Rapid Measurements of Solar Wind Ions with the Triana PlasMag Faraday Cup

The Triana PlasMag Faraday Cup (FC) will be able to determine speed, flow angles, temperature, and density of the main solar wind ion species with a time resolution of better than one second. Thus, the Triana PlasMag FC will enable resolution of spatial structures as small as a few hundred kilometers as the structures convect past the spacecraft. Under typical solar wind conditions, that size is comparable to a few proton gyroradii. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Keck II spectroscopy of mHz quasi-periodic oscillations in Hercules X-1

We present Keck II spectroscopy of optical mHz quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) in the light curve of the X-ray pulsar binary Hercules X-1. In the power spectrum it appears as 'peaked noise', with a coherency ∼2, a central frequency of 35 mHz and a peak-to-peak amplitude of 5 per cent. However, the dynamic power spectrum shows it to be an intermittent QPO, with a lifetime of ∼100 s, as expected if the lifetime of the orbiting material is equal to the thermal time-scale of the inner disc. We have decomposed the spectral time series into constant and variable components and used blackbody fits to the resulting spectra to characterize the spectrum of the QPO variability and constrain possible production sites. We find that the spectrum of the QPO is best fitted by a small hot region, possibly the inner regions of the accretion disc, where the ballistic accretion stream impacts on to the disc. The lack of any excess power around the QPO frequency in the X-ray power spectrum, created using simultaneous light curves from RXTE , implies that the QPO is not simply reprocessed X-ray variability.     

The 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey: luminosity dependence of galaxy clustering

We investigate the dependence of the strength of galaxy clustering on intrinsic luminosity using the Anglo-Australian two degree field galaxy redshift survey (2dFGRS). The 2dFGRS is over an order of magnitude larger than previous redshift surveys used to address this issue. We measure the projected two-point correlation function of galaxies in a series of volume-limited samples. The projected correlation function is free from any distortion of the clustering pattern induced by peculiar motions and is well described by a power law in pair separation over the range     . The clustering of     galaxies in real space is well-fitted by a correlation length     and power-law slope     . The clustering amplitude increases slowly with absolute magnitude for galaxies fainter than M *, but rises more strongly at higher luminosities. At low luminosities, our results agree with measurements from the Southern Sky Redshift Survey 2 by Benoist et al. However, we find a weaker dependence of clustering strength on luminosity at the highest luminosities. The correlation function amplitude increases by a factor of 4.0 between     and −22.5, and the most luminous galaxies are 3.0 times more strongly clustered than L * galaxies. The power-law slope of the correlation function shows remarkably little variation for samples spanning a factor of 20 in luminosity. Our measurements are in very good agreement with the predictions of the hierarchical galaxy formation models of Benson et al.     

A high‐resolution pollen and geochemical analysis of late Holocene human impact and vegetation history in southern Cumbria,England

The historic era, which in Cumbria begins with the Roman invasion of AD 71, is a frequently neglected period in palaeoecological research, but its study can bring benefits in improving knowledge of landscape history and in understanding the significance and limitations of palaeoecological records. Pollen and geochemical data are presented for late Holocene records from Deer Dyke and Hulleter Mosses in southern Cumbria. The records show initially low levels of anthropogenic impact, followed by a phase of forest clearance and mixed agriculture from the 7th to 11th centuries AD. The timing of these clearances suggests that they were initially Anglo‐Saxon in origin, rather than Norse. Further clearances in the 16th century AD are interpreted as a response to monastic dissolution and late Tudor population pressures; the landscapes reached their contemporary form following extensive clearances in the 17th century AD. Silicon and titanium concentrations at Deer Dyke Moss were used to reconstruct past levels of atmospheric dust loading, which is broadly related to soil erosion. Geochemical influx was found to peak during periods of landscape transition rather than from established land use. This relationship with pollen data is thought to reflect the predominantly low levels of anthropogenic impact in the region, which changes as substantial woodland clearances during the 16th century AD and continuous land use pressure since then have greatly increased the supply of airborne dust. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Variations of the neutralino elastic cross-section with CP-violating phases

We analyze the neutralino–nucleus elastic cross-section in the minimal supersymmetric extension of the standard model (MSSM), including contributions from CP-violating phases, using the four-fermi neutralino–quark interaction. Over a wide range of the MSSM parameter space, we show the variations in the cross-sections due to these phases. We further concentrate on the regions which are consistent with constraints from the electric dipole moment of the electron, neutron and mercury atom. In the regions we examine in detail, we find suppressions by up to a factor of two, while enhancements in the cross-sections are no greater than 10%.