Refine
Has Fulltext
- no (32)
Year of publication
Language
- English (32) (remove)
Is part of the Bibliography
- yes (32)
Keywords
- techniques: imaging spectroscopy (6)
- Raman imaging (2)
- acceleration of particles (2)
- atmospheric effects (2)
- gamma rays: general (2)
- globular clusters: general (2)
- globular clusters: individual: NGC 6397 (2)
- instrumentation: miscellaneous (2)
- radiation mechanisms: non-thermal (2)
- stars: kinematics and dynamics (2)
Until now, spatially resolved Raman Spectroscopy has required to scan a sample under investigation in a time-consuming step-by-step procedure. Here, we present a technique that allows the capture of an entire Raman image with only one single exposure. The Raman scattering arising from the sample was collected with a fiber-coupled high-performance astronomy spectrograph. The probe head consisting of an array of 20 x 20 multimode fibers was linked to the camera port of a microscope. To demonstrate the high potential of this new concept, Raman images of reference samples were recorded. Entire chemical maps were received without the need for a scanning procedure.
A stellar census in globular clusters with MUSE: A spectral catalogue of emission-line sources
(2019)
Aims. Globular clusters produce many exotic stars due to a much higher frequency of dynamical interactions in their dense stellar environments. Some of these objects were observed together with several hundred thousand other stars in our MUSE survey of 26 Galactic globular clusters. Assuming that at least a few exotic stars have exotic spectra (i.e. spectra that contain emission lines), we can use this large spectroscopic data set of over a million stellar spectra as a blind survey to detect stellar exotica in globular clusters. Methods. To detect emission lines in each spectrum, we modelled the expected shape of an emission line as a Gaussian curve. This template was used for matched filtering on the di fferences between each observed 1D spectrum and its fitted spectral model. The spectra with the most significant detections of H alpha emission are checked visually and cross-matched with published catalogues. Results. We find 156 stars with H alpha emission, including several known cataclysmic variables (CV) and two new CVs, pulsating variable stars, eclipsing binary stars, the optical counterpart of a known black hole, several probable sub-subgiants and red stragglers, and 21 background emission-line galaxies. We find possible optical counterparts to 39 X-ray sources, as we detected H alpha emission in several spectra of stars that are close to known positions of Chandra X-ray sources. This spectral catalogue can be used to supplement existing or future X-ray or radio observations with spectra of potential optical counterparts to classify the sources.
The problem of atmospheric emission from OH molecules is a long standing problem for near-infrared astronomy. PRAXIS is a unique spectrograph which is fed by fibres that remove the OH background and is optimised specifically to benefit from OH-Suppression. The OH suppression is achieved with fibre Bragg gratings, which were tested successfully on the GNOSIS instrument. PRAXIS uses the same fibre Bragg gratings as GNOSIS in its first implementation, and will exploit new, cheaper and more efficient, multicore fibre Bragg gratings in the second implementation. The OH lines are suppressed by a factor of similar to 1000, and the expected increase in the signal-to-noise in the interline regions compared to GNOSIS is a factor of similar to 9 with the GNOSIS gratings and a factor of similar to 17 with the new gratings. PRAXIS will enable the full exploitation of OH suppression for the first time, which was not achieved by GNOSIS (a retrofit to an existing instrument that was not OH-Suppression optimised) due to high thermal emission, low spectrograph transmission and detector noise. PRAXIS has extremely low thermal emission, through the cooling of all significantly emitting parts, including the fore-optics, the fibre Bragg gratings, a long length of fibre, and the fibre slit, and an optical design that minimises leaks of thermal emission from outside the spectrograph. PRAXIS has low detector noise through the use of a Hawaii-2RG detector, and a high throughput through a efficient VPH based spectrograph. PRAXIS will determine the absolute level of the interline continuum and enable observations of individual objects via an IFU. In this paper we give a status update and report on acceptance tests.
