4,889 research outputs found
Stochastic Gravitational Wave Measurements with Bar Detectors: Dependence of Response on Detector Orientation
The response of a cross-correlation measurement to an isotropic stochastic
gravitational-wave background depends on the observing geometry via the overlap
reduction function. If one of the detectors being correlated is a resonant bar
whose orientation can be changed, the response to stochastic gravitational
waves can be modulated. I derive the general form of this modulation as a
function of azimuth, both in the zero-frequency limit and at arbitrary
frequencies. Comparisons are made between pairs of nearby detectors, such as
LIGO Livingston-ALLEGRO, Virgo-AURIGA, Virgo-NAUTILUS, and EXPLORER-AURIGA,
with which stochastic cross-correlation measurements are currently being
performed, planned, or considered.Comment: 17 pages, REVTeX (uses rcs, amsmath, hyperref, and graphicx style
files), 4 figures (8 eps image files
Searching for Galactic White Dwarf Binaries in Mock LISA Data using an F-Statistic Template Bank
We describe an F-statistic search for continuous gravitational waves from
galactic white-dwarf binaries in simulated LISA Data. Our search method employs
a hierarchical template-grid based exploration of the parameter space. In the
first stage, candidate sources are identified in searches using different
simulated laser signal combinations (known as TDI variables). Since each source
generates a primary maximum near its true "Doppler parameters" (intrinsic
frequency and sky position) as well as numerous secondary maxima of the
F-statistic in Doppler parameter space, a search for multiple sources needs to
distinguish between true signals and secondary maxima associated with other,
"louder" signals. Our method does this by applying a coincidence test to reject
candidates which are not found at nearby parameter space positions in searches
using each of the three TDI variables. For signals surviving the coincidence
test, we perform a fully coherent search over a refined parameter grid to
provide an accurate parameter estimation for the final candidates. Suitably
tuned, the pipeline is able to extract 1989 true signals with only 5 false
alarms. The use of the rigid adiabatic approximation allows recovery of signal
parameters with errors comparable to statistical expectations, although there
is still some systematic excess with respect to statistical errors expected
from Gaussian noise. An experimental iterative pipeline with seven rounds of
signal subtraction and re-analysis of the residuals allows us to increase the
number of signals recovered to a total of 3419 with 29 false alarms.Comment: 29 pages, 11 figures; submitted to Classical and Quantum Gravit
Recovery of the X-Ray Transient QX Nor (=X1608-52) in Outburst and Quiescence
We present optical and near-IR observations of QX Nor, the counterpart to the
recurrent soft X-ray transient X1608-52, after its reappearance following the
X-ray outburst in February 1996. The object has been seen only once before,
during an X-ray outburst in 1977. Data from 3-5 months after the outburst show
the counterpart at a mean magnitude of R=20.2 and variable on timescales of
days. A comparison with identical observations in 1995 implies that the object
has brightened by at least 1.8 mag in R following the X-ray outburst. We also
detected QX Nor in the IR in both quiescence and outburst. A faint source is
visible in the J but not the R band in May 1995. These first observations in
the quiescent state yield magnitudes and colors consistent with optical
emission from a low mass companion in the binary system, as is true in other
soft X-ray transients.Comment: 10 pages including 4 figures and 2 tables; Uses AASTeX 4.0; Accepted
for publication in The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 485, August 20, 199
Evolution of Hard X-Ray Spectra Along the Branches in Cir X-1
Using the data from the PCA and HEXTE on board the RXTE satellite, we
investigate the evolution of the 3-200 keV spectra of the peculiar low mass
X-ray binary (LMXB) Cir X-1 along the branches on its hardness-intensity
diagram (HID) from the vertical horizontal branch (VHB), through the horizontal
horizontal branch (HHB) and normal branch (NB), to the flaring branch (FB). We
detect a power-law hard component in the spectra. It is found that the derived
photon indices () of the power-law hard component are correlated with
the position on the HID. The power-law component dominates the X-ray emission
of Cir X-1 in the energy band higher than keV. The fluxes of the
power-law component are compared with those of the bremsstrahlung component in
the spectra. A possible origin of the power-law hard component is discussed.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures, ApJ Letter accepte
The density and pressure of helium nano-bubbles encapsulated in silicon
The excitation in confined and compressed helium atoms in
either the bulk material or encapsulated in a bubble is shifted to energies
higher than that in the free atom. For bulk helium, the energy shifts predicted
from non-empirical electronic structure computations are in excellent agreement
with the experimentally determined values. However, there are significant
discrepancies both between the results of experiments on different bubbles and
between these and the well established descriptions of the bulk. A critique is
presented of previous attempts to determine the densities in bubbles by
measuring the intensities of the electrons inelastically scattered in STEM
experiments. The reported densities are untrustworthy because it was assumed
that the cross section for inelastic electron scattering was the same as that
of a free atom whilst it is now known that this property is greatly enhanced
for atoms confined at significant pressures.
