Recombination Ghosts in Littrow Configuration: Implications for Spectrographs Using Volume Phase Holographic Gratings

We report the discovery of optical ghosts generated when using Volume Phase Holographic (VPH) gratings in spectrographs employing the Littrow configuration. The ghost is caused by light reflected off the detector surface, recollimated by the camera, recombined by, and reflected from, the grating and reimaged by the camera onto the detector. This recombination can occur in two different ways. We observe this ghost in two spectrographs being developed by the University of Wisconsin - Madison: the Robert Stobie Spectrograph for the Southern African Large Telescope and the Bench Spectrograph for the WIYN 3.5m telescope. The typical ratio of the brightness of the ghost relative to the integrated flux of the spectrum is of order 10^-4, implying a recombination efficiency of the VPH gratings of order 10^-3 or higher, consistent with the output of rigorous coupled wave analysis. Any spectrograph employing VPH gratings, including grisms, in Littrow configuration will suffer from this ghost, though the general effect is not intrinsic to VPH gratings themselves and has been observed in systems with conventional gratings in non-Littrow configurations. We explain the geometric configurations that can result in the ghost as well as a more general prescription for predicting its position and brightness on the detector. We make recommendations for mitigating the ghost effects for spectrographs and gratings currently built. We further suggest design modifications for future VPH gratings to eliminate the problem entirely, including tilted fringes and/or prismatic substrates. We discuss the resultant implications on the spectrograph performance metrics.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figures, emulateapj style, accepted for publication in PAS

Traces of Thermalization at RHIC

I argue that measurements of Au+Au collisions at 20, 130 and 200 GeV of the centrality dependence of the mean p_t together with p_t and net-charge fluctuations reflect the approach to local thermal equilibrium.Comment: 4 pages, 4 eps figures, for proc. Quark Matter 2004, to be published in J. Phys.

Moving precision agriculture to a new dimension: the ARS/CSU precision farming project at Wiggins, Colorado

Presented at the Central Plains irrigation short course and exposition on February 17-18, 1998 at the Camino Inn in North Platte, Nebraska.Includes bibliographical references.As more producers become aware of precision farming technology they are asking how it can improve productivity and profitability. There is a vast array of claims, beliefs, and testimony, yet little quantitative data to answer this question. Multi-disciplinary field scale research is needed in precision farming to answer the questions of productivity and profitability. The Agricultural Research Service and Colorado State University have begun a multi-disciplinary research program that focuses on developing a clearer scientific understanding of the causes of yield variability. We intend to develop decision support systems for site specific management. A team of 15 scientists covering the areas of soil fertility, crop production, weed science, entomology, plant pathology, system engineering, remote sensing, GIS, irrigation engineering, agricultural economics and statistics has started a project to develop a better understanding of precision agriculture in Colorado. They are collecting and analyzing data from 2 center pivot irrigated fields Cooperating farmers manage all the crop production operations and provide yield maps of the corn grown on the fields (175 and 130 ac.). The important variables for crop production have been sampled at several different intervals. Both fields have been sampled at a grid spacing of 250 feet. More intensive sampling has been done by various disciplines in smaller areas at a variety of scales down to 50 feet. Concurrent work, in cooperation with industry, is developing center pivot and linear move irrigation systems to apply variable site specific rates of chemicals and water. We will discuss the project and the various data layers being collected

Heavy ion collisions: Correlations and Fluctuations in particle production

Correlations and fluctuations (the latter are directly related to the 2-particle correlations) is one of the important directions in analysis of heavy ion collisions. At the current stage of RHIC exploration, when the details matter, basically any physics question is addressed with help of correlation techniques. In this talk I start with a general introduction to the correlation and fluctuation formalism and discuss weak and strong sides of different type of observables. In more detail, I discuss the two-particle $p_t$ correlations/\mpt fluctuations. In spite of not observing any dramatic changes in the event-by-event fluctuations with energy, which would indicate a possible phase transition, such correlations measurements remain an interesting and important subject, bringing valuable information. Lastly, I show how radial flow can generate characteristic azimuthal, transverse momentum and rapidity correlations, which could qualitatively explain many of recently observed phenomena in nuclear collisions.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figures. Invited talk at 5th International Conference on Physics and Astrophysics of Quark Gluon Plasma, February 8-12, 2005, Salt Lake City, Kolkata, Indi