Arctic lowlands are characterized by large numbers of small waterbodies, which are known to affect surface energy budgets and the global carbon cycle. Statistical analysis of their size distributions has been hindered by the shortage of observations at sufficiently high spatial resolutions. This situation has now changed with the high-resolution (<5 m) circum-Arctic Permafrost Region Pond and Lake (PeRL) database recently becoming available. We have used this database to make the first consistent, high-resolution estimation of Arctic waterbody size distributions, with surface areas ranging from 0.0001 km(2) (100 m(2)) to 1 km(2). We found that the size distributions varied greatly across the thirty study regions investigated and that there was no single universal size distribution function (including power-law distribution functions) appropriate across all of the study regions. We did, however, find close relationships between the statistical moments (mean, variance, and skewness) of the waterbody size distributions from different study regions. Specifically, we found that the spatial variance increased linearly with mean waterbody size (R-2 = 0.97, p < 2.2e-16) and that the skewness decreased approximately hyperbolically. We have demonstrated that these relationships (1) hold across the 30 Arctic study regions covering a variety of (bio)climatic and permafrost zones, (2) hold over time in two of these study regions for which multi-decadal satellite imagery is available, and (3) can be reproduced by simulating rising water levels in a high-resolution digital elevation model. The consistent spatial and temporal relationships between the statistical moments of the waterbody size distributions underscore the dominance of topographic controls in lowland permafrost areas. These results provide motivation for further analyses of the factors involved in waterbody development and spatial distribution and for investigations into the possibility of using statistical moments to predict future hydrologic dynamics in the Arctic.
The Antennae galaxy (NGC 4038/39) is the closest major interacting galaxy system and is therefore often studied as a merger prototype. We present the first comprehensive integral field spectroscopic dataset of this system, observed with the MUSE instrument at the ESO VLT. We cover the two regions in this system which exhibit recent star formation: the central galaxy interaction and a region near the tip of the southern tidal tail. In these fields, we detect H II regions and diffuse ionized gas to unprecedented depth. About 15% of the ionized gas was undetected by previous observing campaigns. This newly detected faint ionized gas is visible everywhere around the central merger, and shows filamentary structure. We estimate diffuse gas fractions of about 60% in the central field and 10% in the southern region. We are able to show that the southern region contains a significantly different population of H II regions, showing fainter luminosities. By comparing H II region luminosities with the HST catalog of young star clusters in the central field, we estimate that there is enough Lyman-continuum leakage in the merger to explain the amount of diffuse ionized gas that we detect. We compare the Lyman-continuum escape fraction of each H II region against emission line ratios that are sensitive to the ionization parameter. While we find no systematic trend between these properties, the most extreme line ratios seem to be strong indicators of density bounded ionization. Extrapolating the Lyman-continuum escape fractions to the southern region, we conclude that simply from the comparison of the young stellar populations to the ionized gas there is no need to invoke other ionization mechanisms than Lyman-continuum leaking H II regions for the diffuse ionized gas in the Antennae.
Swelling and switching kinetics of gold coated end-capped poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) thin films
(2010)
Thin thermoresponsive hydrogel films of poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) end-capped with n-butyltrithiocarbonate(nbc- PNIPAM) oil si I icon supports with a gold layer on top, causing an asymmetric confinement, are investigated. For two different gold layer thicknesses (nominally 0.4 and 5 rim), the swelling and switching kinetics are probed with in situ neutron reflectivity. With a temperature jump from 23 to 40 degrees C the film is switched from a swollen into a collapsed state. For the thin gold layer this switching is faster as compared to the thick gold layer. The switching is a two-step process of water release and a subsequent structural relaxation. fit swelling and deswelling cycles, aging of the films is probed. After five cycles, the film exhibits enhanced water storage capacity. Grazing-incidence small-angle X-ray scattering (GISAXS) shows that these gold coated nbc-PNIPAM films do not age with respect to the inner structure but slightly roughen at the gold surface. As revealed by atomic force microscopy, the morphology of the gold layer is changed by the water uptake and release.
