Dark matter implications of the WMAP-Planck Haze

Gamma rays and microwave observations of the Galactic Center and surrounding areas indicate the presence of anomalous emission, whose origin remains ambiguous. The possibility of dark matter (DM) annihilation explaining both signals through prompt emission at gamma-rays and secondary emission at microwave frequencies from interactions of high-energy electrons produced in annihilation with the Galactic magnetic fields has attracted much interest in recent years. We investigate the DM interpretation of the Galactic Center gamma-ray excess by searching for the associated synchrotron in the WMAP-Planck data. Considering various magnetic field and cosmic-ray propagation models, we predict the synchrotron emission due to DM annihilation in our Galaxy, and compare it with the WMAP-Planck data at 23-70GHz. In addition to standard microwave foregrounds, we separately model the microwave counterpart to the Fermi Bubbles and the signal due to DM, and use component separation techniques to extract the signal associated with each template from the total emission. We confirm the presence of the Haze at the level of 7% of the total sky intensity at 23GHz in our chosen region of interest, with a harder spectrum $I \sim \nu^{-0.8}$ than the synchrotron from regular cosmic-ray electrons. The data do not show a strong preference towards fitting the Haze by either the Bubbles or DM emission only. Inclusion of both components provides a better fit with a DM contribution to the Haze emission of 20% at 23GHz, however, due to significant uncertainties in foreground modeling, we do not consider this a clear detection of a DM signal. We set robust upper limits on the annihilation cross section by ignoring foregrounds, and also report best-fit DM annihilation parameters obtained from a complete template analysis. We conclude that the WMAP-Planck data are consistent with a DM interpretation of the gamma-ray excess.Comment: 34 pages, 9 figure

The Fourth Circuit and the Fourth Amendment: Removing the High from the Seas

The purpose of this article is to review the decisions of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in United States v. Coats and United States v. Harper. Both of these cases arose out of the stopping of the Lady Ellen, an American vessel, by the United States Coast Guard in the Mona Passage on January 26, 1978. These cases provided the first opportunity for the Fourth Circuit to review the authority of the Coast Guard to stop domestic vessels on the high seas without probable cause or even reasonable suspicion to believe that the vessel or crew was engaged in illegal activity. In the Coats decision, the Court never reached the substantive issue, finding instead that the single defendant had no standing to contest the stopping of the Lady Ellen. In Harper, the Court found that the stopping and search of the Lady Ellen on the high seas was reasonable under the fourth amendment. This article will review the legislative and judicial background of the decisions, analyze the decisions themselves with attention to subsequent Supreme Court decisions, and predict the implications for federal law enforcement officers and drug smugglers if the novel approach adopted by the Fourth Circuit is later affirmed

The Fourth Circuit and the Fourth Amendment: Removing the High from the Seas

The purpose of this article is to review the decisions of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in United States v. Coats and United States v. Harper. Both of these cases arose out of the stopping of the Lady Ellen, an American vessel, by the United States Coast Guard in the Mona Passage on January 26, 1978. These cases provided the first opportunity for the Fourth Circuit to review the authority of the Coast Guard to stop domestic vessels on the high seas without probable cause or even reasonable suspicion to believe that the vessel or crew was engaged in illegal activity. In the Coats decision, the Court never reached the substantive issue, finding instead that the single defendant had no standing to contest the stopping of the Lady Ellen. In Harper, the Court found that the stopping and search of the Lady Ellen on the high seas was reasonable under the fourth amendment. This article will review the legislative and judicial background of the decisions, analyze the decisions themselves with attention to subsequent Supreme Court decisions, and predict the implications for federal law enforcement officers and drug smugglers if the novel approach adopted by the Fourth Circuit is later affirmed

Economics of the Sapogenin-Bearing Yam as a Crop Plant in Puerto Rico

From experiments at the Federal Experiment Station, Mayagüez, data on costs in Puerto Rico, and other estimates an analysis of the costs of production and potential profits in the growing of Dioscorea were recorded and calculated. The analysis was divided into costs of producing plants, establishing a plantation, yearly maintenance, and harvest. Values and profits were calculated on the basis of species, yields, ages, and sapogenin contents. The chief suggestions to be made as a result of the study were: That initial costs would be heavy and almost prohibitive; that the greatest single expense would be the cost of staking; that profits would not be possible within less than 3 years of field growth; that profits would increase during the fourth year; that D. composila could be grown more profitably than D. floribunda; and that plantations established from tuber-pieces would be more profitable than plantations established from seed. Provided no serious pest or disease destroys the plantings, it is concluded that Dioscorea could compete favorably with certain presently existing crops in Puerto Rico

A Comparison of Response-Contingent and Response-Independent Autoshaping Trials In Rats

