| 1. |
- Datta, Kanan K., et al.
(författare)
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Light cone effect on the reionization 21-cm signal - II. Evolution, anisotropies and observational implications
- 2014
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Ingår i: Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 0035-8711 .- 1365-2966. ; 442:2, s. 1491-1506
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Measurements of the H i 21-cm power spectra from the reionization epoch will be influenced by the evolution of the signal along the line-of-sight direction of any observed volume. We use numerical as well as seminumerical simulations of reionization in a cubic volume of 607 Mpc across to study this so-called light-cone effect on the H i 21-cm power spectrum. We find that the light-cone effect has the largest impact at two different stages of reionization: one when reionization is similar to 20 per cent and other when it is similar to 80 per cent completed. We find a factor of similar to 4 amplification of the power spectrum at the largest scale available in our simulations. We do not find any significant anisotropy in the 21-cm power spectrum due to the light-cone effect. We argue that for the power spectrum to become anisotropic, the light-cone effect would have to make the ionized bubbles significantly elongated or compressed along the line of sight, which would require extreme reionization scenarios. We also calculate the two-point correlation functions parallel and perpendicular to the line of sight and find them to differ. Finally, we calculate an optimum frequency bandwidth below which the light-cone effect can be neglected when extracting power spectra from observations. We find that if one is willing to accept a 10 per cent error due to the light-cone effect, the optimum frequency bandwidth for k = 0.056 Mpc(-1) is similar to 7.5 MHz. For k = 0.15 and 0.41 Mpc(-1), the optimum bandwidth is similar to 11 and similar to 16 MHz, respectively.
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| 2. |
- Dravins, Dainis, et al.
(författare)
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Optical intensity interferometry with the Cherenkov Telescope Array
- 2013
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Ingår i: Astroparticle physics. - : Elsevier BV. - 0927-6505 .- 1873-2852. ; 43, s. 331-347
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- With its unprecedented light-collecting area for night-sky observations, the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) holds great potential for also optical stellar astronomy, in particular as a multi-element intensity interferometer for realizing imaging with sub-milliarcsecond angular resolution. Such an order-of-magnitude increase of the spatial resolution achieved in optical astronomy will reveal the surfaces of rotationally flattened stars with structures in their circumstellar disks and winds, or the gas flows between close binaries. Image reconstruction is feasible from the second-order coherence of light, measured as the temporal correlations of arrival times between photons recorded in different telescopes. This technique (once pioneered by Hanbury Brown and Twiss) connects telescopes only with electronic signals and is practically insensitive to atmospheric turbulence and to imperfections in telescope optics. Detector and telescope requirements are very similar to those for imaging air Cherenkov observatories, the main difference being the signal processing (calculating cross correlations between single camera pixels in pairs of telescopes). Observations of brighter stars are not limited by sky brightness, permitting efficient CTA use during also bright-Moon periods. While other concepts have been proposed to realize kilometer-scale optical interferometers of conventional amplitude (phase-) type, both in space and on the ground, their complexity places them much further into the future than CTA, which thus could become the first kilometer-scale optical imager in astronomy.
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| 3. |
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| 4. |
- Dravins, Dainis, et al.
(författare)
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Stellar intensity interferometry: Prospects for sub-milliarcsecond optical imaging
- 2012
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Ingår i: New Astronomy Reviews. - : Elsevier BV. - 1872-9630 .- 1387-6473. ; 56:5, s. 143-167
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Using kilometric arrays of air Cherenkov telescopes at short wavelengths, intensity interferometry may increase the spatial resolution achieved in optical astronomy by an order of magnitude, enabling images of rapidly rotating hot stars with structures in their circumstellar disks and winds, or mapping out patterns of nonradial pulsations across stellar surfaces. Intensity interferometry (once pioneered by Hanbury Brown and Twiss) connects telescopes only electronically, and is practically insensitive to atmospheric turbulence and optical imperfections, permitting observations over long baselines and through large air-masses, also at short optical wavelengths. The required large telescopes (similar to 10 m) with very fast detectors (similar to ns) are becoming available as the arrays primarily erected to measure Cherenkov light emitted in air by particle cascades initiated by energetic gamma rays. Planned facilities (e.g., CTA, Cherenkov Telescope Array) envision many tens of telescopes distributed over a few square km. Digital signal handling enables very many baselines (from tens of meters to over a kilometer) to be simultaneously synthesized between many pairs of telescopes, while stars may be tracked across the sky with electronic time delays, in effect synthesizing an optical interferometer in software. Simulated observations indicate limiting magnitudes around m(v) = 8, reaching angular resolutions similar to 30 mu arcsec in the violet. The signal-to-noise ratio favors high-temperature sources and emission-line structures, and is independent of the optical passband, be it a single spectral line or the broad spectral continuum. Intensity interferometry directly provides the modulus (but not phase) of any spatial frequency component of the source image; for this reason a full image reconstruction requires phase retrieval techniques. This is feasible if sufficient coverage of the interferometric (u, v)-plane is available, as was verified through numerical simulations. Laboratory and field experiments are in progress; test telescopes have been erected, intensity interferometry has been achieved in the laboratory, and first full-scale tests of connecting large Cherenkov telescopes have been carried out. This paper reviews this interferometric method in view of the new possibilities offered by arrays of air Cherenkov telescopes, and outlines observational programs that should become realistic already in the rather near future. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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| 5. |
- Jelic, V., et al.
