SuperCam, a 64-pixel heterodyne imaging array for the 870 micron atmospheric window

We report on the development of SuperCam, a 64 pixel, superheterodyne camera designed for operation in the astrophysically important 870 micron atmospheric window. SuperCam will be used to answer fundamental questions about the physics and chemistry of molecular clouds in the Galaxy and their direct relation to star and planet formation. The advent of such a system will provide an order of magnitude increase in mapping speed over what is now available and revolutionize how observational astronomy is performed in this important wavelength regime. Unlike the situation with bolometric detectors, heterodyne receiver systems are coherent, retaining information about both the amplitude and phase of the incident photon stream. From this information a high resolution spectrum of the incident light can be obtained without multiplexing. SuperCam will be constructed by stacking eight, 1x8 rows of fixed tuned, SIS mixers. The IF output of each mixer will be connected to a low-noise, broadband MMIC amplifier integrated into the mixer block. The instantaneous IF bandwidth of each pixel will be ~2 GHz, with a center frequency of 5 GHz. A spectrum of the central 500 MHz of each IF band will be provided by the array spectrometer. Local oscillator power is provided by a frequency multiplier whose output is divided between the pixels by using a matrix of waveguide power dividers. The mixer array will be cooled to 4K by a closed-cycle refrigeration system. SuperCam will reside at the Cassegrain focus of the 10m Heinrich Hertz telescope (HHT). A prototype single row of the array will be tested on the HHT in 2006, with the first engineering run of the full array in late 2007. The array is designed and constructed so that it may be readily scaled to higher frequencies.Comment: 12 pages, 14 figures, to be published in the Proceedings of SPIE Vol. 6275, "Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation, Millimeter and Submillimeter Detectors and Instrumentation for Astronomy III

A novel approach to light-front perturbation theory

We suggest a possible algorithm to calculate one-loop n-point functions within a variant of light-front perturbation theory. The key ingredients are the covariant Passarino-Veltman scheme and a surprising integration formula that localises Feynman integrals at vanishing longitudinal momentum. The resulting expressions are generalisations of Weinberg's infinite-momentum results and are manifestly Lorentz invariant. For n = 2 and 3 we explicitly show how to relate those to light-front integrals with standard energy denominators. All expressions are rendered finite by means of transverse dimensional regularisation.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figure

Electroweak corrections to three-jet production in electron-positron annihilation

We compute the electroweak ${\cal O}(\alpha^3\alpha_s)$ corrections to three-jet production and related event-shape observables at electron-positron colliders. We properly account for the experimental photon isolation criteria and for the corrections to the total hadronic cross section. Corrections to the three-jet rate and to normalised event-shape distributions turn out to be at the few-per-cent level.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures. v2: changed normalisation in Fig. 2, minor text revisions, version to appear in Phys.Lett.

Rheumatoid arthritis seropositive for the rheumatoid factor is linked to the protein tyrosine phosphatase nonreceptor 22-620W allele

The protein tyrosine phosphatase nonreceptor type 22 (PTPN22) gene encodes for lymphoid tyrosine phosphatase LYP, involved in the negative regulation of early T-cell activation. An association has recently been reported between the PTPN22-620W functional allele and rheumatoid factor-positive (RF(+)) rheumatoid arthritis (RA), among other autoimmune diseases. Expected linkage proof for consistency cannot be definitely produced by an affected sib-pair (ASP) analysis. Our aim was therefore to search for linkage evidence with the transmission disequilibrium test. DNA from the French Caucasian population was available for two samples of 100 families with one RA patient and both parents, and for 88 RA index cases from RA ASP families. Genotyping was carried out by PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism. The analysis was performed using the transmission disequilibrium test, genotype relative risk and ASP-based analysis. The transmission disequilibrium test of the PTPN22-620W allele revealed linkage and association for RF(+ )RA (61% of transmission, P = 0.037). The genotype relative risk showed the risk allele in 34% of RF(+ )RA patients and in 24% of controls derived from nontransmitted parental chromosomes (P = 0.047, odds ratio = 1.69, 95% confidence interval = 1.03–2.78). The ASP investigation showed no enriched risk allele in RA multiplex families, resulting in a lack of power of ASP analysis, explaining the published negative results. This study is the first to show linkage of PTPN22 to RF(+ )RA, consistent with PTPN22 as a new RA gene

Ordinary and radiative muon capture on the proton and the pseudoscalar form factor of the nucleon

We calculate ordinary and radiative muon capture on the proton in an effective field theory of pions, nucleons and delta isobars, working to third and second order in the small scale expansion respectively. Preceding calculations in chiral effective field theories only employed pion and nucleon degrees of freedom and were not able to reproduce the photon spectrum in the pioneering experiment of radiative muon capture on the proton from TRIUMF. For the past few years it has been speculated that the discrepancy between theory and experiment might be due to Delta(1232) related effects, which are only included via higher order contact interactions in the standard chiral approach. In this report we demonstrate that this speculation does not hold true. We show that contrary to expectations from naive dimensional analysis isobar effects on the photon spectrum and the total rate in radiative muon capture are of the order of a few percent, consistent with earlier findings in a more phenomenological approach. We further demonstrate that both ordinary and radiative muon capture constitute systems with a very well behaved chiral expansion, both in standard chiral perturbation theory and in the small scale expansion, and present some new ideas that might be at the bottom of the still unresolved discrepancy between theory and experiment in radiative muon capture. Finally we comment upon the procedure employed by the TRIUMF group to extract new information from their radiative muon capture experiment on the pseudoscalar form factor of the nucleon. We show that it is inconsistent with the ordinary muon capture data.Comment: 22 pp, RevTeX, uses epsf, 8 figs, enlarged version, discussion of ordinary muon capture on protons substantially enlarged, accepted for publication in Nucl.Phys.A, FZJ-IKP(TH)-2000-0

SuperCam: a 64 pixel heterodyne imaging spectrometer

We report on the development of SuperCam, a 64 pixel imaging spectrometer designed for operation in the astrophysically important 870 micron atmospheric window. SuperCam will be used to answer fundamental questions about the physics and chemistry of molecular clouds in the Galaxy and their direct relation to star and planet formation. The Supercam key project is a fully sampled Galactic plane survey covering over 500 square degrees of the Galaxy in 12CO(3-2) and 13CO(3-2) with 0.3 km/s velocity resolution

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ABSTRACT. Objective. To investigate whether frequency of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and/or other autoimmune (AI) disorders was increased in RA French Caucasian families among the first-(FDR) and seconddegree relatives (SDR), and to test whether the presence of AI disease family history identified a specific RA subset. Methods. We conducted telephone interviews to obtain histories of AI diseases among the FDR and SDR of 368 RA probands, belonging either to trio or affected sib-pair (ASP) families. All the AI diagnoses were confirmed by the physician of the affected relative