A long-standing and profound problem in astronomy is the difficulty in obtaining deep near-infrared observations due to the extreme brightness and variability of the night sky at these wavelengths. A solution to this problem is crucial if we are to obtain the deepest possible observations of the early Universe, as redshifted starlight from distant galaxies appears at these wavelengths. The atmospheric emission between 1,000 and 1,800 nm arises almost entirely from a forest of extremely bright, very narrow hydroxyl emission lines that varies on timescales of minutes. The astronomical community has long envisaged the prospect of selectively removing these lines, while retaining high throughput between them. Here we demonstrate such a filter for the first time, presenting results from the first on-sky tests. Its use on current 8 m telescopes and future 30 m telescopes will open up many new research avenues in the years to come.
Aims. We demonstrate the high multiplex advantage of crowded field 3D spectroscopy with the new integral field spectrograph MUSE by means of a spectroscopic analysis of more than 12 000 individual stars in the globular cluster NGC 6397. Methods. The stars are deblended with a point spread function fitting technique, using a photometric reference catalogue from HST as prior, including relative positions and brightnesses. This catalogue is also used for a first analysis of the extracted spectra, followed by an automatic in-depth analysis via a full-spectrum fitting method based on a large grid of PHOENIX spectra. Results. We analysed the largest sample so far available for a single globular cluster of 18 932 spectra from 12 307 stars in NGC 6397. We derived a mean radial velocity of v(rad) = 17.84 +/- 0.07 km s(-1) and a mean metallicity of [Fe/H] = -2.120 +/- 0.002, with the latter seemingly varying with temperature for stars on the red giant branch (RGB). We determine Teff and [Fe/H] from the spectra, and log g from HST photometry. This is the first very comprehensive Hertzsprung-Russell diagram (HRD) for a globular cluster based on the analysis of several thousands of stellar spectra, ranging from the main sequence to the tip of the RGB. Furthermore, two interesting objects were identified; one is a post-AGB star and the other is a possible millisecond-pulsar companion.
The effect of chain architecture on the swelling and thermal response of thin films obtained from an amphiphilic three-arm star-shaped thermo-responsive block copolymer poly(methoxy diethylene glycol acrylate)-block-polystyrene ((PMDEGA-b-PS)(3)) is investigated by in situ neutron reflectivity (NR) measurements. The PMDEGA and PS blocks are micro-phase separated with randomly distributed PS nanodomains. The (PMDEGA-b-PS)(3) films show a transition temperature (TT) at 33 degrees C in white light interferometry. The swelling capability of the (PMDEGA-b-PS)(3) films in a D2O vapor atmosphere is better than that of films from linear PS-b-PMDEGA-b-PS triblock copolymers, which can be attributed to the hydrophilic end groups and limited size of the PS blocks in (PMDEGA-b-PS)(3). However, the swelling kinetics of the as-prepared (PMDEGA-b-PS)(3) films and the response of the swollen film to a temperature change above the TT are significantly slower than that in the PS-b-PMDEGA-b-PS films, which may be related to the conformation restriction by the star-shape. Unlike in the PS-b-PMDEGA-b-PS films, the amount of residual D2O in the collapsed (PMDEGA-b-PS)(3) films depends on the final temperature. It decreases from (9.7 +/- 0.3)% to (7.0 +/- 0.3)% or (6.0 +/- 0.3)% when the final temperatures are set to 35 degrees C, 45 degrees C and 50 degrees C, respectively. This temperature-dependent reduction of embedded D2O originates from the hindrance of chain conformation from the star-shaped chain architecture.
Most image restoration methods in astronomy rely upon probabilistic tools that infer the best solution for a deconvolution problem. They achieve good performances when the point spread function (PSF) is spatially invariant in the image plane.
However, this condition is not always satisfied in real optical systems. We propose a new method for the restoration of images affected by static and anisotropic aberrations using Deep Neural Networks that can be directly applied to sky images.
The network is trained using simulated sky images corresponding to the T80-S Telescope optical model, a 80-cm survey imager at Cerro Tololo (Chile), which are synthesized using a Zernike polynomial representation of the optical system.
Once trained, the network can be used directly on sky images, outputting a corrected version of the image that has a constant and known PSF across its field of view. The method is to be tested on the T80-S Telescope.
We present the method and results on synthetic data.