SGR J1550–5418 Bursts Detected with the Fermi Gamma-Ray Burst Monitor during its Most Prolific Activity

We have performed detailed temporal and time-integrated spectral analysis of 286 bursts from SGR J1550–5418 detected with the Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) in 2009 January, resulting in the largest uniform sample of temporal and spectral properties of SGR J1550–5418 bursts. We have used the combination of broadband and high time-resolution data provided with GBM to perform statistical studies for the source properties. We determine the durations, emission times, duty cycles, and rise times for all bursts, and find that they are typical of SGR bursts. We explore various models in our spectral analysis, and conclude that the spectra of SGR J1550–5418 bursts in the 8-200 keV band are equally well described by optically thin thermal bremsstrahlung (OTTB), a power law (PL) with an exponential cutoff (Comptonized model), and two blackbody (BB) functions (BB+BB). In the spectral fits with the Comptonized model, we find a mean PL index of –0.92, close to the OTTB index of –1. We show that there is an anti-correlation between the Comptonized E_(peak) and the burst fluence and average flux. For the BB+BB fits, we find that the fluences and emission areas of the two BB functions are correlated. The low-temperature BB has an emission area comparable to the neutron star surface area, independent of the temperature, while the high-temperature BB has a much smaller area and shows an anti-correlation between emission area and temperature. We compare the properties of these bursts with bursts observed from other SGR sources during extreme activations, and discuss the implications of our results in the context of magnetar burst models

Equivalence of robust stabilization and robust performance via feedback

One approach to robust control for linear plants with structured uncertainty as well as for linear parameter-varying (LPV) plants (where the controller has on-line access to the varying plant parameters) is through linear-fractional-transformation (LFT) models. Control issues to be addressed by controller design in this formalism include robust stability and robust performance. Here robust performance is defined as the achievement of a uniform specified $L^{2}$-gain tolerance for a disturbance-to-error map combined with robust stability. By setting the disturbance and error channels equal to zero, it is clear that any criterion for robust performance also produces a criterion for robust stability. Counter-intuitively, as a consequence of the so-called Main Loop Theorem, application of a result on robust stability to a feedback configuration with an artificial full-block uncertainty operator added in feedback connection between the error and disturbance signals produces a result on robust performance. The main result here is that this performance-to-stabilization reduction principle must be handled with care for the case of dynamic feedback compensation: casual application of this principle leads to the solution of a physically uninteresting problem, where the controller is assumed to have access to the states in the artificially-added feedback loop. Application of the principle using a known more refined dynamic-control robust stability criterion, where the user is allowed to specify controller partial-state dimensions, leads to correct robust-performance results. These latter results involve rank conditions in addition to Linear Matrix Inequality (LMI) conditions.Comment: 20 page

On the design of a real-time volume rendering engine

An architecture for a Real-Time Volume Rendering Engine (RT-VRE) is given, capable of computing 750 × 750 × 512 samples from a 3D dataset at a rate of 25 images per second. The RT-VRE uses for this purpose 64 dedicated rendering chips, cooperating with 16 RISC-processors. A plane interpolator circuit and a composition circuit, both capable to operate at very high speeds, have been designed for a 1.6 micron VLSI process. Both the interpolator and composition circuit are back from production. They have been tested and both complied with our specifications

Otto Stern (1888-1969): The founding father of experimental atomic physics

We review the work and life of Otto Stern who developed the molecular beam technique and with its aid laid the foundations of experimental atomic physics. Among the key results of his research are: the experimental determination of the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution of molecular velocities (1920), experimental demonstration of space quantization of angular momentum (1922), diffraction of matter waves comprised of atoms and molecules by crystals (1931) and the determination of the magnetic dipole moments of the proton and deuteron (1933).Comment: 39 pages, 8 figure

Applying an accurate spherical model to gamma-ray burst afterglow observations

We present results of model fits to afterglow data sets of GRB970508, GRB980703 and GRB070125, characterized by long and broadband coverage. The model assumes synchrotron radiation (including self-absorption) from a spherical adiabatic blast wave and consists of analytic flux prescriptions based on numerical results. For the first time it combines the accuracy of hydrodynamic simulations through different stages of the outflow dynamics with the flexibility of simple heuristic formulas. The prescriptions are especially geared towards accurate description of the dynamical transition of the outflow from relativistic to Newtonian velocities in an arbitrary power-law density environment. We show that the spherical model can accurately describe the data only in the case of GRB970508, for which we find a circumburst medium density consistent with a stellar wind. We investigate in detail the implied spectra and physical parameters of that burst. For the microphysics we show evidence for equipartition between the fraction of energy density carried by relativistic electrons and magnetic field. We also find that for the blast wave to be adiabatic, the fraction of electrons accelerated at the shock has to be smaller than 1. We present best-fit parameters for the afterglows of all three bursts, including uncertainties in the parameters of GRB970508, and compare the inferred values to those obtained by different authors