MIDI – the 10 μm instrument on the VLTI

After more than five years of preparation, the mid-infrared interferometric instrument MIDI has been transported to Paranal where it will undergo testing and commissioning on theVery Large Telescope Interferometer VLTI from the end of 2002through large part of this year 2003. Thereafter it will be available as a user instrument to perform interferometric observations over the8 μm–13 μm wavelength range, with a spatial resolution of typically 20 milliarcsec, a spectral resolution of up to 250, and an anticipated point source sensitivity of N = 3–4 mag or 1–2.5 Jy for self –fringe tracking, which will be the only observing mode during the first months of operation. We describe the layout of the instrument, laboratory tests, and expected performance, both for broadband and spectrally resolved observing modes. We also briefly outline the planned guaranteed time observations. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Near-infrared spectroscopy of powerful compact steep-spectrum radio sources

We have obtained near-infrared spectroscopy of a small sample of powerful compact steep-spectrum (CSS) radio sources mainly, but not exclusively, from the 3CR sample. We find no differences between the distributions in the equivalent width and luminosity of the [O  iii ]λ5007 line for our sample and other larger, presumably older, high-redshift 3C objects, suggesting that the underlying quasar luminosity remains roughly constant as quasars age. We also find a possible broad line in 3C 241, adding to recent evidence for broad lines in some radio galaxies.     

Interferometry with the Large Binocular Telescope

The Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) will be the largest single telescope in the world when it is completed in 2005. The unique structure of the telescope incorporates two, 8.4 meter diameter primary mirrors on a 14.4 meter center-to-center mounting. This configuration provides the equivalent collecting area of a 12 meter telescope, and when combined coherently, the two optical paths offer very interesting possibilities for interferometry. Two initial interferometric instruments are planned for the LBT. A group based at the University of Arizona is constructing LBTI, a pupil-plane, nulling beam combiner operating in the thermal infrared N band. This instrument will search for and measure zodiacal light in candidate stellar systems for the Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF) and Darwin missions. Expansion ports can accomodate additional instruments. A second group, based in Heidelberg, Arcetri, and Köln, is building LINC-NIRVANA, a near-infrared Fizeau-mode beam combiner. This type of observation preserves phase information and allows true imagery over a wide field of view. Using state-of-the-art detector arrays, coupled with advanced adaptive optics, LINC-NIRVANA will deliver the sensitivity of a 12 m telescope and the spatial resolution of a 23 m telescope, over a field of view up to 2 arc minutes square.     

FRAME DESIGN OF REMOTE SENSING MONITORING FOR VOLCANIC ACTIVITIES IN CHANGBAI MOUNTAINS

Volcanic eruption is one of the most serious geological disasters, however, a host of facts have proven that the Changbai Mountains volcano is a modem dormant one and has ever erupted disastrously. With the rapid development of remote sensing technology, space monitoring of volcanic activities has already become possible, particularly in the application of thermal infrared remote sensing. The paper, through the detailed analysis of geothermal anomaly factors such as heat radiation, heat conduction and convection, depicts the monitoring principles by which volcano activities would be monitored efficiently and effectively. Reasons for abrupt geothermal anomaly are mainly analyzed, and transmission mechanism of geothermal anomaly in the volcanic regions is explained. Also, a variety of noises disturbing the transmission of normal geothermal anomaly are presented. Finally, some clues are given based on discussing thermal infrared remote sensing monitoring mechanism toward the volcanic areas.     

Exploiting magnification bias in ultradeep submillimetre-wave surveys using ALMA

The surface density of populations of galaxies with steep/shallow source counts is increased/decreased by gravitational lensing magnification. These effects are usually called 'magnification bias' and 'depletion', respectively. However, if sources are demagnified by lensing, then the situation is reversed, and the detectable surface density of galaxies with a shallow source count, as expected at the faintest flux densities, is increased. In general, demagnified sources are difficult to detect and study: exquisite subarcsec angular resolution and surface brightness sensitivity are required, and emission from the lensing object must not dominate the image. These unusual conditions are expected to be satisfied for observations made of the dense swarm of demagnified images that could form very close to the line of sight through the centre of a rich cluster of galaxies using the forthcoming submillimetre-wave Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) interferometer. The demagnified images of most of the background galaxies lying within about 1 arcmin of a rich cluster of galaxies could be detected in a single 18-arcsec-diameter ALMA field centred on the cluster core, providing an effective increase in the ALMA field of view. This technique could allow a representative sample of faint,  10–100 μJy  submillimetre galaxies to be detected several times more rapidly than in a blank field.     

The temperatures of dust-enshrouded active galactic nuclei

A high density of massive dark objects (MDOs), probably supermassive black holes, in the centres of nearby galaxies has been inferred from recent observations. There are various indications that much of the accretion responsible for producing these objects took place in dust-enshrouded active galactic nuclei (AGNs). If so, then measurements of the intensity of background radiation and the source counts in the far-infrared and submillimetre wavebands constrain the temperature of dust in these AGNs. An additional constraint comes from the hard X-ray background, if this is produced by accretion. One possibility is that the dust shrouds surrounding the accreting AGNs are cold, about 30 K. In this event, the dusty AGNs could be some subset of the population of luminous distant sources discovered at 850 μm using the SCUBA array on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope, as proposed by Almaini, Lawrence & Boyle. An alternative is that the dust shrouds surrounding the accreting AGNs are much hotter (>60 K). These values are closer to the dust temperatures of a number of well-studied low-redshift ultraluminous galaxies that are thought to derive their power from accretion. If the local MDO density is close to the maximum permitted, then cold sources cannot produce this density without the submillimetre background being overproduced if they accrete at high radiative efficiency, and thus a hot population is required. If the dust-enshrouded accretion occurred at similar redshifts to that taking place in unobscured optical quasars, then a significant fraction of the far-infrared background radiation measured by COBE at 140 μm, but very little of the submillimetre background at 850 μm, may have been produced by hot dust-enshrouded AGNs which may have already been seen in recent Chandra X-ray surveys.     

Cosmological implications of the PSCz PDF and its moments

We compare the probability density function (PDF) and its low-order moments (variance and skewness) of the smoothed IRAS Point Source Catalogue Redshift Survey (PSC z ) galaxy density field and of the corresponding simulated PSC z look-alikes, generated from N -body simulations of six different dark matter models: four structure-normalized with     and     , one COBE -normalized, and the old standard cold dark matter model. The galaxy distributions are smoothed with a Gaussian window at three different smoothing scales,     , 10 and 15  h ⁻¹ Mpc. We find that the simulation PSC z look-alike PDFs are sensitive only to the normalization of the power spectrum, probably owing to the shape similarity of the simulated galaxy power spectrum on the relevant scales. We find that the only models that are consistent, at a high significance level, with the observed PSC z PDF are models with a relatively low power spectrum normalization     . From the phenomenologically derived σ ₈–moments relation, fitted from the simulation data, we find that the PSC z moments suggest     .