| 1. |
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| 2. |
- Prusti, T., et al.
(författare)
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The Gaia mission
- 2016
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Ingår i: Astronomy and Astrophysics. - : EDP Sciences. - 0004-6361 .- 1432-0746. ; 595
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Gaia is a cornerstone mission in the science programme of the European Space Agency (ESA). The spacecraft construction was approved in 2006, following a study in which the original interferometric concept was changed to a direct-imaging approach. Both the spacecraft and the payload were built by European industry. The involvement of the scientific community focusses on data processing for which the international Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium (DPAC) was selected in 2007. Gaia was launched on 19 December 2013 and arrived at its operating point, the second Lagrange point of the Sun-Earth-Moon system, a few weeks later. The commissioning of the spacecraft and payload was completed on 19 July 2014. The nominal five-year mission started with four weeks of special, ecliptic-pole scanning and subsequently transferred into full-sky scanning mode. We recall the scientific goals of Gaia and give a description of the as-built spacecraft that is currently (mid-2016) being operated to achieve these goals. We pay special attention to the payload module, the performance of which is closely related to the scientific performance of the mission. We provide a summary of the commissioning activities and findings, followed by a description of the routine operational mode. We summarise scientific performance estimates on the basis of in-orbit operations. Several intermediate Gaia data releases are planned and the data can be retrieved from the Gaia Archive, which is available through the Gaia home page.
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| 3. |
- Brown, A. G. A., et al.
(författare)
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Gaia Data Release 1 Summary of the astrometric, photometric, and survey properties
- 2016
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Ingår i: Astronomy and Astrophysics. - : EDP Sciences. - 0004-6361 .- 1432-0746. ; 595
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Context. At about 1000 days after the launch of Gaia we present the first Gaia data release, Gaia DR1, consisting of astrometry and photometry for over 1 billion sources brighter than magnitude 20.7. Aims. A summary of Gaia DR1 is presented along with illustrations of the scientific quality of the data, followed by a discussion of the limitations due to the preliminary nature of this release. Methods. The raw data collected by Gaia during the first 14 months of the mission have been processed by the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium (DPAC) and turned into an astrometric and photometric catalogue. Results. Gaia DR1 consists of three components: a primary astrometric data set which contains the positions, parallaxes, and mean proper motions for about 2 million of the brightest stars in common with the HIPPARCOS and Tycho-2 catalogues - a realisation of the Tycho-Gaia Astrometric Solution (TGAS) - and a secondary astrometric data set containing the positions for an additional 1.1 billion sources. The second component is the photometric data set, consisting of mean G-band magnitudes for all sources. The G-band light curves and the characteristics of similar to 3000 Cepheid and RR Lyrae stars, observed at high cadence around the south ecliptic pole, form the third component. For the primary astrometric data set the typical uncertainty is about 0.3 mas for the positions and parallaxes, and about 1 mas yr(-1) for the proper motions. A systematic component of similar to 0.3 mas should be added to the parallax uncertainties. For the subset of similar to 94 000 HIPPARCOS stars in the primary data set, the proper motions are much more precise at about 0.06 mas yr(-1). For the secondary astrometric data set, the typical uncertainty of the positions is similar to 10 mas. The median uncertainties on the mean G-band magnitudes range from the mmag level to similar to 0.03 mag over the magnitude range 5 to 20.7. Conclusions. Gaia DR1 is an important milestone ahead of the next Gaia data release, which will feature five-parameter astrometry for all sources. Extensive validation shows that Gaia DR1 represents a major advance in the mapping of the heavens and the availability of basic stellar data that underpin observational astrophysics. Nevertheless, the very preliminary nature of this first Gaia data release does lead to a number of important limitations to the data quality which should be carefully considered before drawing conclusions from the data.
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| 4. |
- Clementini, G., et al.
