Understanding residents’ capacities to support evacuated populations : A study of earthquake and tsunami evacuation for Napier Hill, Napier, Aotearoa New Zealand.

Due to a large regional subduction zone (the Hikurangi subduction zone) and localised faults, Napier City located on the East Coast of Aotearoa/New Zealand is vulnerable to earthquake and tsunami events. On feeling a long or strong earthquake people will need to evacuate immediately inland or to higher ground to avoid being impacted by a tsunami, of which the first waves could start to arrive within 20 minutes (based on the Hikurangi earthquake and tsunami scenario presented in Power et al., 2018). Napier Hill is one such area of higher land, and it is estimated that up to 12,000 people could evacuate there in the 20 minutes following a long or strong earthquake. To understand the capacity of Napier Hill residents to support evacuees, three focus groups were held with a diverse sample of residents from Napier Hill on 21 and 22 July 2019. A follow up email was sent to all participants a week after the focus groups, containing a link to a short six question survey, which was completed by 68 people, most of whom were additional to the focus group attendees. Data from the focus groups and the survey was analysed qualitatively using thematic analysis. The findings highlight that in general people were happy to host evacuees and offer support if they were in a position to do so. However, key issues in being able to offer support included the likely lack of resources available after a disaster, ranging from basic needs though to agency support. The research findings will directly inform Napier City Council and Hawke’s Bay Civil Defence Emergency Management Group’s planning for future readiness and response by providing valuable insights for evacuation planningfalseWellingtonHawke's Bay Civil Defence Emergency Management Grou

Detecting Stellar Spots by Gravitational Microlensing

During microlensing events with a small impact parameter, the amplification of the source flux is sensitive to the surface brightness distribution of the source star. Such events provide a means for studying the surface structure of target stars in the ongoing microlensing surveys, most efficiently for giants in the Galactic bulge. In this work we demonstrate the sensitivity of point-mass microlensing to small spots with radii $r_s\lesssim0.2$ source radii. We compute the amplification deviation from the light curve of a spotless source and explore its dependence on lensing and spot parameters. During source-transit events spots can cause deviations larger than 2%, and thus be in principle detectable. Maximum relative deviation usually occurs when the lens directly crosses the spot. Its numerical value for a dark spot with sufficient contrast is found to be roughly equal to the fractional radius of the spot, i.e., up to 20% in this study. Spots can also be efficiently detected by the changes in sensitive spectral lines during the event. Notably, the presence of a spot can mimic the effect of a low-mass companion of the lens in some events.Comment: 18 pages with 7 Postscript figures, to appear in ApJ, January 2000; discussion expanded, references added, minor revisions in tex

Closed-form expressions for correlated density matrices: application to dispersive interactions and example of (He)2

Empirically correlated density matrices of N-electron systems are investigated. Exact closed-form expressions are derived for the one- and two-electron reduced density matrices from a general pairwise correlated wave function. Approximate expressions are proposed which reflect dispersive interactions between closed-shell centro-symmetric subsystems. Said expressions clearly illustrate the consequences of second-order correlation effects on the reduced density matrices. Application is made to a simple example: the (He)2 system. Reduced density matrices are explicitly calculated, correct to second order in correlation, and compared with approximations of independent electrons and independent electron pairs. The models proposed allow for variational calculations of interaction energies and equilibrium distance as well as a clear interpretation of dispersive effects on electron distributions. Both exchange and second order correlation effects are shown to play a critical role on the quality of the results.Comment: 22 page

Strong-field approximation for intense-laser atom processes: the choice of gauge

The strong-field approximation can be and has been applied in both length gauge and velocity gauge with quantitatively conflicting answers. For ionization of negative ions with a ground state of odd parity, the predictions of the two gauges differ qualitatively: in the envelope of the angular-resolved energy spectrum, dips in one gauge correspond to humps in the other. We show that the length-gauge SFA matches the exact numerical solution of the time-dependent Schr\"odinger equation.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, revtex

