Peranso – Light curve and period analysis software

A time series is a sample of observations of well‐defined data points obtained through repeated measurements over a certain time range. The analysis of such data samples has become increasingly important not only in natural science but also in many other fields of research. Peranso offers a complete set of powerful light curve and period analysis functions to work with large astronomical data sets. Substantial attention has been given to ease‐of‐use and data accuracy, making it one of the most productive time series analysis software available. In this paper, we give an introduction to Peranso and its functionality. (© 2016 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Fe emission and ionized excess absorption in the luminous quasar 3C 109 with XMM–Newton

The Parkes High-Latitude pulsar survey covers a region of the sky enclosed by Galactic longitudes 220° < l < 260° and Galactic latitudes | b | < 60°. The observations have been performed using the 20-cm multibeam receiver on the Parkes 64-m radio telescope. A total of 6456 pointings of 265 s each have been collected. The system adopted provided a sensitivity limit, for long-period pulsars with 5 per cent duty cycles, of ∼0.5 mJy. Data analysis resulted in the detection of 42 pulsars of which 18 were new discoveries. Four of these belong to the class of the millisecond – or recycled – pulsars; three of these four are in binary systems. The double pulsar system J0737−3039 is among those and has been presented elsewhere. Here, we discuss the other discoveries and provide timing parameters for the objects for which we have a phase-connected solution.     

On the periodicity hypothesis of the ages of large impact craters

An analysis is made of the periodicity hypothesis of the ages of large craters, based on the compilation by Grieve with the addition of recently identified craters. A method earlier proposed by Broadbent is used to derive a period, and the significance of the derived period is tested by a Monte Carlo experiment. In accordance with the result of Stothers, the ages of large craters  ( D >30 km)  are shown to exhibit a period close to 37.5 Myr. Monte Carlo experiments show, however, that the derived period is far from being statistically significant. A subset of crater data earlier adopted by Napier for the purpose of similar investigation is also tested, and it is shown that they also exhibit a similar period at an almost identical level of confidence. A brief discussion is made of the relation between the derived period and that associated with faunal mass extinctions.     

Exploration Opportunity Search of Near-earth Objects Based on Analytical Gradients

The problem of search of opportunity for the exploration of near-earth minor objects is investigated. For rendezvous missions, the analytical gradients of the performance index with respect to the free parameters are derived using the variational calculus and the theory of state-transition matrix. After generating randomly some initial guesses in the search space, the performance index is optimized, guided by the analytical gradients, leading to the local minimum points representing the potential launch opportunities. This method not only keeps the global-search property of the traditional method, but also avoids the blindness in the latter, thereby increasing greatly the computing speed. Furthermore, with this method, the searching precision could be controlled effectively.     

Consistency Analysis of the Data of GRBs Observed by Different Satellites

The BATSE (Compton Gamma-ray Observatory/Bursts and Transient Source Experiment), Swift (Swift Gamma-ray Burst Explorer) and Fermi (Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope) satellites have provided us with a large amount of GRB sample. After a systematical study and comparison of the properties of the GRBs detected by these 3 kinds of instruments, it is found that although significant differences exist in the number of red-shifted bursts, the proportion of long bursts in total bursts and the photon flux distribution (lgN − lg P), but no significant difference exists in the duration time, the total flux of Gamma-ray radiation and the spectral hardness ratio. Considering that the observational energy bands of the Swift- and Fermi-detected bursts are different, after making corrections the difference in the lgN − lg P distribution can be basically eliminated. The differences in the number of red-shifted bursts and the proportion of long bursts in total bursts are caused by the different sensitivities of instruments. Namely, various instruments give different observed characteristics of GRBs, but they are consistent in nature.     

Hypothesis testing for meagre data sets

Improved χ ² statistics are defined for both Poisson and multinomial data sets. Numerical experiments with the Nousek–Shue test problem from X-ray spectroscopy indicate that, in contrast to Pearson's statistic X ², these modified statistics remain approximately valid at the 2 σ level of significance even when the mean counts per bin is ≪1 provided that the total counts N ≳30. The simplest of the proposed statistics is formally equivalent to carrying out a goodness-of-fit test with Pearson's statistic but with modified confidence limits, and this procedure is recommended.     

Maximum likelihood estimates of the two- and three-dimensional power spectra of the APM Galaxy Survey

We estimate the two- and three-dimensional power spectra, P ₂( K ) and P ₃( k ), of the galaxy distribution by applying a maximum likelihood estimator to pixel maps of the APM Galaxy Survey. The analysis provides optimal estimates of the power spectra and of their covariance matrices if the fluctuations are assumed to be Gaussian. Our estimates of P ₂( K ) and P ₃( k ) are in good agreement with previous work, but we find that the errors at low wavenumbers have been underestimated in some earlier studies. If the galaxy power spectrum is assumed to have the same shape as the mass power spectrum, then the APM maximum likelihood P ₃( k ) estimates at k ≤0.19  h  Mpc⁻¹ constrain the amplitude and shape parameter of a scale-invariant CDM model to lie within the 2 σ ranges 0.74≤( σ ₈)_g≤1.28 and 0.06≤Γ≤0.46 . Using the Galactic extinction estimates of Schlegel, Finkbeiner & Davis, we show that Galactic obscuration has a negligible effect on galaxy clustering over most of the area of the APM Galaxy Survey.     

