2,147 research outputs found
Review of the Supply of and Demand for Further Education in Scotland
These documents provide are an Executive Summary and Full Report of the background to, methodology for, and overall conclusions and recommendations of a review of the supply of and demand for Further Education (FE) provision in Scottish Further Education colleges in 2000. The review was commissioned by the Scottish Further Education Funding Council (SFEFC), and carried out between November 1999 and June 2000 by a team of researchers drawn from the Scottish Further Education Unit (SFEU), the Centre for Research in Lifelong Learning, Glasgow Caledonian University/University of Stirling, and the Applied Statistics Group, Napier University
A Chandra Observation of M51: Active Nucleus and Nuclear Outflows
We present a Chandra ACIS-S observation of the nuclear region of the nearby
spiral galaxy M51 (NGC 5194), which has a low-luminosity Seyfert 2 nucleus. The
X-ray image shows the nucleus, southern extranuclear cloud, and northern loop,
the morphology of the extended emission being very similar to those seen in
radio continuum and optical emission line images. The X-ray spectrum of the
nucleus is well represented by a model consisting of soft thermal plasma with
kT ~0.5 keV, a very hard continuum, and an Fe Kalpha emission line at 6.45 keV
with an equivalent width of >2 keV. The very strong Fe line and the flat
continuum indicate that the nucleus is obscured by a column density in excess
of 10^24 cm^-2 and the spectrum is dominated by reflected emission from cold
matter near the nucleus. The X-ray spectra of the extranuclear clouds are well
fitted by a thermal plasma model with kT ~0.5 keV. This spectral shape and
morphology strongly suggest that the clouds are shock heated by the bi-polar
outflow from the nucleus. The shock velocities of the extranuclear cloud and
northern loop inferred from the temperatures of the X-ray gas are 690 km/s and
660 km/s, respectively. By assuming a steady-state situation in which the
emission of the extranuclear clouds is powered by the jets, the mechanical
energy in the jets is found to be comparable to the bolometric luminosity of
the nucleus.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, Accepted for publication in the Astrophyscal
Jouna
Limits of control for quantum systems: kinematical bounds on the optimization of observables and the question of dynamical realizability
In this paper we investigate the limits of control for mixed-state quantum
systems. The constraint of unitary evolution for non-dissipative quantum
systems imposes kinematical bounds on the optimization of arbitrary
observables. We summarize our previous results on kinematical bounds and show
that these bounds are dynamically realizable for completely controllable
systems. Moreover, we establish improved bounds for certain partially
controllable systems. Finally, the question of dynamical realizability of the
bounds for arbitary partially controllable systems is shown to depend on the
accessible sets of the associated control system on the unitary group U(N) and
the results of a few control computations are discussed briefly.Comment: 5 pages, orginal June 30, 2000, revised September 28, 200
Orbits of quantum states and geometry of Bloch vectors for -level systems
Physical constraints such as positivity endow the set of quantum states with
a rich geometry if the system dimension is greater than two. To shed some light
on the complicated structure of the set of quantum states, we consider a
stratification with strata given by unitary orbit manifolds, which can be
identified with flag manifolds. The results are applied to study the geometry
of the coherence vector for n-level quantum systems. It is shown that the
unitary orbits can be naturally identified with spheres in R^{n^2-1} only for
n=2. In higher dimensions the coherence vector only defines a non-surjective
embedding into a closed ball. A detailed analysis of the three-level case is
presented. Finally, a refined stratification in terms of symplectic orbits is
considered.Comment: 15 pages LaTeX, 3 figures, reformatted, slightly modified version,
corrected eq.(3), to appear in J. Physics
An enshrouded AGN in the merging starburst system Arp~299 revealed by BeppoSAX
Using a long (=150 ksec), broad-band (0.1--40 keV) BeppoSAX observation of
the merging starburst system Arp 299 (=IC 694 + NGC 3690) we found the first
unambiguous evidence of the presence of a deeply buried (N_H = 2.5E24 cm-2) AGN
having an intrinsic luminosity of L(0.5-100 keV) = 1.9E43 cgs. The X-ray
spectral properties of this AGN are discussed in detail as well as the thermal
component detected at soft X-ray energies which, most likely, is associated
with the starburst.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, Latex manuscript, Accepted for publication in
Astrophysical Journal - Letters Editio
Pulse Profiles, Accretion Column Dips and a Flare in GX 1+4 During a Faint State
The Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) spacecraft observed the X-ray pulsar
GX 1+4 for a period of 34 hours on July 19/20 1996. The source faded from an
intensity of ~20 mCrab to a minimum of <~0.7 mCrab and then partially recovered
towards the end of the observation. This extended minimum lasted ~40,000
seconds. Phase folded light curves at a barycentric rotation period of
124.36568 +/- 0.00020 seconds show that near the center of the extended minimum
