Unnamed: 0
int64
0
41k
title
stringlengths
4
274
category
stringlengths
5
18
summary
stringlengths
22
3.66k
theme
stringclasses
8 values
6,200
Deep-Sea Acoustic Neutrino Detection and the AMADEUS System as a Multi-Purpose Acoustic Array
astro-ph.IM
The use of conventional neutrino telescope methods and technology for detecting neutrinos with energies above 1 EeV from astrophysical sources would be prohibitively expensive and may turn out to be technically not feasible. Acoustic detection is a promising alternative for future deep-sea neutrino telescopes operating...
physics
6,201
Status and First Results of the Acoustic Detection Test System AMADEUS
astro-ph.IM
The AMADEUS system is integrated in the ANTARES neutrino telescope in the Mediterranean Sea and aims for the investigation of acoustic particle detection techniques in the deep sea. Installed at a depth of more than 2000m, the acoustic sensors of AMADEUS are using piezo-ceramic elements for the broad-band recording of ...
physics
6,202
Modeling and Reproducibility of Suzaku HXD PIN/GSO Background
astro-ph.IM
Suzaku Hard X-ray Detector (HXD) achieved the lowest background level than any other previously or currently operational missions sensitive in the energy range of 10--600 keV, by utilizing PIN photodiodes and GSO scintillators mounted in the BGO active shields to reject particle background and Compton-scattered events ...
physics
6,203
The ARCADE 2 Instrument
astro-ph.IM
The second generation Absolute Radiometer for Cosmology, Astrophysics, and Diffuse Emission (ARCADE 2) instrument is a balloon-borne experiment to measure the radiometric temperature of the cosmic microwave background and Galactic and extra-Galactic emission at six frequencies from 3 to 90 GHz. ARCADE 2 utilizes a doub...
physics
6,204
The Cosmic Origins Spectrograph and the Future of Ultraviolet Astronomy
astro-ph.IM
I describe the capabilities of the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph, scheduled for May 2009 installation on the Hubble Space Telescope. With a factor-of-ten increase in far-UV throughput for moderate resolution spectroscopy, COS will enable a range of scientific programs that study hot stars, AGN, and gas in the interstella...
physics
6,205
Findings of the Joint Dark Energy Mission Figure of Merit Science Working Group
astro-ph.IM
These are the findings of the Joint Dark Energy Mission (JDEM) Figure of Merit (FoM) Science Working Group (SWG), the FoMSWG. JDEM is a space mission planned by NASA and the DOE for launch in the 2016 time frame. The primary mission is to explore the nature of dark energy. In planning such a mission, it is necessary to...
physics
6,206
High performance computing for classic gravitational N-body systems
astro-ph.IM
The role of gravity is crucial in astrophysics. It determines the evolution of any system, over an enormous range of time and space scales. Astronomical stellar systems as composed by N interacting bodies represent examples of self-gravitating systems, usually treatable with the aid of newtonian gravity but for particu...
physics
6,207
Status of NEMO: results from the NEMO Phase-1 detector
astro-ph.IM
The NEMO Collaboration installed an underwater detector including most of the critical elements of a possible km$^3$ neutrino telescope: a four-floor tower (called Mini-Tower) and a Junction Box, including the data transmission, the power distribution, the timing calibration and the acoustic positioning systems. These ...
physics
6,208
VLBI Polarisation with the Yebes (EVN) and Hobart (LBA) antennae
astro-ph.IM
Work has been on-going for the development of the required code for full polarisation processing of VLBI data using some new antennae mounts. The extensions of AIPS allows the support of two new mount types; the left-handed and right-handed Nasmyth antennae (Pico Veleta in the GMVA and Yebes-40m in the EVN) and the EW-...
physics
6,209
Integrated Laboratory Demonstrations of Multi-Object Adaptive Optics on a Simulated 10-Meter Telescope at Visible Wavelengths
astro-ph.IM
One important frontier for astronomical adaptive optics (AO) involves methods such as Multi-Object AO and Multi-Conjugate AO that have the potential to give a significantly larger field of view than conventional AO techniques. A second key emphasis over the next decade will be to push astronomical AO to visible wavelen...
physics
6,210
PCA Tomography: how to extract information from datacubes
astro-ph.IM
Astronomy has evolved almost exclusively by the use of spectroscopic and imaging techniques, operated separately. With the development of modern technologies it is possible to obtain datacubes in which one combines both techniques simultaneously, producing images with spectral resolution. To extract information from th...
physics
6,211
Gipsy 3D: Analysis, Visualization and Vo-Tools
astro-ph.IM
The scientific goals of the AMIGA project are based on the analysis of a significant amount of spectroscopic 3D data. In order to perform this work we present an initiative to develop a new VO compliant package, including present core applications and tasks offered by the Groningen Image Processing System (GIPSY), and ...