A first direct measurement of the intergalactic medium temperature around a quasar at z=6

The thermal state of the intergalactic medium (IGM) provides an indirect probe of both the HI and HeII reionisation epochs. Current constraints on the IGM temperature from the Lya forest are restricted to the redshift range 2<z<4.5, limiting the ability to probe the thermal memory of HI reionisation toward higher redshift. In this work, we present the first direct measurement of the IGM temperature around a z=6 quasar by analysing the Doppler widths of Lya absorption lines in the proximity zone of SDSS J0818+1722. We use a high resolution (R= 40000) Keck/HIRES spectrum in combination with detailed numerical modelling to obtain the temperature at mean density, T_0=23600\pm^5000_6900K (\pm^9200_9300K) at 68 (95) per cent confidence assuming a prior probability 13500K<T_0<38500 K following HI and HeII reionisation. This enables us to place an upper limit on the redshift of HI reionisation, z_H, within 33 comoving Mpc of SDSS J0818+1722. If the quasar reionises the HeII in its vicinity, then in the limit of instantaneous reionisation we infer z_H<9.0 (11.0) at 68 (95) per cent confidence assuming photoheating is the dominant heat source and that HI reionisation is driven by ionising sources with soft spectra, typical of population II stars. If the HI and HeII in the IGM around SDSS J0818+1722 are instead reionised simultaneously by a population of massive metal-free stars, characterised by very hard ionising spectra, we obtain a tighter upper limit of z_H<8.4 (9.4). Initiating reionisation at higher redshifts produces temperatures which are too low with respect to our constraint unless the HI ionising sources or the quasar itself have spectra significantly harder than typically assumed.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figures, accepted to MNRA

Evidence for Quasar Activity Triggered by Galaxy Mergers in HST Observations of Dust-reddened Quasars

We present Hubble ACS images of thirteen dust reddened Type-1 quasars selected from the FIRST/2MASS Red Quasar Survey. These quasars have high intrinsic luminosities after correction for dust obscuration (-23.5 > M_B > -26.2 from K-magnitude). The images show strong evidence of recent or ongoing interaction in eleven of the thirteen cases, even before the quasar nucleus is subtracted. None of the host galaxies are well fit by a simple elliptical profile. The fraction of quasars showing interaction is significantly higher than the 30% seen in samples of host galaxies of normal, unobscured quasars. There is a weak correlation between the amount of dust reddening and the magnitude of interaction in the host galaxy, measured using the Gini coefficient and the Concentration index. Although few host galaxy studies of normal quasars are matched to ours in intrinsic quasar luminosity, no evidence has been found for a strong dependence of merger activity on host luminosity in samples of the host galaxies of normal quasars. We thus believe that the high merger fraction in our sample is related to their obscured nature, with a significant amount of reddening occurring in the host galaxy. The red quasar phenomenon seems to have an evolutionary explanation, with the young quasar spending the early part of its lifetime enshrouded in an interacting galaxy. This might be further indication of a link between AGN and starburst galaxies.Comment: 18 pages, 6 low resolution figures, accepted for publication in Ap

Low-temperature ordered phases of the spin-12\frac{1}{2} XXZ chain system Cs2_2CoCl4_4

In this study the magnetic order of the spin-1/2 XXZ chain system Cs$_2$CoCl$_4$ in a temperature range from 50 mK to 0.5 K and in applied magnetic fields up to 3.5 T is investigated by high-resolution measurements of the thermal expansion and the specific heat. Applying magnetic fields along a or c suppresses $T_\textrm{N}$ completely at about 2.1 T. In addition, we find an adjacent intermediate phase before the magnetization saturates close to 2.5 T. For magnetic fields applied along b, a surprisingly rich phase diagram arises. Two additional transitions are observed at critical fields $\mu_0 H_{SF1}\simeq 0.25$ T and $\mu_0 H_{SF2}\simeq 0.7$ T, which we propose to arise from a two-stage spin-flop transition.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figure