Precision gage measures ultrahigh vacuum levels

Ionization gage in which internally generated X rays are minimized is described. This gage permits the measurement of gas pressures in ultrahigh systems of micro-pico torr /10-18/

Stratospheric CCN sampling program

Two one liter grab samples of stratospheric aerosol were returned from each of six U-2 sampling missions. Cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) spectra from each sample were obtained. Interest was centered on the effects of volcanic activity. Spurious particle generation was found to be a serious problem in container 9 LFT and a much smaller problem in container 9 RT. Initial studies of an option for improved sample containers and values were completed. A CCN spectrometer, able to operate at an internal pressure of 300 mb, was designed

Galaxy Distances in the Nearby Universe: Corrections For Peculiar Motions

By correcting the redshift--dependent distances for peculiar motions through a number of peculiar velocity field models, we recover the true distances of a wide, all-sky sample of nearby galaxies (~ 6400 galaxies with velocities cz<5500 km/s), which is complete up to the blue magnitude B=14 mag. Relying on catalogs of galaxy groups, we treat ~2700 objects as members of galaxy groups and the remaining objects as field galaxies. We model the peculiar velocity field using: i) a cluster dipole reconstruction scheme; ii) a multi--attractor model fitted to the Mark II and Mark III catalogs of galaxy peculiar velocities. According to Mark III data the Great Attractor has a smaller influence on local dynamics than previously believed, whereas the Perseus-Pisces and Shapley superclusters acquire a specific dynamical role. Remarkably, the Shapley structure, which is found to account for nearly half the peculiar motion of the Local Group, is placed by Mark III data closer to the zone of avoidance with respect to its optical position. Our multi--attractor model based on Mark III data favors a cosmological density parameter Omega ~ 0.5 (irrespective of a biasing factor of order unity). Differences among distance estimates are less pronounced in the ~ 2000 - 4000 km/s distance range than at larger or smaller distances. In the last regions these differences have a serious impact on the 3D maps of the galaxy distribution and on the local galaxy density --- on small scales.Comment: 24 pages including (9 eps figures and 7 tables). Figures 1,2,3,4 are available only upon request. Accepted by Ap

Modeling Solar Lyman Alpha Irradiance

Solar Lyman alpha irradiance is estimated from various solar indices using linear regression analyses. Models developed with multiple linear regression analysis, including daily values and 81-day running means of solar indices, predict reasonably well both the short- and long-term variations observed in Lyman alpha. It is shown that the full disk equivalent width of the He line at 1083 nm offers the best proxy for Lyman alpha, and that the total irradiance corrected for sunspot effect also has a high correlation with Lyman alpha

A Slight Excess of Large Scale Power from Moments of the Peculiar Velocity Field

The peculiar motions of galaxies can be used to infer the distribution of matter in the Universe. It has recently been shown that measurements of the peculiar velocity field indicates an anomalously high bulk flow of galaxies in our local volume. In this paper we find the implications of the high bulk flow for the power spectrum of density fluctuations. We find that analyzing only the dipole moment of the velocity field yields an average power spectrum amplitude which is indeed much higher than the LCDM value. However, by also including shear and octupole moments of the velocity field, and marginalizing over possible values for the growth rate, an average power spectrum amplitude which is consistent with LCDM is recovered. We attempt to infer the shape of the matter power spectrum from moments of the velocity field, and find a slight excess of power on scales ~ h-1 Gpc.Comment: 6 pages,6 figures, updated to match accepted versio

A new method of observing weak extended x-ray sources with RHESSI

We present a new method, fan-beam modulation, for observing weak extended x-ray sources with the Reuven Ramaty High-Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI). This space-based solar x-ray and gamma-ray telescope has much greater sensitivity than previous experiments in the 3-25 keV range, but is normally not well suited to detecting extended sources since their signal is not modulated by RHESSI's rotating grids. When the spacecraft is offpointed from the target source, however, the fan-beam modulation time-modulates the transmission by shadowing resulting from exploiting the finite thickness of the grids. In this paper we detail how the technique is implemented and verify its consistency with sources with clear known signals that have occurred during RHESSI offpointing: microflares and the Crab Nebula. In both cases the results are consistent with previous and complementary measurements. Preliminary work indicates that this new technique allows RHESSI to observe the integrated hard x-ray spectrum of weak extended sources on the quiet Sun.Comment: Publishe

A generalized linear Hubble law for an inhomogeneous barotropic Universe

In this work, I present a generalized linear Hubble law for a barotropic spherically symmetric inhomogeneous spacetime, which is in principle compatible with the acceleration of the cosmic expansion obtained as a result of high redshift Supernovae data. The new Hubble function, defined by this law, has two additional terms besides an expansion one, similar to the usual volume expansion one of the FLRW models, but now due to an angular expansion. The first additional term is dipolar and is a consequence of the existence of a kinematic acceleration of the observer, generated by a negative gradient of pressure or of mass-energy density. The second one is quadrupolar and due to the shear. Both additional terms are anisotropic for off-centre observers, because of to their dependence on a telescopic angle of observation. This generalized linear Hubble law could explain, in a cosmological setting, the observed large scale flow of matter, without to have recourse to peculiar velocity-type newtonian models. It is pointed out also, that the matter dipole direction should coincide with the CBR dipole one.Comment: 9 pages, LaTeX, to be published in Class. Quantum Gra