Predicting the distributions of under-recorded Odonata using species distribution models

1. Absences in distributional data may result either from the true absence of a species or from a false absence due to lack of recording effort. I use general linear models (GLMs) and species distribution models (SDMs) to investigate this problem in North American Odonata and present a potential solution. 2. I use multi-model selection methods based on Akaike's information criterion to evaluate the ability of water-energy variables, human population density, and recording effort to explain patterns of odonate diversity in the USA and Canada using GLMs. Water-energy variables explain a large proportion of the variance in odonate diversity, but the residuals of these models are significantly related to recorder effort. 3. I then create SDMs for 176species that are found solely in the USA and Canada using model averaging of eight different methods. These give predictions of hypothetical true distributions of each of the 176species based on climate variables, which I compare with observed distributions to identify areas where potential under-recording may occur. 4. Under-recording appears to be highest in northern Canada, Alaska, and Quebec, as well as the interior of the USA. The proportion of predicted species that have been observed is related to recorder effort and population density. Maps for individual species have been made available online () to facilitate recording in the future. 5. This analysis has illustrated a problem with current odonate recording in the form of unbalanced recorder effort. However, the SDM approach also provides the solution, targeting recorder effort in such a way as to maximise returns from limited resources

Measurement of complex fragments and clues to the entropy production from 42-137-MeV/nucleon Ar + Au

Intermediate-rapidity fragments with A=1-14 emitted from 42-137-MeV/nucleon Ar + Au have been measured. Evidence is presented that these fragments arise from a common moving source. Entropy values are extracted from the mass distributions by use of quantum statistical and Hauser-Feshbach theories. The extracted entropy values of S/A≈2-2.4 are much smaller than the values expected from measured deuteron-to-proton ratios, but are still considerably higher than theoretically predicted values

Differential flow in heavy-ion collisions at balance energies

A strong differential transverse collective flow is predicted for the first time to occur in heavy-ion collisions at balance energies. We also give a novel explanation for the disappearance of the total transverse collective flow at the balance energies. It is further shown that the differential flow especially at high transverse momenta is a useful microscope capable of resolving the balance energy's dual sensitivity to both the nuclear equation of state and in-medium nucleon-nucleon cross sections in the reaction dynamics.Comment: Phys. Rev. Lett. (1999) in pres

Classes of Multiple Decision Functions Strongly Controlling FWER and FDR

This paper provides two general classes of multiple decision functions where each member of the first class strongly controls the family-wise error rate (FWER), while each member of the second class strongly controls the false discovery rate (FDR). These classes offer the possibility that an optimal multiple decision function with respect to a pre-specified criterion, such as the missed discovery rate (MDR), could be found within these classes. Such multiple decision functions can be utilized in multiple testing, specifically, but not limited to, the analysis of high-dimensional microarray data sets.Comment: 19 page

Light particle spectra from 35 MeV/nucleon 12C-induced reactions on 197Au

Energy spectra for p, d, t, 3He, 4He, and 6He from the reaction 12C+197Au at 35 MeV/nucleon are presented. A common intermediate rapidity source is identified using a moving source fit to the spectra that yields cross sections which are compared to analogous data at other bombarding energies and to several different models. The excitation function of the composite to proton ratios is compared with quantum statistical, hydrodynamic, and thermal models

Nucleon Flow and Fragment Flow in Heavy Ion Reactions

The collective flow of nucleons and that of fragments in the 12C + 12C reaction below 150 MeV/nucleon are calculated with the antisymmetrized version of molecular dynamics combined with the statistical decay calculation. Density dependent Gogny force is used as the effective interaction. The calculated balance energy is about 100 MeV/nucleon, which is close to the observed value. Below the balance energy, the absolute value of the fragment flow is larger than that of nucleon flow, which is also in accordance with data. The dependence of the flow on the stochastic collision cross section and its origin are discussed. All the results are naturally understood by introducing the concept of two components of flow: the flow of dynamically emitted nucleons and the flow of the nuclear matter which contributes to both the flow of fragments and the flow of nucleons due to the statistical decay.Comment: 20 pages, PostScript figures, LaTeX with REVTeX and EPSF, KUNS 121