physics
6,212
Apodized Lyot Coronagraph for VLT-SPHERE: Laboratory tests and performances of a first prototype in the visible
astro-ph.IM
We present some of the High Dynamic Range Imaging activities developed around the coronagraphic test-bench of the Laboratoire A. H. Fizeau (Nice). They concern research and development of an Apodized Lyot Coronagraph (ALC) for the VLT-SPHERE instrument and experimental results from our testbed working in the visible do...
physics
6,213
Optimization of mapping modes for heterodyne instruments
astro-ph.IM
Astronomic line mapping with single-pixel instruments is usually performed in an on-the-fly (OTF) or a raster-mapping mode depending on the capabilities of the telescope and the instrument. The observing efficiency can be increased by combining several source-point integrations with a common reference measurement. This...
physics
6,214
Data Models for Radio Astronomy in the VO
astro-ph.IM
Data Models are an essential part of automatic data processing, but even more so when trying to tie together data coming from many different data sources, as is the case for the International Virtual Observatory. In this talk we will review the different data models used in the IVOA, which parts of that Data Modelling ...
physics
6,215
The generalised Lomb-Scargle periodogram. A new formalism for the floating-mean and Keplerian periodograms
astro-ph.IM
The Lomb-Scargle periodogram is a common tool in the frequency analysis of unequally spaced data equivalent to least-squares fitting of sine waves. We give an analytic solution for the generalisation to a full sine wave fit, including an offset and weights ($\chi^{2}$ fitting). Compared to the Lomb-Scargle periodogram,...
physics
6,216
Calibration of Low-Frequency, Wide-Field Radio Interferometers Using Delay/Delay-Rate Filtering
astro-ph.IM
We present a filtering technique that can be applied to individual baselines of wide-bandwidth, wide-field interferometric data to geometrically select regions on the celestial sphere that contain primary calibration sources. The technique relies on the Fourier transformation of wide-band frequency spectra from a given...
physics
6,217
Variability type classification of multi-epoch surveys
astro-ph.IM
The classification of time series from photometric large scale surveys into variability types and the description of their properties is difficult for various reasons including but not limited to the irregular sampling, the usually few available photometric bands, and the diversity of variable objects. Furthermore, it ...
physics
6,218
Maximum-likelihood detection of sources among Poissonian noise
astro-ph.IM
A maximum likelihood (ML) technique for detecting compact sources in images of the x-ray sky is examined. Such images, in the relatively low exposure regime accessible to present x-ray observatories, exhibit Poissonian noise at background flux levels. A variety of source detection methods are compared via Monte Carlo, ...
physics
6,219
New Simple Method for Analysis of Extensive Air Showers
astro-ph.IM
Cosmic rays have valuable information about universe surroundings us. Finding energy, mass and arrival direction of primary cosmic ray particle are the most important aspects of extensive air shower studies. In order to determine these parameters, arrival direction and core position of extensive air showers should be d...
physics
6,220
A new model for archiving synoptic data in the VISTA Data Flow System
astro-ph.IM
The VISTA Data Flow System comprises nightly pipeline and archiving of near infrared data from UKIRT-WFCAM and VISTA. This includes multi-epoch data which can be used to find moving and variable objects. We have developed a new model for archiving these data which gives the user an extremely flexible and reliable data ...
physics
6,221
The Nordic Optical Telescope
astro-ph.IM
An overview of the Nordic Optical Telescope (NOT) is presented. Emphasis is on current capabilities of direct interest to the scientific user community, including instruments. Educational services and prospects and strategies for the future are discussed briefly as well.
physics
6,222
An Abs Algorithm for a Class of Systems of Stochastic Linear Equations
astro-ph.IM
This paper is to explore a model of the ABS Algorithms dealing with the solution of a class of systems of linear stochastic equations $A\xi=\eta$ when $\eta$ is a $m$-dimensional normal distribution. It is shown that the stepsize $\alpha_i$ is distributed as $N(u_i,\sigma_i)$ (being $u_i$ the expected value of $\alpha_...
physics
6,223
Position reconstruction of acoustic sources with the AMADEUS Detector
astro-ph.IM
This article focuses on techniques for position reconstruction of acoustic point sources with the AMADEUS setup consisting of 36 acoustic sensors in the Mediterranean Sea. The direction reconstruction of an acoustic point source utilizes the information of the 6 small-volume hydrophone clusters of AMADEUS individually....
