1,765 research outputs found
Discovery and Early Evolution of ASASSN-19bt, the First TDE Detected by TESS
We present the discovery and early evolution of ASASSN-19bt, a tidal
disruption event (TDE) discovered by the All-Sky Automated Survey for
Supernovae (ASAS-SN) at a distance of Mpc and the first TDE to be
detected by TESS. As the TDE is located in the TESS Continuous Viewing Zone,
our dataset includes 30-minute cadence observations starting on 2018 July 25,
and we precisely measure that the TDE begins to brighten days before
its discovery. Our dataset also includes 18 epochs of Swift UVOT and XRT
observations, 2 epochs of XMM-Newton observations, 13 spectroscopic
observations, and ground data from the Las Cumbres Observatory telescope
network, spanning from 32 days before peak through 37 days after peak.
ASASSN-19bt thus has the most detailed pre-peak dataset for any TDE. The TESS
light curve indicates that the transient began to brighten on 2019 January 21.6
and that for the first 15 days its rise was consistent with a flux power-law model. The optical/UV emission is well-fit by a blackbody SED,
and ASASSN-19bt exhibits an early spike in its luminosity and temperature
roughly 32 rest-frame days before peak and spanning up to 14 days that has not
been seen in other TDEs, possibly because UV observations were not triggered
early enough to detect it. It peaked on 2019 March 04.9 at a luminosity of
ergs s and radiated
ergs during the 41-day rise to peak. X-ray observations after peak indicate a
softening of the hard X-ray emission prior to peak, reminiscent of the
hard/soft states in X-ray binaries.Comment: 23 pages, 14 figures, 5 tables. A machine-readable table containing
the host-subtracted photometry presented in this manuscript is included as an
ancillary fil
A GPU-based Correlator X-engine Implemented on the CHIME Pathfinder
We present the design and implementation of a custom GPU-based compute
cluster that provides the correlation X-engine of the CHIME Pathfinder radio
telescope. It is among the largest such systems in operation, correlating
32,896 baselines (256 inputs) over 400MHz of radio bandwidth. Making heavy use
of consumer-grade parts and a custom software stack, the system was developed
at a small fraction of the cost of comparable installations. Unlike existing
GPU backends, this system is built around OpenCL kernels running on
consumer-level AMD GPUs, taking advantage of low-cost hardware and leveraging
packed integer operations to double algorithmic efficiency. The system achieves
the required 105TOPS in a 10kW power envelope, making it among the most
power-efficient X-engines in use today.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures. Accepted by IEEE ASAP 201
Calibrating CHIME, A New Radio Interferometer to Probe Dark Energy
The Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) is a transit
interferometer currently being built at the Dominion Radio Astrophysical
Observatory (DRAO) in Penticton, BC, Canada. We will use CHIME to map neutral
hydrogen in the frequency range 400 -- 800\,MHz over half of the sky, producing
a measurement of baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) at redshifts between 0.8 --
2.5 to probe dark energy. We have deployed a pathfinder version of CHIME that
will yield constraints on the BAO power spectrum and provide a test-bed for our
calibration scheme. I will discuss the CHIME calibration requirements and
describe instrumentation we are developing to meet these requirements
Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) Pathfinder
A pathfinder version of CHIME (the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping
Experiment) is currently being commissioned at the Dominion Radio Astrophysical
Observatory (DRAO) in Penticton, BC. The instrument is a hybrid cylindrical
interferometer designed to measure the large scale neutral hydrogen power
spectrum across the redshift range 0.8 to 2.5. The power spectrum will be used
to measure the baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) scale across this poorly
probed redshift range where dark energy becomes a significant contributor to
the evolution of the Universe. The instrument revives the cylinder design in
radio astronomy with a wide field survey as a primary goal. Modern low-noise
amplifiers and digital processing remove the necessity for the analog
beamforming that characterized previous designs. The Pathfinder consists of two
cylinders 37\,m long by 20\,m wide oriented north-south for a total collecting
area of 1,500 square meters. The cylinders are stationary with no moving parts,
and form a transit instrument with an instantaneous field of view of
100\,degrees by 1-2\,degrees. Each CHIME Pathfinder cylinder has a
feedline with 64 dual polarization feeds placed every 30\,cm which
Nyquist sample the north-south sky over much of the frequency band. The signals
from each dual-polarization feed are independently amplified, filtered to
400-800\,MHz, and directly sampled at 800\,MSps using 8 bits. The correlator is
an FX design, where the Fourier transform channelization is performed in FPGAs,
which are interfaced to a set of GPUs that compute the correlation matrix. The
CHIME Pathfinder is a 1/10th scale prototype version of CHIME and is designed
to detect the BAO feature and constrain the distance-redshift relation.Comment: 20 pages, 12 figures. submitted to Proc. SPIE, Astronomical
Telescopes + Instrumentation (2014
Limits on the ultra-bright Fast Radio Burst population from the CHIME Pathfinder
We present results from a new incoherent-beam Fast Radio Burst (FRB) search
on the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) Pathfinder. Its
large instantaneous field of view (FoV) and relative thermal insensitivity
allow us to probe the ultra-bright tail of the FRB distribution, and to test a
recent claim that this distribution's slope, , is quite small. A 256-input incoherent beamformer was
deployed on the CHIME Pathfinder for this purpose. If the FRB distribution were
described by a single power-law with , we would expect an FRB
detection every few days, making this the fastest survey on sky at present. We
collected 1268 hours of data, amounting to one of the largest exposures of any
FRB survey, with over 2.4\,\,10\,deg\,hrs. Having seen no
bursts, we have constrained the rate of extremely bright events to
\,sky\,day above \,220 Jy\,ms
for between 1.3 and 100\,ms, at 400--800\,MHz. The non-detection also
allows us to rule out with 95 confidence, after
marginalizing over uncertainties in the GBT rate at 700--900\,MHz, though we
show that for a cosmological population and a large dynamic range in flux
density, is brightness-dependent. Since FRBs now extend to large
enough distances that non-Euclidean effects are significant, there is still
expected to be a dearth of faint events and relative excess of bright events.