(författare)
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Initial LOFAR observations of epoch of reionization windows II. Diffuse polarized emission in the ELAIS-N1 field
- 2014
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Ingår i: Astronomy and Astrophysics. - : EDP Sciences. - 0004-6361 .- 1432-0746. ; 568, s. A101-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Aims. This study aims to characterise the polarized foreground emission in the ELAIS-N1 field and to address its possible implications or extracting of the cosmological 21 cm signal from the LOw-Frequency ARray - Epoch of Reionization (LOFAR-EoR) data Methods. We used the high band antennas of LOFAR to image this region and RM-synthesis to unravel structures of polarized emission at high Galactic latitudes. Results. The brightness temperature of the detected Galactic emission is on average similar to 4 K in polarized intensity and covers the range from -10 to +13 rad m(-2) in Faraday depth, The total polarized intensity and polarization angle show a wide range of morphological features. We have also used the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope (WSRT) at 350 MHz to image the same region. The LOFAR and WSRT images show a similar complex morphology at comparable brightness levels, but their spatial correlation is very low. The fractional polarization at 150 MHz, expressed as a percentage of the total intensity, amounts to approximate to 1.5%. There is no indication of diffuse emission in total intensity in the interferometric data. in line with results at higher frequencies Conclusions. The wide frequency range. high angular resolution, and high sensitivity make LOFAR an exquisite instrument for studying Galactic polarized emission at a resolution of similar to 1-2 rad m(-2) in Faraday depth. The different polarized patterns observed at 150 MHz and 350 MHz are consistent with different source distributions along the line of sight wring in a variety of Faraday thin regions of emission. The presence of polarized foregrounds is a serious complication for epoch of reionization experiments. To avoid the leakage of polarized emission into total intensity, which can depend on frequency, we need to calibrate the instrumental polarization across the field of view to a small fraction of 1%.
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| 6. |
- Jensen, Hannes, et al.
(författare)
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On the use of Ly alpha emitters as probes of reionization
- 2013
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Ingår i: Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 0035-8711 .- 1365-2966. ; 428:2, s. 1366-1381
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We use numerical simulations to study the effects of the patchiness of a partly reionized intergalactic medium (IGM) on the observability of Ly alpha emitters (LAEs) at high redshifts (z greater than or similar to 6). We present a new model that divides the Ly alpha radiative transfer into a (circum) galactic and an extragalactic (IGM) part, and investigate how the choice of intrinsic line model affects the IGM transmission results. We use our model to study the impact of neutral hydrogen on statistical observables such as the Ly alpha rest-frame equivalent width (REW) distribution, the LAE luminosity function and the two-point correlation function. We find that if the observed changes in LAE luminosity functions and equivalent width distributions between z similar to 6 and 7 are to be explained by an increased IGM neutral fraction alone, we require an extremely late and rapid reionization scenario, where the Universe was similar to 40 per cent ionized at z = 7, similar to 50 per cent ionized at z = 6.5 and similar to 100 per cent ionized at z = 6. This is in conflict with other observations, suggesting that intrinsic LAE evolution at z greater than or similar to 6 cannot be completely neglected. We show how the two-point correlation function can provide more robust constraints once future observations obtain larger LAE samples, and provide predictions for the sample sizes needed to tell different reionization scenarios apart.
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| 7. |
- Jensen, Hannes, et al.