(författare)
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Testing parallaxes with local Cepheids and RR Lyrae stars
- 2017
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Ingår i: Astronomy and Astrophysics. - : EDP Sciences. - 0004-6361 .- 1432-0746. ; 605
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Context. Parallaxes for 331 classical Cepheids, 31 Type II Cepheids, and 364 RR Lyrae stars in common between Gaia and the HIPPARCOS and Tycho-2 catalogues are published in Gaia Data Release 1 (DR1) as part of the Tycho-Gaia Astrometric Solution (TGAS). Aims. In order to test these first parallax measurements of the primary standard candles of the cosmological distance ladder, which involve astrometry collected by Gaia during the initial 14 months of science operation, we compared them with literature estimates and derived new period-luminosity (PL), period-Wesenheit (PW) relations for classical and Type II Cepheids and infrared PL, PL-metallicity (PLZ), and optical luminosity-metallicity (MV-[Fe/H]) relations for the RR Lyrae stars, with zero points based on TGAS.Methods. Classical Cepheids were carefully selected in order to discard known or suspected binary systems. The final sample comprises 102 fundamental mode pulsators with periods ranging from 1.68 to 51.66 days (of which 33 with sigma(omega)/omega < 0 : 5). The Type II Cepheids include a total of 26 W Virginis and BL Herculis stars spanning the period range from 1.16 to 30.00 days (of which only 7 with sigma(omega)/omega 0 : 5). The RR Lyrae stars include 200 sources with pulsation period ranging from 0.27 to 0.80 days (of which 112 with sigma(omega)/omega < 0 : 5). The new relations were computed using multi- band (V; I; J; K-s) photometry and spectroscopic metal abundances available in the literature, and by applying three alternative approaches: (i) linear least-squares fitting of the absolute magnitudes inferred from direct transformation of the TGAS parallaxes; (ii) adopting astrometry-based luminosities; and (iii) using a Bayesian fitting approach. The last two methods work in parallax space where parallaxes are used directly, thus maintaining symmetrical errors and allowing negative parallaxes to be used. The TGAS-based PL; PW; PLZ, and MV [Fe/H] relations are discussed by comparing the distance to the Large Magellanic Cloud provided by different types of pulsating stars and alternative fitting methods.Results. Good agreement is found from direct comparison of the parallaxes of RR Lyrae stars for which both TGAS and HST measurements are available. Similarly, very good agreement is found between the TGAS values and the parallaxes inferred from the absolute magnitudes of Cepheids and RR Lyrae stars analysed with the Baade-Wesselink method. TGAS values also compare favourably with the parallaxes inferred by theoretical model fitting of the multi-band light curves for two of the three classical Cepheids and one RR Lyrae star, which were analysed with this technique in our samples. The K-band PL relations show the significant improvement of the TGAS parallaxes for Cepheids and RR Lyrae stars with respect to the HIPPARCOS measurements. This is particularly true for the RR Lyrae stars for which improvement in quality and statistics is impressive.Conclusions. TGAS parallaxes bring a significant added value to the previous HIPPARCOS estimates. The relations presented in this paper represent the first Gaia-calibrated relations and form a work-in-progress milestone report in the wait for Gaia-only parallaxes of which a first solution will become available with Gaia Data Release 2 (DR2) in 2018.
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| 5. |
- Ferrario, M., et al.
(författare)
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IRIDE : Interdisciplinary research infrastructure based on dual electron linacs and lasers
- 2014
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Ingår i: Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A. - : Elsevier BV. - 0168-9002 .- 1872-9576. ; 740, s. 138-146
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper describes the scientific aims and potentials as well as the preliminary technical design of RUDE, an innovative tool for multi-disciplinary investigations in a wide field of scientific, technological and industrial applications. IRIDE will be a high intensity "particles factory", based on a combination of high duty cycle radio-frequency superconducting electron linacs and of high energy lasers. Conceived to provide unique research possibilities for particle physics, for condensed matter physics, chemistry and material science, for structural biology and industrial applications, IRIDE will open completely new research possibilities and advance our knowledge in many branches of science and technology. [RIDE is also supposed to be realized in subsequent stages of development depending on the assigned priorities.
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| 6. |
- Usoskin, I. G., et al.
