20,478 research outputs found
The Life and Times of the Parkes-Tidbinbilla Interferometer
The Parkes-Tidbinbilla took advantage of a real-time radio-link connecting
the Parkes and Tidbinbilla antennas to form the world's longest real-time
interferometer. Built on a minuscule budget, it was an extraordinarily
successful instrument, generating some 24 journal papers including 3 Nature
papers, as well as facilitating the early development of the Australia
Telescope Compact Array. Here we describe its origins, construction, successes,
and life cycle, and discuss the future use of single-baseline interferometers
in the era of SKA and its pathfinders.Comment: Accepted by Journal of Astronomical History & Heritage. arXiv admin
note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1210.098
Strange stars at finite temperature
We calculate strange star properties, using large N_c approximation with
built-in chiral symmetry restoration (CSM). We used a relativistic Hartree Fock
mean field approximation method, using a modified Richardson potential with two
scale parameters \Lambda and \Lambda^\prime, to find a new set of equation of
states for strange quark matter. We take the effect of temperature (T) on gluon
mass, in addition to the usual density dependence, and find that the transition
T from hadronic matter to strange matter is 80 MeV. Therefore formation of
strange stars may be the only signal for formation of QGP with asymptotic
freedom and CSM.Comment: To be published in the proceedings of The Third 21COE Symposium, held
at Department of Physics, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan, September 1-3,
200
The late time radio emission from SN 1993J at meter wavelengths
We present the investigations of SN 1993J using low frequency observations
with the Giant Meterwave Radio Telescope. We analyze the light curves of SN
1993J at 1420, 610, 325 and 243 MHz during years since explosion.The
supernova has become optically thin early on in the 1420 MHz and 610 MHz bands
while it has only recently entered the optically thin phase in the 325 MHz
band. The radio light curve in the 235 MHz band is more or less flat. This
indicates that the supernova is undergoing a transition from an optically thick
to optically thin limit in this frequency band. In addition, we analyze the SN
radio spectra at five epochs on day 3000, 3200, 3266, 3460 and 3730 since
explosion. Day 3200 spectrum shows a synchrotron cooling break. SN 1993J is the
only young supernova for which the magnetic field and the size of the radio
emitting region are determined through unrelated methods. Thus the mechanism
that controls the evolution of the radio spectra can be identified. We suggest
that at all epochs, the synchrotron self absorption mechanism is primarily
responsible for the turn-over in the spectra. Light curve models based on free
free absorption in homogeneous or inhomogeneous media at high frequencies
overpredict the flux densities at low frequencies. The discrepancy is
increasingly larger at lower and lower frequencies. We suggest that an extra
opacity, sensitively dependent on frequency, is likely to account for the
difference at lower frequencies. The evolution of the magnetic field
(determined from synchrotron self absorption turn-over) is roughly consistent
with . Radio spectral index in the optically thin part
evolves from at few tens of days to in about
10 years.Comment: 37 pages, 9 figures in LaTex; scheduled for ApJ 10 September 2004,
v612 issue; send comments to: [email protected]
X-Ray Observations of Black Widow Pulsars
We describe the first X-ray observations of five short orbital period ( day), -ray emitting, binary millisecond pulsars. Four of these, PSRs
J0023+0923, J11243653, J1810+1744, and J22561024 are `black-widow'
pulsars, with degenerate companions of mass , three of which
exhibit radio eclipses. The fifth source, PSR J2215+5135, is an eclipsing
`redback' with a near Roche-lobe filling 0.2 solar mass non-degenerate
companion. Data were taken using the \textit{Chandra X-Ray Observatory} and
covered a full binary orbit for each pulsar. Two pulsars, PSRs J2215+5135 and
J22561024, show significant orbital variability while PSR J11243653 shows
marginal orbital variability. The lightcurves for these three pulsars have
X-ray flux minima coinciding with the phases of the radio eclipses. This
phenomenon is consistent with an intrabinary shock emission interpretation for
the X-rays. The other two pulsars, PSRs J0023+0923 and J1810+1744, are fainter
and do not demonstrate variability at a level we can detect in these data. All
five spectra are fit with three separate models: a power-law model, a blackbody
model, and a combined model with both power-law and blackbody components. The
preferred spectral fits yield power-law indices that range from 1.3 to 3.2 and
blackbody temperatures in the hundreds of eV. The spectrum for PSR J2215+5135
shows a significant hard X-ray component, with a large number of counts above 2
keV, which is additional evidence for the presence of intrabinary shock