It is shown how experimental measurements of bubbles can be combined with
data on the bulk using a graphical method to determine whether the behavior of
an encapsulated guest differs from that in the bulk material. Experimental
electron energy loss data from an earlier study of helium encapsulated in
silicon is reanalyzed using this new method to show that the properties of the
helium in these bubbles do not differ significantly from those in the bulk
thereby enabling the densities in the bubbles to be determined. These enable
the bubble pressures to be deduced from a well established experimentally
derived equation of state. It is shown that the errors of up to 80% in the
incorrectly determined densities are greatly magnified in the predicted
pressures which can be too large by factors of over seven. This has major
practical implications for the study of radiation damage of materials exposed
to particle bombardment
A fast stroboscopic spectral method for rotating systems in numerical relativity
We present a numerical technique for solving evolution equations, as the wave
equation, in the description of rotating astrophysical compact objects in
comoving coordinates, which avoids the problems associated with the light
cylinder. The technique implements a fast spectral matching between two domains
in relative rotation: an inner spherical domain, comoving with the sources and
lying strictly inside the light cylinder, and an outer inertial spherical
shell. Even though the emphasis is placed on spectral techniques, the matching
is independent of the specific manner in which equations are solved inside each
domain, and can be adapted to different schemes. We illustrate the strategy
with some simple but representative examples.Comment: 16 pages, 15 figure
A scalable FPGA-based architecture for depth estimation in SLAM
The current state of the art of Simultaneous Localisation and Mapping, or SLAM, on low power embedded systems is about sparse localisation and mapping with low resolution results in the name of efficiency. Meanwhile, research in this field has provided many advances for information rich processing and semantic understanding, combined with high computational requirements for real-time processing. This work provides a solution to bridging this gap, in the form of a scalable SLAM-specific architecture for depth estimation for direct semi-dense SLAM. Targeting an off-the-shelf FPGA-SoC this accelerator architecture achieves a rate of more than 60 mapped frames/sec at a resolution of 640×480 achieving performance on par to a highly-optimised parallel implementation on a high-end desktop CPU with an order of magnitude improved power consumption. Furthermore, the developed architecture is combined with our previous work for the task of tracking, to form the first complete accelerator for semi-dense SLAM on FPGAs, establishing the state of the art in the area of embedded low-power systems
NASA Light Emitting Diode Medical Applications from Deep Space to Deep Sea
This work is supported and managed through the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center-SBIR Program. LED-technology developed for NASA plant growth experiments in space shows promise for delivering light deep into tissues of the body to promote wound healing and human tissue growth. We present the results of LED-treatment of cells grown in culture and the effects of LEDs on patients’ chronic and acute wounds. LED-technology is also biologically optimal for photodynamic therapy of cancer and we discuss our successes using LEDs in conjunction with light-activated chemotherapeutic drugs
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