The RAVE Survey: Constraining the Local Galactic Escape Speed

We report new constraints on the local escape speed of our Galaxy. Our analysis is based on a sample of high velocity stars from the RAVE survey and two previously published datasets. We use cosmological simulations of disk galaxy formation to motivate our assumptions on the shape of the velocity distribution, allowing for a significantly more precise measurement of the escape velocity compared to previous studies. We find that the escape velocity lies within the range 498\kms < \ve < 608 \kms (90 per cent confidence), with a median likelihood of 544\kms. The fact that \ve^2 is significantly greater than 2\vc^2 (where \vc=220\kms is the local circular velocity) implies that there must be a significant amount of mass exterior to the Solar circle, i.e. this convincingly demonstrates the presence of a dark halo in the Galaxy. For a simple isothermal halo, one can calculate that the minimum radial extent is $\sim58$ kpc. We use our constraints on \ve to determine the mass of the Milky Way halo for three halo profiles. For example, an adiabatically contracted NFW halo model results in a virial mass of $1.42^{+1.14}_{-0.54}\times10^{12}M_\odot$ and virial radius of $305^{+66}_{-45}$ kpc (90 per cent confidence). For this model the circular velocity at the virial radius is 142^{+31}_{-21}\kms. Although our halo masses are model dependent, we find that they are in good agreement with each other.Comment: 19 pages, 9 figures, MNRAS (accepted). v2 incorporates minor cosmetic revisions which have no effect on the results or conclusion

Thick disk kinematics from RAVE and the solar motion

Radial velocity surveys such as the Radial Velocity Experiment (RAVE) provide us with measurements of hundreds of thousands of nearby stars most of which belong to the Galactic thin, thick disk or halo. Ideally, to study the Galactic disks (both thin and thick) one should make use of the multi-dimensional phase-space and the whole pattern of chemical abundances of their stellar populations. In this paper, with the aid of the RAVE Survey, we study the thin and thick disks of the Milky Way, focusing on the latter. We present a technique to disentangle the stellar content of the two disks based on the kinematics and other stellar parameters such as the surface gravity of the stars. Using the Padova Galaxy Model, we checked the ability of our method to correctly isolate the thick disk component from the Galaxy mixture of stellar populations. We introduce selection criteria in order to clean the observed radial velocities from the Galactic differential rotation and to take into account the partial sky coverage of RAVE. We developed a numerical technique to statistically disentangle thin and thick disks from their mixture. We deduce the components of the solar motion relative to the Local Standard of Rest (LSR) in the radial and vertical direction, the rotational lag of the thick disk component relative to the LSR, and the square root of the absolute value of the velocity dispersion tensor for the thick disk alone. The analysis of the thin disk is presented in another paper. We find good agreement with previous independent parameter determinations. In our analysis we used photometrically determined distances. In the Appendix we show that similar values can be found for the thick disk alone as derived in the main sections of our paper even without the knowledge of photometric distances.Comment: accepted on A&A, please see companion paper "THIN disk kinem...

Waveshifters and Scintillators for Ionizing Radiation Detection

Scintillation and waveshifter materials have been developed for the detection of ionizing radiation in an STTR program between Ludlum Measurements, Inc. and the University of Notre Dame. Several new waveshifter materials have been developed which are comparable in efficiency and faster in fluorescence decay than the standard material Y11 (K27) used in particle physics for several decades. Additionally, new scintillation materials useful for fiber tracking have been developed which have been compared to 3HF. Lastly, work was done on developing liquid scintillators and paint-on scintillators and waveshifters for high radiation environments

