Angular Resolution of the Pachmarhi Array of Cerenkov Telescopes

The Pachmarhi Array of Cerenkov Telescopes consists of a distributed array of 25 telescopes that are used to sample the atmospheric Cerenkov Photon showers. Each telescope consists of 7 parabolic mirrors each viewed by a single photo-multiplier tube. Reconstruction of photon showers are carried out using fast timing information on the arrival of pulses at each PMT. The shower front is fitted to a plane and the direction of arrival of primary particle initiating the shower is obtained. The error in the determination of the arrival direction of the primary has been estimated using the {\it split} array method. It is found to be $\sim 2.4^\prime ~$ for primaries of energy $> 3 \~TeV$. The dependence of the angular resolution on the separation between the telescopes and the number of detectors are also obtained from the data.Comment: 26 pages, 11 Postscript figures; uses elsart.cls. To appear in Astroparticle Physic

Scintillation Counters for the D0 Muon Upgrade

We present the results of an upgrade to the D0 muon system. Scintillating counters have been added to the existing central D0 muon system to provide rejection for cosmic ray muons and out-of-time background, and to provide additional fast timing information for muons in an upgraded Tevatron. Performance and results from the 1994-1996 Tevatron run are presented.Comment: 30 pages, 25 postscript figure

A High Statistics Search for Ultra-High Energy Gamma-Ray Emission from Cygnus X-3 and Hercules X-1

We have carried out a high statistics (2 Billion events) search for ultra-high energy gamma-ray emission from the X-ray binary sources Cygnus X-3 and Hercules X-1. Using data taken with the CASA-MIA detector over a five year period (1990-1995), we find no evidence for steady emission from either source at energies above 115 TeV. The derived upper limits on such emission are more than two orders of magnitude lower than earlier claimed detections. We also find no evidence for neutral particle or gamma-ray emission from either source on time scales of one day and 0.5 hr. For Cygnus X-3, there is no evidence for emission correlated with the 4.8 hr X-ray periodicity or with the occurrence of large radio flares. Unless one postulates that these sources were very active earlier and are now dormant, the limits presented here put into question the earlier results, and highlight the difficulties that possible future experiments will have in detecting gamma-ray signals at ultra-high energies.Comment: 26 LaTeX pages, 16 PostScript figures, uses psfig.sty to be published in Physical Review

Public health utility of cause of death data: applying empirical algorithms to improve data quality

Background: Accurate, comprehensive, cause-specific mortality estimates are crucial for informing public health decision making worldwide. Incorrectly or vaguely assigned deaths, defined as garbage-coded deaths, mask the true cause distribution. The Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study has developed methods to create comparable, timely, cause-specific mortality estimates; an impactful data processing method is the reallocation of garbage-coded deaths to a plausible underlying cause of death. We identify the pattern of garbage-coded deaths in the world and present the methods used to determine their redistribution to generate more plausible cause of death assignments. Methods: We describe the methods developed for the GBD 2019 study and subsequent iterations to redistribute garbage-coded deaths in vital registration data to plausible underlying causes. These methods include analysis of multiple cause data, negative correlation, impairment, and proportional redistribution. We classify garbage codes into classes according to the level of specificity of the reported cause of death (CoD) and capture trends in the global pattern of proportion of garbage-coded deaths, disaggregated by these classes, and the relationship between this proportion and the Socio-Demographic Index. We examine the relative importance of the top four garbage codes by age and sex and demonstrate the impact of redistribution on the annual GBD CoD rankings. Results: The proportion of least-specific (class 1 and 2) garbage-coded deaths ranged from 3.7 of all vital registration deaths to 67.3 in 2015, and the age-standardized proportion had an overall negative association with the Socio-Demographic Index. When broken down by age and sex, the category for unspecified lower respiratory infections was responsible for nearly 30 of garbage-coded deaths in those under 1Â year of age for both sexes, representing the largest proportion of garbage codes for that age group. We show how the cause distribution by number of deaths changes before and after redistribution for four countries: Brazil, the United States, Japan, and France, highlighting the necessity of accounting for garbage-coded deaths in the GBD. Conclusions: We provide a detailed description of redistribution methods developed for CoD data in the GBD; these methods represent an overall improvement in empiricism compared to past reliance on a priori knowledge

VHE Gamma-ray Observation of Crab Nebula with HAGAR Telescope Array

International audienceHAGAR is a system of seven Non-imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes located at Hanle in the Ladakh region of the Indian Himalayas at an altitude of 4270 meters amsl. Since 2008, we have observed the Crab Nebula to assess the performance of the HAGAR telescopes. We describe the analysis technique for the estimation of γ-ray signal amidst cosmic ray background. The consolidated results spanning nine years of the Crab nebula observations show long term performance of the HAGAR telescopes. Based on about 219 hours of data, we report the detection of γ-rays from the Crab Nebula at a significance level of about 20σ, corresponding to a time averaged flux of (1.64±0.09) × 10$^{− 10}$ photons cm$^{− 2}$ sec$^{− 1}$ above 230 GeV. Also, we perform a detailed study of possible systematic effects in our analysis method on data taken with the HAGAR telescopes

Control of shock unsteadiness in shock boundary-layer interaction on a compression corner using mechanical vortex generators

An experimental study was conducted to control the unsteadiness of separation shock in a Mach 2 24◦ compression ramp-induced interaction using mechanical vortex generators (VG). Control devices in the form of an array of single-row delta-ramps were placed upstream of the interaction region and tested for two streamwise locations with respect to the boundary layer thickness (δ) at the interaction location and height ‘h’ of the delta-ramps, i.e., at 27.5δ or h/δ = 0.65 and at 12.5δ or h/δ = 0.26, respectively. Surface oil study revealed traces of streamwise counter-rotating vortex pairs generated downstream of these devices. Measurements using pressure-sensitive paint also showed a spanwise sinusoidal pattern of wall pressure variation indicating generation of streamwise vortices from these control devices. These vortices, on interaction with the reverse flow in the separation bubble, replaced a well-defined separation line (for no control) by a highly corrugated separation line. In the region of separation, the mean pressure distribution gets modified while the peak rms value in the intermittent region of separation showed significant changes. Additionally, the spanwise spacing ‘s’ of the vertex of the delta ramps seemed to be an important parameter in controlling the peak rms value. A decrease in this spacing, i.e., VG1 with s = 0, significantly reduced the peak rms value (by 50 and 35 %) while an increase in the spacing, i.e., VG2 with s = 1mm, consistently showed an increase (by 12 and 30 %) in the separation shock unsteadiness relative to no control, irrespective of their placement location (of h/δ = 0.65 and 0.26, respectively)

A low threshold EAS (extensive-air-shower) array for gamma-ray astronomy at Los Alamos

A new type of extensive-air-shower (EAS) array is described that achieves a low energy threshold, large area, high duty factor and large muon coverage. By placing a regularly-spaced grid of phototubes just below the surface of a shallow pond, the Cherenkov light of particles in an air shower striking the water can be detected, resulting in a primary energy threshold of less than 1 TeV. This highly sensitive array can thus be used to span the gap of information between the existing air Cherenkov techniques at 1 TeV and the existing EAS arrays at 100 TeV. 5 refs., 3 figs

Relative muon content of UHE showers associated with Hercules X-1

A further analysis is presented of the muon content associated with the July, 1986 UHE observation of the Hercules X-1 system, previously reported by the CYGNUS collaboration. The probability for observing comparable muon content in a set of background'' showers similar to those of the Hercules burst is given. 3 refs., 2 tabs