physics
6,224
High-Impact Astronomical Observatories
astro-ph.IM
We derive the ranking of the astronomical observatories with the highest impact in astronomy based on the citation analysis of papers published in 2006. We also present a description of the methodology we use to derive this ranking. The current ranking is lead by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, followed by Swift and the ...
physics
6,225
On the intensity interferometry and the second-order correlation function $g^{(2)}$ in astrophysics
astro-ph.IM
Most observational techniques in astronomy can be understood as exploiting the various forms of the first-order correlation function g^(1). As however demonstrated by the Narrabri Stellar Intensity Interferometer back in the 1960's by Hanbury Brown & Twiss, and which is the first experiment to measure the second-order ...
physics
6,226
A Minimum Variance Method for Problems in Radio Antenna Placement
astro-ph.IM
Aperture synthesis radio telescopes generate images of celestial bodies from data obtained from several radio antennas. Placement of these antennas has always been a source of interesting problems. Often, several potentially contradictory objectives like good image quality and low infra-structural cost have to be satis...
physics
6,227
Limits to the energy resolution of a single Air Cherenkov Telescope at low energies
astro-ph.IM
The photon density on the ground is a fundamental quantity in all experiments based on Cherenkov light measurements, e.g. in the Imaging Air Cherenkov Telescopes (IACT). IACT's are commonly and successfully used in order to search and study Very High Energy (VHE) gamma-ray sources. Difficulties with separating primary ...
physics
6,228
Carpet-3 - a new experiment to study primary composition around the knee
astro-ph.IM
We propose a new experiment to study primary composition around the knee. The Carpet-3 EAS array is the further development of the Carpet-2 EAS array (1700 m a.s.l., Baksan Valley) and it is supposed to be a multi-component and multi-purpose array detecting, in the EASs with $E > 10^{13}$ eV, electrons, gammas, muons (...
physics
6,229
Talking Amongst Ourselves - Communication in the Astronomical Software Community
astro-ph.IM
Meetings such as ADASS demonstrate that there is an enthusiasm for communication within the astronomical software community. However, the amount of information and experience that can flow around in the course of one, relatively short, meeting is really quite limited. Ideally, these meetings should be just a part of a ...
physics
6,230
Deep Underground Science and Engineering Lab: Dark Matter Working Group 2007 White Paper
astro-ph.IM
This whitepaper is the result of discussions and presentations initiated at the DUSEL Town Meeting held in Washington in November 2007. The essential elements of this report are: - The quest to detect dark matter is a science goal of the very highest priority, and is flagship science for DUSEL. - The dark matter co...
physics
6,231
Astrophotonics: a new era for astronomical instruments
astro-ph.IM
Astrophotonics lies at the interface of astronomy and photonics. This burgeoning field -- now formally recognized by the optics community -- has emerged over the past decade in response to the increasing demands of astronomical instrumentation. Early successes include: (i) planar waveguides to combine signals from wide...
physics
6,232
Advanced Data Reduction Techniques for MUSE
astro-ph.IM
MUSE, a 2nd generation VLT instrument, will become the world's largest integral field spectrograph. It will be an AO assisted instrument which, in a single exposure, covers the wavelength range from 465 to 930 nm with an average resolution of 3000 over a field of view of 1'x1' with 0.2'' spatial sampling. Both the comp...
physics
6,233
Mid-infrared guided optics: a perspective for astronomical instruments
astro-ph.IM
Research activities during the last decade have shown the strong potential of photonic devices to greatly simplify ground based and space borne astronomical instruments and to improve their performance. We focus specifically on the mid-infrared wavelength regime (about 5-20 microns), a spectral range offering access to...
physics
6,234
Advances in Calibration and Imaging Techniques in Radio Interferometry
astro-ph.IM
This paper summarizes some of the major calibration and image reconstruction techniques used in radio interferometry and describes them in a common mathematical framework. The use of this framework has a number of benefits, ranging from clarification of the fundamentals, use of standard numerical optimization technique...
physics
6,235
GPUs for data processing in the MWA
astro-ph.IM
The MWA is a next-generation radio interferometer under construction in remote Western Australia. The data rate from the correlator makes storing the raw data infeasible, so the data must be processed in real-time. The processing task is of order ~10 TFLOPS. The remote location of the MWA limits the power that can be a...
physics
6,236
Monte-Carlo simulations of the background of the coded-mask camera for X- and Gamma-rays on-board the Chinese-French GRB mission SVOM
astro-ph.IM
For several decades now, wide-field coded mask cameras have been used with success to localise Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). In these instruments, the event count rate is dominated by the photon background due to their large field of view and large effective area. It is therefore essential to estimate the instrument backgro...