Thin disc, Thick Disc and Halo in a Simulated Galaxy

Within a cosmological hydrodynamical simulation, we form a disc galaxy with sub- components which can be assigned to a thin stellar disc, thick disk, and a low mass stellar halo via a chemical decomposition. The thin and thick disc populations so selected are distinct in their ages, kinematics, and metallicities. Thin disc stars are young (<6.6 Gyr), possess low velocity dispersion ({\sigma}U,V,W = 41, 31, 25 km/s), high [Fe/H], and low [O/Fe]. The thick disc stars are old (6.6<age<9.8 Gyrs), lag the thin disc by \sim21 km/s, possess higher velocity dispersion ({\sigma}U,V,W = 49, 44, 35 km/s), relatively low [Fe/H] and high [O/Fe]. The halo component comprises less than 4% of stars in the "solar annulus" of the simulation, has low metallicity, a velocity ellipsoid defined by ({\sigma}U,V,W = 62, 46, 45 km/s) and is formed primarily in-situ during an early merger epoch. Gas-rich mergers during this epoch play a major role in fuelling the formation of the old disc stars (the thick disc). This is consistent with studies which show that cold accretion is the main source of a disc galaxy's baryons. Our simulation initially forms a relatively short (scalelength \sim1.7 kpc at z=1) and kinematically hot disc, primarily from gas accreted during the galaxy's merger epoch. Far from being a competing formation scenario, migration is crucial for reconciling the short, hot, discs which form at high redshift in {\Lambda}CDM, with the properties of the thick disc at z=0. The thick disc, as defined by its abundances maintains its relatively short scale-length at z = 0 (2.31 kpc) compared with the total disc scale-length of 2.73 kpc. The inside-out nature of disc growth is imprinted the evolution of abundances such that the metal poor {\alpha}-young population has a larger scale-length (4.07 kpc) than the more chemically evolved metal rich {\alpha}-young population (2.74 kpc).Comment: Submitted to MNRAS. This version after helpful referee comments. Comments welcome to [email protected]

The design, construction and performance of the MICE scintillating fibre trackers

This is the Pre-print version of the Article. The official published version can be accessed from the link below - Copyright @ 2011 ElsevierCharged-particle tracking in the international Muon Ionisation Cooling Experiment (MICE) will be performed using two solenoidal spectrometers, each instrumented with a tracking detector based on diameter scintillating fibres. The design and construction of the trackers is described along with the quality-assurance procedures, photon-detection system, readout electronics, reconstruction and simulation software and the data-acquisition system. Finally, the performance of the MICE tracker, determined using cosmic rays, is presented.This work was supported by the Science and Technology Facilities Council under grant numbers PP/E003214/1, PP/E000479/1, PP/E000509/1, PP/E000444/1, and through SLAs with STFC-supported laboratories. This work was also supportedby the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, which is operated by the Fermi Research Alliance, under contract No. DE-AC02-76CH03000 with the U.S. Department of Energy, and by the U.S. National Science Foundation under grants PHY-0301737,PHY-0521313, PHY-0758173 and PHY-0630052. The authors also acknowledge the support of the World Premier International Research Center Initiative (WPI Initiative), MEXT, Japan

Differential Production Cross Section of Z Bosons as a Function of Transverse Momentum at sqrt{s}=1.8 TeV

We present a measurement of the transverse momentum distribution of Z bosons produced in ppbar collisions at sqrt{s}=1.8 TeV using data collected by the D0 experiment at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider during 1994--1996. We find good agreement between our data and a current resummation calculation. We also use our data to extract values of the non-perturbative parameters for a particular version of the resummation formalism, obtaining significantly more precise values than previous determinations.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. Letters v2 has margin error correcte

