Millimetric Astronomy from the High Antarctic Plateau: site testing at Dome C

Preliminary site testing at Dome C (Antarctica) is presented, using both Automatic Weather Station (AWS) meteorological data (1986-1993) and Precipitable Water Vapor (PWV) measurements made by the authors. A comparison with South Pole and other sites is made. The South Pole is a well established astrophysical observing site, where extremely good conditions are reported for a large fraction of time during the year. Dome C, where Italy and France are building a new scientific station, is a potential observing site in the millimetric and sub-millimetric range. AWS are operating at both sites and they have been continuously monitoring temperature, pressure, wind speed and direction for more than ten years. Site testing instruments are already operating at the South Pole (AASTO, Automated Astrophysical Site-Testing Observatory), while ''light'' experiments have been running at Dome C (APACHE, Antarctic Plateau Anisotropy CHasing Experiment) during summertime. A direct comparison between the two sites is planned in the near future, using the AASTO. The present analysis shows that the average wind speed is lower at Dome C (~1 m/s) than at the South Pole (~2 m/s), while temperature and PWV are comparable.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures, se also http://www.atnf.csiro.au/pasa/16_2

AAOmega spectroscopy of 29 351 stars in fields centered on ten Galactic globular clusters

Galactic globular clusters have been pivotal in our understanding of many astrophysical phenomena. Here we publish the extracted stellar parameters from a recent large spectroscopic survey of ten globular clusters. A brief review of the project is also presented. Stellar parameters have been extracted from individual stellar spectra using both a modified version of the Radial Velocity Experiment (RAVE) pipeline and a pipeline based on the parameter estimation method of RAVE. We publish here all parameters extracted from both pipelines. We calibrate the metallicity and convert this to [Fe/H] for each star and, furthermore, we compare the velocities and velocity dispersions of the Galactic stars in each field to the Besan\c{c}on Galaxy model. We find that the model does not correspond well with the data, indicating that the model is probably of little use for comparisons with pencil beam survey data such as this.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, 4 tables. Accepted for publication in A&A. Data described in tables will be available on CDS (at http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/cgi-bin/qcat?J/A+A/530/A31) once publishe

Space shuttle: Determination of the static stability characteristics of the 0.00285-scale MDAC parallel burn launch configuration

Aerodynamic force and moment coefficient data for parallel burn vehicle launch configurations tested in trisonic wind tunnel for static stabilit

Platinum(II) phosphonate complexes derived from endo-8-camphanylphosphonic acid

The reactions of cis-[PtCl₂L₂] [L = PPh₃, PMe₂Ph or L₂ = Ph₂P(CH₂)₂PPh₂ (dppe)] with endo-8-camphanylphosphonic acid (CamPO₃H₂) and Ag₂O in refluxing dichloromethane gave platinum(II) phosphonate complexes [Pt(O₃PCam)L₂]. The X-ray crystal structure of [Pt(O₃PCam)(PPh₃)₂]•₂CHCl₃ shows that the bulky camphanyl group, rather than being directed away from the platinum, is instead directed into a pocket formed by the Pt and the two PPh₃ ligands. This allows the O₃P–CH₂ group to have a preferred staggered conformation. The complexes were studied in detail by NMR spectroscopy, which demonstrates non-fluxional behaviour for the sterically bulky PPh₃ and dppe derivatives, which contain inequivalent phosphine ligands in their ³¹P NMR spectra. These findings are backed up by theoretical calculations on the PPh₃ and PPhMe₂ derivatives, which show, respectively, high and low energy barriers to rotation of the camphanyl group in the PPh₃ and PPhMe₂ complexes. The X-ray crystal structure of CamPO₃H₂ is also reported, and consists of hydrogen-bonded hexameric aggregates, which assemble to form a columnar structure containing hydrophilic phosphonic acid channels surrounded by a sheath of bulky, hydrophobic camphanyl groups

