3,906 research outputs found
The application of integral performance criteria to the analysis of discrete maneuvers in a driving simulator
The influence of vehicle transient response characteristics on driver-vehicle performance in discrete maneuvers as measured by integral performance criteria was investigated. A group of eight ordinary drivers was presented with a series of eight vehicle transfer function configurations in a driving simulator. Performance in two discrete maneuvers was analyzed by means of integral performance criteria. Results are presented
Quantitative chemical tagging, stellar ages and the chemo-dynamical evolution of the Galactic disc
The early science results from the new generation of high-resolution stellar
spectroscopic surveys, such as GALAH and the Gaia-ESO survey, will represent
major milestones in the quest to chemically tag the Galaxy. Yet this technique
to reconstruct dispersed coeval stellar groups has remained largely untested
until recently. We build on previous work that developed an empirical chemical
tagging probability function, which describes the likelihood that two field
stars are conatal, that is, they were formed in the same cluster environment.
In this work we perform the first ever blind chemical tagging experiment, i.e.,
tagging stars with no known or otherwise discernable associations, on a sample
of 714 disc field stars with a number of high quality high resolution
homogeneous metal abundance measurements. We present evidence that chemical
tagging of field stars does identify coeval groups of stars, yet these groups
may not represent distinct formation sites, e.g. as in dissolved open clusters,
as previously thought. Our results point to several important conclusions,
among them that group finding will be limited strictly to chemical abundance
space, e.g. stellar ages, kinematics, colors, temperature and surface gravity
do not enhance the detectability of groups. We also demonstrate that in
addition to its role in probing the chemical enrichment and kinematic history
of the Galactic disc, chemical tagging represents a powerful new stellar age
determination technique.Comment: 12 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of
the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS
A Search for Planetary Nebulae With the SDSS: the outer regions of M31
We have developed a method to identify planetary nebula (PN) candidates in
imaging data of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). This method exploits the
SDSS' five-band sampling of emission lines in PN spectra, which results in a
color signature distinct from that of other sources. Selection criteria based
on this signature can be applied to nearby galaxies in which PNe appear as
point sources. We applied these criteria to the whole area of M31 as scanned by
the SDSS, selecting 167 PN candidates that are located in the outer regions of
M31. The spectra of 80 selected candidates were then observed with the 2.2m
telescope at Calar Alto Observatory. These observations and cross-checks with
literature data show that our method has a selection rate efficiency of about
90%, but the efficiency is different for the different groups of PNe
candidates.
In the outer regions of M31, PNe trace different well-known morphological
features like the Northern Spur, the NGC205 Loop, the G1 Clump, etc. In
general, the distribution of PNe in the outer region 8<R<20 kpc along the minor
axis shows the "extended disk" - a rotationally supported low surface
brightness structure with an exponential scale length of 3.21+/-0.14 kpc and a
total mass of ~10^10 M_{\sun}, which is equivalent to the mass of M33. We
report the discovery of three PN candidates with projected locations in the
center of Andromeda NE, a very low surface brightness giant stellar structure
in the outer halo of M31. Two of the PNe were spectroscopically confirmed as
genuine PNe. These two PNe are located at projected distances along the major
axis of ~48 Kpc and ~41 Kpc from the center of M31 and are the most distant PNe
in M31 found up to now.Comment: 58 pages, 17 figures, 2 tables, Accepted to Astronomical Journa
Leo V: A Companion of a Companion of the Milky Way Galaxy
We report the discovery of a new Milky Way dwarf spheroidal galaxy in the
constellation of Leo identified in data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Leo
V lies at a distance of about 180 kpc, and is separated by about 3 degrees from
another recent discovery, Leo IV. We present follow-up imaging from the Isaac
Newton Telescope and spectroscopy from the Hectochelle fiber spectrograph at
the Multiple Mirror Telescope. Leo V's heliocentric velocity is 173.4 km/s,
which is offset by about 40 km/s from that of Leo IV. A simple interpretation
of the kinematic data is that both objects may lie on the same stream, though
the implied orbit is only modestly eccentric (e = 0.2)Comment: Submitted to ApJ (Letters
The discovery of two extremely low luminosity Milky Way globular clusters
We report the discovery of two extremely low luminosity globular clusters in
the Milky Way Halo. These objects were detected in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
Data Release 5 and confirmed with deeper imaging at the Calar Alto Observatory.