emission and is similar to what has been detected in the low-mass X-ray binary
to millisecond pulsar transition object PSR J1023+0038.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables, submitted to Ap
Quadrotor: a detailed analysis on construction and operation
It is a type of an unmanned air vehicle (UAV) which by its name suggests that consists of 4 engines to drive it. Usually we use BLDC motors and propellers as the engines of a quad. Its motion and dynamics can be compared with that of a helicopter in regards to its transverse and longitudinal motion. It has various uses in various fields of military, business, rescue mission, modern warfare etc. They have a vertical take-off and landing system. Unlike a helicopter the propellers or blades of a “Quadrotor” have fixed pitch. Control of vehicle motion is achieved by altering the pitch and/or rotation rate of one or more rotor discs, thereby changing its torque load and thrust/lift characteristics. This will be explained in details in course of the following discussion. If we look into history of the “Quadrotor”, we get to know that it was the first step towards vertical take-off and landing vehicle. At first it was a manned vehicle but now mainly the research is focused upon a unmanned “Quadrotor” which is controlled with the help of electronic signals and various other mechanisms
X-ray pulsations from the radio-quiet gamma-ray pulsar in CTA 1
Prompted by the Fermi LAT discovery of a radio-quiet gamma-ray pulsar inside
the CTA 1 supernova remnant, we obtained a 130 ks XMM-Newton observation to
assess the timing behavior of this pulsar. Exploiting both the unprecedented
photon harvest and the contemporary Fermi LAT timing measurements, a 4.7 sigma
single peak pulsation is detected, making PSR J0007+7303 the second example,
after Geminga, of a radio-quiet gamma-ray pulsar also seen to pulsate in
X-rays. Phase-resolved spectroscopy shows that the off-pulse portion of the
light curve is dominated by a power-law, non-thermal spectrum, while the X-ray
peak emission appears to be mainly of thermal origin, probably from a polar cap
heated by magnetospheric return currents, pointing to a hot spot varying
throughout the pulsar rotation.Comment: 19 pages, 4 figures. Accepted for publication in ApJ Letter
Spectroscopic study of unique line broadening and inversion in low-pressure microwave generated water plasmas
It was demonstrated that low pressure (~0.2 Torr) water vapor plasmas
generated in a 10 mm inner diameter quartz tube with an Evenson microwave
cavity show at least two features which are not explained by conventional
plasma models. First, significant (> 0.25 nm) hydrogen Balmer_ line broadening,
of constant width, up to 5 cm from the microwave coupler was recorded. Only
hydrogen, and not oxygen, showed significant line broadening. This feature,
observed previously in hydrogen-containing mixed gas plasmas generated with
high voltage dc and rf discharges was explained by some researchers to result
from acceleration of hydrogen ions near the cathode. This explanation cannot
apply to the line broadening observed in the (electrodeless) microwave plasmas
generated in this work, particularly at distances as great as 5 cm from the
microwave coupler. Second, inversion of the line intensities of both the Lyman
and Balmer series, again, at distances up to 5 cm from the coupler, were
observed. The line inversion suggests the existence of a hitherto unknown
source of pumping of the optical power in plasmas. Finally, it is notable that
other aspects of the plasma including the OH* rotational temperature and low
electron concentrations are quite typical of plasmas of this type.Comment: 27 pages, 7 figure
The SONYC survey: Towards a complete census of brown dwarfs in star forming regions
SONYC, short for "Substellar Objects in Nearby Young Clusters", is a survey
program to provide a census of the substellar population in nearby star forming
regions. We have conducted deep optical and near-infrared photometry in five
young regions (NGC1333, rho Ophiuchi, Chamaeleon-I, Upper Sco, and Lupus-3),
combined with proper motions, and followed by extensive spectroscopic campaigns
with Subaru and VLT, in which we have obtained more than 700 spectra of
candidate low-mass objects. We have identified and characterized more than 60
new substellar objects, among them a handful of objects with masses close to,
or below the Deuterium burning limit. Through SONYC and surveys by other
groups, the substellar IMF is now well characterized down to ~ 5 - 10 MJup, and
we find that the ratio of the number of stars with respect to brown dwarfs lies
between 2 and 6. A comprehensive survey of NGC 1333 reveals that, down to
~5MJup, free-floating objects with planetary masses are 20-50 times less
numerous than stars, i.e. their total contribution to the mass budget of the
clusters can be neglected.Comment: to appear in the proceedings of the conference 'Brown dwarfs come of
age', May 20-24 2013, Memorie della Societa Astronomica Italian
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