Analysis of a Failed Eclipse Plasma Ejection Using EUV Observations

The photometry of eclipse white-light (W-L) images showing a moving blob is interpreted for the first time together with observations from space with the PRoject for On Board Autonomy (PROBA-2) mission (ESA). An off-limb event seen with great details in W-L was analyzed with the SWAP imager (Sun Watcher using Active pixel system detector and image Processing) working in the EUV near 174 A. It is an elongated plasma blob structure of 25 Mm diameter moving above the E-limb with coronal loops under. Summed and co-aligned SWAP images are evaluated using a 20 hours sequence, in addition to the July 11, 2010 eclipse W-L images taken from several sites. The Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) instruments on board the Solar Dynamical Observatory (SDO) recorded the event suggesting a magnetic reconnection near a high neutral point; accordingly, we also call it a magnetic plasmoid. The measured proper motion of the blob shows a velocity up to 12 km s^-1. Electron densities of the isolated condensation (cloud or blob or plasmoid) is photometrically evaluated. The typical value is 10^8 cm^-3 at r=1.7 R, superposed on a background corona of 10^7 cm^-3 density. The mass of the cloud near its maximum brightness is found to be 1.6x10^13 gr which is typically 0.6x10^-4 of the overall mass of the corona. From the extrapolated magnetic field the cloud evolves inside a rather broad open region but decelerates, after reaching its maximum brightness. The influence of such small events for supplying material to the ubiquitous slow wind is noticed. A precise evaluation of the EUV photometric data after accurately removing the stray light, suggests an interpretation of the weak 174 A radiation of the cloud as due to resonance scattering in the Fe IX/X lines.Comment: 17 pages, 11 figures, Accepted in Solar Physic

Half-life Limit of 19Mg

A search for 19Mg was performed using projectile fragmentation of a 150 MeV/nucleon 36Ar beam. No events of 19Mg were observed. From the time-of-flight through the fragment separator an upper limit of 22 ns for the half-life of 19Mg was established

A Fisher-Rao metric for paracatadioptric images of lines

In a central paracatadioptric imaging system a perspective camera takes an image of a scene reflected in a paraboloidal mirror. A 360° field of view is obtained, but the image is severely distorted. In particular, straight lines in the scene project to circles in the image. These distortions make it diffcult to detect projected lines using standard image processing algorithms. The distortions are removed using a Fisher-Rao metric which is defined on the space of projected lines in the paracatadioptric image. The space of projected lines is divided into subsets such that on each subset the Fisher-Rao metric is closely approximated by the Euclidean metric. Each subset is sampled at the vertices of a square grid and values are assigned to the sampled points using an adaptation of the trace transform. The result is a set of digital images to which standard image processing algorithms can be applied. The effectiveness of this approach to line detection is illustrated using two algorithms, both of which are based on the Sobel edge operator. The task of line detection is reduced to the task of finding isolated peaks in a Sobel image. An experimental comparison is made between these two algorithms and third algorithm taken from the literature and based on the Hough transform

An Efficient Approach to Obtaining Large Numbers of Distant Supernova Host Galaxy Redshifts

We use the wide-field capabilities of the 2dF fibre positioner and the AAOmega spectrograph on the Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT) to obtain redshifts of galaxies that hosted supernovae during the first three years of the Supernova Legacy Survey (SNLS). With exposure times ranging from 10 to 60 ksec per galaxy, we were able to obtain redshifts for 400 host galaxies in two SNLS fields, thereby substantially increasing the total number of SNLS supernovae with host galaxy redshifts. The median redshift of the galaxies in our sample that hosted photometrically classified Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) is 0.77, which is 25% higher than the median redshift of spectroscopically confirmed SNe Ia in the three-year sample of the SNLS. Our results demonstrate that one can use wide-field fibre-fed multi-object spectrographs on 4m telescopes to efficiently obtain redshifts for large numbers of supernova host galaxies over the large areas of sky that will be covered by future high-redshift supernova surveys, such as the Dark Energy Survey.Comment: 22 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in PAS

Temperature and Bias Voltage Dependence of the MPPC Detectors

to appear in the IEEE Transactions on Nuclear ScienceInternational audienceThis work reports on the characterization of the Multi-Pixel Photon Counter (MPPC) detectors as a function of the temperature and bias voltage. Devices of 1x1 mm2 and 3x3 mm2 total area and 50x50 µm2 µcell size produced by Hamamatsu Photonics have been studied. The temperature has been varied from -110°C to -50°C using a cryostat cooled by liquid nitrogen and from 0 to 38°C using a climatic chamber. Important electrical parameters of the MPPC detectors as gain, breakdown voltage, quenching resistance, capacitance and dark count rate have been measuredsubstrate (on the rear side) and by a metal layer (on the front side). Each µcell is represented by a p+/n junction working in Geiger-mode connected in series with its integrated passive quenching resistance. The detectors are operated with each µcell biased to a bias voltage Vbias above the breakdown voltage VBD. The Vbias exceeds the VBD by an amount called overvoltage ΔV = Vbias – VBD, which has a critical influence on detector performance

Is the structure of 42Si understood?

A more detailed test of the implementation of nuclear forces that drive shell evolution in the pivotal nucleus \nuc{42}{Si} -- going beyond earlier comparisons of excited-state energies -- is important. The two leading shell-model effective interactions, SDPF-MU and SDPF-U-Si, both of which reproduce the low-lying \nuc{42}{Si}($2^+_1$) energy, but whose predictions for other observables differ significantly, are interrogated by the population of states in neutron-rich \nuc{42}{Si} with a one-proton removal reaction from \nuc{43}{P} projectiles at 81~MeV/nucleon. The measured cross sections to the individual \nuc{42}{Si} final states are compared to calculations that combine eikonal reaction dynamics with these shell-model nuclear structure overlaps. The differences in the two shell-model descriptions are examined and linked to predicted low-lying excited $0^+$ states and shape coexistence. Based on the present data, which are in better agreement with the SDPF-MU calculations, the state observed at 2150(13)~keV in \nuc{42}{Si} is proposed to be the ($0^+_2$) level.Comment: accepted in Physical Review Letter