5,078 research outputs found
Early Science with the Large Millimetre Telescope: Molecules in the Extreme Outflow of a proto-Planetary Nebula
Extremely high velocity emission likely related to jets is known to occur in
some proto-Planetary Nebulae. However, the molecular complexity of this
kinematic component is largely unknown. We observed the known extreme outflow
from the proto-Planetary Nebula IRAS 16342-3814, a prototype water fountain, in
the full frequency range from 73 to 111 GHz with the RSR receiver on the Large
Millimetre Telescope. We detected the molecules SiO, HCN, SO, and CO.
All molecular transitions, with the exception of the latter are detected for
the first time in this source, and all present emission with velocities up to a
few hundred km s. IRAS 16342-3814 is therefore the only source of this
kind presenting extreme outflow activity simultaneously in all these molecules,
with SO and SiO emission showing the highest velocities found of these species
in proto-Planetary Nebulae. To be confirmed is a tentative weak SO component
with a FWHM 700 km s. The extreme outflow gas consists of dense
gas (n 10--10 cm), with a mass larger than
0.02--0.15 M. The relatively high abundances of SiO and SO may
be an indication of an oxygen-rich extreme high velocity gas.Comment: Accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical
Society Letter
Open Issues on the Synthesis of Evolved Stellar Populations at Ultraviolet Wavelengths
In this paper we briefly review three topics that have motivated our (and
others') investigations in recent years within the context of evolutionary
population synthesis techniques. These are: The origin of the FUV up-turn in
elliptical galaxies, the age-metallicity degeneracy, and the study of the
mid-UV rest-frame spectra of distant red galaxies. We summarize some of our
results and present a very preliminary application of a UV grid of theoretical
spectra in the analysis of integrated properties of aged stellar populations.
At the end, we concisely suggest how these topics can be tackled once the World
Space Observatory enters into operation in the midst of this decade.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in Astrophysics & Space
Science, UV Universe special issu
A boron-coated CCD camera for direct detection of Ultracold Neutrons (UCN)
A new boron-coated CCD camera is described for direct detection of ultracold
neutrons (UCN) through the capture reactions B
(n,0)Li (6%) and B(n,1)Li (94%).
The experiments, which extend earlier works using a boron-coated ZnS:Ag
scintillator, are based on direct detections of the neutron-capture byproducts
in silicon. The high position resolution, energy resolution and particle ID
performance of a scientific CCD allows for observation and identification of
all the byproducts , Li and (electron recoils). A
signal-to-noise improvement on the order of 10 over the indirect method has
been achieved. Sub-pixel position resolution of a few microns is demonstrated.
The technology can also be used to build UCN detectors with an area on the
order of 1 m. The combination of micrometer scale spatial resolution, few
electrons ionization thresholds and large area paves the way to new research
avenues including quantum physics of UCN and high-resolution neutron imaging
and spectroscopy.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figure
Ultrafast Charge Separation in Bilayer WS2/Graphene Heterostructure Revealed by Time- and Angle-Resolved Photoemission Spectroscopy
Efficient light harvesting devices need to combine strong absorption in the visible spectral range with efficient ultrafast charge separation. These features commonly occur in novel ultimately thin van der Waals heterostructures with type II band alignment. Recently, ultrafast charge separation was also observed in monolayer WS2/graphene heterostructures with type I band alignment. Here we use time- and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy to show that ultrafast charge separation also occurs at the interface between bilayer WS2 and graphene indicating that the indirect band gap of bilayer WS2 does not affect the charge transfer to the graphene layer. The microscopic insights gained in the present study will turn out to be useful for the design of novel optoelectronic devices
Mid-infrared optical parametric amplifier using silicon nanophotonic waveguides
All-optical signal processing is envisioned as an approach to dramatically
decrease power consumption and speed up performance of next-generation optical
telecommunications networks. Nonlinear optical effects, such as four-wave
mixing (FWM) and parametric gain, have long been explored to realize
all-optical functions in glass fibers. An alternative approach is to employ
nanoscale engineering of silicon waveguides to enhance the optical
nonlinearities by up to five orders of magnitude, enabling integrated
chip-scale all-optical signal processing. Previously, strong two-photon
absorption (TPA) of the telecom-band pump has been a fundamental and
unavoidable obstacle, limiting parametric gain to values on the order of a few
dB. Here we demonstrate a silicon nanophotonic optical parametric amplifier
exhibiting gain as large as 25.4 dB, by operating the pump in the mid-IR near
one-half the band-gap energy (E~0.55eV, lambda~2200nm), at which parasitic
TPA-related absorption vanishes. This gain is high enough to compensate all
insertion losses, resulting in 13 dB net off-chip amplification. Furthermore,
dispersion engineering dramatically increases the gain bandwidth to more than
220 nm, all realized using an ultra-compact 4 mm silicon chip. Beyond its
significant relevance to all-optical signal processing, the broadband
parametric gain also facilitates the simultaneous generation of multiple
on-chip mid-IR sources through cascaded FWM, covering a 500 nm spectral range.
