| 1. |
- Abdo, A. A., et al.
(författare)
-
FERMI LARGE AREA TELESCOPE OBSERVATIONS OF THE VELA PULSAR
- 2009
-
Ingår i: Astrophysical Journal. - 0004-637X .- 1538-4357. ; 696:2, s. 1084-1093
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The Vela pulsar is the brightest persistent source in the GeV sky and thus is the traditional first target for new gamma-ray observatories. We report here on initial Fermi Large Area Telescope observations during verification phase pointed exposure and early sky survey scanning. We have used the Vela signal to verify Fermi timing and angular resolution. The high-quality pulse profile, with some 32,400 pulsed photons at E >= 0.03 GeV, shows new features, including pulse structure as fine as 0.3 ms and a distinct third peak, which shifts in phase with energy. We examine the high-energy behavior of the pulsed emission; initial spectra suggest a phase-averaged power-law index of Gamma = 1.51(-0.04)(+0.05) with an exponential cutoff at E-c = 2.9 +/- 0.1 GeV. Spectral fits with generalized cutoffs of the form e(-(E/Ec)b) require b <= 1, which is inconsistent with magnetic pair attenuation, and thus favor outer-magnetosphere emission models. Finally, we report on upper limits to any unpulsed component, as might be associated with a surrounding pulsar wind nebula.
|
|
| 2. |
- Atwood, W. B., et al.
(författare)
-
THE LARGE AREA TELESCOPE ON THE FERMI GAMMA-RAY SPACE TELESCOPE MISSION
- 2009
-
Ingår i: Astrophysical Journal. - 0004-637X .- 1538-4357. ; 697:2, s. 1071-1102
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The Large Area Telescope (Fermi/LAT, hereafter LAT), the primary instrument on the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope (Fermi) mission, is an imaging, wide field-of-view (FoV), high-energy gamma-ray telescope, covering the energy range from below 20 MeV to more than 300 GeV. The LAT was built by an international collaboration with contributions from space agencies, high-energy particle physics institutes, and universities in France, Italy, Japan, Sweden, and the United States. This paper describes the LAT, its preflight expected performance, and summarizes the key science objectives that will be addressed. On-orbit performance will be presented in detail in a subsequent paper. The LAT is a pair-conversion telescope with a precision tracker and calorimeter, each consisting of a 4 x 4 array of 16 modules, a segmented anticoincidence detector that covers the tracker array, and a programmable trigger and data acquisition system. Each tracker module has a vertical stack of 18 (x, y) tracking planes, including two layers (x and y) of single-sided silicon strip detectors and high-Z converter material (tungsten) per tray. Every calorimeter module has 96 CsI(Tl) crystals, arranged in an eight-layer hodoscopic configuration with a total depth of 8.6 radiation lengths, giving both longitudinal and transverse information about the energy deposition pattern. The calorimeter's depth and segmentation enable the high-energy reach of the LAT and contribute significantly to background rejection. The aspect ratio of the tracker (height/width) is 0.4, allowing a large FoV (2.4 sr) and ensuring that most pair-conversion showers initiated in the tracker will pass into the calorimeter for energy measurement. Data obtained with the LAT are intended to (1) permit rapid notification of high-energy gamma-ray bursts and transients and facilitate monitoring of variable sources, (2) yield an extensive catalog of several thousand high-energy sources obtained from an all-sky survey, (3) measure spectra from 20 MeV to more than 50 GeV for several hundred sources, (4) localize point sources to 0.3-2 arcmin, (5) map and obtain spectra of extended sources such as SNRs, molecular clouds, and nearby galaxies, (6) measure the diffuse isotropic gamma-ray background up to TeV energies, and (7) explore the discovery space for dark matter.
|
|
| 3. |
- Abdo, A. A., et al.
