Structure of the magnetoionic medium around the FR Class I radio galaxy 3C 449

The goal of this work is to constrain the strength and structure of the magnetic field associated with the environment of the radio source 3C 449, using observations of Faraday rotation, which we model with a structure function technique and by comparison with numerical simulations. We assume that the magnetic field is a Gaussian, isotropic random variable and that it is embedded in the hot intra-group plasma surrounding the radio source. For this purpose, we present detailed rotation measure images for the polarized radio source 3C 449, previously observed with the Very Large Array at seven frequencies between 1.365 and 8.385 GHz. We quantify the statistics of the magnetic-field fluctuations by deriving rotation measure structure functions, which we fit using models derived from theoretical power spectra. We quantify the errors due to sampling by making multiple two-dimensional realizations of the best-fitting power spectrum.We also use depolarization measurements to estimate the minimum scale of the field variations. We then make three-dimensional models with a gas density distribution derived from X-ray observations and a random magnetic field with this power spectrum. Under these assumptions we find that both rotation measure and depolarization data are consistent with a broken power-law magnetic-field power spectrum, with a break at about 11 kpc and slopes of 2.98 and 2.07 at smaller and larger scales respectively. The maximum and minimum scales of the fluctuations are around 65 and 0.2 kpc, respectively. The average magnetic field strength at the cluster centre is 3.5 +/-1.2 micro-G, decreasing linearly with the gas density within about 16 kpc of the nucleus.Comment: 19 pages; 14 figures; accepted for publication on A&A. For a high quality version use ftp://ftp.eso.org/pub/general/guidetti

Large Merger Recoils and Spin Flips From Generic Black-Hole Binaries

We report the first results from evolutions of a generic black-hole binary, i.e. a binary containing unequal mass black holes with misaligned spins. Our configuration, which has a mass ratio of 2:1, consists of an initially non-spinning hole orbiting a larger, rapidly spinning hole (specific spin a/m = 0.885), with the spin direction oriented -45 degrees with respect to the orbital plane. We track the inspiral and merger for ~2 orbits and find that the remnant receives a substantial kick of 454 km/s, more than twice as large as the maximum kick from non-spinning binaries. The remnant spin direction is flipped by 103 degrees with respect to the initial spin direction of the larger hole. We performed a second run with anti-aligned spins, a/m = +-0.5 lying in the orbital plane that produces a kick of 1830 km/s off the orbital plane. This value scales to nearly 4000 km/s for maximally spinning holes. Such a large recoil velocity opens the possibility that a merged binary can be ejected even from the nucleus of a massive host galaxy.Comment: 4 pages. Accepted for publication in ApJ

Multifrequency Study of The Radio Galaxy NGC326

We present the results of a multi-frequency study of the inversion symmetric radio galaxy NGC326 based on Very Large Array observations at 1.4, 1.6, 4.8, 8.5 and 14.9 GHz. The morphological, spectral and polarization properties of this peculiar object are studied at different levels of spatial resolutions. The interpretation of the data will be discussed in forthcoming papers.Comment: 15 pages, 15 ps figures, accepted by A&

Thermal Performance of the Supporting System for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) Superconducting Magnets

The LHC collider will be composed of approximately 1700 main ring superconducting magnets cooled to 1.9 K in pressurised superfluid helium and supported within their cryostats on low heat in-leak column-type supports. The precise positioning of the heavy magnets and the stringent thermal budgets imposed by the machine cryogenic system, require a sound thermo-mechanical design of the support system. Each support is composed of a main tubular thin-walled structure in glass-fibre reinforced epoxy resin, with its top part interfaced to the magnet at 1.9 K and its bottom part mounted onto the cryostat vacuum vessel at 293 K. In order to reduce the conduction heat in-leak at 1.9 K, each support mounts two heat intercepts at intermediate locations on the column, both actively cooled by cryogenic lines carrying helium gas at 4.5-10 K and 50-65 K. The need to assess the thermal performance of the supports has lead to setting up a dedicated test set-up for precision heat load measurements on prototype supports. This paper presents the thermal design of the support system of the LHC arc magnets. The results of the thermal tests of a prototype support made in industry are illustrated and discussed. A mathematical model has been set up and refined by the comparison with test results, with the scope of extrapolating the observed thermal performance to different geometrical and material parameters. Finally, the calculated estimate of the heat load budgets of the support system and their contribution to the total cryogenic budget for an LHC arc are presented

Fourier transform based procedure for investigations on the grid frequency signal

The continuous growth of PV and wind sources makes the inertia of power systems decrease and creates larger frequency deviations. Frequency oscillation is a stochastic signal and, consequently, it could be complex to compare the effectiveness of different control approaches devoted to manage this problem. In this paper a Fourier transform procedure is proposed in order to define a standard frequency oscillation and to set up the dynamic model of the electric grid. The final goal is to numerically simulate a realistic transient behavior; using this grid, such a model results to be the ideal starting point for evaluating the effectiveness of different possible approaches to manage the energy balance problem

The lives of FR I radio galaxies

After a brief introduction to the morphological properties of FRI radio sources, we discuss the possibility that FRI jets are relativistic at their bases and decelerate quickly to non-relativistic velocities. From two-frequency data we determine spectral index distributions and consequently the ages of FRI sources. We show that in the large majority of cases synchrotron theory provides unambiguous and plausible answers; in a few objects re-acceleration of electrons may be needed. The derived ages are of the order 10^7-10^8 years, 2-4 times larger than the ages inferred from dynamical arguments and a factor 5-10 larger than the ages of FRII sources. The linear sizes of FRI and FRII sources make it unlikely that many FRII's evolve into FRI's. A brief discussion is given of the possibility that radio sources go through different cycles of activity.Comment: 19 pages, including 13 figures, to appear in `Life Cycles of Radio Galaxies', ed. J. Biretta et al., New Astronomy Review