Practices of Historicism in Times of Change: Chaucer, Pope, Barron Field, A. D. Hope and the Idea of the Culture Hero

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Including Systematic Uncertainties in Confidence Interval Construction for Poisson Statistics

One way to incorporate systematic uncertainties into the calculation of confidence intervals is by integrating over probability density functions parametrizing the uncertainties. In this note we present a development of this method which takes into account uncertainties in the prediction of background processes, uncertainties in the signal detection efficiency and background efficiency and allows for a correlation between the signal and background detection efficiencies. We implement this method with the Feldman & Cousins unified approach with and without conditioning. We present studies of coverage for the Feldman & Cousins and Neyman ordering schemes. In particular, we present two different types of coverage tests for the case where systematic uncertainties are included. To illustrate the method we show the relative effect of including systematic uncertainties the case of dark matter search as performed by modern neutrino tel escopes.Comment: 23 pages, 10 figures, replaced to match published versio

Stellar Populations of the Sagittarius Dwarf Irregular Galaxy

We present deep BVRI CCD photometry of the stars in the dwarf irregular galaxy SagDIG. The color-magnitude diagrams of the measured stars in SagDIG show a blue plume which consists mostly of young stellar populations, and a well-defined red giant branch (RGB). The foreground reddening of SagDIG is estimated to be E(B-V)=0.06. The tip of the RGB is found to be at I_(TRGB)=21.55 +/- 0.10 mag. From this the distance to this galaxy is estimated to be d = 1.18 +/- 0.10 Mpc. This result, combined with its velocity information, shows that it is a member of the Local Group. The mean metallicity of the red giant branch is estimated to be [Fe/H] < -2.2 dex. This shows that SagDIG is one of the most metal-poor galaxies. Total magnitudes of SagDIG (< r_H (= 107 arcsec)) are derived to be B^T=13.99 mag, V^T=13.58 mag, R^T=13.19 mag, and I^T=12.88 mag, and the corresponding absolute magnitudes are M_B=-11.62 mag, M_V=-11.97 mag, M_R=-12.33 mag, and M_I=-12.60 mag. Surface brightness profiles of the central part of SagDIG are approximately fit by a King model with a core concentration parameter c = log (r_t / r_c) ~ 0.6, and those of the outer part follow an exponential law with a scale length of 37 arcsec. The central surface brightness is measured to be mu_B (0) = 24.21 mag arcsec^(-2) and mu_V (0) =23.91 mag arcsec^(-2). The magnitudes and colors of the brightest blue and red stars in SagDIG (BSG and RSG) are measured to be, respectively, _BSG = 19.89 +/- 0.13 mag, _BSG = 0.08 +/- 0.07 mag, _RSG = 20.39 +/- 0.10 mag, and _RSG = 1.29 +/- 0.12 mag. The corresponding absolute magnitudes are derived to be _BSG = -5.66 mag and _RSG = -5.16 mag, which are about one magnitude fainter than those expected from conventional correlations with galaxy luminosity.Comment: 16 pages(AASLaTeX), 10 Postscript figures, Accepted for publication in Astronomical Journal, 200

Nonlinear modal coupling in a high-stress doubly-clamped nanomechanical resonator

We present results from a study of the nonlinear intermodal coupling between different flexural vibrational modes of a single high-stress, doubly-clamped silicon nitride nanomechanical beam. The measurements were carried out at 100 mK and the beam was actuated using the magnetomotive technique. We observed the nonlinear behavior of the modes individually and also measured the coupling between them by driving the beam at multiple frequencies. We demonstrate that the different modes of the resonator are coupled to each other by the displacement induced tension in the beam, which also leads to the well known Duffing nonlinearity in doubly-clamped beams.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figure

Spectroscopy and Time Variability of Absorption Lines in the Direction of the Vela Supernova Remnant

We present high resolution (R~75,000), high signal-to-noise (S/N~100) Ca II $\lambda$3933.663 and Na I $\lambda\lambda$5889.951, 5895.924 spectra of 68 stars in the direction of the Vela supernova remnant. The spectra comprise the most complete high resolution, high S/N, optical survey of early type stars in this region of the sky. A subset of the sight lines has been observed at multiple epochs, 1993/1994 and 1996. Of the thirteen stars observed twice, seven have spectra revealing changes in the equivalent width and/or velocity structure of lines, most of which arise from remnant gas. Such time variability has been reported previously for the sight lines towards HD 72089 and HD 72997 by Danks & Sembach (1995) and for HD 72127 by Hobbs et al. (1991). We have confirmed the ongoing time variability of these spectra and present new evidence of variability in the spectra of HD 73658, HD 74455, HD 75309 and HD 75821. We have tabulated Na I and Ca II absorption line information for the sight lines in our sample to serve as a benchmark for further investigations of the dynamics and evolution of the Vela SNR.Comment: 8 pages of text, 4 tables, 16 pages of figures Accepted and to be published in ApJ

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

A delta Scuti distance to the Large Magellanic Cloud

We present results from a well studied delta Scuti star discovered in the LMC. The absolute magnitude of the variable was determined from the PL relation for Galactic delta Scuti stars and from the theoretical modeling of the observed B,V,I light curves. The two methods give distance moduli for the LMC of 18.46+-0.19 and 18.48+-0.15, respectively, for a consistent value of the stellar reddening of E(B-V)=0.08+-0.02. We have also analyzed 24 delta Scuti candidates discovered in the OGLE II survey of the LMC, and 7 variables identified in the open cluster LW 55 and in the galaxy disk by Kaluzny et al. (2003, 2006). We find that the LMC delta Scuti stars define a PL relation whose slope is very similar to that defined by the Galactic delta Scuti variables, and yield a distance modulus for the LMC of 18.50+-0.22 mag. We compare the results obtained from the delta Scuti variables with those derived from the LMC RR Lyrae stars and Cepheids. Within the observational uncertainties, the three groups of pulsating stars yield very similar distance moduli. These moduli are all consistent with the "long" astronomical distance scale for the Large Magellanic Cloud.Comment: Accepted for publication on A

The Distance of the Gamma-ray Binary 1FGL J1018.6-5856

The recently discovered gamma-ray binary 1FGL J1018.6-5856 has a proposed optical/near-infrared (OIR) counterpart 2MASS 10185560-5856459. We present Stromgren photometry of this star to investigate its photometric variability and measure the reddening and distance to the system. We find that the gamma-ray binary has E(B-V) = 1.34 +/- 0.04 and d = 5.4^+4.6_-2.1 kpc. While E(B-V) is consistent with X-ray observations of the neutral hydrogen column density, the distance is somewhat closer than some previous authors have suggested.Comment: Accepted to PAS