32 research outputs found
Gay Rights, the Devil and the End Times: Public Religion and the Enchantment of the Homosexuality Debate in Zambia
This article contributes to the understanding of the role of religion in the public and political controversies about homosexuality in Africa. As a case study it investigates the heated public debate in Zambia following a February 2012 visit by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who emphasised the need for the country to recognise the human rights of homosexuals. The focus is on a particular Christian discourse in this debate, in which the international pressure to recognise gay rights is considered a sign of the end times, and Ban Ki-moon, the UN and other international organisations are associated with the Antichrist and the Devil. Here, the debate about homosexuality becomes eschatologically enchanted through millennialist thought. Building on discussions about public religion and religion and politics in Africa, this article avoids popular explanations in terms of fundamentalist religion and African homophobia, but rather highlights the political significance of this discourse in a postcolonial African context
Energy loss due to defect formation from 206Pb recoils in SuperCDMS germanium detectors
The Super Cryogenic Dark Matter Search experiment at the Soudan Underground Laboratory studied energy loss associated with defect formation in germanium crystals at mK temperatures using in situ 210Pb sources. We examine the spectrum of 206Pb nuclear recoils near its expected 103âkeV endpoint energy and determine an energy loss of (6:08â±â0:18)%, which we attribute to defect formation. From this result and using TRIM simulations, we extract the first experimentally determined average displacement threshold energy of 19.7+0.6â0.5 eV for germanium. This has implications for the analysis thresholds of future germanium-based dark matter searches
Planck early results. XIII. Statistical properties of extragalactic radio sources in the Planck Early Release Compact Source Catalogue
The data reported in Planckâs Early Release Compact Source Catalogue (ERCSC) are exploited to measure the number counts (dN/dS) of
extragalactic radio sources at 30, 44, 70, 100, 143 and 217 GHz. Due to the full-sky nature of the catalogue, this measurement extends to the
rarest and brightest sources in the sky. At lower frequencies (30, 44, and 70 GHz) our counts are in very good agreement with estimates based on
WMAP data, being somewhat deeper at 30 and 70 GHz, and somewhat shallower at 44 GHz. Planckâs source counts at 143 and 217 GHz join
smoothly with the fainter ones provided by the SPT and ACT surveys over small fractions of the sky. An analysis of source spectra, exploiting
Planckâs uniquely broad spectral coverage, finds clear evidence of a steepening of the mean spectral index above about 70 GHz. This implies
that, at these frequencies, the contamination of the CMB power spectrum by radio sources below the detection limit is significantly lower than
previously estimated
Planck early results. XX. New light on anomalous microwave emission from spinning dust grains
Anomalous microwave emission (AME) has been observed by numerous experiments in the frequency range âŒ10â60 GHz. Using Planck maps
and multi-frequency ancillary data, we have constructed spectra for two known AME regions: the Perseus and Ï Ophiuchi molecular clouds. The
spectra are well fitted by a combination of free-free radiation, cosmic microwave background, thermal dust, and electric dipole radiation from
small spinning dust grains. The spinning dust spectra are the most precisely measured to date, and show the high frequency side clearly for the
first time. The spectra have a peak in the range 20â40 GHz and are detected at high significances of 17.1Ï for Perseus and 8.4Ï for Ï Ophiuchi.
In Perseus, spinning dust in the dense molecular gas can account for most of the AME; the low density atomic gas appears to play a minor role.
In Ï Ophiuchi, the âŒ30 GHz peak is dominated by dense molecular gas, but there is an indication of an extended tail at frequencies 50â100 GHz,
which can be accounted for by irradiated low density atomic gas. The dust parameters are consistent with those derived from other measurements.
We have also searched the Planck map at 28.5 GHz for candidate AME regions, by subtracting a simple model of the synchrotron, free-free, and
thermal dust. We present spectra for two of the candidates; S140 and S235 are bright Hii regions that show evidence for AME, and are well fitted
by spinning dust models
Planck early results XX : New light on anomalous microwave emission from spinning dust grains
Peer reviewe
Planck Early Results. VII. The Early Release Compact Source Catalogue
A brief description of the methodology of construction, contents and usage of the Planck Early Release Compact Source Catalogue (ERCSC),
including the Early Cold Cores (ECC) and the Early Sunyaev-Zeldovich (ESZ) cluster catalogue is provided. The catalogue is based on data that
consist of mapping the entire sky once and 60% of the sky a second time by Planck, thereby comprising the first high sensitivity radio/submillimetre
observations of the entire sky. Four source detection algorithms were run as part of the ERCSC pipeline. A Monte-Carlo algorithm based on the
injection and extraction of artificial sources into the Planck maps was implemented to select reliable sources among all extracted candidates such
that the cumulative reliability of the catalogue is â„90%. There is no requirement on completeness for the ERCSC. As a result of the Monte-Carlo
assessment of reliability of sources from the different techniques, an implementation of the PowellSnakes source extraction technique was used
at the five frequencies between 30 and 143 GHz while the SExtractor technique was used between 217 and 857GHz. The 10Ï photometric flux
density limit of the catalogue at |b| > 30⊠is 0.49, 1.0, 0.67, 0.5, 0.33, 0.28, 0.25, 0.47 and 0.82 Jy at each of the nine frequencies between 30
and 857 GHz. Sources which are up to a factor of âŒ2 fainter than this limit, and which are present in âcleanâ regions of the Galaxy where the sky
background due to emission from the interstellar medium is low, are included in the ERCSC if they meet the high reliability criterion. The Planck
ERCSC sources have known associations to stars with dust shells, stellar cores, radio galaxies, blazars, infrared luminous galaxies and Galactic
interstellar medium features. A significant fraction of unclassified sources are also present in the catalogs. In addition, two early release catalogs
that contain 915 cold molecular cloud core candidates and 189 SZ cluster candidates that have been generated using multifrequency algorithms are
presented. The entire source list, with more than 15000 unique sources, is ripe for follow-up characterisation with Herschel, ATCA, VLA, SOFIA,
ALMA and other ground-based observing facilities