32 research outputs found

    Identification of high-spin proton configurations in Ba 136 and Ba 137

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    19 pags., 11 figs., 3 tabs.The high-spin structures of Ba136 and Ba137 are investigated after multinucleon-transfer (MNT) and fusion-evaporation reactions. Ba136 is populated in a Xe136+U238 MNT reaction employing the high-resolution Advanced GAmma Tracking Array (AGATA) coupled to the magnetic spectrometer PRISMA at the Laboratori Nazionali di Legnaro, Italy, and in two Be9+Te130 fusion-evaporation reactions using the High-efficiency Observatory for γ-Ray Unique Spectroscopy (HORUS) at the FN tandem accelerator of the University of Cologne, Germany. Furthermore, both isotopes are populated in an elusive reaction channel in the B11+Te130 fusion-evaporation reaction utilizing the HORUS γ-ray array. The level scheme above the Jπ=10+ isomer in Ba136 is revised and extended up to an excitation energy of approximately 5.5 MeV. From the results of angular-correlation measurements, the Ex=3707- and Ex=4920-keV states are identified as the bandheads of positive- and negative-parity cascades. While the high-spin regimes of both Te132 and Xe134 are characterized by high-energy 12+→10+ transitions, the Ba136E2 ground-state band is interrupted by negative-parity states only a few hundred keV above the Jπ=10+ isomer. Furthermore, spins are established for several hitherto unassigned high-spin states in Ba137. The new results close a gap along the high-spin structure of N<82 Ba isotopes. Experimental results are compared to large-scale shell-model calculations employing the GCN50:82, Realistic SM, PQM130, and SN100PN interactions. The calculations suggest that the bandheads of the positive-parity bands in both isotopes are predominantly of proton character.Furthermore, we express our thanks to Dr. E. Teruya and Dr. N. Yoshinaga from Saitama University, Japan, for providing the results of their shellmodel calculation with the PQM130 interaction. The research leading to these results has received funding from the German BMBF under Contracts No. 05P15PKFN9 TP1 and No. 05P18PKFN9 TP1, from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme FP7/2007-2013 under Grant Agreement No. 262010 - ENSAR, from the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación under Contract No. FPA2011-29854- C04, from the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad under Contract No. FPA2014-57196-C5, and from the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). L.K. and A.V. thank the Bonn-Cologne Graduate School of Physics and Astronomy (BCGS) for financial support. One of the authors (A. Gadea) has been supported by the Generalitat Valenciana, Spain, under Grant No. PROMETEOII/2014/019, and EU under the FEDER program

    Fermi Large Area Telescope Constraints on the Gamma-ray Opacity of the Universe

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    The Extragalactic Background Light (EBL) includes photons with wavelengths from ultraviolet to infrared, which are effective at attenuating gamma rays with energy above ~10 GeV during propagation from sources at cosmological distances. This results in a redshift- and energy-dependent attenuation of the gamma-ray flux of extragalactic sources such as blazars and Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs). The Large Area Telescope onboard Fermi detects a sample of gamma-ray blazars with redshift up to z~3, and GRBs with redshift up to z~4.3. Using photons above 10 GeV collected by Fermi over more than one year of observations for these sources, we investigate the effect of gamma-ray flux attenuation by the EBL. We place upper limits on the gamma-ray opacity of the Universe at various energies and redshifts, and compare this with predictions from well-known EBL models. We find that an EBL intensity in the optical-ultraviolet wavelengths as great as predicted by the "baseline" model of Stecker et al. (2006) can be ruled out with high confidence.Comment: 42 pages, 12 figures, accepted version (24 Aug.2010) for publication in ApJ; Contact authors: A. Bouvier, A. Chen, S. Raino, S. Razzaque, A. Reimer, L.C. Reye

    GLAST Large Area Telescope simulation tools

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    This paper presents the simulation of the GLAST high energy gamma-ray telescope. The simulation package, written in C++, is based on the Geant4 toolkit, and it is integrated into a general framework used to process events. A detailed simulation of the electronic signals inside silicon detectors has been provided and it is used for the particle tracking, which is handled by a dedicated software. A unique repository for the geometrical description of the detector has been realized using the XML language and a C++ library to access this information has been designed and implemented. A new event display based on the HepRep protocol is being implemented. The GLAST satellite parameters derived from the simulation are used in a fast simulator to obtain a "snapshot" of the gamma-ray sky. This paper outlines the contribution developed by the Italian GLAST software group

    Fermi Large Area Telescope Third Source Catalog

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    Expansion of the Human Phenotype Ontology (HPO) knowledge base and resources.

