Expanded Very Large Array Observations of the Nebula Around G79.29+0.46

We have observed the radio nebula surrounding the Galactic luminous blue variable candidate G79.29+0.46 with the Expanded Very Large Array (EVLA) at 6 cm. These new radio observations allow a morphological comparison between the radio emission, which traces the ionized gas component, and the mid-IR emission, a tracer of the dust component. The InfraRed Array Camera (8 μm) and the Multiband Imaging Photometer for Spitzer (24 μm and 70 μm) images have been reprocessed and compared with the EVLA map. We confirm the presence of a second shell at 24 μm and also provide evidence for its detection at 70 μm. The differences between the spatial morphology of the radio and mid-IR maps indicate the existence of two dust populations, the cooler one emitting mostly at longer wavelengths. Analysis of the two dusty, nested shells have provided us with an estimate of the characteristic timescales for shell ejection, providing important constraints for stellar evolutionary models. Finer details of the ionized gas distribution can be appreciated thanks to the improved quality of the new 6 cm image, most notably the highly structured texture of the nebula. Evidence of interaction between the nebula and the surrounding interstellar medium can be seen in the radio map, including brighter features that delineate regions where the shell structure is locally modified. In particular, the brighter filaments in the southwest region appear to frame the shocked southwestern clump reported from CO observations

Infrared Observations of the Helix Planetary Nebula

We have mapped the Helix (NGC 7293) planetary nebula (PN) with the IRAC instrument on the Spitzer Space Telescope. The Helix is one of the closest bright PNs and therefore provides an opportunity to resolve the small-scale structure in the nebula. The emission from this PN in the 5.8 and 8 μm IRAC bands is dominated by the pure rotational lines of molecular hydrogen, with a smaller contribution from forbidden line emission such as [Ar III] in the ionized region. The IRAC images resolve the "cometary knots," which have been previously studied in this PN. The "tails" of the knots and the radial rays extending into the outer regions of the PN are seen in emission in the IRAC bands. IRS spectra on the main ring and the emission in the IRAC bands are consistent with shock-excited H_2 models, with a small (~10%) component from photodissociation regions. In the northeast arc, the H_2 emission is located in a shell outside the Hα emission

Cascaded acceleration of proton beams in ultrashort laser-irradiated microtubes

A cascaded ion acceleration scheme is proposed by use of ultrashort laser-irradiated microtubes. When the electrons of a microtube are blown away by intense laser pulses, strong charge-separation electric fields are formed in the microtube both along the axial and along the radial directions. By controlling the time delay between the laser pulses and a pre-accelerated proton beam injected along the microtube axis, we demonstrate that this proton beam can be further accelerated by the transient axial electric field in the laser-irradiated microtube. Moreover, the collimation of the injected proton beam can be enhanced by the inward radial electric field. Numerical simulations show that this cascaded ion acceleration scheme works efficiently even at non-relativistic laser intensities, and it can be applied to injected proton beams in the energy range from 1 to 100 MeV. Therefore, it is particularly suitable for cascading acceleration of protons to higher energy.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figure

The Mass Distributions of Starless and Protostellar Cores in Gould Belt Clouds

Using data from the SCUBA Legacy Catalogue (850 um) and Spitzer Space Telescope (3.6 - 70 um), we explore dense cores in the Ophiuchus, Taurus, Perseus, Serpens, and Orion molecular clouds. We develop a new method to discriminate submillimeter cores found by SCUBA as starless or protostellar, using point source photometry from Spitzer wide field surveys. First, we identify infrared sources with red colors associated with embedded young stellar objects (YSOs). Second, we compare the positions of these YSO-candidates to our submillimeter cores. With these identifications, we construct new, self-consistent starless and protostellar core mass functions (CMFs) for the five clouds. We find best fit slopes to the high-mass end of the CMFs of -1.26 +/- 0.20, -1.22 +/- 0.06, -0.95 +/- 0.20, and -1.67 +/- 0.72 for Ophiuchus, Taurus, Perseus, and Orion, respectively. Broadly, these slopes are each consistent with the -1.35 power-law slope of the Salpeter IMF at higher masses, but suggest some differences. We examine a variety of trends between these CMF shapes and their parent cloud properties, potentially finding a correlation between the high-mass slope and core temperature. We also find a trend between core mass and effective size, but we are very limited by sensitivity. We make similar comparisons between core mass and size with visual extinction (for A_V >= 3) and find no obvious trends. We also predict the numbers and mass distributions of cores that future surveys with SCUBA-2 may detect in each of these clouds.Comment: 56 pages, 18 figures, fixed typo in Eq 1, results in paper remain unchange

