1,311 research outputs found
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Study of the dynamic tear film aberrations using a curvature sensing setup
The advancement in adaptive optics in recent years has increased the interest in the dynamic aberrations of the eye, including those introduced by the first optical surface provided by the tear film. A curvature sensing system to measure the dynamic topography of the tear film is described. This optical system was used to measure the aberrations of the tear film on 14 eyes. The evolution of this surface is monitored through videos of the tear film topography. The effect on optical quality is studied from the time-evolution of the RMS wavefront error showing non-negligible aberration variations attributed to the tear film layer; the effect of tear film break-up on the ocular optical quality is also discussed. Furthermore, the aberration maps are decomposed into their constituent Zernike components showing stronger contributions from 4th order terms, and also from those components with vertical symmetry which can be attributed to the effect of the eye lids on the tear film. Finally, the power spectra of the RMS wavefront error evolution show that the strongest contributions of the tear film aberrations are to be found at low frequencies, typically below 2Hz
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Curvature sensor for the measurement of the static corneal topography and the dynamic tear film topography in the human eye
A system to measure the topography of the first optical surface of the human eye noninvasively by using a curvature sensor is described. The static corneal topography and the dynamic topography of the tear film can both be measured, and the topographies obtained are presented. The system makes possible the study of the dynamic aberrations introduced by the tear film to determine their contribution to the overall ocular aberrations in healthy eyes, eyes with corneal pathologies, and eyes wearing contact lenses
Parametric instability in dark molecular clouds
The present work investigates the parametric instability of parallel
propagating circularly polarized Alfven(pump) waves in a weakly ionized
molecular cloud. It is shown that the relative drift between the plasma
particles gives rise to the Hall effect resulting in the modified pump wave
characteristics. Although the linearized fluid equations with periodic
coefficients are difficult to solve analytically, it is shown that a linear
transformation can remove the periodic dependence. The resulting linearized
equations with constant coefficients are used to derive an algebraic dispersion
relation. The growth rate of the parametric instability is a sensitive function
of the amplitude of the pump wave as well as to the ratio of the pump and the
modified dust-cyclotron frequencies. The instability is insensitive to the
plasma-beta The results are applied to the molecular clouds.Comment: 27 page, 5 figures, accepted in Ap
An Empirically Based Calculation of the Extragalactic Infrared Background
Using the excellent observed correlations among various infrared wavebands
with 12 and 60 micron luminosities, we calculate the 2-300 micron spectra of
galaxies as a function of luminosity. We then use 12 micron and 60 micron
galaxy luminosity functions derived from IRAS data, together with recent data
on the redshift evolution of galaxy emissivity, to derive a new, empirically
based IR background spectrum from stellar and dust emission in galaxies. Our
best estimate for the IR background is of order 2-3 nW/m^2/sr with a peak
around 200 microns reaching 6-8 nW/m^2/sr. Our empirically derived background
spectrum is fairly flat in the mid-IR, as opposed to spectra based on modeling
with discrete temperatures which exhibit a "valley" in the mid-IR. We also
derive a conservative lower limit to the IR background which is more than a
factor of 2 lower than our derived flux.Comment: 14 pages AASTeX, 2 .ps figures, the Astrophysical Journal, in pres
Cosmic Background dipole measurements with Planck-High Frequency Instrument
This paper discusses the Cosmic Background (CB) dipoles observations in the
framework of the Planck mission. Dipoles observations can be used in three
ways: (i) It gives a measurement of the peculiar velocity of our Galaxy which
is an important observation in large scale structures formation model. (ii)
Measuring the dipole can give unprecedent information on the monopole (that can
be in some cases hard to obtain due to large foreground contaminations). (iii)
The dipole can be an ideal absolute calibrator, easily detectable in
cosmological experiments. Following the last two objectives, the main goal of
the work presented here is twofold. First, we study the accuracy of the
Planck-HFI calibration using the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) dipole
measured by COBE as well as the Earth orbital motion dipole. We show that we
can reach for HFI, a relative calibration between rings of about 1% and an
absolute calibration better than 0.4% for the CMB channels (in the end, the
absolute calibration will be limited by the uncertainties on the CMB
temperature). We also show that Planck will be able to measure the CMB dipole
direction at better than 1.7 arcmin and improve on the amplitude. Second, we
investigate the detection of the Cosmic Far-Infrared Background (FIRB) dipole.