physics
6,237
The Noao Newfirm Pipeline
astro-ph.IM
The NOAO NEWFIRM Pipeline produces instrumentally calibrated data products and data quality measurements from all exposures taken with the NOAO Extremely Wide-Field Infrared Imager (NEWFIRM) at the KPNO Mayall 4-meter telescope. We describe the distributed nature of the NEWFIRM Pipeline, the calibration data that are a...
physics
6,238
On-chip spectro-detection for fully integrated coherent beam combiners
astro-ph.IM
This paper presents how photonics associated with new arising detection technologies is able to provide fully integrated instrument for coherent beam combination applied to astrophysical interferometry. The feasibility and operation of on-chip coherent beam combiners has been already demonstrated using various interfer...
physics
6,239
Simulation and Fitting of Multi-Dimensional X-ray Data
astro-ph.IM
Astronomical data generally consists of 2 or more high-resolution axes, e.g., X,Y position on the sky or wavelength and position-along-one-axis (long-slit spectrometer). Analyzing these multi-dimension observations requires combining 3D source models (including velocity effects), instrument models, and multi-dimensiona...
physics
6,240
Data inversion for over-resolved spectral imaging in astronomy
astro-ph.IM
We present an original method for reconstructing a three-dimensional object having two spatial dimensions and one spectral dimension from data provided by the infrared slit spectrograph on board the Spitzer Space Telescope. During acquisition, the light flux is deformed by a complex process comprising four main element...
physics
6,241
Study of the atmospheric refraction in a single mode instrument - Application to AMBER/VLTI
astro-ph.IM
This paper presents a study of the atmospheric refraction and its effect on the light coupling efficiency in an instrument using single-mode optical fibers. We show the analytical approach which allowed us to assess the need to correct the refraction in J- and H-bands while observing with an 8-m Unit Telescope. We then...
physics
6,242
First light from the Dome C (Antarctica) of a phase knife stellar coronagraph
astro-ph.IM
We report on the first daytime on-sky results of a Phase Knife stellar Coronagraph operated in the visible from the French-Italian Concordia station at Dome C of Antarctica. This site has proven in the last few years to offer excellent atmospheric seeing conditions for high spatial resolution observations. The coronagr...
physics
6,243
An integrated optics beam combiner for the second generation VLTI instruments
astro-ph.IM
The very recent years have seen a promising start in scientific publications making use of images produced by near-infrared long-baseline interferometry. The technique has reached, at last, a technical maturity level that opens new avenues for numerous astrophysical topics requiring milli-arcsecond model-independent im...
physics
6,244
Simbol-X Background Minimization: Mirror Spacecraft Passive Shielding Trade-Off Study
astro-ph.IM
The present work shows a quantitative trade-off analysis of the Simbol-X Mirror Spacecraft (MSC) passive shielding, in the phase space of the various parameters: mass budget, dimension, geometry, and composition. A simplified physical (and geometrical) model of the sky screen, implemented by means of a GEANT4 simulatio...
physics
6,245
Non-linear Least Squares Fitting in IDL with MPFIT
astro-ph.IM
MPFIT is a port to IDL of the non-linear least squares fitting program MINPACK-1. MPFIT inherits the robustness of the original FORTRAN version of MINPACK-1, but is optimized for performance and convenience in IDL. In addition to the main fitting engine, MPFIT, several specialized functions are provided to fit 1-D curv...
physics
6,246
Radiative transfer in very optically thick circumstellar disks
astro-ph.IM
In this paper we present two efficient implementations of the diffusion approximation to be employed in Monte Carlo computations of radiative transfer in dusty media of massive circumstellar disks. The aim is to improve the accuracy of the computed temperature structure and to decrease the computation time. The accurac...
physics
6,247
A new approach to mitigation of radio frequency interference in interferometric data
astro-ph.IM
Radio frequency interference (RFI) is the principal factor limiting the sensitivities of radio telescopes, particularly at frequencies below 1 GHz. I present a conceptually new approach to mitigation of RFI in interferometric data. This has been used to develop a software tool (RfiX) to remove RFI from observations usi...
physics
6,248
Parametrized post-post-Newtonian analytical solution for light propagation
astro-ph.IM
An analytical solution for light propagation in the post-post-Newtonian approximation is given for the Schwarzschild metric in harmonic gauge augmented by PPN and post-linear parameters $\beta$, $\gamma$ and $\epsilon$. The solutions of both Cauchy and boundary problem are given. The Cauchy problem is posed using the i...
physics
6,249
Status and Sensitivity Projections for the XENON100 Dark Matter Experiment
astro-ph.IM
The XENON experimental program aims to detect cold dark matter particles via their elastic collisions with xenon nuclei in two-phase time projection chambers (TPCs). We are currently testing a new TPC at the 100 kg scale, XENON100. This new, ultra-low background detector, has a total of 170 kg of xenon (65 kg in the ta...
