Bayesian foreground analysis with CMB data

The quality of CMB observations has improved dramatically in the last few years, and will continue to do so in the coming decade. Over a wide range of angular scales, the uncertainty due to instrumental noise is now small compared to the cosmic variance. One may claim with some justification that we have entered the era of precision CMB cosmology. However, some caution is still warranted: The errors due to residual foreground contamination in the CMB power spectrum and cosmological parameters remain largely unquantified, and the effect of these errors on important cosmological parameters such as the optical depth τ and spectral index n_s is not obvious. A major goal for current CMB analysis efforts must therefore be to develop methods that allow us to propagate such uncertainties from the raw data through to the final products. Here we review a recently proposed method that may be a first step towards that goal.     

Photometric survey of binary near-Earth asteroids

Photometric data on 17 binary near-Earth asteroids (15 of them are certain detections, two are probables) were analysed and characteristic properties of the near-Earth asteroid (NEA) binary population were inferred. We have found that binary systems with a secondary-to-primary mean diameter ratio Ds/Dp?0.18 concentrate among NEAs smaller than 2 km in diameter; the abundance of such binaries decreases significantly among larger NEAs. Secondaries show an upper size limit of Ds=0.5-1 km. Systems with Ds/Dp?0.5 are abundant but larger satellites are significantly less common. Primaries have spheroidal shapes and they rotate rapidly, with periods concentrating between 2.2 to 2.8 h and with a tail of the distribution up to ∼4 h. The fast rotators are close to the critical spin for rubble piles with bulk densities about 2 g/cm³. Orbital periods show an apparent cut-off at Porb∼11 h; closer systems with shorter orbital periods have not been discovered, which is consistent with the Roche limit for strengthless bodies. Secondaries are more elongated on average than primaries. Most, but not all, of their rotations appear to be synchronized with the orbital motion; nonsynchronous secondary rotations may occur especially among wider systems with Porb>20 h. The specific total angular momentum of most of the binary systems is similar to within ±20% and close to the angular momentum of a sphere with the same total mass and density, rotating at the disruption limit; this suggests that the binaries were created by mechanism(s) related to rotation near the critical limit and that they neither gained nor lost significant amounts of angular momentum during or since formation. A comparison with six small asynchronous binaries detected in the main belt of asteroids suggests that the population extends beyond the region of terrestrial planets, but with characteristics shifted to larger sizes and longer periods. The estimated mean proportion of binaries with Ds/Dp?0.18 among NEAs larger than 0.3 km is 15±4%. Among fastest rotating NEAs larger than 0.3 km with periods between 2.2 and 2.8 h, the mean proportion of such binaries is (66⁺¹⁰₋₁₂)%.     

Clusters and groups of galaxies in the 2dF galaxy redshift survey: A new catalogue

We create a new catalogue of groups and clusters, applying the friends‐of‐friends method to the 2dF GRS final release. We investigate various selection effects due to the use of a magnitude limited sample. For this purpose we follow the changes in group sizes and mean galaxy number densities within groups when shifting nearby observed groups to larger distances. We study the distribution of sizes of dark matter haloes in N ‐body simulations and compare properties of these haloes and the 2dF groups. We show that at large distances from the observer luminous and intrinsically greater groups dominate, but in these groups only very bright members are seen, which form compact cores of the groups. These two effects almost cancel each other, so that the mean sizes and densities of groups do not change considerably with distance. Our final sample contains 10750 groups in the Northern part, and 14465 groups in the Southern part of the 2dF survey with membership N _gal ≥ 2. We estimate the total luminosities of our groups, correcting for group members fainter than the observational limit of the survey. The cluster catalogue is available at our web‐site ( http://www.aai.ee/∼maret/2dfgr.html ). (© 2006 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Piloting a network of small telescopes