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    The Human Phenotype Ontology (HPO)-a standardized vocabulary of phenotypic abnormalities associated with 7000+ diseases-is used by thousands of researchers, clinicians, informaticians and electronic health record systems around the world. Its detailed descriptions of clinical abnormalities and computable disease definitions have made HPO the de facto standard for deep phenotyping in the field of rare disease. The HPO\u27s interoperability with other ontologies has enabled it to be used to improve diagnostic accuracy by incorporating model organism data. It also plays a key role in the popular Exomiser tool, which identifies potential disease-causing variants from whole-exome or whole-genome sequencing data. Since the HPO was first introduced in 2008, its users have become both more numerous and more diverse. To meet these emerging needs, the project has added new content, language translations, mappings and computational tooling, as well as integrations with external community data. The HPO continues to collaborate with clinical adopters to improve specific areas of the ontology and extend standardized disease descriptions. The newly redesigned HPO website (www.human-phenotype-ontology.org) simplifies browsing terms and exploring clinical features, diseases, and human genes

    Supplement: "Localization and broadband follow-up of the gravitational-wave transient GW150914" (2016, ApJL, 826, L13)

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    This Supplement provides supporting material for Abbott et al. (2016a). We briefly summarize past electromagnetic (EM) follow-up efforts as well as the organization and policy of the current EM follow-up program. We compare the four probability sky maps produced for the gravitational-wave transient GW150914, and provide additional details of the EM follow-up observations that were performed in the different bands

    Gamma-ray and radio properties of six pulsars detected by the fermi large area telescope

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    We report the detection of pulsed γ-rays for PSRs J0631+1036, J0659+1414, J0742-2822, J1420-6048, J1509-5850, and J1718-3825 using the Large Area Telescope on board the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope (formerly known as GLAST). Although these six pulsars are diverse in terms of their spin parameters, they share an important feature: their γ-ray light curves are (at least given the current count statistics) single peaked. For two pulsars, there are hints for a double-peaked structure in the light curves. The shapes of the observed light curves of this group of pulsars are discussed in the light of models for which the emission originates from high up in the magnetosphere. The observed phases of the γ-ray light curves are, in general, consistent with those predicted by high-altitude models, although we speculate that the γ-ray emission of PSR J0659+1414, possibly featuring the softest spectrum of all Fermi pulsars coupled with a very low efficiency, arises from relatively low down in the magnetosphere. High-quality radio polarization data are available showing that all but one have a high degree of linear polarization. This allows us to place some constraints on the viewing geometry and aids the comparison of the γ-ray light curves with high-energy beam models

    The spectral energy distribution of fermi bright blazars

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    We have conducted a detailed investigation of the broadband spectral properties of the γ-ray selected blazars of the Fermi LAT Bright AGN Sample (LBAS). By combining our accurately estimated Fermi γ-ray spectra with Swift, radio, infra-red, optical, and other hard X-ray/γ-ray data, collected within 3 months of the LBAS data taking period, we were able to assemble high-quality and quasi-simultaneous spectral energy distributions (SED) for 48 LBAS blazars. The SED of these γ-ray sources is similar to that of blazars discovered at other wavelengths, clearly showing, in the usual log ν-log ν Fν representation, the typical broadband spectral signatures normally attributed to a combination of low-energy synchrotron radiation followed by inverse Compton emission of one or more components. We have used these SED to characterize the peak intensity of both the low- and the high-energy components. The results have been used to derive empirical relationships that estimate the position of the two peaks from the broadband colors (i.e., the radio to optical, αro, and optical to X-ray, αox, spectral slopes) and from the γ-ray spectral index. Our data show that the synchrotron peak frequency (νSpeak) is positioned between 1012.5 and 1014.5 Hz in broad-lined flat spectrum radio quasars (FSRQs) and between 10 13 and 1017 Hz in featureless BL Lacertae objects. We find that the γ-ray spectral slope is strongly correlated with the synchrotron peak energy and with the X-ray spectral index, as expected at first order in synchrotron-inverse Compton scenarios. However, simple homogeneous, one-zone, synchrotron self-Compton (SSC) models cannot explain most of our SED, especially in the case of FSRQs and low energy peaked (LBL) BL Lacs. More complex models involving external Compton radiation or multiple SSC components are required to reproduce the overall SED and the observed spectral variability. While more than 50% of known radio bright high energy peaked (HBL) BL Lacs are detected in the LBAS sample, only less than 13% of known bright FSRQs and LBL BL Lacs are included. This suggests that the latter sources, as a class, may be much fainter γ-ray emitters than LBAS blazars, and could in fact radiate close to the expectations of simple SSC models. We categorized all our sources according to a new physical classification scheme based on the generally accepted paradigm for Active Galactic Nuclei and on the results of this SED study. Since the LAT detector is more sensitive to flat spectrum γ-ray sources, the correlation between νSpeak and γ-ray spectral index strongly favors the detection of high energy peaked blazars, thus explaining the Fermi overabundance of this type of sources compared to radio and EGRET samples. This selection effect is similar to that experienced in the soft X-ray band where HBL BL Lacs are the dominant type of blazars. © 2010 The American Astronomical Society
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