Chandra Observation of the Interaction of the Radio Source and Cooling Core in Abell 2063

We present the results of a Chandra observation of the cooling core cluster Abell 2063. Spectral analysis shows that there is cool gas (2 keV) associated with the cluster core, which is more than a factor of 2 cooler than the outer cluster gas (4.1 keV). There also is spectral evidence for a weak cooling flow, Mdot ~ 20 Msun/yr. The cluster exhibits a complex structure in the center that consists of several bright knots of emission, a depression in the emission to the north of the center of the cluster, and a shell of emission surrounding it. The depression in the X-ray emission is coincident with the position of the north-eastern radio lobe of the radio source associated with the cluster-central galaxy. The shell surrounding this region appears to be hotter, which may be the result of a shock that has been driven into the gas by the radio source. The power output of the radio source appears to be sufficient to offset the cooling flow, and heating of the gas through shocks is a possible explanation of how the energy transfer is established.Comment: Astrophysical Jounal, in press, 26 page with 9 figures, some in color. Uses AASTEX late

New challenges for Adaptive Optics: Extremely Large Telescopes

The performance of an adaptive optics (AO) system on a 100m diameter ground based telescope working in the visible range of the spectrum is computed using an analytical approach. The target Strehl ratio of 60% is achieved at 0.5um with a limiting magnitude of the AO guide source near R~10, at the cost of an extremely low sky coverage. To alleviate this problem, the concept of tomographic wavefront sensing in a wider field of view using either natural guide stars (NGS) or laser guide stars (LGS) is investigated. These methods use 3 or 4 reference sources and up to 3 deformable mirrors, which increase up to 8-fold the corrected field size (up to 60\arcsec at 0.5 um). Operation with multiple NGS is limited to the infrared (in the J band this approach yields a sky coverage of 50% with a Strehl ratio of 0.2). The option of open-loop wavefront correction in the visible using several bright NGS is discussed. The LGS approach involves the use of a faint (R ~22) NGS for low-order correction, which results in a sky coverage of 40% at the Galactic poles in the visible.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figures, 4 tables. Accepted for publication in MNRA

Untangling the X-ray Emission From the Sa Galaxy NGC1291 With Chandra

We present a Chandra ACIS-S observation of the nearby bulge-dominated Sa galaxy NGC1291. The X-ray emission from the bulge resembles the X-ray emission from a sub-class of elliptical and S0 galaxies with low L_X/L_B luminosity ratios. The X-ray emission is composed of a central point-like nucleus, ~50 point sources that are most likely low mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs), and diffuse gas detectable out to a radius of 120" (5.2 kpc). The diffuse gas has a global temperature of 0.32^{+0.04}_{-0.03} keV and metallicity of 0.06 +/- 0.02 solar, and both quantities marginally decrease with increasing radius. The hot gas fills the hole in the HI distribution, and the softening of the spectrum of the X-ray gas with radius might indicate a thermal coupling of the hot and cold phases of the interstellar medium as previously suggested. The integrated X-ray luminosity of the LMXBs, once normalized by the optical luminosity, is a factor of 1.4 less than in the elliptical galaxy NGC4697 or S0 galaxy NGC1553. The difference in L_{X,stellar}/L_B between the galaxies appears to be because of a lack of very bright sources in NGC1291. No sources above 3 x 10^38 ergs/s were found in NGC1291 when ~7 were expected from scaling from NGC4697 and NGC1553. The cumulative L_{X,stellar}/L_B value including only sources below 1.0 x 10^38 ergs/s is remarkably similar between NGC1291 and NGC4697, if a recent surface brightness fluctuation-determined distance is assumed for NGC4697. If this is a common feature of the LMXB population in early-type systems, it might be used as a distance indicator. Finally, a bright, variable (1.6-3.1 x 10^39 ergs/s) source was detected at the optical center of the galaxy. Its spectrum shows excess soft emission superimposed on a highly absorbed power law component, similar to what has been found in several other low luminosity AGN (ABRIDGED).Comment: 13 pages in emulateapj5 style with 11 embedded Postscript figures; minor revisions since last version; accepted by Ap

Global linear stability analysis of kinetic Trapped Ion Mode (TIM) turbulence in tokamak plasma using spectral method

Trapped ion modes (TIM) which belong to the family of ion temperature gradient (ITG) modes, is one of the important ingredients in heat turbulent transport at the ion scale in tokamak plasmas. It is essential to properly estimate their linear growth rate to understand their influence on ion-scale turbulent transport. A global linear analysis of a reduced gyro-bounce kinetic model for trapped particle modes is performed, and a spectral method is proposed to solve the dispersion relation. Importantly, the radial profile of the particle drift velocity is taken into account in the linear analysis by considering the exact magnetic flux {\psi} dependency of the equilibrium Hamiltonian H_{eq}({\psi}) in the quasi-neutrality equation and equilibrium gyro-bounce averaged distribution function F_{eq} . Using this spectral method, linear growth-rates of TIM instability in presence of different temperature profiles and precession frequencies of trapped ions, with an approximated constant Hamiltonian and the exact {\psi} dependent equilibrium Hamiltonian, are investigated. The growth-rate depends on the logarithmic gradient of temperature \kappa_{T} , density \kappa_{n} and equilibrium Hamiltonian \kappa_{\Lambda} . With the exact {\psi} dependent Hamiltonian, the growth rates and potential profiles are modified significantly, compared to the cases with approximated constant Hamiltonian. All the results from the global linear analysis agree with a semi-Lagrangian based linear Vlasov solver with a good accuracy. This spectral method is very fast and requires very less computation resources compared to a linear version of Vlasov-solver based on a semi-Lagrangian scheme

