 3000 A. We interpret this as due to significant contamination from emission of the host galaxies, as expected from the faint absolute magnitudes sampled by our survey.Comment: Accepted to A&A, 18 pages, 14 figure