(författare)
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Force-field parameterization of the galactic cosmic ray spectrum : Validation for Forbush decreases
- 2015
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Ingår i: Advances in Space Research. - : Elsevier BV. - 0273-1177 .- 1879-1948. ; 55:12, s. 2940-2945
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A useful parametrization of the energy spectrum of galactic cosmic rays (GCR) near Earth is offered by the so-called force-field model which describes the shape of the entire spectrum with a single parameter, the modulation potential. While the usefulness of the force-field approximation has been confirmed for regular periods of solar modulation, it was not tested explicitly for disturbed periods, when GCR are locally modulated by strong interplanetary transients. Here we use direct measurements of protons and alpha-particles performed by the PAMELA space-borne instrument during December 2006, including a major Forbush decrease, in order to directly test the validity of the force-field parameterization. We conclude that (1) The force-field parametrization works very well in describing the energy spectra of protons and alpha-particles directly measured by PAMELA outside the Earths atmosphere; (2) The energy spectrum of GCR can be well parameterized by the force-field model also during a strong Forbush decrease; (3) The estimate of the GCR modulation parameter, obtained using data from the world-wide neutron monitor network, is in good agreement with the spectra directly measured by PAMELA during the studied interval. This result is obtained on the basis of a single event analysis, more events need to be analyzed.
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| 7. |
- Adriani, O., et al.
(författare)
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Cosmic-Ray Electron Flux Measured by the PAMELA Experiment between 1 and 625 GeV
- 2011
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Ingår i: Physical Review Letters. - 0031-9007 .- 1079-7114. ; 106:20, s. 201101-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Precision measurements of the electron component in the cosmic radiation provide important information about the origin and propagation of cosmic rays in the Galaxy. Here we present new results regarding negatively charged electrons between 1 and 625 GeV performed by the satellite-borne experiment PAMELA. This is the first time that cosmic-ray e(-) have been identified above 50 GeV. The electron spectrum can be described with a single power-law energy dependence with spectral index -3.18 +/- 0.05 above the energy region influenced by the solar wind (> 30 GeV). No significant spectral features are observed and the data can be interpreted in terms of conventional diffusive propagation models. However, the data are also consistent with models including new cosmic-ray sources that could explain the rise in the positron fraction.
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| 8. |
- Adriani, O., et al.
(författare)
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Measurement of the flux of primary cosmic ray antiprotons with energies of 60 MeV to 350 GeV in the PAMELA experiment
- 2013
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Ingår i: JETP Letters. - 0021-3640 .- 1090-6487. ; 96:10, s. 621-627
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- It is interesting to measure the antiproton galactic component in cosmic rays in order to study the mechanisms by which particles and antiparticles are generated and propagate in the Galaxy and to search for new sources of, e.g., annihilation or decay of dark matter hypothetical particles. The antiproton spectrum and the ratio of the fluxes of primary cosmic ray antiprotons to protons with energies of 60 MeV to 350 GeV found from the data obtained from June 2006 to January 2010 in the PAMELA experiment are presented. The usage of the advanced data processing method based on the data classification mathematical model made it possible to increase statistics and analyze the region of higher energies than in the earlier works.
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| 9. |
- Adriani, O., et al.
(författare)
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Measurements of cosmic-ray proton and helium spectra with the PAMELA calorimeter
- 2013
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Ingår i: Advances in Space Research. - : Elsevier BV. - 0273-1177 .- 1879-1948. ; 51:2, s. 219-226
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We present a new measurement of the cosmic ray proton and helium spectra by the PAMELA experiment performed using the "thin" (in terms of nuclei interactions) sampling electromagnetic calorimeter. The described method, optimized by using Monte Carlo simulation, beam test and experimental data, allows the spectra to be measured up to 10 TeV, thus extending the PAMELA observational range based on the magnetic spectrometer measurement.
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| 10. |
- Adriani, O., et al.
(författare)
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Measurements of quasi-trapped electron and positron fluxes with PAMELA
- 2009
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Ingår i: Journal of Geophysical Research. - 0148-0227 .- 2156-2202. ; 114, s. A12218-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper presents precise measurements of the differential energy spectra of quasi-trapped secondary electrons and positrons and their ratio between 80 MeV and 10 GeV in the near-equatorial region (altitudes between 350 km and 600 km). Latitudinal dependences of the spectra are analyzed in detail. The results were obtained from July until November 2006 onboard the Resurs-DK satellite by the PAMELA spectrometer, a general purpose cosmic ray detector system built around a permanent magnet spectrometer and a silicon-tungsten calorimeter.
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