Checking the Polarity of Superconducting Multipole LHC Magnets

This paper describes the design and operation of the âﾜPolarity Checkerâ, a scanning probe designed to check multipole field order, type and polarity of superconducting LHC magnets. First we introduce the measurement method, based on the harmonic analysis of the radial field component picked up by a rotating Hall sensor at different current levels. Then we describe the hardware and the software of the system, which features automatic powering, data acquisition and treatment, discussing the achieved sensitivity and performance. Finally we provide a summary of the test results on the first 505 cryoassemblies, showing how the system was usefully employed to detect some potentially harmful connection errors

Vegetation's Red Edge: A Possible Spectroscopic Biosignature of Extraterrestrial Plants

Earth's deciduous plants have a sharp order-of-magnitude increase in leaf reflectance between approximately 700 and 750 nm wavelength. This strong reflectance of Earth's vegetation suggests that surface biosignatures with sharp spectral features might be detectable in the spectrum of scattered light from a spatially unresolved extrasolar terrestrial planet. We assess the potential of Earth's step-function-like spectroscopic feature, referred to as the "red edge", as a tool for astrobiology. We review the basic characteristics and physical origin of the red edge and summarize its use in astronomy: early spectroscopic efforts to search for vegetation on Mars and recent reports of detection of the red edge in the spectrum of Earthshine (i.e., the spatially integrated scattered light spectrum of Earth). We present Earthshine observations from Apache Point Observatory to emphasize that time variability is key to detecting weak surface biosignatures such as the vegetation red edge. We briefly discuss the evolutionary advantages of vegetation's red edge reflectance, and speculate that while extraterrestrial "light harvesting organisms" have no compelling reason to display the exact same red edge feature as terrestrial vegetation, they might have similar spectroscopic features at different wavelengths than terrestrial vegetation. This implies that future terrestrial-planet-characterizing space missions should obtain data that allow time-varying, sharp spectral features at unknown wavelengths to be identified. We caution that some mineral reflectance edges are similar in slope and strength to vegetation's red edge (albeit at different wavelengths); if an extrasolar planet reflectance edge is detected care must be taken with its interpretation.Comment: 19 pages, 6 figures, to appear in Astrobiolog

Notes on Hidden Mirror World

A few remarks on Dark Matter (DM) models are presented. An example is Mirror Matter which is the oldest but still viable DM candidate, perhaps not in the purest form. It can serve as a test-bench for other analogous DM models, since the properties of macroscopic objects are quite firmly fixed for Mirror Matter. A pedagogical derivation of virial theorem is given and it is pointed out that concepts of virial velocity or virial temperature are misleading for some cases. It is shown that the limits on self-interaction cross-sections derived from observations of colliding clusters of galaxies are not real limits for individual particles if they form macroscopic bodies. The effect of the heating of interstellar medium by Mirror Matter compact stars is very weak but may be observable. The effect of neutron star heating by accretion of M-baryons may be negligible. Problems of MACHOs as Mirror Matter stars are touched upon.Comment: Latex, revtex, 24 pages, 1 figure, references updated and adde