Parallax measurements of cool brown dwarfs

Accurate parallax measurements allow us to determine physical properties of brown dwarfs, and help us to constrain evolutionary and atmospheric models, break the age-mass degeneracy and reveal unresolved binaries. We measured absolute trigonometric parallaxes and proper motions of 6 cool brown dwarfs using background galaxies to establish an absolute reference frame. We derive the absolute J-mag. The six T brown dwarfs in our sample have spectral types between T2.5 and T7.5 and magnitudes in J between 13.9 and 18.0, with photometric distances below 25 pc. The observations were taken in the J-band with the Omega-2000 camera on the 3.5 m telescope at Calar Alto, during a time period of 27 months, between March 2011 and June 2013. The number of epochs varied between 11 and 12 depending on the object. The reduction of the astrometric measurements was carried out with respect to the field stars. The relative parallax and proper motions were transformed into absolute measurements using the background galaxies in our fields. We obtained absolute parallaxes for our six brown dwarfs with a precision between 3 and 6 mas. We compared our results in a color-magnitude diagram with other brown dwarfs with determined parallax and with the BT-Settl 2012 atmospheric models. For four of the six targets we found a good agreement in luminosity with objects of similar spectral types. We obtained an improved accuracy in the parallaxes and proper motions in comparison to previous works. The object 2MASS J11061197+2754225 is more than 1 mag overluminous in all bands pointing to binarity or high order multiplicity.Comment: 9 pages, 15 figures. Astronomy & Astrophysics, 201

Spectroscopic and photometric studies of white dwarfs in the Hyades

The Hyades cluster is known to harbour ten so-called classical white dwarf members. Numerous studies through the years have predicted that more than twice this amount of degenerate stars should be associated with the cluster. Using the PPMXL catalog of proper motions and positions, a recent study proposed 17 new white dwarf candidates. We review the membership of these candidates by using published spectroscopic and photometric observations, as well as by simulating the contamination from field white dwarfs. In addition to the ten classical Hyades white dwarfs, we find six white dwarfs that may be of Hyades origin and three more objects that have an uncertain membership status due to their unknown or imprecise atmospheric parameters. Among those, two to three are expected as field stars contamination. Accurate radial velocity measurements will confirm or reject the candidates. One consequence is that the longstanding problem that no white dwarf older than ~340 Myr appears to be associated with the cluster remains unsolved.Comment: 14 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in the Astronomy and Astrophysics journa

Multiple Quantum NMR Dynamics in Dipolar Ordered Spin Systems

We investigate analytically and numerically the Multiple Quantum (MQ) NMR dynamics in systems of nuclear spins 1/2 coupled by the dipole-dipole interactions in the case of the dipolar ordered initial state. We suggest two different methods of MQ NMR. One of them is based on the measurement of the dipolar temperature in the quasi-equilibrium state which establishes after the time of order T2 after the MQ NMR experiment. The other method uses an additional resonance 45^0 -pulse after the preparation period of the standard MQ NMR experiment in solids. Many-spin clusters and correlations are created faster in such experiments than in the usual MQ NMR experiments and can be used for the investigation of many-spin dynamics of nuclear spins in solids.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures. accepted for publication in Physical Review

Measuring topology in a laser-coupled honeycomb lattice: From Chern insulators to topological semi-metals

Ultracold fermions trapped in a honeycomb optical lattice constitute a versatile setup to experimentally realize the Haldane model [Phys. Rev. Lett. 61, 2015 (1988)]. In this system, a non-uniform synthetic magnetic flux can be engineered through laser-induced methods, explicitly breaking time-reversal symmetry. This potentially opens a bulk gap in the energy spectrum, which is associated with a non-trivial topological order, i.e., a non-zero Chern number. In this work, we consider the possibility of producing and identifying such a robust Chern insulator in the laser-coupled honeycomb lattice. We explore a large parameter space spanned by experimentally controllable parameters and obtain a variety of phase diagrams, clearly identifying the accessible topologically non-trivial regimes. We discuss the signatures of Chern insulators in cold-atom systems, considering available detection methods. We also highlight the existence of topological semi-metals in this system, which are gapless phases characterized by non-zero winding numbers, not present in Haldane's original model.Comment: 30 pages, 12 figures, 4 Appendice

Comment on "Regge Trajectories for All Flavors"

We show that Regge trajectories for all flavors suggested recently by Filipponi et al. cannot combine both meson spectroscopy and additivity of intercepts. Other defects of these trajectories are also discussed.Comment: 2 pages, LaTe

In Defense of the Epistemic Imperative

Sample (2015) argues that scientists ought not to believe that their theories are true because they cannot fulfill the epistemic obligation to take the diachronic perspective on their theories. I reply that Sample’s argument imposes an inordinately heavy epistemic obligation on scientists, and that it spells doom not only for scientific theories but also for observational beliefs and philosophical ideas that Samples endorses. I also delineate what I take to be a reasonable epistemic obligation for scientists. In sum, philosophers ought to impose on scientists only an epistemic standard that they are willing to impose on themselves

The spirit of sport: the case for criminalisation of doping in the UK

This article examines public perceptions of doping in sport, critically evaluates the effectiveness of current anti-doping sanctions and proposes the criminalisation of doping in sport in the UK as part of a growing global movement towards such criminalisation at national level. Criminalising doping is advanced on two main grounds: as a stigmatic deterrent and as a form of retributive punishment enforced through the criminal justice system. The ‘spirit of sport’ defined by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) as being based on the values of ethics, health and fair-play is identified as being undermined by the ineffectiveness of existing anti-doping policy in the current climate of doping revelations, and is assessed as relevant to public perceptions and the future of sport as a whole. The harm-reductionist approach permitting the use of certain performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) is considered as an alternative to anti-doping, taking into account athlete psychology, the problems encountered in containing doping in sport through anti-doping measures and the effect of these difficulties on the ‘spirit of sport’. This approach is dismissed in favour of criminalising doping in sport based on the offence of fraud. It will be argued that the criminalisation of doping could act as a greater deterrent than existing sanctions imposed by International Federations, and, when used in conjunction with those sanctions, will raise the overall ‘price’ of doping. The revelations of corruption within the existing system of self-governance within sport have contributed to a disbelieving public and it will be argued that the criminalisation of doping in sport could assist in satisfying the public that justice is being done and in turn achieve greater belief in the truth of athletic performances

MSW-like Enhancements without Matter

We study the effects of a scalar field, coupled only to neutrinos, on oscillations among weak interaction current eigenstates. The effect of a real scalar field appears as effective masses for the neutrino mass eigenstates, the same for \nbar as for \n. Under some conditions, this can lead to a vanishing of $\delta m^2$, giving rise to MSW-like effects. We discuss some examples and show that it is possible to resolve the apparent discrepancy in spectra required by r-process nucleosynthesis in the mantles of supernovae and by Solar neutrino solutions.Comment: 9 pages, latex, 1 figur

Energetics of Quantum Antidot States in Quantum Hall Regime

We report experiments on the energy structure of antidot-bound states. By measuring resonant tunneling line widths as function of temperature, we determine the coupling to the remote global gate voltage and find that the effects of interelectron interaction dominate. Within a simple model, we also determine the energy spacing of the antidot bound states, self consistent edge electric field, and edge excitation drift velocity.Comment: 4 pages, RevTex, 5 Postscript figure