The Parkes Multibeam Pulsar Survey – VI. Discovery and timing of 142 pulsars and a Galactic population analysis

We present the discovery and follow-up observations of 142 pulsars found in the Parkes 20-cm multibeam pulsar survey of the Galactic plane. These new discoveries bring the total number of pulsars found by the survey to 742. In addition to tabulating spin and astrometric parameters, along with pulse width and flux density information, we present orbital characteristics for 13 binary pulsars which form part of the new sample. Combining these results from another recent Parkes multibeam survey at high Galactic latitudes, we have a sample of 1008 normal pulsars which we use to carry out a determination of their Galactic distribution and birth rate. We infer a total Galactic population of  30 000 ± 1100  potentially detectable pulsars (i.e. those beaming towards us) having 1.4-GHz luminosities above 0.1 mJy kpc². Adopting the Tauris & Manchester beaming model, this translates to a total of  155 000 ± 6000  active radio pulsars in the Galaxy above this luminosity limit. Using a pulsar current analysis, we derive the birth rate of this population to be  1.4 ± 0.2  pulsars per century. An important conclusion from our work is that the inferred radial density function of pulsars depends strongly on the assumed distribution of free electrons in the Galaxy. As a result, any analyses using the most recent electron model of Cordes & Lazio predict a dearth of pulsars in the inner Galaxy. We show that this model can also bias the inferred pulsar scaleheight with respect to the Galactic plane. Combining our results with other Parkes multibeam surveys we find that the population is best described by an exponential distribution with a scaleheight of 330 pc. Surveys underway at Parkes and Arecibo are expected to improve the knowledge of the radial distribution outside the solar circle, and to discover several hundred new pulsars in the inner Galaxy.     

Morphological redshift estimates for galaxy clusters in a Sunyaev–Zel'dovich effect survey

We develop a new method to estimate the redshift of galaxy clusters through resolved images of the Sunyaev–Zel'dovich effect (SZE). Our method is based on morphological observables which can be measured by actual and future SZE experiments. We test the method with a set of high-resolution hydrodynamical simulations of galaxy clusters at different redshifts. Our method combines the observables in a principal component analysis. After calibrating the method with an independent redshift estimation for some of the clusters, we show – using a Bayesian approach – how the method can give an estimate of the redshift of the galaxy clusters. Although the error bars given by the morphological redshift estimation are large, it should be useful for future SZE surveys where thousands of clusters are expected to be detected; a first preselection of the high-redshift candidates could be done using our proposed morphological redshift estimator. Although not considered in this work, our method should also be useful to give an estimate of the redshift of clusters in X-ray and optical surveys.     

Predictions for triple stars with and without a pulsar in star clusters

Though about 80 pulsar binaries have been detected in globular clusters so far, no pulsar has been found in a triple system in which all three objects are of comparable mass. Here, we present predictions for the abundance of such triple systems, and for the most likely characteristics of these systems. Our predictions are based on an extensive set of more than 500 direct simulations of star clusters with primordial binaries, and a number of additional runs containing primordial triples. Our simulations employ a number N _tot of equal-mass stars from   N _tot= 512  to  19 661  and a primordial binary fraction from 0 to 50 per cent. In addition, we validate our results against simulations with   N = 19 661  that include a mass spectrum with a turn-off mass at  0.8 M_⊙  , appropriate to describe the old stellar populations of Galactic globular clusters. Based on our simulations, we expect that typical triple abundances in the core of a dense cluster are two orders of magnitude lower than the binary abundances, which in itself already suggests that we do not have to wait too long for the first comparable-mass triple with a pulsar to be detected.     

Substructure recovery by three-dimensional discrete wavelet transforms

We present and discuss a method to identify substructures in combined angular-redshift samples of galaxies within clusters. The method relies on the use of the discrete wavelet transform (hereafter DWT) and has already been applied to the analysis of the Coma cluster. The main new ingredient of our method with respect to previous studies lies in the fact that we make use of a 3D data set rather than a 2D one. We test the method on mock cluster catalogues with spatially localized substructures and on a N -body simulation. Our main conclusion is that our method is able to identify the existing substructures provided that: (a) the subclumps are detached in part or all of the phase space, (b) one has a statistically significant number of redshifts, increasing as the distance decreases due to redshift distortions; (c) one knows a priori the scale on which substructures are to be expected. We have found that to allow an accurate recovery we must have both a significant number of galaxies (≈200 for clusters at z ≥0.4 or about 800 at z ≤0.4) and a limiting magnitude for completeness m _B =16.
The only true limitation to our method seems to be the necessity of knowing a priori the scale on which the substructure is to be found. This is an intrinsic drawback of the method and no improvement in numerical codes based on this technique could make up for it.