VHF discharges in storm cells producing microbursts

An experiment was carried out in which 3-D mapping of VHF sources was compared to a 3-D description of the reflectivity and dynamics of associated cloud cells observed by a radar network. Data from 61 microbursts were analyzed and it was found that, in 93 pct. of the cases, electrical activity precedes outflow development. The results confirm that the peak in intracloud activity precedes the maximum value of the outflow

Workplace bullying policies, higher education and the First Amendment: Building bridges not walls

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate that higher education institutions should change their Faculty Codes of Conduct to reflect workplace bullying as a form of unacceptable harassment. The article first provides a definition for workplace bullying; secondly, it offers an analysis of how the First Amendment is not an absolute, especially in the workplace; thirdly, it examines the scant legislative and judicial attention that is given to this issue; and finally, an argument is made to show how colleges and universities are not providing clear enough policies and procedures to address workplace bullying. That argument focuses on results of our thematic analysis of 276 Faculty Codes of Conduct from a variety of universities and colleges across the United States. That analysis revealed two primary themes: the Harassment Hang-up and Employee Engagement. Based on this analysis, we conclude that higher education institutions should change their Faculty Codes of Conduct so bullying is defined as a distinctive form of harassment, provide faculty and staff clear communications regarding how to define bullying, and offer guidance for both targets and bystanders of workplace bullying

On Echo Outbursts and ER UMa Supercycles in SU UMa-type Cataclysmic Variables

I present a variation on Osaki's tidal-thermal-instability model for SU UMa behavior. I suggest that in systems with the lowest mass ratios, the angular-momentum dissipation in an eccentric disk is unable to sustain the disk on the hot side of the thermal instability. This decoupling of the tidal and thermal instabilities in systems with q < 0.07 allows a better explanation of the `echo' outbursts of EG Cnc and the short supercycles of RZ LMi and DI UMa. The idea might also apply to the soft X-ray transients.Comment: To appear in PASP, April 2001 (6 pages, 4 figs

Transiting hot Jupiters from WASP-South, Euler and TRAPPIST : WASP-95b to WASP-101b

We report the discovery of the transiting exoplanets WASP-95b, WASP-96b, WASP-97b, WASP-98b, WASP-99b, WASP-100b andWASP-101b. All are hot Jupiters with orbital periods in the range 2.1-5.7 d, masses of 0.5-2.8 MJup and radii of 1.1-1.4 RJup. The orbits of all the planets are compatible with zero eccentricity. WASP-99b produces the shallowest transit yet found by WASP-South, at 0.4 per cent. The host stars are of spectral type F2-G8. Five have metallicities of [Fe/H] from -0.03 to +0.23, while WASP-98 has a metallicity of -0.60, exceptionally low for a star with a transiting exoplanet. Five of the host stars are brighter than V = 10.8, which significantly extends the number of bright transiting systems available for follow-up studies. WASP-95 shows a possible rotational modulation at a period of 20.7 d. We discuss the completeness of WASP survey techniques by comparing to the HATnet project.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

WASP-29b: A Saturn-sized transiting exoplanet

We report the discovery of a Saturn-sized planet transiting a V = 11.3, K4 dwarf star every 3.9 d. WASP-29b has a mass of 0.24+/-0.02 M_Jup and a radius of 0.79+/-0.05 R_Jup, making it the smallest planet so far discovered by the WASP survey, and the exoplanet most similar in mass and radius to Saturn. The host star WASP-29 has an above-Solar metallicity and fits a possible correlation for Saturn-mass planets such that planets with higher-metallicity host stars have higher core masses and thus smaller radii.Comment: 6 pages, submitted to ApJ

The phase 0.5 absorption in SW Sextantis-type cataclysmic variables

The SW Sextantis stars are a group of cataclysmic variables with distinctive observational characteristics, including absorption features in the emission line cores at phases 0.2-0.6. Hellier and Robinson have proposed that these features are caused by the accretion stream flowing over the accretion disk. However, in a simple model the absorption occurred at all orbital phases, which is contradicted by the data. I show that invoking a flared accretion disk resolves this problem.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, LaTeX, To appear in PASP. Also at http://www.astro.keele.ac.uk/~ch

Why do some intermediate polars show soft X-ray emission? A survey of XMM-Newton spectra

