49 research outputs found
Specsim: The MIRI Medium Resolution Spectrometer Simulator
MIRI, the Mid-InfraRed Instrument, is one of four instruments being built for
the James Webb Space Telescope, and is developed jointly between an
EuropeanConsortium and the US. In this paper we present a software data
simulator for one of MIRI's four instruments: the Integral Field Unit (IFU)
Medium Resolution Spectrometer (MIRI-MRS), the first mid-infrared IFU
spectrograph, and one of the first IFUs to be used in a space mission. To give
the MIRI community a preview of the properties of the MIRI-MRS data products
before the telescope is operational, the Specsim tool has been developed to
model, in software, the operation of the spectrometer. Specsim generates
synthetic data frames approximating those which will be taken by the instrument
in orbit. The program models astronomical sources and generates detector frames
using the predicted and measured optical properties of the telescope and MIRI.
These frames can then be used to illustrate and inform a range of operational
activities, including data calibration strategies and the development and
testing of the data reduction software for the MIRI-MRS. Specsim will serve as
a means of communication between the many consortium members by providing a way
to easily illustrate the performance of the spectrometer under different
circumstances, tolerances of components and design scenarios.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures; A high resolution version is available at
http://www.roe.ac.uk/~npfl/Publications/lgw+06.ps.gz (Changed URL of high-res
version
AAO Starbugs: software control and associated algorithms
The Australian Astronomical Observatory's TAIPAN instrument deploys 150
Starbug robots to position optical fibres to accuracies of 0.3 arcsec, on a 32
cm glass field plate on the focal plane of the 1.2 m UK-Schmidt telescope. This
paper describes the software system developed to control and monitor the
Starbugs, with particular emphasis on the automated path-finding algorithms,
and the metrology software which keeps track of the position and motion of
individual Starbugs as they independently move in a crowded field. The software
employs a tiered approach to find a collision-free path for every Starbug, from
its current position to its target location. This consists of three
path-finding stages of increasing complexity and computational cost. For each
Starbug a path is attempted using a simple method. If unsuccessful,
subsequently more complex (and expensive) methods are tried until a valid path
is found or the target is flagged as unreachable.Comment: 10 pages, to be published in Proc. SPIE 9913, Software and
Cyberinfrastructure for Astronomy IV; 201
The SAMI Galaxy Survey: gravitational potential and surface density drive stellar populations -- I. early-type galaxies
The well-established correlations between the mass of a galaxy and the
properties of its stars are considered evidence for mass driving the evolution
of the stellar population. However, for early-type galaxies (ETGs), we find
that color and stellar metallicity [Z/H] correlate more strongly with
gravitational potential than with mass , whereas stellar population
age correlates best with surface density . Specifically, for our sample
of 625 ETGs with integral-field spectroscopy from the SAMI Galaxy Survey,
compared to correlations with mass, the color--, [Z/H]--, and
age-- relations show both smaller scatter and less residual trend with
galaxy size. For the star formation duration proxy [/Fe], we find
comparable results for trends with and , with both being
significantly stronger than the [/Fe]- relation. In determining the
strength of a trend, we analyze both the overall scatter, and the observational
uncertainty on the parameters, in order to compare the intrinsic scatter in
each correlation. These results lead us to the following inferences and
interpretations: (1) the color-- diagram is a more precise tool for
determining the developmental stage of the stellar population than the
conventional color--mass diagram; and (2) gravitational potential is the
primary regulator of global stellar metallicity, via its relation to the gas
escape velocity. Furthermore, we propose the following two mechanisms for the
age and [/Fe] relations with : (a) the age-- and
[/Fe]-- correlations arise as results of compactness driven
quenching mechanisms; and/or (b) as fossil records of the
relation in their disk-dominated progenitors.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures, 1 table Accepted to Ap