305 research outputs found
Can the unresolved X-ray background be explained by emission from the optically-detected faint galaxies of the GOODS project?
The emission from individual X-ray sources in the Chandra Deep Fields and
XMM-Newton Lockman Hole shows that almost half of the hard X-ray background
above 6 keV is unresolved and implies the existence of a missing population of
heavily obscured active galactic nuclei (AGN). We have stacked the 0.5-8 keV
X-ray emission from optical sources in the Great Observatories Origins Deep
Survey (GOODS; which covers the Chandra Deep Fields) to determine whether these
galaxies, which are individually undetected in X-rays, are hosting the
hypothesised missing AGN. In the 0.5-6 keV energy range the stacked-source
emission corresponds to the remaining 10-20 per cent of the total background --
the fraction that has not been resolved by Chandra. The spectrum of the stacked
emission is consistent with starburst activity or weak AGN emission. In the 6-8
keV band, we find that upper limits to the stacked X-ray intensity from the
GOODS galaxies are consistent with the ~40 per cent of the total background
that remains unresolved, but further selection refinement is required to
identify the X-ray sources and confirm their contribution.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure, accepted for publication in MNRA
Pseudorandom Number Generators and the Square Site Percolation Threshold
A select collection of pseudorandom number generators is applied to a Monte
Carlo study of the two dimensional square site percolation model. A generator
suitable for high precision calculations is identified from an application
specific test of randomness. After extended computation and analysis, an
ostensibly reliable value of pc = 0.59274598(4) is obtained for the percolation
threshold.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figure
CamouflageFS: Increasing the Effective Key Length in Cryptographic Filesystems on the Cheap
One of the few quantitative metrics used to evaluate the security of a cryptographic file system is the key length of the encryption algorithm; larger key lengths correspond to higher resistance to brute force and other types of attacks. Since accepted cryptographic design principles dictate that larger key lengths also impose higher processing costs, increasing the security of a cryptographic file system also increases the overhead of the underlying cipher. We present a general approach to effectively extend the key length without imposing the concomitant processing overhead. Our scheme is to spread the ciphertext inside an artificially large file that is seemingly filled with random bits according to a key-driven spreading sequence. Our prototype implementation, CamouflageFS, offers improved performance relative to a cipher with a larger key-schedule, while providing the same security properties. We discuss our implementation (based on the Linux Ext2 file system) and present some preliminary performance results. While CamouflageFS is implemented as a stand-alone file system, its primary mechanisms can easily be integrated into existing cryptographic file systems
Discovery of the Most-Distant Double-Peaked Emitter at z=1.369
We report the discovery of the most-distant double-peaked emitter, CXOECDFS
J033115.0-275518, at z=1.369. A Keck/DEIMOS spectrum shows a clearly
double-peaked broad Mg II emission line, with FWHM 11000 km/s for
the line complex. The line profile can be well fit by an elliptical
relativistic Keplerian disk model. This is one of a handful of double-peaked
emitters known to be a luminous quasar, with excellent multiwavelength coverage
and a high-quality X-ray spectrum. CXOECDFS J033115.0-275518 is a radio-loud
quasar with two radio lobes (FR II morphology) and a radio loudness of f_{5
GHz}/f_{4400 \AA}~429. The X-ray spectrum can be modeled by a power law with
photon index 1.72 and no intrinsic absorption; the rest-frame 0.5-8.0 keV
luminosity is erg/s. The spectral energy distribution (SED)
of CXOECDFS J033115.0-275518 has a shape typical for radio-loud quasars and
double-peaked emitters at lower redshift. The local viscous energy released
from the line-emitting region of the accretion disk is probably insufficient to
power the observed line flux, and external illumination of the disk appears to
be required. The presence of a big blue bump in the SED along with the
unexceptional X-ray spectrum suggest that the illumination cannot arise from a
radiatively inefficient accretion flow.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, ApJ in pres
Testing the Universality of the Stellar IMF with Chandra and HST
The stellar initial mass function (IMF), which is often assumed to be
universal across unresolved stellar populations, has recently been suggested to
be "bottom-heavy" for massive ellipticals. In these galaxies, the prevalence of
gravity-sensitive absorption lines (e.g. Na I and Ca II) in their near-IR
spectra implies an excess of low-mass ( ) stars over that
expected from a canonical IMF observed in low-mass ellipticals. A direct
extrapolation of such a bottom-heavy IMF to high stellar masses (
) would lead to a corresponding deficit of neutron stars and black
holes, and therefore of low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs), per unit near-IR
luminosity in these galaxies. Peacock et al. (2014) searched for evidence of
this trend and found that the observed number of LMXBs per unit -band
luminosity () was nearly constant. We extend this work using new and
archival Chandra X-ray Observatory (Chandra) and Hubble Space Telescope (HST)
observations of seven low-mass ellipticals where is expected to be the
largest and compare these data with a variety of IMF models to test which are
consistent with the observed . We reproduce the result of Peacock et al.
