769 research outputs found
Spectral decomposition of the stellar kinematics in the polar disk galaxy NGC 4650A
Context. The prototype of Polar Ring Galaxies NGC 4650A contains two main
structural components, a central spheroid, which is the host galaxy, and an
extended polar disk. Both photometric and kinematic studies revealed that these
two components co-exist on two different planes within the central regions of
the galaxy. Aims. The aim of this work is to study the spectroscopic and
kinematic properties of the host galaxy and the polar disk in the central
regions of NGC 4650A by disentangling their contributions to the observed
galaxy spectrum.
Methods. We applied the spectral decomposition technique introduced in
previous works to long-slit spectroscopic observations in the CaII triplet
region. We focused the analysis along the PA = 152 that corresponds to the
photometric minor axis of the host galaxy, where the superimposition of the two
components is more relevant and the spectral decomposition is necessary. We aim
to disentangle the stars that move in the equatorial plane of the host galaxy
from those that move in the meridan plane, which is along the polar disk.
Results. We successfully disentangled the spectra of the two structural
components of NGC 4650A and measured their line-of-sight velocity and velocity
dispersion profiles, and the stellar content along PA = 152. The host galaxy
shows significant rotation along its photometric minor axis, indicating that
the gravitational potential is not axisymmetric. The polar disk shows a
kinematic decoupling: the inner regions counter-rotating with respect the
outer-regions and the host spheroid. This suggests a complex formation history
for the polar disk, characterised by mass accretion with decoupled angular
momenta.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics. 7 pages, 5
figure
Characterization of ZnSe scintillating bolometers for Double Beta Decay
ZnSe scintillating bolometers are good candidates for future Double Beta
Decay searches, because of the 82Se high Q-value and thanks to the possibility
of alpha background rejection on the basis of the scintillation signal. In this
paper we report the characteristics and the anomalies observed in an extensive
study of these devices. Among them, an unexpected high emission from alpha
particles, accompanied with an unusual pattern of the light vs. heat scatter
plot. The perspectives for the application of this kind of detectors to search
for the Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay of 82Se are presented.Comment: 12 pages, 10 figure
CdWO4 scintillating bolometer for Double Beta Decay: Light and Heat anticorrelation, light yield and quenching factors
We report the performances of a 0.51 kg CdWO4 scintillating bolometer to be
used for future Double Beta Decay Experiments. The simultaneous read-out of the
heat and the scintillation light allows to discriminate between different
interacting particles aiming at the disentanglement and the reduction of
background contribution, key issue for next generation experiments. We will
describe the observed anticorrelation between the heat and the light signal and
we will show how this feature can be used in order to increase the energy
resolution of the bolometer over the entire energy spectrum, improving up to a
factor 2.6 on the 2615 keV line of 208Tl. The detector was tested in a 433 h
background measurement that permitted to estimate extremely low internal trace
contaminations of 232Th and 238U. The light yield of gamma/beta, alpha and
neutrons is presented. Furthermore we developed a method in order to correctly
evaluate the absolute thermal quenching factor of alpha particles in
scintillating bolometers.Comment: 8 pages 7 figure
Pulse Shape Analysis with scintillating bolometers
Among the detectors used for rare event searches, such as neutrinoless Double
Beta Decay (0DBD) and Dark Matter experiments, bolometers are very
promising because of their favorable properties (excellent energy resolution,
high detector efficiency, a wide choice of different materials used as
absorber, ...). However, up to now, the actual interesting possibility to
identify the interacting particle, and thus to greatly reduce the background,
can be fulfilled only with a double read-out (i.e. the simultaneous and
independent read out of heat and scintillation light or heat and ionization).
This double read-out could greatly complicate the assembly of a huge,
multi-detector array, such as CUORE and EURECA. The possibility to recognize
the interacting particle through the shape of the thermal pulse is then clearly
a very interesting opportunity.
