The irradiated ISM of ULIRGs

The nuclei of ULIRGs harbor massive young stars, an accreting central black hole, or both. Results are presented for molecular gas that is exposed to X-rays (1-100 keV, XDRs) and far-ultraviolet radiation (6-13.6 eV, PDRs). Attention is paid to species like HCO+, HCN, HNC, OH, H2O and CO. Line ratios of HCN/HCO+ and HNC/HCN discriminate between PDRs and XDRs. Very high J (>10) CO lines, observable with HIFI/Herschel, discriminate very well between XDRs and PDRs. In XDRs, it is easy to produce large abundances of warm (T>100 K) H2O and OH. In PDRs, only OH is produced similarly well.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figures, to appear in: IAU Symposium 242 Astrophysical Masers and their Environment

Molecular properties of (U)LIRGs: CO, HCN, HNC and HCO+

The observed molecular properties of a sample of FIR-luminous and OH megamaser (OH-MM) galaxies have been investigated. The ratio of high and low-density tracer lines is found to be determined by the progression of the star formation in the system. The HCO+/HCN and HCO+/HNC line ratios are good proxies for the density of the gas, and PDR and XDR sources can be distinguished using the HNC/HCN line ratio. The properties of the OH-MM sources in the sample can be explained by PDR chemistry in gas with densities higher than 10^5.5 cm^-3, confirming the classical OH-MM model of IR pumped amplification with (variable) low gains.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, to appear in: IAU Symposium 242 Astrophysical Masers and their Environment

Novel wireless modulation technique based on noise

In this paper, a new RF modulation technique is presented. Instead of using sinusoidal carriers as information bearer, pure noise is applied. This allows very simple radio architectures to be used. Spread-spectrum based technology is applied to modulate the noise bearer. Since the transmission bandwidth of the noise bearer can be made very wide, up to ultra-wideband regions, extremely large processing gains can be obtained. This will provide robustness in interference-prone environments. To avoid the local regeneration of the noise reference at the receiver, the Transmit-Reference (TR) concept is applied. In this concept, both the reference noise signal and the modulated noise signal are transmitted, together forming\ud the bearer. The reference and modulated signals are separated by applying a time offset. By applying different delay times for different channels (users) a new multiple access scheme results based on delay: Delay Division Multiple Access (DDMA). A theoretical analysis is given for the link performance of a single-user and a multi-user system. A testbed has been built to demonstrate the concept. The demonstrator operates in a 50 MHz bandwidth centered at 2.4 GHz. Processing gains ranging from 10¿30 dB have been tested. The testbed confirms the basic behavior as predicted by the theory

Star Formation in Extreme Environments: The Effects of Cosmic Rays and Mechanical Heating

Context: Molecular data of extreme environments, such as Arp 220, but also NGC 253, show evidence for extremely high cosmic ray (CR) rates (10^3-10^4 * Milky Way) and mechanical heating from supernova driven turbulence. Aims: The consequences of high CR rates and mechanical heating on the chemistry in clouds are explored. Methods: PDR model predictions are made for low, n=10^3, and high, n=10^5.5 cm^-3, density clouds using well-tested chemistry and radiation transfer codes. Column densities of relevant species are discussed, and special attention is given to water related species. Fluxes are shown for fine-structure lines of O, C+, C, and N+, and molecular lines of CO, HCN, HNC, and HCO+. A comparison is made to an X-ray dominated region model. Results: Fine-structure lines of [CII], [CI], and [OI] are remarkably similar for different mechanical heating and CR rates, when already exposed to large amounts of UV. HCN and H2O abundances are boosted for very high mechanical heating rates, while ionized species are relatively unaffected. OH+ and H2O+ are enhanced for very high CR rates zeta > 5 * 10^-14 s^-1. A combination of OH+, OH, H2O+, H2O, and H3O+ trace the CR rates, and are able to distinguish between enhanced cosmic rays and X-rays.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figures, A&A accepte

Arp 220 - IC 4553/4: understanding the system and diagnosing the ISM

Arp220 is a nearby system in final stages of galaxy merger with powerful ongoing star-formation at and surrounding the two nuclei. Arp 220 was detected in HI absorption and OH Megamaser emission and later recognized as the nearest ultra-luminous infrared galaxy also showing powerful molecular and X-ray emissions. In this paper we review the available radio and mm-wave observational data of Arp 220 in order to obtain an integrated picture of the dense interstellar medium that forms the location of the powerful star-formation at the two nuclei.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures, to appear in: IAU Symposium 242 Astrophysical Masers and their Environment

Innovative financing mechanisms for sustainable ecosystem management

The increasing human influence on ecosystems and the ensuing unsustainable exploitation and degradation has led in many places to depletion and loss of function of these ecosystems. These problems cannot be solved by (innovative) financing mechanisms, as the causes do not lie in a lack of financing mechanisms. Although decifit in funding in general is an important issue - the amount of finance available for ecosystems and biodiversity falls short of the funding neede

Ring resonator-based single-chip 1x8 optical beam forming network in LPCVD waveguide technology

Optical ring resonators (ORRs) are good candidates to provide continuously tunable delay in beam forming networks (BFNs) for phased array antenna systems. \ud Delay and splitting/combining elements can be integrated on a single optical chip to form an OBFN. A state-of-the-art 1×8 OBFN chip has been fabricated in LPCVD waveguide technology.\ud It is designed with 1 input and 8 outputs, between which a binary-tree topology is used. A different number of ORRs (up to 7) are cascaded for each output.\ud In this paper, the principle of operation is explained and demonstrated by presenting measurements on the 1×8 OBFN chip