71,831 research outputs found
Lensing Properties of Cored Galaxy Models
A method is developed to evaluate the magnifications of the images of
galaxies with lensing potentials stratified on similar concentric ellipses. A
simple contour integral is provided which enables the sums of the
magnifications of even parity or odd parity or the central image to be easily
calculated. The sums for pairs of images vary considerably with source
position, while the signed sums can be remarkably uniform inside the tangential
caustic in the absence of naked cusps. For a family of models in which the
potential is a power-law of the elliptic radius, the number of visible images
is found as a function of flattening, external shear and core radius. The
magnification of the central image depends on the core radius and the slope of
the potential. For typical source and lens redshifts, the missing central image
leads to strong constraints; the mass distribution in the lensing galaxy must
be nearly cusped, and the cusp must be isothermal or stronger. This is in
accord with the cuspy cores seen in high resolution photometry of nearby,
massive, early-type galaxies, which typically have the surface density falling
like distance^{-1.3} outside a break radius of a few hundred parsecs. Cuspy
cores by themselves can provide an explanation of the missing central images.
Dark matter at large radii may alter the slope of the projected density;
provided the slope remains isothermal or steeper and the break radius remains
small, then the central image remains unobservable. The sensitivity of the
radio maps must be increased fifty-fold to find the central images in
abundance.Comment: 42 pages, 11 figures, ApJ in pres
Millimeter-wave antenna system
Parabolic reflectors fabricated from Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastic (CFRP) composite material will not distort their shape by more than 3 percent of millimeter wavelength, despite large temperature differences on reflector surfaces. CFRP has zero thermal expansion. It is derived from charred polyacrylonitrite plastic filaments that are combined with epoxy resin
Cuspy Dark-Matter Haloes and the Galaxy
The microlensing optical depth to Baade's Window constrains the minimum total
mass in baryonic matter within the Solar circle to be greater than 3.9 x
10^{10} solar masses, assuming the inner Galaxy is barred with viewing angle of
roughly 20 degrees. From the kinematics of solar neighbourhood stars, the local
surface density of dark matter is about 30 +/- 15 solar masses per square
parsec. We construct cuspy haloes normalised to the local dark matter density
and calculate the circular-speed curve of the halo in the inner Galaxy. This is
added in quadrature to the rotation curve provided by the stellar and ISM
discs, together with a bar sufficiently massive so that the baryonic matter in
the inner Galaxy reproduces the microlensing optical depth. Such models violate
the observational constraint provided by the tangent-velocity data in the inner
Galaxy (typically at radii 2-4 kpc). The high baryonic contribution required by
the microlensing is consistent with implications from hydrodynamical modelling
and the pattern speed of the Galactic bar. We conclude that the cuspy haloes
favoured by the Cold Dark Matter cosmology (and its variants) are inconsistent
with the observational data on the Galaxy.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figures, MNRAS (submitted
Jamming transitions and avalanches in the game of Dots-and-Boxes
We study the game of Dots-and-Boxes from a statistical point of view. The
early game can be treated as a case of Random Sequential Adsorption, with a
jamming transition that marks the beginning of the end-game. We derive set of
differential equations to make predictions about the state of the lattice at
the transition, and thus about the distribution of avalanches in the end-game.Comment: 7 pages, 8 figures, revtex
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