Daphnis placida, a new species of Sphinx moth for Guam, U.S.A.

I do not have the submitted version any more. If the published PDF version cannot be deposited, then please remove.This item is licensed under a Creative Commons License (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)). The attached file is the published version of the article

The phylogeny of Anophelinae revisited: inferences about the origin and classification of Anopheles (Diptera: Culicidae)

© 2015 Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. "This is the pre-peer reviewed version of the following article: Harbach, R. E. and I. J. Kitching (2016). "The phylogeny of Anophelinae revisited: inferences about the origin and classification of Anopheles (Diptera: Culicidae)." Zoologica Scripta 45(1): 34-47, which has been published in final form at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/zsc.12137/full. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.

On the Probability Distributions of Ellipticity

In this paper we derive an exact full expression for the 2D probability distribution of the ellipticity of an object measured from data, only assuming Gaussian noise in pixel values. This is a generalisation of the probability distribution for the ratio of single random variables, that is well-known, to the multivariate case. This expression is derived within the context of the measurement of weak gravitational lensing from noisy galaxy images. We find that the third flattening, or epsilon-ellipticity, has a biased maximum likelihood but an unbiased mean; and that the third eccentricity, or normalised polarisation chi, has both a biased maximum likelihood and a biased mean. The very fact that the bias in the ellipticity is itself a function of the ellipticity requires an accurate knowledge of the intrinsic ellipticity distribution of the galaxies in order to properly calibrate shear measurements. We use this expression to explore strategies for calibration of biases caused by measurement processes in weak gravitational lensing. We find that upcoming weak lensing surveys like KiDS or DES require calibration fields of order of several square degrees and 1.2 magnitude deeper than the wide survey in order to correct for the noise bias. Future surveys like Euclid will require calibration fields of order 40 square degree and several magnitude deeper than the wide survey. We also investigate the use of the Stokes parameters to estimate the shear as an alternative to the ellipticity. We find that they can provide unbiased shear estimates at the cost of a very large variance in the measurement. The python code used to compute the distributions presented in the paper and to perform the numerical calculations are available on request.Comment: 24 pages, 18 figures, 2 Tables. Accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Main Journa

Generation of amplitude-squeezed light from a room-temperature Fabry-Perot semiconductor laser

Amplitude-squeezed light with intensity fluctuations 29% below the standard quantum limit (SQL) is produced from a pump-suppressed room-temperature semiconductor laser, corresponding to 41% below the SQL after correction for detection efficiency. Excess noise, which degrades the observed squeezing, appears to be associated with the presence of weak longitudinal side modes

The phylogenetic conundrum of Lutzia(Diptera: Culicidae: Culicini): a cautionary account of conflict and support

This is an open access article, available to all readers online, published under a creative commons licensing (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). This document is the author's submitted version of the journal article. You are advised to consult the publisher's version if you wish to cite from it

Figures of Merit for Testing Standard Models: Application to Dark Energy Experiments in Cosmology

Given a standard model to test, an experiment can be designed to: (i) measure the standard model parameters; (ii) extend the standard model; or (iii) look for evidence of deviations from the standard model. To measure (or extend) the standard model, the Fisher matrix is widely used in cosmology to predict expected parameter errors for future surveys under Gaussian assumptions. In this article, we present a frame- work that can be used to design experiments such that it maximises the chance of finding a deviation from the standard model. Using a simple illustrative example, discussed in the appendix, we show that the optimal experimental configuration can depend dramatically on the optimisation approach chosen. We also show some simple cosmology calculations, where we study Baryonic Acoustic Oscillation and Supernove surveys. In doing so, we also show how external data, such as the positions of the CMB peaks measured by WMAP, and theory priors can be included in the analysis. In the cosmological cases that we have studied (DETF Stage III), we find that the three optimisation approaches yield similar results, which is reassuring and indicates that the choice of optimal experiment is fairly robust at this level. However, this may not be the case as we move to more ambitious future surveys.Comment: Submitted to MNRAS. 12 pages, 9 figure

Linewidth reduction and frequency stabilization of a semiconductor laser with a combination of FM sideband locking and optical feedback

We describe a novel method for semiconductor laser noise reduction that uses a combination of optical and electronic feedback. A Doppler-free Faraday resonance in Cs vapor provided both optical feedback and discrimination for an electronic feedback scheme incorporating FM sideband spectroscopy. The introduction of electronic feedback further reduced the low-frequency fluctuation noise power by more than 2 orders of magnitude, resulting in a linewidth of 1.4 kHz