(2014), strengthening the constraint that the slope of the IMF at
must be consistent with a Kroupa-like IMF. We construct an IMF model
that is a linear combination of a Milky Way-like IMF and a broken power-law
IMF, with a steep slope ( ) for stars < 0.5 (as
suggested by near-IR indices), and that flattens out ( ) for
stars > 0.5 , and discuss its wider ramifications and limitations.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ; 7 pages, 2 figures, 1 tabl
X-ray emission from star-forming galaxies - III. Calibration of the Lx-SFR relation up to redshift z1.3
We investigate the relation between total X-ray emission from star-forming
galaxies and their star formation activity. Using nearby late-type galaxies and
ULIRGs from Paper I and star-forming galaxies from Chandra Deep Fields, we
construct a sample of 66 galaxies spanning the redshift range z~0-1.3 and the
star-formation rate (SFR) range ~0.1-10^3 M_sun/yr. In agreement with previous
results, we find that the Lx-SFR relation is consistent with a linear law both
at z=0 and for the z=0.1-1.3 CDF galaxies, within the statistical accuracy of
~0.1 in the slope of the Lx-SFR relation. For the total sample, we find a
linear scaling relation Lx/SFR~(4.0\pm 0.4)x10^{39}(erg/s)/(Msun/yr), with a
scatter of ~0.4 dex. About ~2/3 of the 0.5-8 keV luminosity generated per unit
SFR is expected to be due to HMXBs. We find no statistically significant trends
in the mean Lx/SFR ratio with the redshift or star formation rate and constrain
the amplitude of its variations by <0.1-0.2 dex. These properties make X-ray
observations a powerful tool to measure the star formation rate in normal
star-forming galaxies that dominate the source counts at faint fluxes.Comment: 11 pages, 3 tables, 4 figures, accepted for publication by MNRAS.
Substantial changes since the last version, including the authors lis
A magnetar-powered X-ray transient as the aftermath of a binary neutron-star merger
Neutron star-neutron star mergers are known to be associated with short
gamma-ray bursts. If the neutron star equation of state is sufficiently stiff,
at least some of such mergers will leave behind a supramassive or even a stable
neutron star that spins rapidly with a strong magnetic field (i.e., a
magnetar). Such a magnetar signature may have been observed as the X-ray
plateau following a good fraction (up to 50%) of short gamma-ray bursts, and it
has been expected that one may observe short gamma-ray burst-less X-ray
transients powered by double neutron star mergers. A fast X-ray transient
(CDF-S XT1) was recently found to be associated with a faint host galaxy whose
redshift is unknown. Its X-ray and host-galaxy properties allow several
possibleexplanations including a short gamma-ray burst seen off axis, a
low-luminosity gamma-ray burst at high redshift, or a tidal disruption event
involving an intermediate mass black hole and a white dwarf. Here we report a
second X-ray transient, CDF-S XT2, that is associated with a galaxy at redshift
z = 0.738. The light curve is fully consistent with being powered by a
millisecond magnetar. More intriguingly, CDF-S XT2 lies in the outskirts of its
star-forming host galaxy with a moderate offset from the galaxy center, as
short bursts often do. The estimated event rate density of similar X-ray
transients, when corrected to the local value, is consistent with the double
neutron star merger rate density inferred from the detection of GW170817.Comment: 29 pages, 4 figures, 3 tables, published in Nature on 11 April 201
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