physics
6,250
The Faulkes Telescope Project: Not Just Pretty Pictures
astro-ph.IM
The Faulkes Telescope (FT) Project is an educational and research arm of the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network (LCOGTN). As well as producing spectacular images of galaxies, nebulae, supernovae remnants, star clusters, etc., the FT team is involved in several projects pursuing scientific goals. Many of t...
physics
6,251
Studies of the muon-induced neutron background in LSM: detector concept and status of the installation
astro-ph.IM
A good particle candidate for Cold Dark Matter (CDM) is the supersymmetric neutralino or more generally a weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP). The expected interaction rate of WIMPs with the detector medium in the direct detection experiments is below 0.01 events/kg/day. This makes a good knowledge of the backgr...
physics
6,252
New Discoveries in Planetary Systems and Star Formation through Advances in Laboratory Astrophysics
astro-ph.IM
As the panel on Planetary Systems and Star Formation (PSF) is fully aware, the next decade will see major advances in our understanding of these areas of research. To quote from their charge, these advances will occur in studies of solar system bodies (other than the Sun) and extrasolar planets, debris disks, exobiolog...
physics
6,253
A new technique for timing the double pulsar system
astro-ph.IM
In 2004, McLaughlin et al. discovered a phenomenon in the radio emission of PSR J0737-3039B (B) that resembles drifting sub-pulses. The repeat rate of the sub-pulses is equal to the spin frequency of PSR J0737-3039A (A); this led to the suggestion that they are caused by incidence upon B's magnetosphere of electromagne...
physics
6,254
Statistics in astronomy
astro-ph.IM
Perhaps more than other physical sciences, astronomy is frequently statistical in nature. The objects under study are inaccessible to direct manipulation in the laboratory, so the astronomer is restricted to observing a few external characteristics and inferring underlying properties and physics. Astronomy played a pro...
physics
6,255
Hacking the Sky
astro-ph.IM
In this article I present some special astronomical scripts created for Google Earth, Google Sky and Twitter. These 'hacks' are examples of the ways in which such tools can be used either alone, in on conjunction with online services. The result of a combination of multiple, online services to form a new facility is ca...
physics
6,256
The Jodcast
astro-ph.IM
The Jodcast (www.jodcast.net) is a twice-monthly astronomy podcast from The University of Manchester's Jodrell Bank Observatory. In this paper I give the motivation and history of The Jodcast, as well as a description of The Jodcast's content, operations, personnel, performance and aspirations.
physics
6,257
Inference of Coefficients for Use in Phase Correction I
astro-ph.IM
We present a Bayesian approach to calculating the coefficients that convert the outputs of ALMA 183 GHz water-vapour radiometers into estimates of path fluctuations which can then be used to correct the observed interferometric visibilities. The key features of the approach are a simple, thin-layer, three-parameter mod...
physics
6,258
The Large APEX Bolometer Camera LABOCA
astro-ph.IM
The Large APEX Bolometer Camera, LABOCA, has been commissioned for operation as a new facility instrument t the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment 12m submillimeter telescope. This new 295-bolometer total power camera, operating in the 870 micron atmospheric window, combined with the high efficiency of APEX and the excellen...
physics
6,259
CSPOB-Continuous Spectrophotometry of Black Holes
astro-ph.IM
The goal of a small and dedicated satellite called the "Continuous Spectro-Photometry of Black Holes" or CSPOB is to provide the essential tool for the theoretical understanding of the hydrodynamic and magneto-hydrodynamic flows around black holes. In its life time of about three to four years, only a half a dozen blac...
physics
6,260
Fresnel zone plates for Achromatic Imaging Survey of X-ray sources
astro-ph.IM
A telescope with Fresnel Zone Plates has been contemplated to be an excellent imaging mask in X-rays and gamma-rays for quite some time. With a proper choice of zone plate material, spacing and an appropriate readout system it is possible to achieve any theoretical angular resolution. We provide the results of numerica...
physics
6,261
Data boundary fitting using a generalised least-squares method
astro-ph.IM
In many astronomical problems one often needs to determine the upper and/or lower boundary of a given data set. An automatic and objective approach consists in fitting the data using a generalised least-squares method, where the function to be minimized is defined to handle asymmetrically the data at both sides of the ...
physics
6,262
Lossless Astronomical Image Compression and the Effects of Noise
astro-ph.IM
We compare a variety of lossless image compression methods on a large sample of astronomical images and show how the compression ratios and speeds of the algorithms are affected by the amount of noise in the images. In the ideal case where the image pixel values have a random Gaussian distribution, the equivalent numbe...