Chemical gradients in the Milky Way from the RAVE data

Aims. We aim at measuring the chemical gradients of the elements Mg, Al, Si, and Fe along the Galactic radius to provide new constraints on the chemical evolution models of the Galaxy and Galaxy models such as the Besancon model. Thanks to the large number of stars of our RAVE sample we can study how the gradients vary as function of the distance from the Galactic plane. Methods. We analysed three different samples selected from three independent datasets: a sample of 19 962 dwarf stars selected from the RAVE database, a sample of 10 616 dwarf stars selected from the Geneva-Copenhagen Survey (GCS) dataset, and a mock sample (equivalent to the RAVE sample) created by using the GALAXIA code, which is based on the Besancon model. The three samples were analysed by using the very same method for comparison purposes. We integrated the Galactic orbits and obtained the guiding radii (R-g) and the maximum distances from the Galactic plane reached by the stars along their orbits (Z(max)). We measured the chemical gradients as functions of R-g at different Z(max). Results. We found that the chemical gradients of the RAVE and GCS samples are negative and show consistent trends, although they are not equal: at Z(max) < 0.4 kpc and 4.5 < R-g(kpc) < 9.5, the iron gradient for the RAVE sample is d[Fe/H]/dR(g) = -0.065 dex kpc(-1), whereas for the GCS sample it is d[Fe/H]/dR(g) = -0.043 dex kpc(-1) with internal errors of +/-0.002 and +/-0.004 dex kpc(-1), respectively. The gradients of the RAVE and GCS samples become flatter at larger Z(max). Conversely, the mock sample has a positive iron gradient of d[Fe/H]/dR(g) = +0.053 +/- 0.003 dex kpc(-1) at Z(max) < 0.4 kpc and remains positive at any Z(max). These positive and unrealistic values originate from the lack of correlation between metallicity and tangential velocity in the Besancon model. In addition, the low metallicity and asymmetric drift of the thick disc causes a shift of the stars towards lower R-g and metallicity which, together with the thin-disc stars with a higher metallicity and R-g, generates a fictitious positive gradient of the full sample. The flatter gradient at larger Z(max) found in the RAVE and the GCS samples may therefore be due to the superposition of thin-and thick-disc stars, which mimicks a flatter or positive gradient. This does not exclude the possibility that the thick disc has no chemical gradient. The discrepancies between the observational samples and the mock sample can be reduced by i) decreasing the density; ii) decreasing the vertical velocity; and iii) increasing the metallicity of the thick disc in the Besancon model

Evidence for a narrow dip structure at 1.9 GeV/c2^2 in 3π+3π−3\pi^+ 3\pi^- diffractive photoproduction

A narrow dip structure has been observed at 1.9 GeV/c$^2$ in a study of diffractive photoproduction of the $~3\pi^+3\pi^-$ final state performed by the Fermilab experiment E687.Comment: The data of Figure 6 can be obtained by downloading the raw data file e687_6pi.txt. v5 (2nov2018): added Fig. 7, the 6 pion energy distribution as requested by a reade

A Quasi-Model-Independent Search for New Physics at Large Transverse Momentum

We apply a quasi-model-independent strategy ("Sleuth") to search for new high p_T physics in approximately 100 pb^-1 of ppbar collisions at sqrt(s) = 1.8 TeV collected by the DZero experiment during 1992-1996 at the Fermilab Tevatron. Over thirty-two e mu X, W+jets-like, Z+jets-like, and 3(lepton/photon)X exclusive final states are systematically analyzed for hints of physics beyond the standard model. Simultaneous sensitivity to a variety of models predicting new phenomena at the electroweak scale is demonstrated by testing the method on a particular signature in each set of final states. No evidence of new high p_T physics is observed in the course of this search, and we find that 89% of an ensemble of hypothetical similar experimental runs would have produced a final state with a candidate signal more interesting than the most interesting observed in these data.Comment: 28 pages, 17 figures. Submitted to Physical Review

A measurement of the W boson mass using large rapidity electrons

We present a measurement of the W boson mass using data collected by the D0 experiment at the Fermilab Tevatron during 1994--1995. We identify W bosons by their decays to e-nu final states where the electron is detected in a forward calorimeter. We extract the W boson mass, Mw, by fitting the transverse mass and transverse electron and neutrino momentum spectra from a sample of 11,089 W -> e nu decay candidates. We use a sample of 1,687 dielectron events, mostly due to Z -> ee decays, to constrain our model of the detector response. Using the forward calorimeter data, we measure Mw = 80.691 +- 0.227 GeV. Combining the forward calorimeter measurements with our previously published central calorimeter results, we obtain Mw = 80.482 +- 0.091 GeV