44,895 research outputs found
SAMplus: adaptive optics at optical wavelengths for SOAR
Adaptive Optics (AO) is an innovative technique that substantially improves
the optical performance of ground-based telescopes. The SOAR Adaptive Module
(SAM) is a laser-assisted AO instrument, designed to compensate ground-layer
atmospheric turbulence in near-IR and visible wavelengths over a large Field of
View. Here we detail our proposal to upgrade SAM, dubbed SAMplus, that is
focused on enhancing its performance in visible wavelengths and increasing the
instrument reliability. As an illustration, for a seeing of 0.62 arcsec at 500
nm and a typical turbulence profile, current SAM improves the PSF FWHM to 0.40
arcsec, and with the upgrade we expect to deliver images with a FWHM of
arcsec -- up to 0.23 arcsec FWHM PSF under good seeing
conditions. Such capabilities will be fully integrated with the latest SAM
instruments, putting SOAR in an unique position as observatory facility.Comment: To appear in Proc. SPIE 10703 (Ground-based and Airborne
Instrumentation for Astronomy VII; SPIEastro18
The CORALIE survey for southern extrasolar planets. XVI. Discovery of a planetary system around HD 147018 and of two long period and massive planets orbiting HD 171238 and HD 204313
We report the detection of a double planetary system around HD 140718 as well
as the discovery of two long period and massive planets orbiting HD 171238 and
HD 204313. Those discoveries were made with the CORALIE Echelle spectrograph
mounted on the 1.2-m Euler Swiss telescope located at La Silla Observatory,
Chile. The planetary system orbiting the nearby G9 dwarf HD 147018 is composed
of an eccentric inner planet (e=0.47) with twice the mass of Jupiter (2.1 MJup
) and with an orbital period of 44.24 days. The outer planet is even more
massive (6.6 MJup) with a slightly eccentric orbit (e=0.13) and a period of
1008 days. The planet orbiting HD 171238 has a minimum mass of 2.6 MJup, a
period of 1523 days and an eccentricity of 0.40. It orbits a G8 dwarfs at 2.5
AU. The last planet, HD 204313 b, is a 4.0 MJup -planet with a period of 5.3
years and has a low eccentricity (e = 0.13). It orbits a G5 dwarfs at 3.1 AU.
The three parent stars are metal rich, which further strengthened the case that
massive planets tend to form around metal rich stars.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in A&
Analytical study of tunneling times in flat histogram Monte Carlo
We present a model for the dynamics in energy space of multicanonical
simulation methods that lends itself to a rather complete analytic
characterization. The dynamics is completely determined by the density of
states. In the \pm J 2D spin glass the transitions between the ground state
level and the first excited one control the long time dynamics. We are able to
calculate the distribution of tunneling times and relate it to the
equilibration time of a starting probability distribution. In this model, and
possibly in any model in which entering and exiting regions with low density of
states are the slowest processes in the simulations, tunneling time can be much
larger (by a factor of O(N)) than the equilibration time of the probability
distribution. We find that these features also hold for the energy projection
of single spin flip dynamics.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, published in Europhysics Letters (2005
Mott-insulator phase of coupled 1D atomic gases in a 2D optical lattice
We discuss the 2D Mott insulator (MI) state of a 2D array of coupled finite
size 1D Bose gases. It is shown that the momentum distribution in the lattice
plane is very sensitive to the interaction regime in the 1D tubes. In
particular, we find that the disappearance of the interference pattern in time
of flight experiments will not be a signature of the MI phase, but a clear
consequence of the strongly interacting Tonks-Girardeau regime along the tubes.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
Phase diagram of the penetrable square well-model
We study a system formed by soft colloidal spheres attracting each other via
a square-well potential, using extensive Monte Carlo simulations of various
nature. The softness is implemented through a reduction of the infinite part of
the repulsive potential to a finite one. For sufficiently low values of the
penetrability parameter we find the system to be Ruelle stable with square-well
like behavior. For high values of the penetrability the system is
thermodynamically unstable and collapses into an isolated blob formed by a few
clusters each containing many overlapping particles. For intermediate values of
the penetrability the system has a rich phase diagram with a partial lack of
thermodynamic consistency.Comment: 6 pages and 5 figure
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