physics
6,263
Background-Source Separation in astronomical images with Bayesian probability theory (I): the method
astro-ph.IM
A probabilistic technique for the joint estimation of background and sources with the aim of detecting faint and extended celestial objects is described. Bayesian probability theory is applied to gain insight into the coexistence of background and sources through a probabilistic two-component mixture model, which provi...
physics
6,264
Simbol-X Hard X-ray Focusing Mirrors: Results Obtained During the Phase A Study
astro-ph.IM
Simbol-X will push grazing incidence imaging up to 80 keV, providing a strong improvement both in sensitivity and angular resolution compared to all instruments that have operated so far above 10 keV. The superb hard X-ray imaging capability will be guaranteed by a mirror module of 100 electroformed Nickel shells with ...
physics
6,265
The Prototype of the Small Synoptic Second Solar Spectrum Telescope (S5T)
astro-ph.IM
We present the design and the prototype of the Small Synoptic Second Solar Spectrum Telescope (S5T), which can autonomously measure scattering polarization signals on a daily basis with large sensitivity and accuracy. Its data will be used to investigate the nature of weak, turbulent magnetic fields through the Hanle e...
physics
6,266
Astronomical Applications for "Radial Polarimetry"
astro-ph.IM
Many objects on the sky exhibit a centrosymmetric polarization pattern, particularly in cases involving single scattering around a central source. Utilizing a novel liquid crystal device (the ``theta cell'') that transforms the coordinate system of linear polarization in an image plane from Cartesian to polar, the obse...
physics
6,267
Polarization properties of real aluminum mirrors; I. Influence of the aluminum oxide layer
astro-ph.IM
In polarimetry it is important to characterize the polarization properties of the instrument itself to disentangle real astrophysical signals from instrumental effects. This article deals with the accurate measurement and modeling of the polarization properties of real aluminum mirrors, as used in astronomical telescop...
physics
6,268
Experimental evidence for water formation on interstellar dust grains by hydrogen and oxygen atoms
astro-ph.IM
Context. The synthesis of water is one necessary step in the origin and development of life. It is believed that pristine water is formed and grows on the surface of icy dust grains in dark interstellar clouds. Until now, there has been no experimental evidence whether this scenario is feasible or not on an astrophysic...
physics
6,269
Wide-Field Astronomical Surveys in the Next Decade
astro-ph.IM
Wide-angle surveys have been an engine for new discoveries throughout the modern history of astronomy, and have been among the most highly cited and scientifically productive observing facilities in recent years. This trend is likely to continue over the next decade, as many of the most important questions in astrophys...
physics
6,270
Mapping low and high density clouds in astrophysical nebulae by imaging forbidden line emission
astro-ph.IM
Emission line ratios have been essential for determining physical parameters such as gas temperature and density in astrophysical gaseous nebulae. With the advent of panoramic spectroscopic devices, images of regions with emission lines related to these physical parameters can, in principle, also be produced. We show t...
physics
6,271
Educating the Next Generation of Leading Scientists: Turning Ideas into Action
astro-ph.IM
The core of scientific research is turning new ideas into reality. From the school science fair to the search for the secrets of dark energy, high-quality research consists of scientific investigation constrained within the scope of a well-defined project. Large or small, generously funded or just scraping by,scientifi...
physics
6,272
Astronomical Data Analysis and Sparsity: from Wavelets to Compressed Sensing
astro-ph.IM
Wavelets have been used extensively for several years now in astronomy for many purposes, ranging from data filtering and deconvolution, to star and galaxy detection or cosmic ray removal. More recent sparse representations such ridgelets or curvelets have also been proposed for the detection of anisotropic features su...
physics
6,273
Low-Energy Astrophysics: Stimulating the Reduction of Energy Consumption in the Next Decade
astro-ph.IM
In this paper we address the consumption of energy by astronomers while performing their professional duties. Although we find that astronomy uses a negligible fraction of the US energy budget, the rate at which energy is consumed by an average astronomer is similar to that of a typical high-flying businessperson. We r...
physics
6,274
The Importance of Hands-on Experience with Telescopes for Students
astro-ph.IM
Proper interpretation and understanding of astronomical data requires good knowledge of the data acquisition process. The increase in remote observing, queue observing, and the availability of large archived data products risk insulating astronomers from the telescope, potentially reducing their familiarity with the ob...
physics
6,275
Astronomical Software Wants To Be Free: A Manifesto
astro-ph.IM
Astronomical software is now a fact of daily life for all hands-on members of our community. Purpose-built software for data reduction and modeling tasks becomes ever more critical as we handle larger amounts of data and simulations. However, the writing of astronomical software is unglamorous, the rewards are not alwa...