Composite Scalars at LEP: Constraining Technicolor Theories

LEPI and LEPII data can be used to constrain technicolor models with light, neutral pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone bosons, Pa. We use published limits on branching ratios and cross sections for final states with photons, large missing energy, jet pairs, and b bbar pairs to constrain the anomalous Pa Z0 Z0, Pa Z0 photon, and Pa photon photon couplings. From these results, we derive bounds on the size of the technicolor gauge group and the number of technifermion doublets in models such as Low-scale Technicolor.Comment: 27 pages (including title page), 15 figures, 6 tables. version 2: In addressing PRD referee comments, we have significantly expanded our manuscript, to include detailed discussion of limits from LEP II data, as well as expanding the number or specific models to which we apply our results. As a result, we have changed the title from "Z0 decays to composite scalars: constraining technicolor theories

Pseudo-Goldstone Boson Effects in Top-Antitop Productions at High Energy Hadron Colliders and Testing Technicolor Models

We study the top quark pair production process p+p(anti-p)-->top+antitop in various kinds of technicolor (TC) models at the Fermilab Tevatron Run II and the CERN LHC. The s-channel neutral pseudo-Goldstone bosons (PGB's) contribute dominately to the production amplitudes from its coupling to the gluons through the triangle loops of techniquarks and the top quark. Cross sections in different TC models with s-channel PGB contributions are calculated. It is shown that the PGB effects can be experimentally tested and different TC models under consideration can be distinguished at the LHC. Therefore, the p+p-->top+antitop process at the LHC provides feasible tests of the TC models.Comment: 10 pages in RevTex and 4 PS-files for the figures. Paramemter range is changed, and some references are added. Version for publication in Phys. Rev.

Exploring the Cosmic Evolution of Habitability with Galaxy Merger Trees

We combine inferred galaxy properties from a semi-analytic galaxy evolution model incorporating dark matter halo merger trees with new estimates of supernova and gamma ray burst rates as a function of metallicity from stellar population synthesis models incorporating binary interactions. We use these to explore the stellar mass fraction of galaxies irradiated by energetic astrophysical transients and its evolution over cosmic time, and thus the fraction which is potentially habitable by life like our own. We find that 18 per cent of the stellar mass in the Universe is likely to have been irradiated within the last 260 Myr, with GRBs dominating that fraction. We do not see a strong dependence of irradiated stellar mass fraction on stellar mass or richness of the galaxy environment. We consider a representative merger tree as a Local Group analogue, and find that there are galaxies at all masses which have retained a high habitable fraction (>40 per cent) over the last 6 Gyr, but also that there are galaxies at all masses where the merger history and associated star formation have rendered galaxies effectively uninhabitable. This illustrates the need to consider detailed merger trees when evaluating the cosmic evolution of habitability.Comment: 11 page, 10 figures. MNRAS accepted 13th Dec 2017. Updated to match accepted version, with additional discussion of metallicity effect

Probing neutral top-pion via a flavor-changing process γγ→tcˉΠt0\gamma\gamma\to t\bar{c}\Pi_{t}^{0}

In the framework of topcolor-assisted-technicolor model(TC2), we study a flavor-changing neutral top-pion production process $\gamma\gamma\to t\bar{c}\Pi_{t}^{0}$. The study shows that there exists a resonance effect which can enhance the cross section up to a few fb even tens fb. For a yearly luminosity 100 $fb^{-1}$ at future linear colliders, there might be hundreds even thousands events to be produced. On the other hand, the background of such flavor-changing process is very clean due to the GIM mechanism in SM . With such sufficient events and clean background, neutral toppion could be detected at future linear colliders with high center of energy and luminosity. Our study provides a possible way to test TC2 model.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures,has been accepted by Phys.Rev.

Anchors for the Cosmic Distance Scale: the Cepheids U Sgr, CF Cas and CEab Cas

New and existing X-ray, UBVJHKsW(1-4), and spectroscopic observations were analyzed to constrain fundamental parameters for M25, NGC 7790, and dust along their sight-lines. The star clusters are of particular importance given they host the classical Cepheids U Sgr, CF Cas, and the visual binary Cepheids CEa and CEb Cas. Precise results from the multiband analysis, in tandem with a comprehensive determination of the Cepheids' period evolution (dP/dt) from ~140 years of observations, helped resolve concerns raised regarding the clusters and their key Cepheid constituents. Specifically, distances derived for members of M25 and NGC 7790 are 630+-25 pc and 3.40+-0.15 kpc, respectively.Comment: To appear in Astronomy and Astrophysic