5,022 research outputs found
Dissecting the complex environment of a distant quasar with MUSE
High redshift quasars can be used to trace the early growth of massive
galaxies and may be triggered by galaxy-galaxy interactions. We present MUSE
science verification data on one such interacting system consisting of the
well-studied z=3.2 PKS1614+051 quasar, its AGN companion galaxy and bridge of
material radiating in Lyalpha between the quasar and its companion. We find a
total of four companion galaxies (at least two galaxies are new discoveries),
three of which reside within the likely virial radius of the quasar host,
suggesting that the system will evolve into a massive elliptical galaxy by the
present day. The MUSE data are of sufficient quality to split the extended
Lyalpha emission line into narrow velocity channels. In these the gas can be
seen extending towards each of the three neighbouring galaxies suggesting that
the emission-line gas originates in a gravitational interaction between the
galaxies and the quasar host. The photoionization source of this gas is less
clear but is probably dominated by the two AGN. The quasar's Lyalpha emission
spectrum is double-peaked, likely due to absorbing neutral material at the
quasar's systemic redshift with a low column density as no damping wings are
present. The spectral profiles of the AGN and bridge's Lyalpha emission are
also consistent with absorption at the same redshift indicating this neutral
material may extend over > 50 kpc. The fact that the neutral material is seen
in the line of sight to the quasar and transverse to it, and the fact that we
see the quasar and it also illuminates the emission-line bridge, suggests the
quasar radiates isotropically and any obscuring torus is small. These results
demonstrate the power of MUSE for investigating the dynamics of interacting
systems at high redshift.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, published in MNRA
Conception and preliminary evaluation of an optical fibre sensor for simultaneous measurement of pressure and temperature
peer-reviewedThis paper presents a novel concept of simultaneously measuring pressure and
temperature using a silica optical fibre extrinsic Fabry-Perot interferometric (EFPI) pressure
sensor incorporating a fibre Bragg grating (FBG), which is constructed entirely from fusedsilica.
The novel device is used to simultaneously provide accurate pressure and temperature
readings at the point of measurement. Furthermore, the FBG temperature measurement is used
to eliminate the temperature cross-sensitivity of the EFPI pressure sensorPUBLISHEDpeer reviewe
Lose The Views: Limited Angle CT Reconstruction via Implicit Sinogram Completion
Computed Tomography (CT) reconstruction is a fundamental component to a wide
variety of applications ranging from security, to healthcare. The classical
techniques require measuring projections, called sinograms, from a full
180 view of the object. This is impractical in a limited angle
scenario, when the viewing angle is less than 180, which can occur due
to different factors including restrictions on scanning time, limited
flexibility of scanner rotation, etc. The sinograms obtained as a result, cause
existing techniques to produce highly artifact-laden reconstructions. In this
paper, we propose to address this problem through implicit sinogram completion,
on a challenging real world dataset containing scans of common checked-in
luggage. We propose a system, consisting of 1D and 2D convolutional neural
networks, that operates on a limited angle sinogram to directly produce the
best estimate of a reconstruction. Next, we use the x-ray transform on this
reconstruction to obtain a "completed" sinogram, as if it came from a full
180 measurement. We feed this to standard analytical and iterative
reconstruction techniques to obtain the final reconstruction. We show with
extensive experimentation that this combined strategy outperforms many
competitive baselines. We also propose a measure of confidence for the
reconstruction that enables a practitioner to gauge the reliability of a
prediction made by our network. We show that this measure is a strong indicator
of quality as measured by the PSNR, while not requiring ground truth at test
time. Finally, using a segmentation experiment, we show that our reconstruction
preserves the 3D structure of objects effectively.Comment: Spotlight presentation at CVPR 201
The Air Littoral: Another Look
Assessing threats to the air littoral, the airspace between ground forces and high-end fighters and bombers, requires a paradigm change in American military thinking about verticality. This article explores the consequences of domain convergence, specifically for the Army and Air Force’s different concepts of control. It will assist US military and policy practitioners in conceptualizing the air littoral and in thinking more vertically about the air and land domains and the challenges of domain convergence
A jet-cloud interaction in the 3C 196 environment
Powerful radio galaxies and radio-loud quasars at high redshifts are
frequently associated with extended emission-line regions (EELRs). Here we
investigate the [O II] EELR around the quasar 3C 196 at z=0.871 using integral
field spectroscopy. We also detect extended [Ne II] emission at a distance of
about 30 kpc from the core. The emission is aligned with the radio hot spots
and shows a redshifted and a blueshifted component with a velocity difference
of ~800 km s^-1. The alignment effect and large velocities support the
hypothesis that the EELR is caused by a jet-cloud interaction, which is
furthermore indicated by the presence of a pronounced bend in the radio
emission at the location of the radio hot spots. We also report observations of
two other systems which do not show as clear indications of interactions. We
find a weaker alignment of an [O II] EELR from the z=0.927 quasar 3C 336, while
no EELR is found around the core-dominated quasar OI 363 at z=0.63.Comment: 7 pages, accepted for publication in A&
Heating of the molecular gas in the massive outflow of the local ultraluminous-infrared and radio-loud galaxy 4C12.50
We present a comparison of the molecular gas properties in the outflow vs. in
the ambient medium of the local prototype radio-loud and ultraluminous-infrared
galaxy 4C12.50 (IRAS13451+1232), using new data from the IRAM Plateau de Bure
interferometer and 30m telescope, and the Herschel space telescope. Previous
H_2 (0-0) S(1) and S(2) observations with the Spitzer space telescope had
indicated that the warm (~400K) molecular gas in 4C12.50 is made up of a
1.4(+-0.2)x10^8 M_sun ambient reservoir and a 5.2(+-1.7)x10^7 M_sun outflow.
The new CO(1-0) data cube indicates that the corresponding cold (25K) H_2 gas
mass is 1.0(+-0.1)x10^10 M_sun for the ambient medium and <1.3x10^8 M_sun for
the outflow, when using a CO-intensity-to-H_2-mass conversion factor alpha of
0.8 M_sun /(K km/s pc^2). The combined mass outflow rate is high, 230-800
M_sun/yr, but the amount of gas that could escape the galaxy is low. A
potential inflow of gas from a 3.3(+-0.3)x10^8 M_sun tidal tail could moderate
any mass loss. The mass ratio of warm-to-cold molecular gas is >= 30 times
higher in the outflow than in the ambient medium, indicating that a
non-negligible fraction of the accelerated gas is heated to temperatures at
which star formation is inefficient. This conclusion is robust against the use
of different alpha factor values, and/or different warm gas tracers (H_2 vs.
H_2 plus CO): with the CO-probed gas mass being at least 40 times lower at 400K
than at 25K, the total warm-to-cold mass ratio is always lower in the ambient
gas than in the entrained gas. Heating of the molecular gas could facilitate
the detection of new outflows in distant galaxies by enhancing their emission
in intermediate rotational number CO lines.Comment: A&A, in pres
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