2,163 research outputs found
Thirteen-color narrow-band photometry of one thousand bright stars
Thirteen-color narrow-band photometry of one thousand bright star
The Short Rotation Period of Nereid
We determine the period, p = 11.52 \pm 0.14 h, and a light curve peak-to-peak
amplitude, a = 0.029 \pm 0.003 magnitudes, of the Neptunian irregular satellite
Nereid. If the light curve variation is due to albedo variations across the
surface, rather than solely to the shape of Nereid variations, the rotation
period would be a factor of two shorter. In either case, such a rotation period
and light curve amplitude, together with Nereid's orbital period, p=360.14
days, imply that Nereid is almost certainly in a regular rotation state, rather
than the chaotic rotation state suggested by Schaefer and Schaefer (1988,2000)
and Dobrovolskis (1995).
Assuming that Nereid is perfectly spherical, the albedo variation is 3%
across the observed surface. Assuming a uniform geometric albedo, the observed
cross sectional area varies by 3%. We caution that the lightcurve found in this
paper only sets limits on the combination of albedo and physical irregularity
and that we cannot determine the orientation of Nereid's spin axis from our
data.Comment: Accepted by ApJ Letters, 11 pages (incl. 1 figure
The Gamma-Ray Blazar Content of the Northern Sky
Using survey data, we have re-evaluated the correlation of flat spectrum
radio sources with EGRET sources in the Northern sky. A likelihood analysis
incorporating the radio and X-ray properties and the Gamma-ray source
localization is used to gauge the reliability of associations and to search for
counterparts of previously unidentified EGRET sources. Above |b|=10deg, where
the classification is complete, we find that 70% of the Northern EGRET sources
have counterparts similar to the bright EGRET blazars. For several of these we
identify known blazar counterparts more likely than the earlier proposed 3EG
association; for ~20 we have new identifications. Spectroscopic confirmation of
these candidates is in progress and we have found flat spectrum radio quasars
and BL Lac counterparts with redshifts as high as 4. We also find strong
evidence for a set of 28 objects with no plausible counterpart like the known
EGRET Blazars. These thus represent either a new extragalactic population or a
population of Galactic objects with a large scale height. The survey has been
extended into the plane, where we find several new blazar candidates; the bulk
of the sources are, however, Galactic. Looking ahead to the GLAST era we
predict that several of the present 3EG sources are composite and that higher
resolution data will break these into multiple Blazar IDs.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figures, submitted to Ap
XMM-Newton spectral and timing analysis of the faint millisecond pulsars PSR J0751+1807 and PSR J1012+5307
We present XMM-Newton MOS imaging and PN timing data of the faint millisecond
pulsars PSR J0751+1807 and PSR J1012+5307. We find 46 sources in the MOS field
of view of PSR J0751+1807 searching down to an unabsorbed flux limit of 3 x
10^-15 ergs cm^-2 s^-1 (0.2-10.0 keV). We present, for the first time, the
X-ray spectra of these two faint millisecond pulsars. We find that a power law
model best fits the spectrum of PSR J0751+1807, Gamma=1.59+/-0.20, with an
unabsorbed flux of 4.4 x 10^-14 ergs cm^-2 s^-1 (0.2-10.0 keV). A power law is
also a good description of the spectrum of PSR J1012+5307, Gamma=1.78+/-0.36,
with an unabsorbed flux of 1.2 x 10^-13 ergs cm^-2 s^-1 (0.2-10.0 keV).
However, a blackbody model can not be excluded as the best fit to this data. We
present some evidence to suggest that both of these millisecond pulsars show
pulsations in this X-ray band. We find some evidence for a single broad X-ray
pulse for PSR J0751+1807 and we discuss the possibility that there are two
pulses per spin period for PSR J1012+5307.Comment: 8 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy &
Astrophysic
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