Probing the shape and history of the Milky Way halo with orbital spectral analysis

Accurate phase-space coordinates (three components of position and velocity) of individual stars are rapidly becoming available with current and future resolved star surveys. These data will enable the computation of the full three-dimensional orbits of tens of thousands of stars in the Milky Way’s stellar halo. We demonstrate that the analysis of stellar halo orbits in frequency space can be used to construct a ‘frequency map’ which provides a highly compact, yet intuitively informative way to represent the six-dimensional halo phase-space distribution function. This representation readily reveals the most important major orbit families in the halo, and the relative abundances of the different orbit families, which in turn reflect the shape and orientation of the dark matter halo relative to the disc. We demonstrate the value of frequency space orbit analysis by applying the method to halo orbits in a series of controlled simulations of disc galaxies. We show that the disc influences the shape of the inner halo making it nearly oblate, but the outer halo remains largely unaffected. Since the shape of the halo varies with radius, the frequency map provides a more versatile way to identify major and minor orbit families than traditional orbit classification schemes. Although the shape of the halo varies with radius, frequency maps of local samples of halo orbits confined to the inner halo contain most of the information about the global shape of the halo and its major orbit families. Frequency maps show that adiabatic growth of a disc traps halo orbits in numerous resonant orbit families (i.e. having commensurable frequencies). The locations and strengths of these resonant families are determined by both the global shape of the halo and its stellar distribution function. If a good estimate of the Galactic potential in the inner halo (within ∼ 50 kpc) is available, the appearance of strong, stable resonances in frequency maps of halo orbits will allow us to determine the degree of resonant trapping induced by the disc potential. We show that if the Galactic potential is not known exactly, a measure of the diffusion rate of a large sample of ∼ 104 halo orbits can help distinguish between the true potential and an incorrect potential. The orbital spectral analysis methods described in this paper provide a strong complementarity to existing methods for constraining the potential of the Milky Way halo and its stellar distribution function

Evidence for massive bulk Dirac Fermions in Pb1−x_{1-x}Snx_xSe from Nernst and thermopower experiments

The lead chalcogenides (Pb,Sn)Te and (Pb,Sn)Se are the first examples of topological crystalline insulators (TCI) predicted \cite{Fu,Hsieh} (and confirmed \cite{Hasan,Story,Takahashi}) to display topological surface Dirac states (SDS) that are protected by mirror symmetry. A starting premise \cite{Hsieh} is that the SDS arise from bulk states describable as massive Dirac states \cite{Wallis,Svane}, but this assumption is untested. Here we show that the thermoelectric response of the bulk states display features specific to the Dirac spectrum. We show that, in the quantum limit, the lowest Landau Level (LL) is singly spin-degenerate, whereas higher levels are doubly degenerate. The abrupt change in spin degeneracy leads to a large step-decrease in the thermopower $S_{xx}$. In the lowest LL, $S_{xx}$ displays a striking linear increase vs. magnetic field. In addition, the Nernst signal undergoes an anomalous sign change when the bulk gap inverts at 180 K.Comment: 16 pages, 8 figure

An Early Bronze Age Urned Burial from Crowmeole, Shrewsbury, Shropshire

An early Bronze Age urned burial was revealed in July 2015 during archaeological investigations on land to the west of Crowmeole Lane, on the south-western side of Shrewsbury, Shropshire. A small oval pit contained an inverted urn which had survived undisturbed and fully intact up to the point of discovery. The classification of this urn is challenging: it may belong to the wider Collared Urn tradition based on form, but in strict typological terms can be considered a Food Vessel Urn/ Collared Urn hybrid. Enclosed within was a cremation deposit, probably once bagged, as well as a burnt and fractured worked stone knife. The vessel also exhibited an internal charred residue, thought to relate to earlier use. Scientific dating of the residue, along with the cremated bone, suggested that the burial took place around 2000BC. The cremation deposit included the remains of an individual adult, probably a female, and mainly comprised bone, rather than pyre material, indicative of carefully managed collection. As a result, the recorded weight of bone is amongst the highest for a single cremation burial from the British Isles for any period, and in the upper regions of the consistently high range of weights for Bronze Age deposits

Simultaneous laboratory measurements of CO2 and H2O adsorption on palagonite: Implications for the Martian climate and volatile reservoir

We are measuring the simultaneous adsorption of H2O and CO2 on palagonite materials in order to improve the formulation of climate models for Mars. We report on the initial co-adsorption data. Models of the Martian climate and volatile inventory indicate that the regolith serves as one of the primary reservoirs of outgassed volatiles and that it exchanges H2O and CO2 with the atmosphere in response to changes in insolation associated with astronomical cycles. Physical adsorbate must exist on the surfaces of the cold particulates that constitute the regolith, and the size of that reservoir can be assessed through laboratory measurements of adsorption on terrestrial analogs. Many studies of the independent adsorption of H2O and CO2 on Mars analog were made and appear in the literature. Empirical expressions that relate the adsorptive coverage of each gas to the temperature of the soil and partial pressure have been derived based on the laboratory data. Numerical models incorporate these adsorption isotherms into climatic models, which predict how the adsorptive coverage of the regolith and hence, the pressure of each gas in the atmosphere will vary as the planet moves through its orbit. These models suggest that the regolith holds several tens to hundreds of millibars of CO2 and that during periods of high obliquity warming of the high-latitude regolith will result in desorption of the CO2, and a consequent increase in atmospheric pressure. At lower obliquities, the caps cool and the equator warms forcing the desorption of several tens of millibars of CO2, which is trapped into quasipermanent CO2 caps

A spectropolarimetric view on the nature of the peculiar Type I SN 2005hk

We report two spectropolarimetric observations of SN 2005hk, which is a close copy of the "very peculiar" SN 2002cx, showing low peak luminosity, slow decline, high ionization near peak and an unusually low expansion velocity of only about 7,000 km s^-1. Further to the data presented by Chornock et al., (2006), at -4 days before maximum, we present data of this object taken on 9 November 2005 (near maximum) and 23 November (+ two weeks) that show the continuum and most of the spectral lines to be polarized at levels of about 0.2-0.3%. At both epochs the data corresponds to the Spectropolarimetric Type D1. The general low level of line polarization suggests that the line forming regions for most species observed in the spectrum have a similar shape to that of the photosphere, which deviates from a spherical symmetry by <10%. In comparison with spectropolarimetry of Type Ia and Core-collapse SNe at similar epochs, we find that the properties of SN 2005hk are most similar to those of Type Ia SNe. In particular, we find the low levels of continuum and line polarization to indicate that the explosion mechanism is approximately spherical, with homogeneous ejecta (unlike the chemically segregated ejecta of CCSNe). We discuss the possibility that SN 2005hk was the result of the pure deflagration of a white dwarf and note the issues concerning this interpretation.Comment: ApJ accepted, uses emulateapj, 16 pages, 10 figures, figures 3 and 4 update

Spectropolarimetry of the Type Ia SN 2007sr Two Months After Maximum Light

We present late time spectropolarimetric observations of SN 2007sr, obtained with the VLT telescope at ESO Paranal Observatory when the object was 63 days after maximum light. The late time spectrum displays strong line polarization in the CaII absorption features. SN 2007sr adds to the case of some normal Type Ia SNe that show high line polarization or repolarization at late times, a fact that might be connected with the presence of high velocity features at early times