Measuring this dipole could give a new and independent determination of the
FIRB for which a direct determination is quite difficult due to Galactic dust
emission contamination. We show that such a detection would require a Galactic
dust emission removal at better than 1%, which will be very hard to achieve.Comment: 10 pages, 13 figures, submitted to A&A, uses aa.sty V5.
An Empirical Decomposition of Near-IR Emission into Galactic and Extragalactic Components
We decompose the COBE/DIRBE observations of the near-IR sky brightness (minus
zodiacal light) into Galactic stellar and interstellar medium (ISM) components
and an extragalactic background. This empirical procedure allows us to estimate
the 4.9 micron cosmic infrared background (CIB) as a function of the CIB
intensity at shorter wavelengths. A weak indication of a rising CIB intensity
at wavelengths > 3.5 micron hints at interesting astrophysics in the CIB
spectrum, or warns that the foreground zodiacal emission may be incompletely
subtracted. Subtraction of only the stellar component from the
zodiacal-light-subtracted all-sky map reveals the clearest 3.5 micron ISM
emission map, which is found to be tightly correlated with the ISM emission at
far-IR wavelengths.Comment: 10 pages. 10 JPEG and PNG figures. Uses emulateapj5.sty. To appear in
2003, ApJ, 585, 000 (March 1, 2003
A Semi-Empirical Model of the Infra-Red Universe
We present a simple model of the infra-red universe, based as much as
possible on local observations. We model the luminosity and number evolution of
disk and starburst galaxies, including the effects of dust, gas and spectral
evolution. Although simple, our approach is able to reproduce observations of
galaxy number counts and the infra-red and sub-millimeter extra-galactic
backgrounds. It provides a useful probe of galaxy formation and evolution out
to high redshift. The model demonstrates the significant role of the starburst
population and predicts high star formation rates at redshifts 3 to 4,
consistent with recent extinction-corrected observations of Lyman break
galaxies. Starbursting galaxies are predicted to dominate the current SCUBA
surveys. Their star formation is driven predominantly by strong tidal
interactions and mergers of galaxies. This leads to the creation of spheroidal
stellar systems, which may act as the seeds for disk formation as gas infalls.
We predict the present-day baryonic mass in bulges and halos is comparable to
that in disks. From observations of the extra-galactic background, the model
predicts that the vast majority of star formation in the Universe occurs at
z<5.Comment: 23 pages including 9 figures. To appear in ApJ. Model results
available electronically at http://astro.berkeley.edu/~jt/irmodel.htm
A Spitzer Unbiased Ultradeep Spectroscopic Survey
We carried out an unbiased, spectroscopic survey using the low-resolution
module of the infrared spectrograph (IRS) on board Spitzer targeting two 2.6
square arcminute regions in the GOODS-North field. IRS was used in spectral
mapping mode with 5 hours of effective integration time per pixel. One region
was covered between 14 and 21 microns and the other between 20 and 35 microns.
We extracted spectra for 45 sources. About 84% of the sources have reported
detections by GOODS at 24 microns, with a median F_nu(24um) ~ 100 uJy. All but
one source are detected in all four IRAC bands, 3.6 to 8 microns. We use a new
cross-correlation technique to measure redshifts and estimate IRS spectral
types; this was successful for ~60% of the spectra. Fourteen sources show
significant PAH emission, four mostly SiO absorption, eight present mixed
spectral signatures (low PAH and/or SiO) and two show a single line in
emission. For the remaining 17, no spectral features were detected. Redshifts
range from z ~ 0.2 to z ~ 2.2, with a median of 1. IR Luminosities are roughly
estimated from 24 microns flux densities, and have median values of 2.2 x
10^{11} L_{\odot} and 7.5 x 10^{11} L_{\odot} at z ~ 1 and z ~ 2 respectively.
This sample has fewer AGN than previous faint samples observed with IRS, which
we attribute to the fainter luminosities reached here.Comment: Published in Ap
Observations of the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect at high angular resolution towards the galaxy clusters A665, A2163 and CL0016+16
We report on the first observation of the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect with the
Diabolo experiment at the IRAM 30 metre telescope. A significant brightness
decrement is detected in the direction of three clusters (Abell 665, Abell 2163
and CL0016+16). With a 30 arcsecond beam and 3 arcminute beamthrow, this is the
highest angular resolution observation to date of the SZ effect.Comment: 23 pages, 8 figures, 6 tables, accepted to New Astronom
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