540 research outputs found
Benthos habitat quality assessment for the North Sea: joint GES assessments require a coordinated monitoring
Dynamic rotor mode in antiferromagnetic nanoparticles
We present experimental, numerical, and theoretical evidence for a new mode
of antiferromagnetic dynamics in nanoparticles. Elastic neutron scattering
experiments on 8 nm particles of hematite display a loss of diffraction
intensity with temperature, the intensity vanishing around 150 K. However, the
signal from inelastic neutron scattering remains above that temperature,
indicating a magnetic system in constant motion. In addition, the precession
frequency of the inelastic magnetic signal shows an increase above 100 K.
Numerical Langevin simulations of spin dynamics reproduce all measured neutron
data and reveal that thermally activated spin canting gives rise to a new type
of coherent magnetic precession mode. This "rotor" mode can be seen as a
high-temperature version of superparamagnetism and is driven by exchange
interactions between the two magnetic sublattices. The frequency of the rotor
mode behaves in fair agreement with a simple analytical model, based on a high
temperature approximation of the generally accepted Hamiltonian of the system.
The extracted model parameters, as the magnetic interaction and the axial
anisotropy, are in excellent agreement with results from Mossbauer
spectroscopy
Detection of the Crab Nebula using a Random Forest Analysis of the first TAIGA IACT Data
The Tunka Advanced Instrument for Gamma- and cosmic-ray Astronomy (TAIGA) is
a multicomponent experiment for the measurement of TeV to PeV gamma- and cosmic
rays. Our goal is to establish a novel hybrid direct air shower technique,
sufficient to access the energy domain of the long-sought Pevatrons. The hybrid
air Cherenkov light detection technique combines the strengths of the HiSCORE
shower front sampling array, and two 4 m class, 9.6 deg field
of view Imaging Air Cherenkov Telescopes (IACTs). The HiSCORE array provides
good angular and shower core position resolution, while the IACTs provide the
image shape and orientation for gamma-hadron separation. In future, an
additional muon detector will be used for hadron tagging at 100 TeV
energies. Here, only data from the first IACT of the TAIGA experiment are used.
A random forest algorithm was trained using Monte Carlo (MC) simulations and
real data, and applied to 85 h of selected observational data tracking the Crab
Nebula at a mean zenith angle of 33.5 deg, resulting in a threshold energy of 6
TeV for this dataset. The analysis was performed using the gammapy package. A
total of 163.5 excess events were detected, with a statistical significance of
8.5 sigma. The observed spectrum of the Crab Nebula is best fit with a power
law above 6 TeV with a flux normalisation of at a reference energy of 13 TeV and a spectral index
of .Comment: 8 pages, 9 figures, accepted by MNRA
Status and Plans for the Array Control and Data Acquisition System of the Cherenkov Telescope Array
The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is the next-generation atmospheric
Cherenkov gamma-ray observatory. CTA will consist of two installations, one in
the northern, and the other in the southern hemisphere, containing tens of
telescopes of different sizes. The CTA performance requirements and the
inherent complexity associated with the operation, control and monitoring of
such a large distributed multi-telescope array leads to new challenges in the
field of the gamma-ray astronomy. The ACTL (array control and data acquisition)
system will consist of the hardware and software that is necessary to control
and monitor the CTA arrays, as well as to time-stamp, read-out, filter and
store -at aggregated rates of few GB/s- the scientific data. The ACTL system
must be flexible enough to permit the simultaneous automatic operation of
multiple sub-arrays of telescopes with a minimum personnel effort on site. One
of the challenges of the system is to provide a reliable integration of the
control of a large and heterogeneous set of devices. Moreover, the system is
required to be ready to adapt the observation schedule, on timescales of a few
tens of seconds, to account for changing environmental conditions or to
prioritize incoming scientific alerts from time-critical transient phenomena
such as gamma ray bursts. This contribution provides a summary of the main
design choices and plans for building the ACTL system.Comment: In Proceedings of the 34th International Cosmic Ray Conference
(ICRC2015), The Hague, The Netherlands. All CTA contributions at
arXiv:1508.0589
Co-firing of biomass and other wastes in fluidised bed systems
A project on co-firing in large-scale power plants burning coal is currently funded by the European Commission. It is called COPOWER. The project involves 10 organisations from 6 countries. The project involves combustion studies over the full spectrum of equipment size, ranging from small laboratory-scale reactors and pilot plants, to investigate fundamentals and operating parameters, to proving trials on a commercial power plant in Duisburg. The power plant
uses a circulating fluidized bed boiler. The results to be obtained are to be compared as function of scale-up. There are two different coals, 3 types of biomass and 2 kinds of waste materials are to be used for blending with coal for co-firing tests. The baseline values are obtained during a campaign of one month at the power station and the results are used for comparison with those to be obtained in other units of various sizes. Future tests will be implemented with the objective to achieve improvement on baseline values. The fuels to be used are already characterized. There are ongoing studies to determine reactivities of fuels and chars produced from the fuels. Reactivities are determined not only for individual fuels but also for blends to be used. Presently pilot-scale combustion tests are also undertaken to study the effect of blending coal with different types of biomass and waste materials. The potential for synergy to improve combustion is investigated. Early results will be reported in the Conference. Simultaneously, studies to verify the availability of biomass and waste materials in Portugal, Turkey and Italy have been undertaken. Techno-economic barriers for the future use of biomass and other waste materials are identified. The potential of using these materials in coal fired power stations has been assessed. The conclusions will also be reported
The Tunka Experiment: Towards a 1-km^2 Cherenkov EAS Array in the Tunka Valley
The project of an EAS Cherenkov array in the Tunka valley/Siberia with an
area of about 1 km^2 is presented. The new array will have a ten times bigger
area than the existing Tunka-25 array and will permit a detailed study of the
cosmic ray energy spectrum and the mass composition in the energy range from
10^15 to 10^18 eV.Comment: 3 pages, 2 figures, to be published in IJMP
Search for Point Sources of High Energy Neutrinos with AMANDA
This paper describes the search for astronomical sources of high-energy
neutrinos using the AMANDA-B10 detector, an array of 302 photomultiplier tubes,
used for the detection of Cherenkov light from upward traveling
neutrino-induced muons, buried deep in ice at the South Pole. The absolute
pointing accuracy and angular resolution were studied by using coincident
events between the AMANDA detector and two independent telescopes on the
surface, the GASP air Cherenkov telescope and the SPASE extensive air shower
array. Using data collected from April to October of 1997 (130.1 days of
livetime), a general survey of the northern hemisphere revealed no
statistically significant excess of events from any direction. The sensitivity
for a flux of muon neutrinos is based on the effective detection area for
through-going muons. Averaged over the Northern sky, the effective detection
area exceeds 10,000 m^2 for E_{mu} ~ 10 TeV. Neutrinos generated in the
atmosphere by cosmic ray interactions were used to verify the predicted
performance of the detector. For a source with a differential energy spectrum
proportional to E_{nu}^{-2} and declination larger than +40 degrees, we obtain
E^2(dN_{nu}/dE) <= 10^{-6}GeVcm^{-2}s^{-1} for an energy threshold of 10 GeV.Comment: 46 pages, 22 figures, 4 tables, submitted to Ap.
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