Autoshaping is a procedure, combining both operant conditioning and classical conditioning, used in animal training to jump-start a target behavior. Lepper and Petursdottir (2017) found that response-contingent pairings (RCP) were more effective than responseindependent pairings (RIP) in producing vocalizations in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). RIP procedures entail a time-based intertrial interval (ITI) followed by the beginning of a trial, whereas RCP procedures include a response initiation period between the ITI and the trial. The current study compared RCP and RIP procedures to determine which one was more effective for acquisition of nose poking in rats. Number of days to reach acquisition (poking on at least 90% of trials) of nose poking, percent of trials with the target nose poke, and the latency to nose poke were recorded as indexes of procedure efficacy. All rats reached acquisition in RCP by the end of the study; however, one rat never reached acquisition in RIP. All rats required fewer sessions to acquisition in RCP than RIP, indicating that RCP may be more effective in autoshaping the nose poke behavior in rats. Extensions of this finding could be in autoshaping procedures and even in producing vocalizations in children with ASD

Anisotropies in the diffuse gamma-ray background measured by the Fermi-LAT

The small angular scale fluctuations of the (on large scale) isotropic gamma-ray background (IGRB) carry information about the presence of unresolved source classes. A guaranteed contribution to the IGRB is expected from the unresolved gamma-ray AGN while other extragalactic sources, Galactic gamma-ray source populations and dark matter Galactic and extragalactic structures (and sub-structures) are candidate contributors. The IGRB was measured with unprecedented precision by the Large Area Telescope (LAT) on-board of the Fermi gamma-ray observatory, and these data were used for measuring the IGRB angular power spectrum (APS). Detailed Monte Carlo simulations of Fermi-LAT all-sky observations were performed to provide a reference against which to compare the results obtained for the real data set. The Monte Carlo simulations are also a method for performing those detailed studies of the APS contributions of single source populations, which are required in order to identify the actual IGRB contributors. We present preliminary results of an anisotropy search in the IGRB. At angular scales <2° (e.g., above multipole 155), angular power above the photon noise level is detected, at energies between 1 and 10 GeV in each energy bin, with statistical significance between 7.2 and 4.1σ. The obtained energy dependences point to the presence of one or more unclustered source populations with the components having an average photon index Γ=2.40±0.07

Dark Matter implications of Fermi-LAT measurement of anisotropies in the diffuse gamma-ray background

The detailed origin of the diffuse gamma-ray background is still unknown. However, the contribution of unresolved sources is expected to induce small-scale anisotropies in this emission, which may provide a way to identify and constrain the properties of its contributors. Recent studies have predicted the contributions to the angular power spectrum (APS) from extragalactic and galactic dark matter (DM) annihilation or decay. The Fermi-LAT collaboration reported detection of angular power with a significance larger than $3\sigma$ in the energy range from 1 GeV to 10 GeV on 22 months of data [Ackermann et al. 2012]. For these preliminary results the already published Fermi-LAT APS measurements [Ackermann et al. 2012] are compared to the accurate predictions for DM anisotropies from state-of-the-art cosmological simulations as presented in [Fornasa et al. 2013] to derive constraints on different DM candidates.Comment: 2012 Fermi Symposium proceedings - eConf C12102

Anisotropies in the diffuse gamma-ray background measured by Fermi LAT

The small angular scale fluctuations of the (on large scale) isotropic gamma-ray background (IGRB) carry information about the presence of unresolved source classes. A guaranteed contribution to the IGRB is expected from the unresolved gamma-ray AGN while other extragalactic sources, Galactic gamma-ray source populations and dark matter Galactic and extragalactic structures (and sub-structures) are candidate contributors. The IGRB was measured with unprecedented precision by the Large Area Telescope (LAT) on-board of the Fermi gamma-ray observatory, and these data were used for measuring the IGRB angular power spectrum (APS). Detailed Monte Carlo simulations of Fermi-LAT all-sky observations were performed to provide a reference against which to compare the results obtained for the real data set. The Monte Carlo simulations are also a method for performing those detailed studies of the APS contributions of single source populations, which are required in order to identify the actual IGRB contributors. We present preliminary results of an anisotropy search in the IGRB. At angular scales <2deg (e.g. above multipole 155), angular power above the photon noise level is detected, at energies between 1 and 10 GeV in each energy bin, with statistical significance between 7.2 and 4.1 sigmas. The energy not dependence of the fluctuation anisotropy is pointing to the presence of one or more unclustered source populations, while the energy dependence of the intensity anisotropy is consistent with source populations having average photon index 2.40\pm0.07.Comment: 6 pages, Proceedings of the RICAP 2011 Conference, submitted to NIM