First Penning-trap mass measurement in the millisecond half-life range: the exotic halo nucleus 11Li

In this letter, we report a new mass for $^{11}$Li using the trapping experiment TITAN at TRIUMF's ISAC facility. This is by far the shortest-lived nuclide, $t_{1/2} = 8.8 \rm{ms}$, for which a mass measurement has ever been performed with a Penning trap. Combined with our mass measurements of $^{8,9}$Li we derive a new two-neutron separation energy of 369.15(65) keV: a factor of seven more precise than the best previous value. This new value is a critical ingredient for the determination of the halo charge radius from isotope-shift measurements. We also report results from state-of-the-art atomic-physics calculations using the new mass and extract a new charge radius for $^{11}$Li. This result is a remarkable confluence of nuclear and atomic physics.Comment: Formatted for submission to PR

Combined MASS-DIMM instrument for atmospheric turbulence studies

Several site-testing programs and observatories currently use combined MASS-DIMM instruments for monitoring parameters of optical turbulence. The instrument is described here. After a short recall of the measured quantities and operational principles, the optics and electronics of MASS-DIMM, interfacing to telescopes and detectors, and operation are covered in some detail. Particular attention is given to the correct measurement and control of instrumental parameters to ensure valid and well-calibrated data, to the data quality and filtering. Examples of MASS-DIMM data are given, followed by the list of present and future applications.Comment: Accepted by MNRAS, 11 pages, 8 figure

Deep 1.4 GHZ Follow Up of the Steep Spectrum Radio Halo in Abell 521

In a recent paper we reported on the discovery of a radio halo with very steep spectrum in the merging galaxy cluster Abell 521 through observations with the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT). We showed that the steep spectrum of the halo is inconsistent with a secondary origin of the relativistic electrons and supports a turbulent acceleration scenario. At that time, due to the steep spectrum, the available observations at 1.4 GHz (archival NRAO - Very Large Array - VLA CnB-configuration data) were not adequate to accurately determine the flux density associated with the radio halo. In this paper we report the detection at 1.4 GHz of the radio halo in Abell 521 using deep VLA observations in the D-configuration. We use these new data to confirm the steep-spectrum of the object. We consider Abell 521 the prototype of a population of very-steep spectrum halos. This population is predicted assuming that turbulence plays an important role in the acceleration of relativistic particles in galaxy clusters, and we expect it will be unveiled by future surveys at low frequencies with the LOFAR and LWA radio telescopes.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures (figure 1 available in gif format only). Requires aastex.cls - Accepted by Ap.

Resolving the Mystery of X-ray Faint Elliptical Galaxies: Chandra X-ray Observations of NGC 4697

Chandra observations of the X-ray faint elliptical galaxy NGC 4697 resolve much of the X-ray emission (61% within one effective radius) into ~80 point sources, of which most are low mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs). These LMXBs provide the bulk of the hard emission and much of the soft emission as well. Of the remaining unresolved emission, it is likely that about half is from fainter LMXBs, while the other half (~23% of the total emission) is from interstellar gas. Three of the resolved sources are supersoft sources. In the outer regions of NGC 4697, eight of the LMXBs (about 25%) are coincident with candidate globular clusters, which indicates that globulars have a high probability of containing X-ray binaries compared to the normal stellar population. The X-ray luminosities (0.3-10 keV) of the resolved LMXBs range from ~5e37 to ~2.5e39 ergs/s. The luminosity function of the LMXBs has a "knee" at 3.2e38 ergs/s, which is roughly the Eddington luminosity of a 1.4 M_sun neutron star (NS); this knee might be useful as a distance indicator. The highest luminosity source has the Eddington luminosity of a ~20 M_sun black hole (BH). The presence of this large population of NS and massive BH stellar remnants in this elliptical galaxy shows that it (or its progenitors) once contained a large population of massive main sequence stars.Comment: Astrophysical Journal Letters, in press. 4 pages in emulateapj5 style with 4 embedded Postscript figures. Higher quality version of paper and figures 1 and 2 are available at http://www.astro.virginia.edu/~cls7i/papers/NGC4697-Chandra.ps.gz, http://www.astro.virginia.edu/~cls7i/papers/NGC4697-Chandra_fig1.ps.gz, and http://www.astro.virginia.edu/~cls7i/papers/NGC4697-Chandra_fig2.ps.g