Together, these results provide a foundation for the construction of
silicon-based room-temperature mid-IR light sources including tunable
chip-scale parametric oscillators, optical frequency combs, and supercontinuum
generators
A Simple Analytical Model of the Angular Momentum Transformation in Strongly Focused Light Beams
A ray-optics model is proposed to describe the vector beam transformation in
a strongly focusing optical system. In contrast to usual approaches basing on
the focused field distribution near the focal plane, we employ the transformed
beam pattern formed immediately near the exit pupil. In this cross section,
details of the output field distribution are of minor physical interest but
proper allowance is made for transformation of the incident beam polarization
state. This enables to obtain the spin and orbital angular momentum
representations which are valid everywhere in the transformed beam space.
Simple analytical results are available for the transversely homogeneous
circularly polarized incident beam limited only by the circular aperture.
Behavior of the spin and orbital angular momenta of the output beam and their
dependences on the focusing strength (aperture angle) are analyzed. The
obtained analytical results are in good qualitative and reasonable quantitative
agreement to the calculation performed for the spatially inhomogeneous Gaussian
and Laguerre-Gaussian beams. In application to Laguerre-Gaussian beams, the
model provides possibility for analyzing the angular momentum transformation in
beams already possessing some mixture of the spin and orbital angular momenta.
The model supplies efficient and physically transparent means for qualitative
analysis of the spin-to-orbital angular momentum conversion. It can be
generalized to incident beams with complicated spatial and polarization
structure.Comment: 18 pages, 5 figures. The paper has appeared as an attempt to clearly
understand transformations of the light beam polarization in the course of
strong focusing. It provides description of the optical vortex formation
after focusing a circularly polarized beam and explains why the the orbital
angular momentum emerges in the focused bea
Flow Measurements via Two-particle Azimuthal Correlations in Au + Au Collisions at sqrt(s_NN) = 130 GeV
Two particle azimuthal correlation functions are presented for charged
hadrons produced in Au + Au collisions at RHIC sqrt(s_NN) = 130 GeV. The
measurements permit determination of elliptic flow without event-by-event
estimation of the reaction plane. The extracted elliptic flow values v_2 show
significant sensitivity to both the collision centrality and the transverse
momenta of emitted hadrons, suggesting rapid thermalization and relatively
strong velocity fields. When scaled by the eccentricity of the collision zone,
epsilon, the scaled elliptic flow shows little or no dependence on centrality
for charged hadrons with relatively low p_T. A breakdown of this epsilon
scaling is observed for charged hadrons with p_T > 1.0 GeV/c for the most
central collisions.Comment: 6 pages, RevTeX 3, 4 figures, 307 authors, submitted to Phys. Rev.
Lett. on 11 April 2002. Plain text data tables for the points plotted in
figures for this and previous PHENIX publications are (will be made) publicly
available at http://www.phenix.bnl.gov/phenix/WWW/run/phenix/papers.htm
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