On the Wilson-Bappu relationship in the Mg II k line

An investigation is carried out on the Wilson-Bappu effect in the Mg II k line at 2796.34 A. The work is based on a selection of 230 stars observed by both the IUE and HIPPARCOS satellites, covering a wide range of spectral type and absolute visual magnitudes. The Wilson-Bappu relationship here provided is considered to represent an improvement over previous recent results for the considerably larger data sample used as well as for a proper consideration of the measurement errors. No evidence has been found for a possible dependence of the WB effect on stellar metallicity and effective temperature.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figures Accepted for publication on A&

A study of the Mg II 2796.34 A emission line in late--type normal, and RS CVn stars

We carry out an analysis of the Mg II 2796.34 A emission line in RS CVn stars and make a comparison with the normal stars studied in a previous paper (Paper I). The sample of RS CVn stars consists of 34 objects with known HIPPARCOS parallaxes and observed at high resolution with IUE. We confirm that RS CVn stars tend to possess wider Mg II lines than normal stars having the same absolute visual magnitude. However, we could not find any correlation between the logarithmic line width log Wo and the absolute visual magnitude Mv (the Wilson--Bappu relationship) for these active stars, contrary to the case of normal stars addressed in Paper I. On the contrary, we find that a strong correlation exists in the (Mv, log L) plane (L is the absolute flux in the line). In this plane, normal and RS CVn stars are distributed along two nearly parallel straight lines with RS CVn stars being systematically brighter by about 1 dex. Such a diagram provides an interesting tool to discriminate active from normal stars. We finally analyse the distribution of RS CVn and of normal stars in the (log L, log Wo) plane, and find a strong linear correlation for normal stars, which can be used for distance determinations.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures, latex, to be published in A&

Are geometric morphometric analyses replicable? Evaluating landmark measurement error and its impact on extant and fossil Microtus classification.

Geometric morphometric analyses are frequently employed to quantify biological shape and shape variation. Despite the popularity of this technique, quantification of measurement error in geometric morphometric datasets and its impact on statistical results is seldom assessed in the literature. Here, we evaluate error on 2D landmark coordinate configurations of the lower first molar of five North American Microtus (vole) species. We acquired data from the same specimens several times to quantify error from four data acquisition sources: specimen presentation, imaging devices, interobserver variation, and intraobserver variation. We then evaluated the impact of those errors on linear discriminant analysis-based classifications of the five species using recent specimens of known species affinity and fossil specimens of unknown species affinity. Results indicate that data acquisition error can be substantial, sometimes explaining >30% of the total variation among datasets. Comparisons of datasets digitized by different individuals exhibit the greatest discrepancies in landmark precision, and comparison of datasets photographed from different presentation angles yields the greatest discrepancies in species classification results. All error sources impact statistical classification to some extent. For example, no two landmark dataset replicates exhibit the same predicted group memberships of recent or fossil specimens. Our findings emphasize the need to mitigate error as much as possible during geometric morphometric data collection. Though the impact of measurement error on statistical fidelity is likely analysis-specific, we recommend that all geometric morphometric studies standardize specimen imaging equipment, specimen presentations (if analyses are 2D), and landmark digitizers to reduce error and subsequent analytical misinterpretations

Kalman Filter Track Fits and Track Breakpoint Analysis

We give an overview of track fitting using the Kalman filter method in the NOMAD detector at CERN, and emphasize how the wealth of by-product information can be used to analyze track breakpoints (discontinuities in track parameters caused by scattering, decay, etc.). After reviewing how this information has been previously exploited by others, we describe extensions which add power to breakpoint detection and characterization. We show how complete fits to the entire track, with breakpoint parameters added, can be easily obtained from the information from unbroken fits. Tests inspired by the Fisher F-test can then be used to judge breakpoints. Signed quantities (such as change in momentum at the breakpoint) can supplement unsigned quantities such as the various chisquares. We illustrate the method with electrons from real data, and with Monte Carlo simulations of pion decays.Comment: 27 pages including 10 figures. To appear in NI

Internal rotation of red giants by asteroseismology

We present an asteroseismic approach to study the dynamics of the stellar interior in red-giant stars by asteroseismic inversion of the splittings induced by the stellar rotation on the oscillation frequencies. We show preliminary results obtained for the red giant KIC4448777 observed by the space mission Kepler.Comment: 3 pages, 4 figures, the 40th Liege International Astrophysical Colloquium Liac40, 'Ageing low mass stars: from red giants to white dwarfs', to be published on EPJ Web of Conference

Internal rotation of the red-giant star KIC 4448777 by means of asteroseismic inversion

In this paper we study the dynamics of the stellar interior of the early red-giant star KIC 4448777 by asteroseismic inversion of 14 splittings of the dipole mixed modes obtained from {\it Kepler} observations. In order to overcome the complexity of the oscillation pattern typical of red-giant stars, we present a procedure which involves a combination of different methods to extract the rotational splittings from the power spectrum. We find not only that the core rotates faster than the surface, confirming previous inversion results generated for other red giants (Deheuvels et al. 2012,2014), but we also estimate the variation of the angular velocity within the helium core with a spatial resolution of $\Delta r=0.001R$ and verify the hypothesis of a sharp discontinuity in the inner stellar rotation (Deheuvels et al. 2014). The results show that the entire core rotates rigidly with an angular velocity of about $\langle\Omega_c/2\pi\rangle=748\pm18$~nHz and provide evidence for an angular velocity decrease through a region between the helium core and part of the hydrogen burning shell; however we do not succeed to characterize the rotational slope, due to the intrinsic limits of the applied techniques. The angular velocity, from the edge of the core and through the hydrogen burning shell, appears to decrease with increasing distance from the center, reaching an average value in the convective envelope of $\langle\Omega_s/2\pi\rangle=68\pm22$~nHz. Hence, the core in KIC~4448777 is rotating from a minimum of 8 to a maximum of 17 times faster than the envelope. We conclude that a set of data which includes only dipolar modes is sufficient to infer quite accurately the rotation of a red giant not only in the dense core but also, with a lower level of confidence, in part of the radiative region and in the convective envelope.Comment: accepted for publication on Ap

Dual-readout Calorimetry

The RD52 Project at CERN is a pure instrumentation experiment whose goal is to understand the fundamental limitations to hadronic energy resolution, and other aspects of energy measurement, in high energy calorimeters. We have found that dual-readout calorimetry provides heretofore unprecedented information event-by-event for energy resolution, linearity of response, ease and robustness of calibration, fidelity of data, and particle identification, including energy lost to binding energy in nuclear break-up. We believe that hadronic energy resolutions of {\sigma}/E $\approx$ 1 - 2% are within reach for dual-readout calorimeters, enabling for the first time comparable measurement preci- sions on electrons, photons, muons, and quarks (jets). We briefly describe our current progress and near-term future plans. Complete information on all aspects of our work is available at the RD52 website http://highenergy.phys.ttu.edu/dream/.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures, Snowmass White pape

Production and performance of LHCb triple-GEM detectors equipped with the dedicated CARDIAC-GEM front-end electronics

The production of the triple-GEM detectors for the innermost region of the first muon station of the LHCb experiment has started in February 2006, and is foreseen to be completed by the end of July. The final design of the detector and the construction procedure and tools, as well as the quality controls are defined. The performances of each detector, composed by two triple-GEM chambers equipped with dedicated CARDIAC-GEM front-end electronics, are studied with a cosmic ray telescope. The cosmic ray telescope has been set up including all the final off-detector components