physics
6,276
Studying the Imaging Characteristics of Ultra Violet Imaging Telescope (UVIT) through Numerical Simulations
astro-ph.IM
Ultra-Violet Imaging Telescope (UVIT) is one of the five payloads aboard the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO)'s ASTROSAT space mission. The science objectives of UVIT are broad, extending from individual hot stars, star-forming regions to active galactic nuclei. Imaging performance of UVIT would depend on seve...
physics
6,277
CTK - A new CCD Camera at the University Observatory Jena
astro-ph.IM
The Cassegrain-Teleskop-Kamera (CTK) is a new CCD imager which is operated at the University Observatory Jena since begin of 2006. This article describes the main characteristics of the new camera. The properties of the CCD detector, the CTK image quality, as well as its detection limits for all filters are presented.
physics
6,278
Laser Guide Stars for Extremely Large Telescopes: Efficient Shack-Hartmann Wavefront Sensor Design using Weighted center-of-gravity algorithm
astro-ph.IM
Over the last few years increasing consideration has been given to the study of Laser Guide Stars (LGS) for the measurement of the disturbance introduced by the atmosphere in optical and near-infrared astronomical observations from the ground. A possible method for the generation of a LGS is the excitation of the Sodiu...
physics
6,279
Training of Instrumentalists and Development of New Technologies on SOFIA
astro-ph.IM
This white paper is submitted to the Astronomy and Astrophysics 2010 Decadal Survey (Astro2010)1 Committee on the State of the Profession to emphasize the potential of the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) to contribute to the training of instrumentalists and observers, and to related technology ...
physics
6,280
FIASCO - A new Spectrograph at the University Observatory Jena
astro-ph.IM
A new spectrograph (FIASCO) is in operation at the 0.9m telescope of the University Observatory Jena. This article describes the characterization of the instrument and reports its first astronomical observations, among those Li (670.8nm) detection in the atmosphere of young stars, and the simultaneous photometric and s...
physics
6,281
High-Contrast Observations in Optical and Infrared Astronomy
astro-ph.IM
High-contrast observations in optical and infrared astronomy are defined as any observation requiring a technique to reveal a celestial object of interest that is in such close angular proximity to another source brighter by a factor of at least 10^5 that optical effects hinder or prevent the collection of photons dire...
physics
6,282
The Future of the European VLBI Network
astro-ph.IM
Guided by the recently published science case for the future of European VLBI, EVN2015, a roadmap for the future of the EVN is sketched out in this paper. The various desired technical improvements are being discussed with an emphasis on the role of e-VLBI. With this innovation new scientific capabilities are introduce...
physics
6,283
Increasing the Number of Underrepresented Minorities in Astronomy: Executive Summary
astro-ph.IM
Promoting racial and ethnic diversity is critically important to the future success and growth of the field of astronomy. The raw ability, drive and interest required to excel in the field is distributed without regard to race, gender, or socioeconomic background. By not actively promoting diversity in our field we ris...
physics
6,284
Increasing the Number of Underrepresented Minorities in Astronomy at the Undergraduate, Graduate, and Postdoctoral Levels (Paper I)
astro-ph.IM
If the ethnic makeup of the astronomy profession is to achieve parity with the general population within one generation (~30 years), the number of underrepresented minorities earning graduate degrees in astronomy and astrophysics must increase in the coming decade by a factor of 5 to 10. To accomplish this, the profess...
physics
6,285
Increasing the Number of Underrepresented Minorities in Astronomy Through K-12 Education and Public Outreach (Paper II)
astro-ph.IM
In order to attract, recruit and retain underrepresented minority students to pursue Astronomy and related fields, we must ensure that there continues to be a well qualified pool of graduate and undergraduate students from which to recruit. This required pool of people are today's elementary, middle and high school stu...
physics
6,286
Research Science and Education: The NSF's Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellowship
astro-ph.IM
The NSF's Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellowship (AAPF) is exceptional among the available postdoctoral awards in Astronomy and Astrophysics. The fellowship is one of the few that allows postdoctoral researchers to pursue an original research program, of their own design, at the U.S. institution of their ch...
physics
6,287
Discrimination of Recoil Backgrounds in Scintillating Calorimeters
astro-ph.IM
The alpha decay of $\n{{}^{210}Po}$ is a dangerous background to rare event searches. Here, we describe observations related to this alpha decay in the Cryogenic Rare Event Search with Superconducting Thermometers (CRESST). We find that lead nuclei show a scintillation light yield in our $\n{CaWO_4}$ crystals of $0.014...