Nevertheless we have constrained the allowed number of ultra-intense FRBs.
While this does not have significant implications for deeper, large-FoV surveys
like full CHIME and APERTIF, it does have important consequences for other
wide-field, small dish experiments
Good and âbadâ deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic: insights from a rapid qualitative study
Dealing with excess death in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic has thrown the question of a good or bad death' into sharp relief as countries across the globe have grappled with multiple peaks of cases and mortality; and communities mourn those lost. In the UK, these challenges have included the fact that mortality has adversely affected minority communities. Corpse disposal and social distancing guidelines do not allow a process of mourning in which families and communities can be involved in the dying process. This study aimed to examine the main concerns of faith and non-faith communities across the UK in relation to death in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The research team used rapid ethnographic methods to examine the adaptations to the dying process prior to hospital admission, during admission, during the disposal and release of the body, during funerals and mourning. The study revealed that communities were experiencing collective loss, were making necessary adaptations to rituals that surrounded death, dying and mourning and would benefit from clear and compassionate communication and consultation with authorities
'A good death' during the Covid-19 pandemic in the UK: a report on key findings and recommendations
Dealing with death and bereavement in the context of the Covid-19 Pandemic will present significant challenges for at least the next three months. The current situation does not allow for families andbcommunities to be involved in the process of death in ways in which they would normally hope or expect to be. In addition, mortality rates will disproportionately affect vulnerable households. The government has identified the following communities as being at increased risk: single parent households; multi-generational Black and Minority Ethnic groups; men without degrees in lone households and/or in precarious work; small family business owners in their 50s; and elderlyhouseholds. Our study focused on these groups. This report presents a summary of findings and key recommendations by a team of anthropologists from the London School of Economics who conducted a public survey and 58 cross-community interviews between 3 and 9 April 2020. It explores ways to prepare these communities and households for impending deaths with communications and policy support. More information on the research methodology, data protection and ethical procedures is available in Appendix 1. A summary of relevant existing research can be found in Appendix 2. A list of key contacts across communities for consultation is available on request. Research was focused on âwhat a good death looks likeâ for people across all faiths and for vulnerable groups. It examined how communities were already adapting how they dealt with processes of dying, burials, funerals and bereavement during the pandemic, and responding to new government regulations. It specifically focused on five transitions in the process of death, and what consultation processes, policies and communications strategies could be mobilised to support communities through these phases
A right to care: the social foundations of recovery from Covid-19
This report presents key findings from a 6-month ethnographic study on the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on disadvantaged households and communities across the UK conducted by anthropologists from the London School of Economics, and associates. This research involved in-depth interviews and multiple surveys with people across communities in the UK, with particular focus on a number of case studies of intersecting disadvantage. Crucially, our research has found that Government policy can improve adherence to restrictions and reduce the negative impacts of the pandemic on disadvantaged communities by placing central importance on communities, social networks and households to the economy and social life. This would be the most effective way to increase public trust and adherence to Covid-19 measures, because it would recognise the suffering that communities have experienced and would build policy on the basis of what is most important to people - the thriving of their families and communities
A comprehensive assessment of benign genetic variability for neurodegenerative disorders
Over the last few years, as more and more sequencing studies have been performed, it has become apparent that the identification of pathogenic mutations is, more often than not, a complex issue. Here, with a focus on neurodegenerative diseases, we have performed a survey of coding genetic variability that is unlikely to be pathogenic. We have performed whole-exome sequencing in 478 samples derived from several brain banks in the United Kingdom and the United States of America. Samples were included when subjects were, at death, over 60 years of age, had no signs of neurological disease and were subjected to a neuropathological examination, which revealed no evidence of neurodegeneration. This information will be valuable to studies of genetic variability as a causal factor for neurodegenerative syndromes. We envisage it will be particularly relevant for diagnostic laboratories as a filter step to the results being produced by either genome-wide or gene-panel sequencing. We have made this data publicly available at www.alzforum.org/exomes/hex
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