(författare)
-
The on-orbit calibration of the Fermi Large Area Telescope
- 2009
-
Ingår i: Astroparticle physics. - : Elsevier BV. - 0927-6505 .- 1873-2852. ; 32:3-4, s. 193-219
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The Large Area Telescope (LAT) on-board the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope began its on-orbit operations on June 23, 2008. Calibrations, defined in a generic sense, correspond to synchronization of trigger signals, optimization of delays for latching data, determination of detector thresholds, gains and responses, evaluation of the perimeter of the South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA), measurements of live time, of absolute time, and internal and spacecraft boresight alignments. Here we describe on-orbit calibration results obtained using known astrophysical sources, galactic cosmic rays, and charge injection into the front-end electronics of each detector. Instrument response functions will be described in a separate publication. This paper demonstrates the stability of calibrations and describes minor changes observed since launch. These results have been used to calibrate the LAT datasets to be publicly released in August 2009.
|
|
| 4. |
- Lorenzini, R., et al.
(författare)
-
Self-organized helical equilibria as a new paradigm for ohmically heated fusion plasmas
- 2009
-
Ingår i: Nature Physics. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1745-2473 .- 1745-2481. ; 5:8, s. 570-574
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In the quest for new energy sources, the research on controlled thermonuclear fusion has been boosted by the start of the construction phase of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER). ITER is based on the tokamak magnetic configuration, which is the best performing one in terms of energy confinement. Alternative concepts are however actively researched, which in the long term could be considered for a second generation of reactors. Here, we show results concerning one of these configurations, the reversed-field pinch (RFP). By increasing the plasma current, a spontaneous transition to a helical equilibrium occurs, with a change of magnetic topology. Partially conserved magnetic flux surfaces emerge within residual magnetic chaos, resulting in the onset of a transport barrier. This is a structural change and sheds new light on the potential of the RFP as the basis for a low-magnetic-field ohmic fusion reactor.
|
|
| 5. |
- Martin, P., et al.
(författare)
-
Overview of RFX-mod results
- 2009
-
Ingår i: Nuclear Fusion. - : IOP Publishing. - 0029-5515 .- 1741-4326. ; 49:10, s. 104019-
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- With the exploration of the MA plasma current regime in up to 0.5 s long discharges, RFX-mod has opened new and very promising perspectives for the reversed field pinch (RFP) magnetic configuration, and has made significant progress in understanding and improving confinement and in controlling plasma stability. A big leap with respect to previous knowledge and expectations on RFP physics and performance has been made by RFX-mod since the last 2006 IAEA Fusion Energy Conference. A new self-organized helical equilibrium has been experimentally achieved ( the Single Helical Axis-SHAx-state), which is the preferred state at high current. Strong core electron transport barriers characterize this regime, with electron temperature gradients comparable to those achieved in tokamaks, and by a factor of 4 improvement in confinement time with respect to the standard RFP. RFX-mod is also providing leading edge results on real-time feedback control of MHD instabilities, of general interest for the fusion community.
|
|
| 6. |
- Puiatti, M. E., et al.
(författare)
-
Helical equilibria and magnetic structures in the reversed field pinch and analogies to the tokamak and stellarator
- 2009
-
Ingår i: Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion. - : IOP Publishing. - 0741-3335 .- 1361-6587. ; 51:12, s. 124031-
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The reversed field pinch configuration is characterized by the presence of magnetic structures both in the core and at the edge: in the core, at high plasma current the spontaneous development of a helical structure is accompanied by the appearance of internal electron transport barriers; at the edge strong pressure gradients, identifying an edge transport barrier, are observed too, related to the position of the field reversal surface. The aim of this paper is the experimental characterization of both the internal and edge transport barriers in relation to the magnetic topology, discussing possible analogies and differences with other confinement schemes.
|
|
| 7. |
|
|
| 8. |
- Cavinato, M., et al.
