358 research outputs found
Calibration and data quality of warm IRAC
We present an overview of the calibration and properties of data from the IRAC instrument aboard the Spitzer Space Telescope taken after the depletion of cryogen. The cryogen depleted on 15 May 2009, and shortly afterward a two-month- long calibration and characterization campaign was conducted. The array temperature and bias setpoints were revised on 19 September 2009 to take advantage of lower than expected power dissipation by the instrument and to improve sensitivity. The final operating temperature of the arrays is 28.7 K, the applied bias across each detector is 500 mV and the equilibrium temperature of the instrument chamber is 27.55 K. The final sensitivities are essentially the same as the cryogenic mission with the 3.6 μm array being slightly less sensitive (10%) and the 4.5 μm array within 5% of the cryogenic sensitivity. The current absolute photometric uncertainties are 4% at 3.6 and 4.5 μm, and better than milli-mag photometry is achievable for long-stare photometric observations. With continued analysis, we expect the absolute calibration to improve to the cryogenic value of 3%. Warm IRAC operations fully support all science that was conducted in the cryogenic mission and all currently planned warm science projects (including Exploration Science programs). We expect that IRAC will continue to make ground-breaking discoveries in star formation, the nature of the early universe, and in our understanding of the properties of exoplanets
Intracluster supernovae in the Multi-epoch Nearby Cluster Survey
The Multi-Epoch Nearby Cluster Survey (MENeaCS) has discovered twenty-three
cluster Type Ia supernovae (SNe) in the 58 X-ray selected galaxy clusters (0.05
< z < 0.15) surveyed. Four of our SN Ia events have no host galaxy on close
inspection, and are likely intracluster SNe. Deep image stacks at the location
of the candidate intracluster SNe put upper limits on the luminosities of faint
hosts, with M_{r} > -13.0 mag and M_{g} > -12.5 mag in all cases. For such
limits, the fraction of the cluster luminosity in faint dwarfs below our
detection limit is <0.1%, assuming a standard cluster luminosity function. All
four events occurred within ~600 kpc of the cluster center (projected), as
defined by the position of the brightest cluster galaxy, and are more centrally
concentrated than the cluster SN Ia population as a whole. After accounting for
several observational biases that make intracluster SNe easier to discover and
spectroscopically confirm, we calculate an intracluster stellar mass fraction
of 0.16^{+0.13}_{-0.09} (68% CL) for all objects within R_{200}. If we assume
that the intracluster stellar population is exclusively old, and the cluster
galaxies themselves have a mix of stellar ages, we derive an upper limit on the
intracluster stellar mass fraction of <0.47 (84% one-sided CL). When combined
with the intragroup SNe results of McGee & Balogh, we confirm the declining
intracluster stellar mass fraction as a function of halo mass reported by
Gonzalez and collaborators. (Abridged)Comment: 24 pages, 8 figures, ApJ publishe
Spectacular X-ray tails, intracluster star formation and ULXs in A3627
We present the discovery of spectacular double X-ray tails associated with
ESO137-001 and a possibly heated X-ray tail associated with ESO137-002, both
late-type galaxies in the closest rich cluster Abell 3627. A deep Chandra
observation of ESO137-001 allows us for the first time to examine the spatial
and spectral properties of such X-ray tails in detail. Besides the known bright
tail that extends to ~ 80 kpc from ESO137-001, a fainter and narrower secondary
tail with a similar length was surprisingly revealed. There is little
temperature variation along both tails. We also identified six X-ray point
sources as candidates of intracluster ULXs with L(0.3-10 keV) of up to
2.5x10^40 erg s^-1. Gemini spectra of intracluster HII regions downstream of
ESO137-001 are also presented, as well as the velocity map of these HII regions
that shows the imprint of ESO137-001's disk rotation. For the first time, we
unambiguously know that active star formation can happen in the cold ISM
stripped by ICM ram pressure and it may contribute a significant amount of the
intracluster light. We also report the discovery of a 40 kpc X-ray tail of
another late-type galaxy in A3627, ESO137-002. Its X-ray tail seems hot, ~ 2
keV (compared to ~ 0.8 keV for ESO137-001's tails). We conclude that the high
pressure environment around these two galaxies is important for their bright
X-ray tails and the intracluster star formation.Comment: ApJ in press, January 2010, v708, only several minor word changes,
emulateapj5.sty, 24 pages, 11 color + 5 B/W figures (figure quality degraded)
and 4 tables. The abstract has been abbreviated. A high-resolution PDF is
available at: http://www.astro.virginia.edu/~ms4ar/eso137_p3.pd
Absolute photometric calibration of IRAC: lessons learned using nine years of flight data
Significant improvements in our understanding of various photometric effects have occurred in the more than nine years of flight operations of the Infrared Array Camera aboard the Spitzer Space Telescope. With the accumulation of calibration data, photometric variations that are intrinsic to the instrument can now be mapped with high fidelity. Using all existing data on calibration stars, the array location-dependent photometric correction (the variation of flux with position on the array) and the correction for intra-pixel sensitivity variation (pixel-phase) have been modeled simultaneously. Examination of the warm mission data enabled the characterization of the underlying form of the pixelphase variation in cryogenic data. In addition to the accumulation of calibration data, significant improvements in the calibration of the truth spectra of the calibrators has taken place. Using the work of Engelke et al. (2006), the KIII calibrators have no offset as compared to the AV calibrators, providing a second pillar of the calibration scheme. The current cryogenic calibration is better than 3% in an absolute sense, with most of the uncertainty still in the knowledge of the true flux densities of the primary calibrators. We present the final state of the cryogenic IRAC calibration and a comparison of the IRAC calibration to an independent calibration methodology using the HST primary calibrators
