13,305 research outputs found
The energy spectrum observed by the AGASA experiment and the spatial distribution of the sources of ultra-high energy cosmic rays
Seven and a half years of continuous monitoring of giant air showers
triggered by ultra high-energy cosmic rays have been recently summarized by the
AGASA collaboration. The resulting energy spectrum indicates clearly that the
cosmic ray spectrum extends well beyond the Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin (GZK)
cut-off at eV. Furthermore, despite the small number
statistics involved, some structure in the spectrum may be emerging. Using
numerical simulations, it is demonstrated in the present work that these
features are consistent with a spatial distribution of sources that follows the
distribution of luminous matter in the local Universe. Therefore, from this
point of view, there is no need for a second high-energy component of cosmic
rays dominating the spectrum beyond the GZK cut-off.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figures, Astrophys. J. Letters (submitted
Sequential Monte Carlo with transformations
This paper examines methodology for performing Bayesian inference sequentially on a sequence of posteriors on spaces of different dimensions. For this, we use sequential Monte Carlo samplers, introducing the innovation of using deterministic transformations to move particles effectively between target distributions with different dimensions. This approach, combined with adaptive methods, yields an extremely flexible and general algorithm for Bayesian model comparison that is suitable for use in applications where the acceptance rate in reversible jump Markov chain Monte Carlo is low. We use this approach on model comparison for mixture models, and for inferring coalescent trees sequentially, as data arrives
Extension of Tycho catalog for low-extinction windows in the galactic bulge
We present in this work secondary catalogs up to based on
the Tycho reference frame (ESA, 1997) for 12 selected low-extinction fields
towards the galactic bulge. The observations have been performed with the
Askania-Zeiss Meridian Circle equiped with a CCD camera, located at the
Abrah\~ao de Moraes Observatory (Valinhos, Brazil) and operated by the
Institute of Astronomy and Geophysics, S\~ao Paulo University. The presented
catalog, though not complete, has been designed to help in intensive search
programmes (e.g. microlensing and variable searches) and therefore the selected
standards have a high astrometric and photometric ( band, approximately)
quality. The mean precisions obtained were in , 0.013'' in
, 0.030 for the standard deviation in magnitude and 0.0042 for the
magnitude when weighted with the error bars in each night (in the mean, 42
stars for the catalog of each window). Tables B.1 to B.12 are also available in
eletronic form at the CDS via anonymous ftp to cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr
(130.79.128.5) or via http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/Abstract.html.Comment: 16 pages, 6 figures, A&A Latex style. Published in A&A
Capillary rise of a liquid between two vertical plates making a small angle.
The penetration of a wetting liquid in the narrow gap between two vertical plates making a small angle is analyzed in the framework of the lubrication approximation. At the beginning of the process, the liquid rises independently at different distances from the line of intersection of the plates except in a small region around this line where the effect of the gravity is negligible. The maximum height of the liquid initially increases as the cubic root of time and is attained at a point that reaches the line of intersection only after a certain time. At later times, the motion of the liquid is confined to a thin layer around the line of intersection whose height increases as the cubic root of time and whose thickness decreases as the inverse of the cubic root of time. The evolution of the liquid surface is computed numerically and compared with the results of a simple experiment
Stellar variability in low-extinction regions towards the Galactic Bulge
Intensive monitoring of low-extinction windows towards the galactic bulge has
provided in the last years valuable information for studies about the dynamics,
kinematics and formation history of this part of the galaxy, mainly by
characterizing the bulge stellar populations (Paczy\'nski, 1996). Since 1997,
we have been conducting an intensive photometric-astrometric survey of the
galactic bulge, with the monitoring of about 120000 stars in 12 windows
uniformly distributed in galactic latitude and longitude (Blanco & Terndrup,
1989 e Blanco, 1988) never before submitted to this kind of survey. For this
purpose, we have used the IAG/USP CCD Meridian Circle of the Abrah\~ao de
Moraes Observatory. The main objective of this work is the identification and
classification of variable objects. In this work we present the set up and
development of the necessary tools for a project like this and the posterior
analysis of our data. We briefly describe the construction of a program to
organize and detect variables among the observed stars, including real time
alerts (for variations greater than 0.3 magnitudes). The preliminary analysis
after the processing of 76 nights of observation yielded 479 variable stars,
from which 96.7 % of them are new. We discuss the preliminary classification of
this variables, based on: a) the observed amplitude of variation; b) the shape
of light curve; c) the expected variable classes among our data and d) the
calculated periods, whenever possible. Finally, we discuss the future
perspectives for the project and for the applications and analysis of the
discovered variable stars.Comment: 10 pages, 14 figures. Accepted by A&A
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