11,563 research outputs found
Certain Body Temperature Changes in the Snapping and Painted Turtles
Experiments performed at Iowa Lakeside Laboratory during the past summer indicate that both forms show fluctuations of from 3 to 6 degrees F. in the so-called non-critical ranges of their environment (50-80 degrees F.). When subjected to a rapid environmental drop the rectal readings show a somewhat greater lag than when cooled more slowly. In both procedures a check in drop is noted at about 40 degrees F. (4.5 degrees C.) and there is maintained for a considerable interval of time
Deriving bases for Abelian functions
We present a new method to explicitly define Abelian functions associated
with algebraic curves, for the purpose of finding bases for the relevant vector
spaces of such functions. We demonstrate the procedure with the functions
associated with a trigonal curve of genus four. The main motivation for the
construction of such bases is that it allows systematic methods for the
derivation of the addition formulae and differential equations satisfied by the
functions. We present a new 3-term 2-variable addition formulae and a complete
set of differential equations to generalise the classic Weierstrass identities
for the case of the trigonal curve of genus four.Comment: 35page
The Effect of Vitamin Deficiency on Blood Pressure in Rats
After devising a very delicate, modified recording mercury manometer, it was found possible to obtain direct blood pressure curves from the abdominal aorta of anaesthetised rats, previously fed upon specific normal and vitamin deficient diets and thus make comparisons. About 75 animals were used, one-half of this number being normals to check about equally against A and B deficient animals. The records from 22 normals, on growing rations, showed an average of 84 mm. Hg, with the exception of one extremely high and one extremely low figure. The majority were close to the general average. This figure is strikingly close to the figure cited by Uhlmann, where he found the normal pressure in rabbits to be about 90 mm. Hg
Bringing closure to microlensing mass measurement
Interferometers offer multiple methods for studying microlensing events and
determining the properties of the lenses. We investigate the study of
microlensing events with optical interferometers, focusing on narrow-angle
astrometry, visibility, and closure phase. After introducing the basics of
microlensing and interferometry, we derive expressions for the signals in each
of these three channels. For various forecasts of the instrumental performance,
we discuss which method provides the best means of measuring the lens angular
Einstein radius theta_E, a prerequisite for determining the lens mass. If the
upcoming generation of large-aperture, AO-corrected long baseline
interferometers (e.g. VLTI, Keck, OHANA) perform as well as expected, theta_E
may be determined with signal-to-noise greater than 10 for all bright events.
We estimate that roughly a dozen events per year will be sufficiciently bright
and have long enough durations to allow the measurement of the lens mass and
distance from the ground. We also consider the prospects for a VLTI survey of
all bright lensing events using a Fisher matrix analysis, and find that even
without individual masses, interesting constraints may be placed on the bulge
mass function, although large numbers of events would be required.Comment: 23 pages, aastex, submitted to Ap
The Origin of Fe II Emission in AGN
We used a very large set of models of broad emission line (BEL) clouds in AGN
to investigate the formation of the observed Fe II emission lines. We show that
photoionized BEL clouds cannot produce both the observed shape and observed
equivalent width of the 2200-2800A Fe II UV bump unless there is considerable
velocity structure corresponding to a microturbulent velocity parameter v_turb
> 100 km/s for the LOC models used here. This could be either microturbulence
in gas that is confined by some phenomenon such as MHD waves, or a velocity
shear such as in the various models of winds flowing off the surfaces of
accretion disks. The alternative way that we can find to simultaneously match
both the observed shape and equivalent width of the Fe II UV bump is for the Fe
II emission to be the result of collisional excitation in a warm, dense gas.
Such gas would emit very few lines other than Fe II. However, since the
collisionally excited gas would constitute yet another component in an already
complicated picture of the BELR, we prefer the model involving turbulence. In
either model, the strength of Fe II emission relative to the emission lines of
other ions such as Mg II depends as much on other parameters (either v_turb or
the surface area of the collisionally excited gas) as it does on the iron
abundance. Therefore, the measurement of the iron abundance from the FeII
emission in quasars becomes a more difficult problem.Comment: 23 pages. Accepted by Ap
The Lopsidedness of Present-Day Galaxies: Results from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
Large-scale asymmetries in the stellar mass distribution in galaxies are
believed to trace non-equilibrium situations in the luminous and/or dark matter
component. These may arise in the aftermath of events like mergers, accretion,
and tidal interactions. These events are key in the evolution of galaxies. In
this paper we quantify the large-scale lopsidedness of light distributions in
25155 galaxies at z < 0.06 from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 4
using the m = 1 azimuthal Fourier mode. We show that the lopsided distribution
of light is primarily due to a corresponding lopsidedness in the stellar mass
distribution. Observational effects, such as seeing, Poisson noise, and
inclination, introduce only small errors in lopsidedness for the majority of
this sample. We find that lopsidedness correlates strongly with other basic
galaxy structural parameters: galaxies with low concentration, stellar mass,
and stellar surface mass density tend to be lopsided, while galaxies with high
concentration, mass, and density are not. We find that the strongest and most
fundamental relationship between lopsidedness and the other structural
parameters is with the surface mass density. We also find, in agreement with
previous studies, that lopsidedness tends to increase with radius. Both these
results may be understood as a consequence of several factors. The outer
regions of galaxies and low-density galaxies are more susceptible to tidal
perturbations, and they also have longer dynamical times (so lopsidedness will
last longer). They are also more likely to be affected by any underlying
asymmetries in the dark matter halo.Comment: 42 pages, 13 figures, 3 tables, accepted to Ap
Non-singular radiation cosmological models
In this paper we analyse the possibility of constructing singularity-free
inhomogeneous cosmological models with a pure radiation field as matter
content. It is shown that the conditions for regularity are very easy to
implement and therefore there is a huge number of such spacetimes.Comment: 13 pages, LaTex, ws-mpla, to appear in Modern Physics Letters
High Frame-rate Imaging Based Photometry, Photometric Reduction of Data from Electron-multiplying Charge Coupled Devices (EMCCDs)
The EMCCD is a type of CCD that delivers fast readout times and negligible
readout noise, making it an ideal detector for high frame rate applications
which improve resolution, like lucky imaging or shift-and-add. This improvement
in resolution can potentially improve the photometry of faint stars in
extremely crowded fields significantly by alleviating crowding. Alleviating
crowding is a prerequisite for observing gravitational microlensing in main
sequence stars towards the galactic bulge. However, the photometric stability
of this device has not been assessed. The EMCCD has sources of noise not found
in conventional CCDs, and new methods for handling these must be developed.
We aim to investigate how the normal photometric reduction steps from
conventional CCDs should be adjusted to be applicable to EMCCD data. One
complication is that a bias frame cannot be obtained conventionally, as the
output from an EMCCD is not normally distributed. Also, the readout process
generates spurious charges in any CCD, but in EMCCD data, these charges are
visible as opposed to the conventional CCD. Furthermore we aim to eliminate the
photon waste associated with lucky imaging by combining this method with
shift-and-add.
A simple probabilistic model for the dark output of an EMCCD is developed.
Fitting this model with the expectation-maximization algorithm allows us to
estimate the bias, readout noise, amplification, and spurious charge rate per
pixel and thus correct for these phenomena. To investigate the stability of the
photometry, corrected frames of a crowded field are reduced with a PSF fitting
photometry package, where a lucky image is used as a reference.
We find that it is possible to develop an algorithm that elegantly reduces
EMCCD data and produces stable photometry at the 1% level in an extremely
crowded field.Comment: Submitted to Astronomy and Astrophysic
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