2,606 research outputs found
S5 0716+714 : GeV variability study
The GeV observations by Fermi-LAT give us the opportunity to characterize the
high-energy emission (100 MeV - 300 GeV) variability properties of the BL Lac
object S5 0716+714. In this study, we performed flux and spectral analysis of
more than 3 year long (August 2008 to April 2012) Fermi-LAT data of the source.
During this period, the source exhibits two different modes of flux variability
with characteristic timescales of ~75 and ~140 days, respectively. We also
notice that the flux variations are characterized by a weak spectral hardening.
The GeV spectrum of the source shows a clear deviation from a simple power law,
and is better explained by a broken power law. Similar to other bright Fermi
blazars, the break energy does not vary with the source flux during the
different activity states. We discuss several possible scenarios to explain the
observed spectral break.Comment: 21 pages, 10 figures, Accepted for publication in Advances in Space
Research journa
dCache, scalable managed storage
End of 2007, the most challenging high energy physics experiment ever, the Large Hadron Collider(LHC)[9], at CERN, will start to produce a sustained stream of data in the order of 300MB/sec, equivalent to a stack of CDs as high as the Eiffel Tower once per week. This data is, while produced, distributed and persistently stored at several dozens of sites around the world, building the LHC data grid. The destination sites are expected to provide the necessary middle-ware, so called Storage Elements, offering standard protocols to receive the data and optionally store it at the site specific Tertiary Storage Systems. Beside its actual functionality, discussed subsequently, the Storage Element software has to be able to fit into a large variety of environments. They are known to range from sites providing a single storage box of some Tera Bytes of data and nearly no maintenance personnel up to Tier I sites with estimated disk storage capacities reaching into the Peta Byte area. Moreover, sites expected to store data permanently may want to use their already existing Hierarchical Storage Management (HSM) System to drive the robotics. This requires the Storage Element to be aware of HSM Systems and to be able to manage external file copies. The wide range of scalability, from the very small to the limits of affordable storage, is one of the primary goals of dCache, the Storage Element introduced in this presentation. By being strictly compliant to standard data transfer and control protocols, like gsiFtp, xRootd and the Storage Resource Manager protocol SRM, we are focusing on our second goal which is to make dCache available and useful beyond the borders of the High Energy Physics Community. Beside storing and preparing data for transfer, dCache provides a rich palette of functions to manage the available storage, as will be described subsequently. This includes replication of datasets on automated detection of busy storage components as well as optimization of access to tertiary storage systems
A Consistency Test of Spectroscopic Gravities for Late-Type Stars
Chemical analyses of late-type stars are usually carried out following the
classical recipe: LTE line formation and homogeneous, plane-parallel,
flux-constant, and LTE model atmospheres. We review different results in the
literature that have suggested significant inconsistencies in the spectroscopic
analyses, pointing out the difficulties in deriving independent estimates of
the stellar fundamental parameters and hence,detecting systematic errors.
The trigonometric parallaxes measured by the HIPPARCOS mission provide
accurate appraisals of the stellar surface gravity for nearby stars, which are
used here to check the gravities obtained from the photospheric iron ionization
balance. We find an approximate agreement for stars in the metallicity range -1
<= [Fe/H] <= 0, but the comparison shows that the differences between the
spectroscopic and trigonometric gravities decrease towards lower metallicities
for more metal-deficient dwarfs (-2.5 <= [Fe/H] <= -1.0), which casts a shadow
upon the abundance analyses for extreme metal-poor stars that make use of the
ionization equilibrium to constrain the gravity. The comparison with the
strong-line gravities derived by Edvardsson (1988) and Fuhrmann (1998a)
confirms that this method provides systematically larger gravities than the
ionization balance. The strong-line gravities get closer to the physical ones
for the stars analyzed by Fuhrmann, but they are even further away than the
iron ionization gravities for the stars of lower gravities in Edvardsson's
sample. The confrontation of the deviations of the iron ionization gravities in
metal-poor stars reported here with departures from the excitation balance
found in the literature, show that they are likely to be induced by the same
physical mechanism(s).Comment: AAS LaTeX v4.0, 35 pages, 10 PostScript files; to appear in The
Astrophysical Journa
The AMBRE Project: Stellar parameterisation of the ESO:FEROS archived spectra
The AMBRE Project is a collaboration between the European Southern
Observatory (ESO) and the Observatoire de la Cote d'Azur (OCA) that has been
established in order to carry out the determination of stellar atmospheric
parameters for the archived spectra of four ESO spectrographs.
The analysis of the FEROS archived spectra for their stellar parameters
(effective temperatures, surface gravities, global metallicities, alpha element
to iron ratios and radial velocities) has been completed in the first phase of
the AMBRE Project. From the complete ESO:FEROS archive dataset that was
received, a total of 21551 scientific spectra have been identified, covering
the period 2005 to 2010. These spectra correspond to ~6285 stars.
The determination of the stellar parameters was carried out using the stellar
parameterisation algorithm, MATISSE (MATrix Inversion for Spectral SynthEsis),
which has been developed at OCA to be used in the analysis of large scale
spectroscopic studies in galactic archaeology. An analysis pipeline has been
constructed that integrates spectral reduction and radial velocity correction
procedures with MATISSE in order to automatically determine the stellar
parameters of the FEROS spectra.
