Surface Albedo and Spectral Variability of Ceres

Kavli Affiliate: Maria T. Zuber | Summary:Previous observations suggested that Ceres has active but possibly sporadic water outgassing, and possibly varying spectral characteristics in a time scale of months. We used all available data of Ceres collected in the past three decades from the ground and the Hubble Space Telescope, and the newly acquired images […]


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Dispersion Distance and the Matter Distribution of the Universe in Dispersion Space

Kavli Affiliate: Kiyoshi Wesley Masui | Summary:We propose that "standard pings", brief broadband radio impulses, can be used to study the three-dimensional clustering of matter in the Universe even in the absence of redshift information. The dispersion of radio waves as they travel through the intervening plasma can, like redshift, be used as a cosmological […]


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X-ray Properties of Low-Mass Pre-Main Sequence Stars in the Orion Trapezium Cluster

Kavli Affiliate: Claude Canizares | Summary:The Chandra High Energy Transmission Gratings (HETG) Orion Legacy Project (HOLP) is the first comprehensive set of observations of a very young massive stellar cluster which provides high resolution X-ray spectra of very young stars over a wide mass range (0.7 – 2.3 Msun). In this paper, we focus on […]


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Are the Effects of Structure Formation Seen in the Central Metallicity of Galaxy Clusters?

Kavli Affiliate: Claude Canizares | Summary:A sample of 46 nearby clusters observed with Chandra is analyzed to produce radial density, temperature, entropy and metallicity profiles, as well as other morphological measurements. The entropy profiles are computed to larger radial extents than in previous Chandra cluster sample analyses. We find that the iron mass fraction measured […]


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Symplectic integration for the collisional gravitational $N$-body problem

Kavli Affiliate: Edmund Bertschinger | Summary:We present a new symplectic integrator designed for collisional gravitational $N$-body problems which makes use of Kepler solvers. The integrator is also reversible and conserves 9 integrals of motion of the $N$-body problem to machine precision. The integrator is second order, but the order can easily be increased by the […]


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Modeling the Expected Performance of the REgolith X-ray Imaging Spectrometer (REXIS)

Kavli Affiliate: Rebecca Masterson | Summary:OSIRIS-REx is the third spacecraft in the NASA New Frontiers Program and is planned for launch in 2016. OSIRIS-REx will orbit the near-Earth asteroid (101955) Bennu, characterize it, and return a sample of the asteroid’s regolith back to Earth. The Regolith X-ray Imaging Spectrometer (REXIS) is an instrument on OSIRIS-REx […]


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An HST/COS Observation of Broad Ly$α$ Emission and Associated Absorption Lines of the BL Lacertae Object H 2356-309

Kavli Affiliate: Claude Canizares | Summary:Weak spectral features in BL Lacertae objects (BL Lac) often provide a unique opportunity to probe the inner region of this rare type of active galactic nucleus. We present a Hubble Space Telescope/Cosmic Origins Spectrograph observation of the BL Lac H 2356-309. A weak Ly$α$ emission line was detected. This […]


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Fifteen years of the Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer

Kavli Affiliate: Peter Ford | Summary:As the Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer (ACIS) on the Chandra X-ray Observatory enters its fifteenth year of operation on orbit, it continues to perform well and produce spectacular scientific results. The response of ACIS has evolved over the lifetime of the observatory due to radiation damage, molecular contamination and aging […]


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Advanced LIGO Two-Stage Twelve-Axis Vibration Isolation and Positioning Platform. Part 1: Design and Production Overview

Kavli Affiliate: Richard Mittleman | Summary:New generations of gravity wave detectors require unprecedented levels of vibration isolation. This paper presents the final design of the vibration isolation and positioning platform used in Advanced LIGO to support the interferometers core optics. This five-ton two-and-half-meter wide system operates in ultra-high vacuum. It features two stages of isolation […]


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An Extension of the Faddeev-Jackiw Technique to Fields in Curved Spacetimes

Kavli Affiliate: Edmund Bertschinger | Summary:The Legendre transformation on singular Lagrangians, e.g. Lagrangians representing gauge theories, fails due to the presence of constraints. The Faddeev-Jackiw technique, which offers an alternative to that of Dirac, is a symplectic approach to calculating a Hamiltonian paired with a well-defined initial value problem when working with a singular Lagrangian. […]


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