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Inventory verification measurements using neutron multiplicity counting
This paper describes a series of neutron multiplicity measurements of large plutonium samples at the Los Alamos Plutonium Facility. The measurements were corrected for bias caused by neutron energy spectrum shifts and nonuniform multiplication, and are compared with calorimetry/isotopics. The results show that multiplicity counting can increase measurement throughput and yield good verification results for some inventory categories. The authors provide recommendations on the future application of the technique to inventory verification
Sersic 159-03: discovery of the brightest soft X-ray excess emitting cluster of galaxies
The soft X-ray excess emission in the southern cluster Sersic 159-03
represents hiterto the strongest effect of its kind. Emission in the ~0.2-0.4
keV passband is detected far in excess of the expected contribution from the
hot phase of the intra-cluster medium, and extends to the X-ray signal limit of
the cluster. Our analysis of ROSAT PSPC observations reveal that the soft
excess can be interpreted as either a thermal or non-thermal effect, and the
high data quality allows to place tight constraints on the two currently
competing models. However, each model now implies major revisions to our
understanding of clusters of galaxies: either `warm' gas masses in similar
amounts to the hot gas, or relativistic particles in or above equipartition
with the hot phase, appear to be unavoidable.Comment: 11 pages + 4 color figures, ApJ Letters in press - minor change
Diffuse Optical Light in Galaxy Clusters I: Abell 3888
We are undertaking a program to measure the characteristics of the
intracluster light (total flux, profile, color, and substructure) in a sample
of 10 galaxy clusters with a range of cluster mass, morphology, and redshift.
We present here the methods and results for the first cluster in that sample,
A3888. We have identified an intracluster light (ICL) component in A3888 in V
and r that contains 13\pm5% of the total cluster light and extends to
700h_{70}^{-1}kpc (~0.3 r_{200}) from the center of the cluster. The ICL color
in our smallest radial bin is V-r = 0.3 \pm 0.1, similar to the central cluster
ellipticals. The ICL is redder than the galaxies at 400 < r < 700h_{70}^{-1}kpc
although the uncertainty in any one radial bin is high. Based on a comparison
of V-r color with simple stellar models, the ICL contains a component which
formed more than 7 Gyr ago (at z > 1), coupled with a high metallicity
(1.0Z_{\odot} < Z_{ICL} \la 2.5Z_{\odot}), and a more centralized component
which contains stars formed within the past 5 Gyr (at z ~ 1). The profile of
the ICL can be roughly fit by a shallow exponential in the outer regions and a
steeper exponential in the central region. We also find a concentration of
diffuse light around a small group of galaxies 1.4h_{70}^{-1}Mpc from the
center of the cluster. In addition, we find 3 low surface brightness features
near the cluster center which are blue (V-r = 0.0) and contain a total flux of
0.1M*. Based on these observations and X-ray and galaxy morphology, we suggest
that this cluster is entering a phase of significant merging of galaxy groups
in the core, whereupon we expect the ICL fraction to grow significantly with
the formation of a cD galaxy as well as the in-fall of groups.Comment: 16 pages, 13 figures, 3 tables, AJ accepte
Spitzer observations confirm and rescue the habitable-zone super-earth K2-18b for future characterization
The recent detections of two transit events attributed to the super-Earth candidate K2-18b have provided the unprecedented prospect of spectroscopically studying a habitable-zone planet outside the solar system. Orbiting a nearby M2.5 dwarf and receiving virtually the same stellar insolation as Earth, K2-18b would be a prime candidate for the first detailed atmospheric characterization of a habitable-zone exoplanet using the Hubble Space Telescope (HST)and James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Here, we report the detection of a third transit of K2-18b near the predicted transit time using the Spitzer Space Telescope. The Spitzer detection demonstrates the periodic nature of the two transit events discovered by K2, confirming that K2-18 is indeed orbited by a super-Earth in a 33 day orbit, ruling out the alternative scenario of two similarly sized, long-period planets transiting only once within the 75 day Kepler Space Telescope (K2) observation. We also find, however, that the transit event detected by Spitzer occurred 1.85 hr () before the predicted transit time. Our joint analysis of the Spitzer and K2 photometry reveals that this early occurrence of the transit is not caused by transit timing variations, but the result of an inaccurate ephemeris due to a previously undetected data anomaly in the K2 photometry. We refit the ephemeris and find that K2-18b would have been lost for future atmospheric characterizations with HST and JWST if we had not secured its ephemeris shortly after the discovery. We caution that immediate follow-up observations as presented here will also be critical for confirming and securing future planets discovered by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), in particular if only two transit events are covered by the relatively short 27-day TESS campaigns
On the complexity of computing real radicals of polynomial systems
International audienceLet f= (f1, ..., fs) be a sequence of polynomials in Q[X1,...,Xn] of maximal degree D and V⊂ Cn be the algebraic set defined by f and r be its dimension. The real radical re associated to f is the largest ideal which defines the real trace of V . When V is smooth, we show that re , has a finite set of generators with degrees bounded by V. Moreover, we present a probabilistic algorithm of complexity (snDn )O(1) to compute the minimal primes of re . When V is not smooth, we give a probabilistic algorithm of complexity sO(1) (nD)O(nr2r) to compute rational parametrizations for all irreducible components of the real algebraic set V ∩ Rn. Experiments are given to show the efficiency of our approaches
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