(författare)
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Probing reionization with LOFAR using 21-cm redshift space distortions
- 2013
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Ingår i: Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 0035-8711 .- 1365-2966. ; 435:1, s. 460-474
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- One of the most promising ways to study the epoch of reionization (EoR) is through radio observations of the redshifted 21-cm line emission from neutral hydrogen. These observations are complicated by the fact that the mapping of redshifts to line-of-sight positions is distorted by the peculiar velocities of the gas. Such distortions can be a source of error if they are not properly understood, but they also encode information about cosmology and astrophysics. We study the effects of redshift space distortions on the power spectrum of 21-cm radiation from the EoR using large-scale N-body and radiative transfer simulations. We quantify the anisotropy introduced in the 21-cm power spectrum by redshift space distortions and show how it evolves as reionization progresses and how it relates to the underlying physics. We go on to study the effects of redshift space distortions on LOFAR observations, taking instrument noise and foreground subtraction into account. We find that LOFAR should be able to directly observe the power spectrum anisotropy due to redshift space distortions at spatial scales around k similar to 0.1 Mpc(-1) after greater than or similar to 1000 h of integration time. At larger scales, sample errors become a limiting factor, while at smaller scales detector noise and foregrounds make the extraction of the signal problematic. Finally, we show how the astrophysical information contained in the evolution of the anisotropy of the 21-cm power spectrum can be extracted from LOFAR observations, and how it can be used to distinguish between different reionization scenarios.
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| 8. |
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| 9. |
- Jensen, Hannes, et al.
(författare)
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Studying reionization with the next generation of Ly alpha emitter surveys
- 2014
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Ingår i: Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 0035-8711 .- 1365-2966. ; 444:3, s. 2114-2127
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We study the prospects for constraining the ionized fraction of the intergalactic medium (IGM) at z > 6 with the next generation of large Ly alpha emitter surveys. We make predictions for the upcoming Subaru Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) Ly alpha survey and a hypothetical spectroscopic survey performed with the JamesWebb Space Telescope (JWST). Considering various scenarios where the observed evolution of the Ly alpha luminosity function of Ly alpha emitters at z > 6 is explained partly by an increasingly neutral IGM and partly by intrinsic galaxy evolution, we show how clustering measurements will be able to distinguish between these scenarios. We find that the HSC survey should be able to detect the additional clustering induced by a neutral IGM if the global IGM neutral fraction is greater than similar to 20 per cent at z = 6.5. If measurements of the Ly alpha equivalent widths (EWs) are also available, neutral fractions as small as 10 per cent may be detectable by looking for correlation between the EW and the local number density of objects. In this case, if it should turn out that the IGM is significantly neutral at z = 6.5 and the intrinsic EW distribution is relatively narrow, the observed EWs can also be used to construct a map of the locations and approximate sizes of the largest ionized regions. For the JWST survey, the results appear a bit less optimistic. Since such surveys probe a large range of redshifts, the effects of the IGM will be mixed up with any intrinsic galaxy evolution that is present, making it difficult to disentangle the effects. However, we show that a survey with the JWST will have a possibility of observing a large group of galaxies at z similar to 7, which would be a strong indication of a partially neutral IGM.
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| 10. |
- Jensen, Martin, et al.
(författare)
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Availability of a SCADA/OMS/DMS system - A case study
- 2010
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Ingår i: IEEE PES Innovative Smart Grid Technologies Conference Europe, ISGT Europe. - Gothenburg. - 9781424485109
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- With the advent of the smart grid, new challenges arise for electricity distribution. In particular, reliable power distribution will become evermore dependent upon information and communication technology (ICT). With this increasing dependency comes a need for a deeper understanding of the availability of those ICT components that maintain the power grid. This paper presents a study in which all components of a supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA), Outage Management (OMS) and Distribution Management (DMS) system at a power utility are analyzed from an availability perspective, identifying the parts of the system that contribute the most to overall system downtime. Furthermore, the case study involves a downsizing regarding the IT system architecture redundancy. This downsizing makes it very interesting to investigate how hardware redundancy relates to the overall SCADA/OMS/DMS system availability. Such knowledge is required to assess the rationality of the architectural restructuring decision, as well as for more general rational decision making when it comes to the ICT components of the power distribution grid. It is concluded that even in the new architecture, the remaining hardware redundancy level is enough. Instead, it is found that most of the downtime of the SCADA/OMS/DMS system is caused by failing software, causing all the redundant hardware to become unavailable at the same time. Since the software is a third party piece from the supplier of the system, one important source of downtime can be seen as emanating from the requirements and procurement process of the company.
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