While detailed analyses of the signal time development in purely thermal
detectors have not produced so far interesting results, similar analyses on
macro-bolometers (10-500 g) built with scintillating crystals showed that
it is possible to distinguish between an electron or -ray and an
particle interaction (i.e. the main source of background for 0DBD
experiments based on the bolometric technique). Results on pulse shape analysis
of a CaMoO crystal operated as bolometer is reported as an example. An
explanation of this behavior, based on the energy partition in the heat and
scintillation channels, is also presented.Comment: Presented at the 14th International Workshop on Low Temperature
Detectors, proceedings to be published in the Journal of Low Temperature
Physic
Collisionless evaporation from cluster elliptical galaxies
We describe a particular aspect of the effects of the parent cluster tidal
field (CTF) on stellar orbits inside cluster Elliptical galaxies. In particular
we discuss, with the aid of a simple numerical model, the possibility that
collisionless stellar evaporation from elliptical galaxies is an effective
mechanism for the production of the recently discovered intracluster stellar
populations. A preliminary investigation, based on very idealized galaxy
density profiles (Ferrers density distributions), showed that over an Hubble
time, the amount of stars lost by a representative galaxy may sum up to the 10%
of the initial galaxy mass, a fraction in interesting agreement with
observational data. The effectiveness of this mechanism is due to the fact that
the galaxy oscillation periods near equilibrium configurations in the CTF are
comparable to stellar orbital times in the external galaxy regions. Here we
extend our previous study to more realistic galaxy density profiles, in
particular by adopting a triaxial Hernquist model.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures. To appear on "Lecture Notes in Physics",
proceedings of the Workshop on "Galaxies and Chaos. Theory and Observations",
Athens (September 16-19, 2002), G. Contopoulos and N. Voglis, ed
A neutral hydrogen survey of polar ring galaxies IV. Parkes observations
A total of 33 polar ring galaxies and polar ring galaxy candidates were
observed in the 21-cm HI line with the 64-m Parkes radio telescope. The
objects, selected by their optical morphology, are all south of declination -39
degrees and in only 5 of them HI had been reported previously. HI line emission
was detected towards 18 objects, though in 3 cases the detection may be
confused by another galaxy in the telescope beam, and one is a marginal
detection. Eight objects were detected for the first time in HI, of which 5 did
not have previously known redshifts.Comment: Accepted by Astronomy and Astrophysics, 12/2/2002; new references
added on 20/2/200
The planetary nebula population in the halo of M87
We investigate the diffuse light in the outer regions of the nearby
elliptical galaxy M87 in the Virgo cluster, using planetary nebulas (PNs) as
tracers. The surveyed areas (0.43 squared degrees) cover M87 up to a radial
distance of 150 kpc, in the ransition region between galaxy halo and
intracluster light (ICL). All PNs are identified through the on-off band
technique using automatic selection criteria based on the distribution of the
detected sources in the colour-magnitude diagram and the properties of their
point-spread function. We extract a catalogue of 688 objects down to
m_5007=28.4, with an estimated residual contamination from foreground stars and
background Lyalpha galaxies, which amounts to ~35% of the sample. This is one
of the largest extragalactic PN samples in number of candidates, magnitude
depth, and radial extent, which allows us to carry out an unprecedented
photometric study of the PN population in the outer regions of M87. We find
that the logarithmic density profile of the PN distribution is shallower than
the surface brightness profile at large radii. This behaviour is consistent
with the superposition of two components associated with the halo of M87 and
with the ICL, which have different luminosity specific PN numbers, the ICL
contributing three times more PNs per unit light. Because of the depth of this
survey we are also able to study the shape of the PN luminosity function (PNLF)
in the outer regions of M87. We find a slope for the PNLF that is steeper at
fainter magnitudes than the standard analytical PNLF formula and adopt a
generalised model that treats the slope as a free parameter. Comparing the PNLF
of M87 and the M31 bulge, both normalised by the sampled luminosity, the M87
PNLF contains fewer bright PNs and has a steeper slope towards fainter
magnitudes.Comment: 16 pages, 13 figures, 5 tables, accepted for publication in A&
Monte Carlo evaluation of the external gamma, neutron and muon induced background sources in the CUORE experiment
CUORE is a 1 ton scale cryogenic experiment aiming at the measurement of the
Majorana mass of the electron neutrino. The detector is an array of 988 TeO2
bolometers used for a calorimetric detection of the two electrons emitted in
the BB0n of 130Te. The sensitivity of the experiment to the lowest Majorana
mass is determined by the rate of background events that can mimic a BB0n. In
this paper we investigate the contribution of external sources i.e.
environmental gammas, neutrons and cosmic ray muons to the CUORE background and
show that the shielding setup designed for CUORE guarantees a reduction of this
external background down to a level <1.0E-02 c/keV/kg/y at the Q-value, as
required by the physical goal of the experiment.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figure
ZnMoO4: a promising bolometer for neutrinoless double beta decay searches
We investigate the performances of two ZnMoO4 scintillating crystals operated
as bolometers, in view of a next generation experiment to search the
neutrinoless double beta decay of Mo-100. We present the results of the alpha
vs beta/gamma discrimination, obtained through the scintillation light as well
as through the study of the shape of the thermal signal alone. The
discrimination capability obtained at the 2615 keV line of Tl-208 is 8 sigma,
using the heat-light scatter plot, while it exceeds 20 sigma using the shape of
the thermal pulse alone. The achieved FWHM energy resolution ranges from 2.4
keV (at 238 keV) to 5.7 keV (at 2615 keV). The internal radioactive
contaminations of the ZnMoO4 crystals were evaluated through a 407 hours
background measurement. The obtained limit is < 32 microBq/kg for Th-228 and
Ra-226. These values were used for a Monte Carlo simulation aimed at evaluating
the achievable background level of a possible, future array of enriched ZnMoO4
crystals.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figure
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