Astronomical instrumentation

Abstract:

A search for neutral Higgs bosons decaying to pairs of τ leptons with the ATLAS detector at the LHC is presented. The analysis is based on proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV, recorded in 2010 and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 36 pb-1. After signal selection, 276 events are observed in this data sample. The observed number of events is consistent with the total expected background of 269±36 events. Exclusion limits at the 95% confidence level are derived for the production cross section of a generic Higgs boson φ as a function of the Higgs boson mass and for A/H/h production in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) as a function of the parameters mA and tanβ. © 2011 CERN.

Abstract:

A search for squarks and gluinos in final states containing jets, missing transverse momentum and no electrons or muons is presented. The data were recorded by the ATLAS experiment in √s=7 TeV proton-proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider. No excess above the Standard Model background expectation was observed in 35 pb-1 of analysed data. Gluino masses below 500 GeV are excluded at the 95% confidence level in simplified models containing only squarks of the first two generations, a gluino octet and a massless neutralino. The exclusion increases to 870 GeV for equal mass squarks and gluinos. In MSUGRA/CMSSM models with tanβ=3, A0=0 and μ>0, squarks and gluinos of equal mass are excluded below 775 GeV. These are the most stringent limits to date. © 2011 CERN.

Abstract:

Results are presented of a search for supersymmetric particles in events with large missing transverse momentum and at least one heavy flavour jet candidate in √s=7 TeV proton-proton collisions. In a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 35 pb-1 recorded by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, no significant excess is observed with respect to the prediction for Standard Model processes. For R-parity conserving models in which sbottoms (stops) are the only squarks to appear in the gluino decay cascade, gluino masses below 590 GeV (520 GeV) are excluded at the 95% C.L. The results are also interpreted in an MSUGRA/CMSSM supersymmetry breaking scenario with tanβ=40 and in an SO(10) model framework. © 2011 CERN.

Abstract:

Many of the proposed science cases for extremely large telescopes (ELT) are only possible because of the unprecedented sensitivity and spatial resolution due to advanced, e.g. tomographic and multi conjugate, adaptive optic (AO) systems. Current AO systems on 8-10 m telescopes work best at wavelengths longward of 1 μm with Strehl ratios ≥ 15%. At red-optical wavelengths, e.g. in the I band (0.8 μm), the Strehl ratio is at best a few percent. The AO point spread function (PSF) typically has a diffraction-limited core superimposed on the seeing halo, however, for a 5% Strehl ratio the core has a very low intensity above the seeing halo. At an ELT, due to a 3-4 times higher angular resolution, the diffraction limited PSF core of only 5% Strehl ratio stands more prominently atop the shallow seeing halo leading to almost diffraction limited image quality even at low Strehl ratios. Prominent ELT science cases that use the Calcium triplet can exploit this gain in spatial resolution in the red-optical: stellar populations in dense environments or crowded fields; and the case of intermediate mass black holes in nuclear and globular stellar clusters, as well as (super-) massive black holes in galaxies.

Abstract:

The ATLAS3D project is a multiwavelength survey combined with a theoretical modelling effort. The observations span from the radio to the millimetre and optical, and provide multicolour imaging, two-dimensional kinematics of the atomic (Hi), molecular (CO) and ionized gas (Hβ, [Oiii] and [Ni]), together with the kinematics and population of the stars (Hβ, Fe5015 and Mg b), for a carefully selected, volume-limited (1.16 × 105Mpc3) sample of 260 early-type (elliptical E and lenticular S0) galaxies (ETGs). The models include semi-analytic, N-body binary mergers and cosmological simulations of galaxy formation. Here we present the science goals for the project and introduce the galaxy sample and the selection criteria. The sample consists of nearby (D < 42Mpc, |δ- 29°| < 35°, |b| > 15°) morphologically selected ETGs extracted from a parent sample of 871 galaxies (8 per cent E, 22 per cent S0 and 70 per cent spirals) brighter than MK < -21.5mag (stellar mass M{black star}≳ 6 ×109M⊙). We analyse possible selection biases and we conclude that the parent sample is essentially complete and statistically representative of the nearby galaxy population. We present the size-luminosity relation for the spirals and ETGs and show that the ETGs in the ATLAS3D sample define a tight red sequence in a colour-magnitude diagram, with few objects in the transition from the blue cloud. We describe the strategy of the SAURON integral field observations and the extraction of the stellar kinematics with the ppxf method. We find typical 1σ errors of ΔV≈ 6kms-1, Δσ≈ 7kms-1, Δh3≈Δh4≈ 0.03 in the mean velocity, the velocity dispersion and Gauss-Hermite (GH) moments for galaxies with effective dispersion σe≳ 120kms-1. For galaxies with lower σe (≈40 per cent of the sample) the GH moments are gradually penalized by ppxf towards zero to suppress the noise produced by the spectral undersampling and only V and σ can be measured. We give an overview of the characteristics of the other main data sets already available for our sample and of the ongoing modelling projects. © 2011 The Authors Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society © 2011 RAS.