Stellar atmospheric parameters (Teff, log g, [M/H] and [alpha/Fe]) were
determined for 6508 (30.2%) of the FEROS archived spectra (~3087 stars). Radial
velocities were determined for 11963 (56%) of the archived spectra. 2370 (11%)
spectra could not be analysed within the pipeline. 12673 spectra (58.8%) were
analysed in the pipeline but their parameters were discarded based on quality
criteria and error analysis determined within the automated process. The
majority of these rejected spectra were found to have broad spectral features
indicating that they may be hot and/or fast rotating stars, which are not
considered within the adopted reference synthetic spectra grid of FGKM stars.Comment: 28 pages, 28 figures, 9 table
Simultaneous Radio to (Sub-) mm-Monitoring of Variability and Spectral Shape Evolution of potential GLAST Blazars
The Large Area Telescope (LAT) instrument onboard GLAST offers a tremendous
opportunity for future blazar studies. In order to fully benefit from its
capabilities and to maximize the scientific return from the LAT, it is of great
importance to conduct dedicated multi-frequency monitoring campaigns that will
result comprehensive observations. Consequently, we initiated an effort to
conduct a GLAST-dedicated, quasi-simultaneous, broad-band flux-density (and
polarization) monitoring of potential GLAST blazars with the Effelsberg and
OVRO radio telescopes (11cm to 7mm wavelength). Here, we present a short
overview of these activities which will complement the multi-wavelengths
activities of the GLAST/LAT collaboration towards the 'low-energy' radio bands.
Further we will give a brief outlook including the extension of this
coordinated campaign towards higher frequencies and future scientific aims.Comment: 3 pages, to appear in the Proceedings of the First GLAST Symposium,
Stanford University, February 200
Detailed analysis of Balmer lines in cool dwarf stars
An analysis of H alpha and H beta spectra in a sample of 30 cool dwarf and
subgiant stars is presented using MARCS model atmospheres based on the most
recent calculations of the line opacities. A detailed quantitative comparison
of the solar flux spectra with model spectra shows that Balmer line profile
shapes, and therefore the temperature structure in the line formation region,
are best represented under the mixing length theory by any combination of a low
mixing-length parameter alpha and a low convective structure parameter y. A
slightly lower effective temperature is obtained for the sun than the accepted
value, which we attribute to errors in models and line opacities. The programme
stars span temperatures from 4800 to 7100 K and include a small number of
population II stars. Effective temperatures have been derived using a
quantitative fitting method with a detailed error analysis. Our temperatures
find good agreement with those from the Infrared Flux Method (IRFM) near solar
metallicity but show differences at low metallicity where the two available
IRFM determinations themselves are in disagreement. Comparison with recent
temperature determinations using Balmer lines by Fuhrmann (1998, 2000), who
employed a different description of the wing absorption due to self-broadening,
does not show the large differences predicted by Barklem et al. (2000). In
fact, perhaps fortuitously, reasonable agreement is found near solar
metallicity, while we find significantly cooler temperatures for low
metallicity stars of around solar temperature.Comment: 17 pages, 9 figures, to appear in A&
Minimal symmetric Darlington synthesis
We consider the symmetric Darlington synthesis of a p x p rational symmetric
Schur function S with the constraint that the extension is of size 2p x 2p.
Under the assumption that S is strictly contractive in at least one point of
the imaginary axis, we determine the minimal McMillan degree of the extension.
In particular, we show that it is generically given by the number of zeros of
odd multiplicity of I-SS*. A constructive characterization of all such
extensions is provided in terms of a symmetric realization of S and of the
outer spectral factor of I-SS*. The authors's motivation for the problem stems
from Surface Acoustic Wave filters where physical constraints on the
electro-acoustic scattering matrix naturally raise this mathematical issue
Very Long Baseline Array observations of the Intraday Variable source J1128+592
Short time-scale flux density variations of flat spectrum radio sources are
often explained by the scattering of radio waves in the turbulent, ionized
Interstellar Matter of the Milky Way. One of the most convincing observational
arguments in favor of this is the annual modulation of the variability
time-scale caused by the Earth orbital motion around the Sun. J1128+592 is an
IDV source with a possible annual modulation in its variability time-scale. We
observed the source in 6 epochs with the VLBA at 5, 8 and 15 GHz in total
intensity and polarization. The VLBA observations revealed an east-west
oriented core-jet structure. Its position angle agrees with the angle of
anisotropy derived from the annual modulation model. No significant long-term
structural changes were observed with VLBI on mas-scales, however, compared to
archival data, the VLBI core size is expanded. This expansion offers a possible
explanation to the observed decrease of the strength of IDV. VLBI polarimetry
revealed significant changes in the electric vector position angle and Rotation
Measure of the core and jet. Part of the observed RM variability could be
attributed to a scattering screen (37 pc distance), which covers the source
(core and jet) and which may be responsible for the IDV. Superposition of
polarized sub-components below the angular resolution limit may affect the
observed RM as well.Comment: accepted for A&A (11 pages, 11 figures
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