the source stopped pulsing in the traditional sense but retained a weak dip
feature at the rotation period. Away from the extended minimum the dips are
progressively narrower at higher energies and may be interpreted as
obscurations or eclipses of the hot spot by the accretion column. The pulse
profile changed from leading-edge bright before the extended minimum to
trailing-edge bright after it. Data from the Burst and Transient Source
Experiment (BATSE) show that a torque reversal occurred <10 days after our
observation. Our data indicate that the observed rotation departs from a
constant period with a Pdot/P value of ~-1.5% per year at a 4.5 sigma
significance. We infer that we may have serendipitously obtained data, with
high sensitivity and temporal resolution about the time of an accretion disk
spin reversal. We also observed a rapid flare which had some precursor
activity, close to the center of the extended minimum.Comment: 19 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in Astrophysical
Journal (tentatively scheduled for vol. 529 #1, 20 Jan 2000
Review of the Supply of and Demand for Further Education in Scotland
These documents provide are an Executive Summary and Full Report of the background to, methodology for, and overall conclusions and recommendations of a review of the supply of and demand for Further Education (FE) provision in Scottish Further Education colleges in 2000. The review was commissioned by the Scottish Further Education Funding Council (SFEFC), and carried out between November 1999 and June 2000 by a team of researchers drawn from the Scottish Further Education Unit (SFEU), the Centre for Research in Lifelong Learning, Glasgow Caledonian University/University of Stirling, and the Applied Statistics Group, Napier University
X-ray Emission Properties of Large Scale Jets, Hotspots and Lobes in Active Galactic Nuclei
We examine a systematic comparison of jet-knots, hotspots and radio lobes
recently observed with Chandra and ASCA. This report will discuss the origin of
their X-ray emissions and investigate the dynamics of the jets. The data was
compiled at well sampled radio (5GHz) and X-ray frequencies (1keV) for more
than 40 radio galaxies. We examined three models for the X-ray production:
synchrotron (SYN), synchrotron self-Compton (SSC) and external Compton on CMB
photons (EC). For the SYN sources -- mostly jet-knots in nearby low-luminosity
radio galaxies -- X-ray photons are produced by ultrarelativistic electrons
with energies 10-100 TeV that must be accelerated in situ. For the other
objects, conservatively classified as SSC or EC sources, a simple formulation
of calculating the ``expected'' X-ray fluxes under an equipartition hypothesis
is presented. We confirmed that the observed X-ray fluxes are close to the
expected ones for non-relativistic emitting plasma velocities in the case of
radio lobes and majority of hotspots, whereas considerable fraction of
jet-knots is too bright at X-rays to be explained in this way. We examined two
possibilities to account for the discrepancy in a framework of the
inverse-Compton model: (1) magnetic field is much smaller than the
equipartition value, and (2) the jets are highly relativistic on kpc/Mpc
scales. We concluded, that if the inverse-Compton model is the case, the X-ray
bright jet-knots are most likely far from the minimum-power condition. We also
briefly discuss the other possibility, namely that the observed X-ray emission
from all of the jet-knots is synchrotron in origin.Comment: 20 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical
Journal, vol.62
Chandra Discovery of an X-ray Jet and Lobes in 3C 15
We report the Chandra detection of an X-ray jet in 3C 15. The peak of the
X-ray emission in the jet is 4.1'' (a projected distance of 5.1 kpc) from the
nucleus, and coincident with a component previously identified in the radio and
optical jets. We examine four models for the X-ray jet emission: (I) weak
synchrotron cooling in equip., (II) moderate synchrotron cooling in equip.,
(III) weak synchrotron plus SSC cooling, and (IV) moderate synchrotron plus SSC
cooling. We argue that case (II) can most reasonably explain the overall
emission from knot C. Case (III) is also possible, but requires a large
departure from equipartition and for the jet power to be comparable to that of
the brightest quasars. Diffuse X-ray emission has also been detected,
distributed widely over the full extent (63kpc x 25kpc) of the radio lobes. We
compare the total energy contained in the lobes with the jet power estimated
from knot C, and discuss the energetic link between the jet and the lobes. We
argue that the fueling time (t_fuel) and the source age (t_src) are comparable
for case (II), whereas t_fuel << t_src is likely for case (III). The latter may
imply that the jet has a very small filling factor, ~10^{-3}. We consider the
pressure balance between the thermal galaxy halo and non-thermal relativistic
electrons in the radio lobes. Finally, we show that the X-ray emission from the
nucleus is not adequately fitted by a simple absorbed power-law model, but
needs an additional power-law with heavy absorption intrinsic to the source.
Such a high column density is consistent with the presence of a dense, dusty
torus which obscures the quasar nucleus.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in A&
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