The clusters, Koposov 1 and Koposov 2, are located at kpc and
appear to have old stellar populations and luminosities of only
mag. Their observed sizes of pc are well within the expected tidal
limit of 10 pc at that distance. Together with Palomar 1, AM 4 and
Whiting 1, these new clusters are the lowest luminosity globulars orbiting the
Milky Way, with Koposov 2 the most extreme. Koposov 1 appears to lie close to
distant branch of the Sagittarius stream. The half-mass relaxation times of
Koposov 1 and 2 are only and Myr respectively (2 orders of
magnitude shorter than the age of the stellar populations), so it would seem
that they have undergone drastic mass segregation. Since they do not appear to
be very concentrated, their evaporation timescales may be as low as . These discoveries show that the structural parameter space of
globular clusters in the Milky Way halo is not yet fully explored. They also
add, through their short remaining survival times, significant direct evidence
for a once much larger population of globular clusters.Comment: accepted for publication in ApJ, minor revision
Investigation of the New Local Group Galaxy VV 124
We present the results of our stellar photometry and spectroscopy for the new
Local Group galaxy VV 124 (UGC 4879) obtained with the 6-m BTA telescope. The
presence of a few bright supergiants in the galaxy indicates that the current
star formation process is weak. The apparent distribution of stars with
different ages in VV 124 does not differ from the analogous distributions of
stars in irregular galaxies, but the ratio of the numbers of young and old
stars indicates that VV 124 belongs to the rare Irr/Sph type of galaxies. The
old stars (red giants) form the most extended structure, a thick disk with an
exponential decrease in the star number density to the edge. Definitely, the
young population unresolvable in images makes a great contribution to the
background emission from the central galactic regions. The presence of young
stars is also confirmed by the [O III] emission line visible in the spectra
that belongs to extensive diffuse galactic regions. The mean radial velocity of
several components (two bright supergiants, the unresolvable stellar
population, and the diffuse gas) is v_h = -70+/-15 km/s and the velocity with
which VV 124 falls into the Local Group is v_LG = -12+/-15 km/s. We confirm the
distance to the galaxy D = 1.1+/-0.1 Mpc and the metallicity of red giants
([Fe/H] = -1.37) found by Kopylov et al. (2008).VV 124 is located on the
periphery of the Local Group approximately at the same distance from M 31 and
our Galaxy and is isolated from other galaxies. The galaxy LeoA nearest to it
is 0.5 Mpc away.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures. Accepted for publication in Astronomy Letters
(2010, Vol. 36, No. 5, pp. 309-318
Improved photometry of SDSS crowded field images: Structure and dark matter content in the dwarf spheroidal galaxy Leo I
We explore how well crowded field point-source photometry can be accomplished
with SDSS data: We present a photometric pipeline based on DoPhot, and tuned
for analyzing crowded-field images from the SDSS. Using Monte Carlo simulations
we show that the completeness of source extraction is above 80% to i < 21 (AB)
and a stellar surface density of about 200 sq.amin. Hence, a specialized data
pipeline can efficiently be used for e.g. nearby resolved galaxies in SDSS
images, where the standard SDSS photometric package Photo, when applied in
normal survey mode, gives poor results. We apply our pipeline to an area of
about 3.55sq.deg. around the dwarf spheroidal galaxy (dSph) Leo I, and
construct a high S/N star-count map of Leo I via an optimized filter in
color-magnitude space (g,r,i). Although the radial surface-density profile of
the dwarf deviates from the best fit empirical King model towards outer radii,
we find no evidence for tidal debris out to a stellar surface-density of
4*10^(-3) of the central value. We determine the total luminosity of Leo I, and
model its mass using the spherical and isotropic Jeans equation. Assuming that
'mass follows light' we constrain a lower limit of the total mass of the dSph
to be (1.7+/-0.2)*10^7 Msol. Contrary, if the mass in Leo I is dominated by a
constant density dark-matter (DM) halo, then the mass within the central 12' is
(2+/-0.6)*10^8 Msol. This leads to a mass-to-light ratio of >>6 (Ic_sol), and
possibly >75 if the DM halo dominates the mass and extends further out than
12'. In summary, our results show that Leo I is a symmetric, relaxed and bound
system; this supports the idea that Leo I is a dark-matter dominated system.Comment: 13 pages, 11 figures; accepted for publication in A
An all-sky search algorithm for continuous gravitational waves from spinning neutron stars in binary systems
Rapidly spinning neutron stars with non-axisymmetric mass distributions are
expected to generate quasi-monochromatic continuous gravitational waves. While
many searches for unknown, isolated spinning neutron stars have been carried
out, there have been no previous searches for unknown sources in binary
systems. Since current search methods for unknown, isolated neutron stars are
already computationally limited, expanding the parameter space searched to
include binary systems is a formidable challenge. We present a new hierarchical
binary search method called TwoSpect, which exploits the periodic orbital
modulations of the continuous waves by searching for patterns in doubly
Fourier-transformed data. We will describe the TwoSpect search pipeline,
including its mitigation of detector noise variations and corrections for
Doppler frequency modulation caused by changing detector velocity. Tests on
Gaussian noise and on a set of simulated signals will be presented.Comment: 22 pages, 10 figures, 1 table, Submitted to Classical and Quantum
Gravit
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