Evaluation of effective resistances in pseudo-distance-regular resistor networks

In Refs.[1] and [2], calculation of effective resistances on distance-regular networks was investigated, where in the first paper, the calculation was based on the stratification of the network and Stieltjes function associated with the network, whereas in the latter one a recursive formula for effective resistances was given based on the Christoffel-Darboux identity. In this paper, evaluation of effective resistances on more general networks called pseudo-distance-regular networks [21] or QD type networks \cite{obata} is investigated, where we use the stratification of these networks and show that the effective resistances between a given node such as $\alpha$ and all of the nodes $\beta$ belonging to the same stratum with respect to $\alpha$ ($R_{\alpha\beta^{(m)}}$, $\beta$ belonging to the $m$-th stratum with respect to the $\alpha$) are the same. Then, based on the spectral techniques, an analytical formula for effective resistances $R_{\alpha\beta^{(m)}}$ such that $L^{-1}_{\alpha\alpha}=L^{-1}_{\beta\beta}$ (those nodes $\alpha$, $\beta$ of the network such that the network is symmetric with respect to them) is given in terms of the first and second orthogonal polynomials associated with the network, where $L^{-1}$ is the pseudo-inverse of the Laplacian of the network. From the fact that in distance-regular networks, $L^{-1}_{\alpha\alpha}=L^{-1}_{\beta\beta}$ is satisfied for all nodes $\alpha,\beta$ of the network, the effective resistances $R_{\alpha\beta^{(m)}}$ for $m=1,2,...,d$ ($d$ is diameter of the network which is the same as the number of strata) are calculated directly, by using the given formula.Comment: 30 pages, 7 figure

S-CANDELS: The Spitzer-Cosmic Assembly Near-Infrared Deep Extragalactic Survey. Survey Design, Photometry, and Deep IRAC Source Counts

The Spitzer-Cosmic Assembly Deep Near-Infrared Extragalactic Legacy Survey (S-CANDELS; PI G. Fazio) is a Cycle 8 Exploration Program designed to detect galaxies at very high redshifts (z > 5). To mitigate the effects of cosmic variance and also to take advantage of deep coextensive coverage in multiple bands by the Hubble Space Telescope Multi-Cycle Treasury Program CANDELS, S-CANDELS was carried out within five widely separated extragalactic fields: the UKIDSS Ultra-Deep Survey, the Extended Chandra Deep Field South, COSMOS, the HST Deep Field North, and the Extended Groth Strip. S-CANDELS builds upon the existing coverage of these fields from the Spitzer Extended Deep Survey (SEDS) by increasing the integration time from 12 hours to a total of 50 hours but within a smaller area, 0.16 square degrees. The additional depth significantly increases the survey completeness at faint magnitudes. This paper describes the S-CANDELS survey design, processing, and publicly-available data products. We present IRAC dual-band 3.6+4.5 micron catalogs reaching to a depth of 26.5 AB mag. Deep IRAC counts for the roughly 135,000 galaxies detected by S-CANDELS are consistent with models based on known galaxy populations. The increase in depth beyond earlier Spitzer/IRAC surveys does not reveal a significant additional contribution from discrete sources to the diffuse Cosmic Infrared Background (CIB). Thus it remains true that only roughly half of the estimated CIB flux from COBE/DIRBE is resolved.Comment: 23 pages, 19 figures, accepted by ApJ

Radio continuum properties of young planetary nebulae

We have selected a small sample of post-AGB stars in transition towards the planetary nebula and present new Very Large Array multi-frequency high-angular resolution radio observations of them. The multi-frequency data are used to create and model the targets' radio continuum spectra, proving that these stars started their evolution as very young planetary nebulae. In the optically thin range, the slopes are compatible with the expected spectral index (-0.1). Two targets (IRAS 18062+2410 and 17423-1755) seem to be optically thick even at high frequency, as observed in a handful of other post-AGB stars in the literature, while a third one (IRAS 20462+3416) shows a possible contribution from cold dust. In IRAS 18062+2410, where we have three observations spanning a period of four years, we detect an increase in its flux density, similar to that observed in CRL 618. High-angular resolution imaging shows bipolar structures that may be due to circumstellar tori, although a different hypothesis (i.e., jets) could also explain the observations. Further observations and monitoring of these sources will enable us to test the current evolutionary models of planetary nebulae.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA

Chirped pulse Raman amplification in plasma

Raman amplification in plasma has been proposed to be a promising method of amplifying short radiation pulses. Here, we investigate chirped pulse Raman amplification (CPRA) where the pump pulse is chirped and leads to spatiotemporal distributed gain, which exhibits superradiant scaling in the linear regime, usually associated with the nonlinear pump depletion and Compton amplification regimes. CPRA has the potential to serve as a high-efficiency high-fidelity amplifier/compressor stage