physics
6,288
Phase-Induced Amplitude Apodization on centrally obscured pupils: design and first laboratory demonstration for the Subaru Telescope pupil
astro-ph.IM
High contrast coronagraphic imaging is challenging for telescopes with central obstructions and thick spider vanes, such as the Subaru Telescope. We present in this paper the first laboratory demonstration of a high efficiency PIAA-type coronagraph on such a pupil, using coronagraphic optics which will be part of the S...
physics
6,289
Astrophysical Smooth Particle Hydrodynamics
astro-ph.IM
The paper presents a detailed review of the smooth particle hydrodynamics (SPH) method with particular focus on its astrophysical applications. We start by introducing the basic ideas and concepts and thereby outline all ingredients that are necessary for a practical implementation of the method in a working SPH code. ...
physics
6,290
Stroke saturation on a MEMS deformable mirror for woofer-tweeter adaptive optics
astro-ph.IM
High-contrast imaging of extrasolar planet candidates around a main-sequence star has recently been realized from the ground using current adaptive optics (AO) systems. Advancing such observations will be a task for the Gemini Planet Imager, an upcoming "extreme" AO instrument. High-order "tweeter" and low-order "woofe...
physics
6,291
Building Large Area CZT Imaging Detectors for a Wide-Field Hard X-ray Telescope - ProtoEXIST1
astro-ph.IM
We have constructed a moderately large area (32 cm2), fine pixel (2.5 mm pixel, 5 mm thick) CZT imaging detector which constitutes the first section of a detector module (256 cm2) developed for a balloon-borne wide-field hard X-ray telescope, ProtoEXIST1. ProtoEXIST1 is a prototype for the High Energy Telescope (HET) i...
physics
6,292
Indirect dark matter search with the balloon-borne PEBS detector
astro-ph.IM
A precision measurement of the cosmic-ray positron spectrum may help to solve the puzzle of the nature of dark matter. Pairwise annihilation of neutralinos, predicted by some supersymmetric extensions to the standard model of particle physics, may leave a distinct feature in the cosmic-ray positron spectrum. As the a...
physics
6,293
Leakage Currents and Capacitances of Thick CZT Detectors
astro-ph.IM
The quality of Cadmium Zinc Telluride (CZT) detectors is steadily improving. For state of the art detectors, readout noise is thus becoming an increasingly important factor for the overall energy resolution. In this contribution, we present measurements and calculations of the dark currents and capacitances of 0.5 cm-t...
physics
6,294
High Order Phase-fitted Discrete Lagrangian Integrators for Orbital Problems
astro-ph.IM
In this work, the benefits of the phase fitting technique are embedded in high order discrete Lagrangian integrators. The proposed methodology creates integrators with zero phase lag in a test Lagrangian in a similar way used in phase fitted numerical methods for ordinary differential equations. Moreover, an efficient ...
physics
6,295
Adaptive Optics Parameters connection to wind speed at the Teide Observatory
astro-ph.IM
Current projects for large telescopes demand a proper knowledge of atmospheric turbulence to design efficient adaptive optics systems in order to reach large Strehl ratios. However, the proper characterization of the turbulence above a particular site requires long-term monitoring. Due to the lack of long-term informat...
physics
6,296
An analytical solution for Kepler's problem
astro-ph.IM
In this paper we present a framework which provides an analytical (i.e., infinitely differentiable) transformation between spatial coordinates and orbital elements for the solution of the gravitational two-body problem. The formalism omits all singular variables which otherwise would yield discontinuities. This method ...
physics
6,297
Self-gravity at the scale of the polar cell
astro-ph.IM
We present the exact calculus of the gravitational potential and acceleration along the symmetry axis of a plane, homogeneous, polar cell as a function of mean radius a, radial extension e, and opening angle f. Accurate approximations are derived in the limit of high numerical resolution at the geometrical mean <a> of ...
physics
6,298
The Allen Telescope Array: The First Widefield, Panchromatic, Snapshot Radio Camera for Radio Astronomy and SETI
astro-ph.IM
The first 42 elements of the Allen Telescope Array (ATA-42) are beginning to deliver data at the Hat Creek Radio Observatory in Northern California. Scientists and engineers are actively exploiting all of the flexibility designed into this innovative instrument for simultaneously conducting surveys of the astrophysical...
physics
6,299
Exoplanet search with astrometry
astro-ph.IM
Searching for extrasolar planets by direct detection is extremely challenging for current instrumentation. Indirect methods, that measure the effect of a planet on its host star, are much more promising and have indeed led to the discovery of nearly all extrasolar systems known today. While the most successful method t...
physics