The Pilot Small Telescope Network (PSTN) is a state‐of the art system of easily replicable and scalable hardware, software, servers, eXtensible Markup Language (XML) protocols, and network middleware connecting and developing a pilot array of robotic telescopes to one another and the user community. The PSTN is a developmental project that will allow growing access to these telescopes, and make available data to faculty, students and others in an environment of collaboration. The underlying goal of the PSTN is to broaden the quantity and quality of astronomical education and research, particularly with a focus on traditionally underserved populations. (© 2006 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Structure and stability of rotating fluid disks around massive objects. I. Newtonian formulation

In this paper we have presented a very general class of solutions for rotating fluid disks around massive objects (neglecting the self gravitation of the disk) with density as a function of the radial coordinate only and pressure being nonzero. Having considered a number of cases with different density and velocity distributions, we have analysed the stability of such disks under both radial and axisymmetric perturbations. For a perfect gas disk with γ= 5/3 the disk is stable with frequency (MG/r³)^1/2 for purely radial pulsation with expanding and contracting boundary. In the case of axisymmetric perturbation the critical γ_c for neutral stability is found to be much less than 4/3 indicating that such disks are mostly stable under such perturbations. On leave of absence from Government College, Jagdalpur 494005.     

Long term variations in solar flare activity

A statistical analysis of the contemporary (1954-1975) solar flare particle events has been made for the parametersF (integrated, proton fluence in cm^-2 in an event with kinetic energy above 10 MeV) andR ₀ (the characteristic rigidity). These data are compared with the long-term averaged values determined from stable- and radio-nuclide measurements of lunar samples. The analysis shows that the ancient solar flare proton spectrum was harder (higher R₀ values) compared to that observed in contemporary flares. A similar analysis can not be made for the mean long-term averaged flux (ˉJ, cm^-2 S^-1), since the contemporary averages suffer from an uncertainty due to the statistics of a single event. However, the average flux estimates for time durations 〈T〉 exceeding 10³ yr, are free from such uncertainties. The long-term averaged ˉJ values obtained over different time scales (10⁴ - 10⁶ yr) suggest a possible periodic variation in solar flare activity, with enhanced flux level during the last 10⁵ yr. The available data rule out the occurrence of giant flares, with proton fluence exceeding 10¹⁵ cm^-2 during the last million years.     

The role of collisions with interplanetary particles in the physical evolution of comets

Effects of collisions with interplanetary particles are investigated. To this purpose, collision probabilities for comets with different orbital elements are computed. It is found that collisions may have a non-negligible effect on the physical evolution of comets. In this connection, it is shown that under certain conditions collisional lifetimes may be shorter than dynamical or vaporization lifetimes. In particular, collisional lifetimes are on average shorter for comets in retrograde orbits than those for direct ones. It is further suggested that catastrophic collisions may contribute to prevent long-period comets in retrograde orbits from reaching short-period orbits by orbital diffusion. Collisions may also produce irregularities of the nucleus brightness by leaving exposed regions of fresh volatile material and may in this way lead to a rejuvenation of old dusty short-period comets. Catastrophic collision probabilities are too low to account for the observed comet splittings, so other trigger mechanisms should be at work. However, it is shown that collisional mini-bursts (increases in brightness of one magnitude or so) caused by decimeter-sized bodies may occur rather frequently on short-period comets when they pass through the asteroid belt. The burst observed in comet Tempel-2 at 3 AU in December, 1978 could be an example of such collisional mini-bursts. The systematic observation of periodic comets when they pass through the asteroid belt could give valuable information about the spatial density of decimeter and meter-sized bodies. In particular, collisional effects for comet Halley, for which a continuous surveillance is planned, are evaluated.     

Eclipsing binary system AV Hydrae

The eclipsing binary AV Hya has been observed photoelectrically inU, B andV filters on 15 nights. The primary eclipse appeared to be total with a totality of 23 min duration. A modified period of 0^d.6 834 062 has been obtained. Geometrical elements could only be determined for partial transit case.