22 research outputs found
Annual modulation of the Galactic binary confusion noise bakground and LISA data analysis
We study the anisotropies of the Galactic confusion noise background and its
effects on LISA data analysis. LISA has two data streams of the gravitational
waves signals relevant for low frequency regime. Due to the anisotropies of the
background, the matrix for their confusion noises has off-diagonal components
and depends strongly on the orientation of the detector plane. We find that the
sky-averaged confusion noise level could change by a factor of 2
in three months, and would be minimum when the orbital position of LISA is
either around the spring or autumn equinox.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figure
Dynamics of evaporative cooling in magnetically trapped atomic hydrogen
We study the evaporative cooling of magnetically trapped atomic hydrogen on
the basis of the kinetic theory of a Bose gas. The dynamics of trapped atoms is
described by the coupled differential equations, considering both the
evaporation and dipolar spin relaxation processes. The numerical time-evolution
calculations quantitatively agree with the recent experiment of Bose-Einstein
condensation with atomic hydrogen. It is demonstrated that the balance between
evaporative cooling and heating due to dipolar relaxation limits the number of
condensates to 9x10^8 and the corresponding condensate fraction to a small
value of 4% as observed experimentally.Comment: 5 pages, REVTeX, 3 eps figures, Phys. Rev. A in pres
Structure, mass and stability of galactic disks
In this review I concentrate on three areas related to structure of disks in
spiral galaxies. First I will review the work on structure, kinematics and
dynamics of stellar disks. Next I will review the progress in the area of
flaring of HI layers. These subjects are relevant for the presence of dark
matter and lead to the conclusion that disk are in general not `maximal', have
lower M/L ratios than previously suspected and are locally stable w.r.t.
Toomre's Q criterion for local stability. I will end with a few words on
`truncations' in stellar disks.Comment: Invited review at "Galaxies and their Masks" for Ken Freeman's 70-th
birthday, Sossusvlei, Namibia, April 2010. A version with high-res. figures
is available at
http://www.astro.rug.nl/~vdkruit/jea3/homepage/Namibiachapter.pd
Training in Child Psychiatry: Some Problems, Areas of Controversy and Some Attempted Solutions
The 1995 pilot campaign of PLANET: searching for microlensing anomalies through precise, rapid, round-the-clock monitoring
PLANET (the Probing Lensing Anomalies NETwork) is a worldwide collaboration of astronomers whose primary goal is to monitor microlensing events densely and precisely in order to detect and study anomalies that contain information about Galactic lenses and sources that would otherwise be unobtainable. The results of PLANET's highly successful first year of operation are presented here. Details of the observational setup, observing procedures, and data-reduction procedures used to track the progress in real time at the three participating observing sites in 1995 are discussed. The ability to follow several events simultaneously with a median sampling interval of 1.6 hr and a photometric precision of better than 0.10 mag even at I = 19 has been clearly demonstrated. During PLANET's 1995 pilot campaign, ten microlensing events were monitored, resulting in the most precise and densely-sampled light curves to date the binary nature of one of these, MACHO 95-BLG-12, was recognized by PLANET on the mountain. Another event, OGLE 95-BLG-04, displayed chromaticity that may betray the presence of blending with unresolved stars projected onto the same resolution element. Although lasting only about a month, the campaign may allow constraints to be placed on the number of planets with mass ratios to the parent star of 0.01 or greater
Microlensing constraints on the frequency of Jupiter-mass companions:Analysis of 5 years of PLANET photometry
We analyze 5 years of PLANET photometry of microlensing events toward the Galactic bulge to search for the short-duration deviations from single-lens light curves that are indicative of the presence of planetary companions to the primary microlenses. Using strict event-selection criteria, we construct a well-defined sample of 43 intensively monitored events. We search for planetary perturbations in these events over a densely sampled region of parameter space spanning two decades in mass ratio and projected separation, but find no viable planetary candidates. By combining the detection efficiencies of the events, we find that, at 95% confidence, less than 25% of our primary lenses have companions with mass ratio q=10(-2) and separations in the lensing zone, [0.6-1.6]theta(E), where theta(E) is the Einstein ring radius. Using a model of the mass, velocity, and spatial distribution of bulge lenses, we infer that the majority of our lenses are likely M dwarfs in the Galactic bulge. We conclude that less than 33% of M dwarfs in the Galactic bulge have companions with mass m(p)=M-J between 1.5 and 4 AU, and less than 45% have companions with m(p)=3M(J) between 1 and 7 AU, the first significant limits on planetary companions to M dwarfs. We consider the effects of the finite size of the source stars and changing our detection criterion, but find that these do not alter our conclusions substantially