(författare)
-
Comparison of strategies and regulator design for active control of MHD modes
- 2005
-
Ingår i: Fusion engineering and design. - : Elsevier BV. - 0920-3796 .- 1873-7196. ; 74:1-4, s. 549-553
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A system of evenly spaced poloidal arrays of saddle coils was recently installed on the reversed field pinch device EXTRAP T2R to perform experiments on the active control of MHD modes. The implementation of different control strategies, such as "intelligent shell" and "mode control", was made possible by a flexible digital control system. After giving some results on the performances of the innermost coil current control loop, two versions of "mode control" recently tested on the machine are presented. In the "wise shell" approach, equilibrium related modes are ruled out and a systematic increase of the pulse length is obtained. In a second, more model based, approach, a mode estimator/controller is designed aiming at a full state feedback by including modes, which are not directly measurable due to the limited number of available real-time signals.
|
|
| 9. |
- Drake, James Robert, et al.
(författare)
-
Reversed-Field Pinch Contributions to Resistive Wall Mode Physics and Control
- 2008
-
Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Optimal feedback control of resistive-wall modes (RWM) is of common interest for toroidal fusionconcepts that use conducting walls for stabilization of ideal MHD modes. From the RWM control point of view,the RFP situation is in many respects similar to the advanced tokamak situation in the presence of very lowplasma rotation, where the most effective stabilizing mechanism is the feedback action of a set of active coils.Results from EXTRAP T2R (Sweden) and RFX-mod (Italy) RFP experiments have shown that full feedbackcontrol of multiple RWMs is possible and their deleterious effects can be completely suppressed. However it isnow important to optimize the RWM control systems both for the RFP and tokamak configuration for futureimplementation. Important aspects of optimization are effective mode identification and tracking capability,avoidance of the harmful effects of sideband modes (aliasing) in the control spectrum, minimized powerrequirements and robust controller stability. The paper describes collaborative work carried out on the two RFPexperiments. Controller models based on the mode harmonic control concept and on a state-space multipleinputmultiple-output intelligent shell concept are studied. Progress in development of optimal control schemesare presented both through experimental studies and simulations.
|
|
| 10. |
- Hirano, Yoichi, et al.
(författare)
-
Quasi-single helicity state at shallow reversal in TPE-RX reversed-field pinch experiment
- 2005
-
Ingår i: Physics of Plasmas. - : AIP Publishing. - 1070-664X .- 1089-7674. ; 12, s. 112501-
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The operating conditions for obtaining a quasi-single helicity (QSH) state with a good reproducibility are found in a reversed-field pinch (RFP) experiment on the large RFP machine, TPE-RX [ Y. Yagi et al., Fusion Eng. Des. 45, 421 (1999) ]. In these conditions, the reversal of toroidal magnetic field (Bta) is maintained at a very shallow value ( ∼ −0.2 mT) after the setting up phase and the following fast current rising phase. After a certain period at this shallow reversal ( ∼ 15–25 ms), the m/n = 1/6 mode (m and n being the poloidal and toroidal Fourier mode numbers, respectively) rapidly grows and saturates before the termination of discharge. The growth of this mode dominates the other modes and the QSH state with m/n = 1/6 is finally achieved. This QSH state can be sustained for a long period (up to ∼ 45 ms) almost until the end of discharge by applying a delayed reversal of Bta with appropriate trigger timing and magnitude. The initial setup of the QSH states shows a reproducibility of almost 100%, but its sustainment for a long period shows a slightly reduced reproducibility ( ∼ 85%). The initial rapid growth of the single dominant mode is compared with the numerical results of linear stability and nonlinear three-dimensional (3D) calculations by assuming the experimental magnetic field profile estimated with a standard model. Linear calculations show that the m/n = 1/6 mode has the maximum growth rate to the ideal magnetohydrodynamic instability and can explain the dominant growth of this mode. The 3D calculations also show a qualitative agreement with the experiment, where under some conditions the m/n = 1/6 mode becomes dominant after an initial relaxation and continues to the end of the simulation. These results indicate that the present QSH state is the combined result of the linear growth and nonlinear saturation of a particular mode.
|
|