We make a systematic analysis of the XMM-Newton X-ray spectra of intermediate polars (IPs) and find that, contrary to the traditional picture, most show a soft blackbody component. We compare the results with those from AM Her stars and deduce that the blackbody emission arises from reprocessing of hard X-rays, rather than from the blobby accretion sometimes seen in AM Hers. Whether an IP shows a blackbody component appears to depend primarily on geometric factors: a blackbody is not seen in those that have accretion footprints that are always obscured by accretion curtains or are only visible when foreshortened on the white-dwarf limb. Thus we argue against previous suggestions that the blackbody emission characterises a separate sub-group of IPs which are more akin to AM Hers, and develop a unified picture of the blackbody emission in these stars.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures. Accepted for publication in Ap

WASP-80b has a dayside within the T-dwarf range

AHMJT is a Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) fellow under grant number P300P2-147773. MG and EJ are Research Associates at the F.R.S-FNRS; LD received the support the support of the F.R.I.A. fund of the FNRS. DE, KH, and SU acknowledge the financial support of the SNSF in the frame of the National Centre for Competence in Research ‘PlanetS’. EH and IR acknowledge support from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) and the ‘Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional’ (FEDER) through grants AYA2012-39612-C03-01 and ESP2013-48391-C4-1-R.WASP-80b is a missing link in the study of exo-atmospheres. It falls between the warm Neptunes and the hot Jupiters and is amenable for characterisation, thanks to its host star's properties. We observed the planet through transit and during occultation with Warm Spitzer. Combining our mid-infrared transits with optical time series, we find that the planet presents a transmission spectrum indistinguishable from a horizontal line. In emission, WASP-80b is the intrinsically faintest planet whose dayside flux has been detected in both the 3.6 and 4.5 $\mu$m Spitzer channels. The depths of the occultations reveal that WASP-80b is as bright and as red as a T4 dwarf, but that its temperature is cooler. If planets go through the equivalent of an L-T transition, our results would imply this happens at cooler temperatures than for brown dwarfs. Placing WASP-80b's dayside into a colour-magnitude diagram, it falls exactly at the junction between a blackbody model and the T-dwarf sequence; we cannot discern which of those two interpretations is the more likely. Flux measurements on other planets with similar equilibrium temperatures are required to establish whether irradiated gas giants, like brown dwarfs, transition between two spectral classes. An eventual detection of methane absorption in transmission would also help lift that degeneracy. We obtained a second series of high-resolution spectra during transit, using HARPS. We reanalyse the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect. The data now favour an aligned orbital solution and a stellar rotation nearly three times slower than stellar line broadening implies. A contribution to stellar line broadening, maybe macroturbulence, is likely to have been underestimated for cool stars, whose rotations have therefore been systematically overestimated. [abridged]Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Outbursts of EX Hydrae: mass-transfer events or disc instabilities?

We present the 45-yr record of EX Hya's lightcurve and discuss the characteristics of its 15 observed outbursts. We then concentrate on the 1998 outburst, reporting the first outburst X-ray observations. We discover an X-ray beat-cycle modulation, indicating that an enhanced accretion stream couples directly with the magnetosphere in outburst, confirming our previous prediction. Optical eclipse profiles late in outburst show that the visible light is dominated by an enhanced mass-transfer stream overflowing the accretion disc. We are uncertain whether the enhanced mass transfer is triggered by a disc instability, or by some other cause. While in outburst, EX Hya shows some of the characteristics of SW Sex stars.Comment: To appear in MNRAS (8 pages; 9 figs

The thermal emission of the exoplanets WASP-1b and WASP-2b

We present a comparative study of the thermal emission of the transiting exoplanets WASP-1b and WASP-2b using the Spitzer Space Telescope. The two planets have very similar masses but suffer different levels of irradiation and are predicted to fall either side of a sharp transition between planets with and without hot stratospheres. WASP-1b is one of the most highly irradiated planets studied to date. We measure planet/star contrast ratios in all four of the IRAC bands for both planets (3.6-8.0um), and our results indicate the presence of a strong temperature inversion in the atmosphere of WASP-1b, particularly apparent at 8um, and no inversion in WASP-2b. In both cases the measured eclipse depths favor models in which incident energy is not redistributed efficiently from the day side to the night side of the planet. We fit the Spitzer light curves simultaneously with the best available radial velocity curves and transit photometry in order to provide updated measurements of system parameters. We do not find significant eccentricity in the orbit of either planet, suggesting that the inflated radius of WASP-1b is unlikely to be the result of tidal heating. Finally, by plotting ratios of secondary eclipse depths at 8um and 4.5um against irradiation for all available planets, we find evidence for a sharp transition in the emission spectra of hot Jupiters at an irradiation level of 2 x 10^9 erg/s/cm^2. We suggest this transition may be due to the presence of TiO in the upper atmospheres of the most strongly irradiated hot Jupiters.Comment: 10 pages, submitted to Ap