54 research outputs found
WALOP-South: A Four Camera One Shot Imaging Polarimeter for PASIPHAE Survey. Paper I -- Optical Design
The WALOP-South instrument will be mounted on the 1 m SAAO telescope in South
Africa as part of the PASIPHAE program to carry out a linear imaging
polarization survey of the Galactic polar regions in the optical band. Designed
to achieve polarimetric sensitivity of across a
arcminute field of view, it will be capable of measuring the Stokes parameters
I, q and u in a single exposure in the SDSS-r broadband and narrowband filters
between . For each measurement, four images of the
full field corresponding to linear polarization angles of 0 deg, 45 deg, 90 deg
and 135 deg in the instrument coordinate system will be created on four
detectors from which the Stokes parameters can be found using differential
photometry. In designing the optical system, major challenges included
correcting for the dispersion introduced by large split angle Wollaston Prisms
used as analysers as well as other aberrations from the entire field to obtain
imaging quality PSF at the detector. We present the optical design of the
WALOP-South instrument which overcomes these challenges and delivers near
seeing limited PSFs for the entire field of view.Comment: 31 pages, 18 Figures and 8 Tables. Accepted in the Journal of
Astronomical Telescopes, Instruments, and System
Bright-Moon Sky as a Wide-Field Linear Polarimetric Flat Source for Calibration
Next-generation wide-field optical polarimeters like the Wide-Area Linear
Optical Polarimeters (WALOPs) have a field of view (FoV) of tens of arcminutes.
For efficient and accurate calibration of these instruments, wide-field
polarimetric flat sources will be essential. Currently, no established
wide-field polarimetric standard or flat sources exist. This paper tests the
feasibility of using the polarized sky patches of the size of around ten-by-ten
arcminutes, at a distance of up to 20 degrees from the Moon, on bright-Moon
nights as a wide-field linear polarimetric flat source. We observed 19 patches
of the sky adjacent to the bright-Moon with the RoboPol instrument in the
SDSS-r broadband filter. These were observed on five nights within two days of
the full-Moon across two RoboPol observing seasons. We find that for 18 of the
19 patches, the uniformity in the measured normalized Stokes parameters and
is within 0.2 %, with 12 patches exhibiting uniformity within 0.07 % or
better for both and simultaneously, making them reliable and stable
wide-field linear polarization flats. We demonstrate that the sky on
bright-Moon nights is an excellent wide-field linear polarization flat source.
Various combinations of the normalized Stokes parameters and can be
obtained by choosing suitable locations of the sky patch with respect to the
MoonComment: 8 pages including appendix, 6 figures and 3 tables. Submitted to
Astronomy and Astrophysics for review. Comments are welcom
Starlight-polarization-based tomography of the magnetized ISM: Pasiphae's line-of-sight inversion method
We present the first Bayesian method for tomographic decomposition of the
plane-of-sky orientation of the magnetic field with the use of stellar
polarimetry and distance. This standalone tomographic inversion method presents
an important step forward in reconstructing the magnetized interstellar medium
(ISM) in 3D within dusty regions. We develop a model in which the polarization
signal from the magnetized and dusty ISM is described by thin layers at various
distances. Our modeling makes it possible to infer the mean polarization
(amplitude and orientation) induced by individual dusty clouds and to account
for the turbulence-induced scatter in a generic way. We present a likelihood
function that explicitly accounts for uncertainties in polarization and
parallax. We develop a framework for reconstructing the magnetized ISM through
the maximization of the log-likelihood using a nested sampling method. We test
our Bayesian inversion method on mock data taking into account realistic
uncertainties from and as expected for the optical polarization survey
PASIPHAE according to the currently planned observing strategy. We demonstrate
that our method is effective in recovering the cloud properties as soon as the
polarization induced by a cloud to its background stars is higher than , for the adopted survey exposure time and level of systematic
uncertainty. Our method makes it possible to recover not only the mean
polarization properties but also to characterize the intrinsic scatter, thus
opening ways to characterize ISM turbulence and the magnetic field strength.
Finally, we apply our method to an existing dataset of starlight polarization
with known line-of-sight decomposition, demonstrating agreement with previous
results and an improved quantification of uncertainties in cloud properties.Comment: 28 pages, including 2 appendices, submitted to A&
VizieR Online Data Catalog: Polarization of quasars (Hutsemekers+, 2018)
This Table contains optical linear polarization measurements of 86 quasars obtained in May 2008, October 2008, and from April to July 2015 with the Focal Reducer and low dispersion Spectrographs FORS1 and FORS2 attached to the Very Large Telescope at the Paranal Observatory. (1 data file)
Optical linear polarization measurements of quasars obtained with the Very Large Telescope at Paranal Observatory
We report 87 previously unpublished optical linear polarization measurements of 86 quasars obtained in May and October 2008, and from April to July 2015 with the FOcal Reducer and low-dispersion Spectrographs FORS1 and FORS2 attached to the Very Large Telescope at the Paranal Observatory. Of the 86 quasars, 37 have p ≥ 0.6%, 9 have p ≥ 2%, and 1 has p ≥ 10%
Using random-forest multiple imputation to address bias of self-reported anthropometric measures, hypertension and hypercholesterolemia in the Belgian health interview survey
BACKGROUND: In many countries, the prevalence of non-communicable diseases risk factors is commonly assessed through self-reported information from health interview surveys. It has been shown, however, that self-reported instead of objective data lead to an underestimation of the prevalence of obesity, hypertension and hypercholesterolemia. This study aimed to assess the agreement between self-reported and measured height, weight, hypertension and hypercholesterolemia and to identify an adequate approach for valid measurement error correction.
METHODS: Nine thousand four hundred thirty-nine participants of the 2018 Belgian health interview survey (BHIS) older than 18 years, of which 1184 participated in the 2018 Belgian health examination survey (BELHES), were included in the analysis. Regression calibration was compared with multiple imputation by chained equations based on parametric and non-parametric techniques.
RESULTS: This study confirmed the underestimation of risk factor prevalence based on self-reported data. With both regression calibration and multiple imputation, adjusted estimation of these variables in the BHIS allowed to generate national prevalence estimates that were closer to their BELHES clinical counterparts. For overweight, obesity and hypertension, all methods provided smaller standard errors than those obtained with clinical data. However, for hypercholesterolemia, for which the regression model’s accuracy was poor, multiple imputation was the only approach which provided smaller standard errors than those based on clinical data.
CONCLUSIONS: The random-forest multiple imputation proves to be the method of choice to correct the bias related to self-reported data in the BHIS. This method is particularly useful to enable improved secondary analysis of self-reported data by using information included in the BELHES. Whenever feasible, combined information from HIS and objective measurements should be used in risk factor monitoring.</p
- …