A method for aligning the plastic scintillator detector on DAMPE

The Plastic Scintillator Detector(PSD) onboard the DArk Matter Particle Explorer(DAMPE)is designed to measure cosmic ray charge(Z) and to act as a veto detector for gamma ray identification.To fully exploit the charge identification potential of PSD and to enhance its capability to identify gamma ray events, we develop an alignment method for the PSD. The path length of a given track in the volume of a PSD bar is derived taking into account the shift and rotation alignment corrections. By examining energy spectra of corner-passing events and fully contained events, position shifts and rotations of all PSD bars are obtained, and are found to be on average about 1 mm and 0.0015 radian respectively. To validate the alignment method, we introduce artificial shifts and rotations of PSD bars into the detector simulation.These shift and rotation parameters can be recovered successfully by the alignment procedure. As a result of the PSD alignment procedure, the charge resolution of the PSD is improved from 4% to 8%, depending on the nuclei.     

Radon in soil anomaly observed at Los Azufres geothermal field,Michoacan: a possible precursor of the 1985 Mexico earthquake (Ms = 8.1)

A radon anomaly in a nuclear track detector placed on a fault was detected prior to the destructive (Ms = 8.1) Mexican earthquake of 19 September 1985. The fault is a structural feature of the geothermal field Los Azufres, 260 km NE of the epicentral area. Since no other phenomenon can be found as a possible cause for the radon anomaly, it is proposed that preseismic regional stress perturbations may produce changes in the fluid transport patterns at the fault, suggesting that radon measurements in similar conditions could provide a good precursor in high seismic risk areas.     

NAOC 1m反射望远镜CCD相机的性能研究

研究了国家天文台兴隆观测基地1m反射望远镜新安装的VersArray1340×1300BCCD照相机的性能。它有几乎没有图案的良好本底（bias），极低的读出噪声和暗流。用平场序列露光来检测其线性时，能得到线性良好的转移曲线（transfercurve）。但是，不论在平场露光（面光源）还是在恒星（点光源）的观测中，当像元值约高于55000adu时（增益3．7e^-／adu），都会产生溢出。此时CCD并未满井。因此，使用它做点扩散函数分析研究时，要避免使用太亮的星像。不过，由于电荷守恒原理，对产生溢出的孤立亮星像，仍然可以做孔径测光。此外，该相机的快门函数也已测定。     

CTK‐II & RTK: The CCD‐cameras operated at the auxiiary telescopes of the University Observatory Jena

The Cassegrain‐Teleskop‐Kamera (CTK‐II) and the Refraktor‐Teleskop‐Kamera (RTK) are two CCD‐imagers which are operated at the 25 cm Cassegrain and 20cm refractor auxiliary telescopes of the University Observatory Jena. This article describes the main characteristics of these instruments. The properties of the CCD‐detectors, the astrometry, the image quality, and the detection limits of both CCD‐cameras, as well as some results of ongoing observing projects, carried out with these instruments, are presented. (© 2016 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

A new composition-sensitive parameter for ultra-high energy cosmic rays

A new family of parameters intended for composition studies in cosmic ray surface array detectors is proposed. The application of this technique to different array layout designs has been analyzed. The parameters make exclusive use of surface data combining the information from the total signal at each triggered detector and the array geometry. They are sensitive to the combined effects of the different muon and electromagnetic components on the lateral distribution function of proton and iron initiated showers at any given primary energy. Analytical and numerical studies have been performed in order to assess the reliability, stability and optimization of these parameters. Experimental uncertainties, the underestimation of the muon component in the shower simulation codes, intrinsic fluctuations and reconstruction errors are considered and discussed in a quantitative way. The potential discrimination power of these parameters, under realistic experimental conditions, is compared on a simplified, albeit quantitative way, with that expected from other surface and fluorescence estimators.     

A cryogenic payload for the 3rd generation of gravitational wave interferometers

Thermal noise is a limiting factor of interferometric gravitational wave detectors sensitivity in the low and intermediate frequency range. A concrete possibility for beating this limit, is represented by the development of a cryogenic last stage suspension to be integrated within a complex seismic isolation system. To this purpose a last stage payload prototype has been designed and built. It has been suspended within a dedicated cryostat with the same technique adopted for the VIRGO payload and making use of two thin wires in a cradle configuration to support a mirror made of silicon.The cooling strategy, the thermal behaviour and the system mechanical response have been deeply studied while a measurement characterization campaign has been performed both at room temperature and at cryogenic temperature. In this paper, the preliminary results obtained together with the first cooling down of the 300 kg overall mass payload at about 25 K, are reported. This study will play a driving role in the design of the third generation gravitational wave detector.     

Pixel-based correction for Charge Transfer Inefficiency in the Hubble Space Telescope Advanced Camera for Surveys

Charge Transfer Inefficiency (CTI) due to radiation damage above the Earth's atmosphere creates spurious trailing in Hubble Space Telescope ( HST ) images. Radiation damage also creates unrelated warm pixels – but these happen to be perfect for measuring CTI. We model CTI in the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS)/Wide Field Channel and construct a physically motivated correction scheme. This operates on raw data, rather than secondary science products, by returning individual electrons to pixels from which they were unintentionally dragged during readout. We apply our correction to images from the HST Cosmic Evolution Survey (COSMOS), successfully reducing the CTI trails by a factor of ∼30 everywhere in the CCD and at all flux levels. We quantify changes in galaxy photometry, astrometry and shape. The remarkable 97 per cent level of correction is more than sufficient to enable a (forthcoming) reanalysis of downstream science products and the collection of larger surveys.     

Multi-class geospatial object detection and geographic image classification based on collection of part detectors

The rapid development of remote sensing technology has facilitated us the acquisition of remote sensing images with higher and higher spatial resolution, but how to automatically understand the image contents is still a big challenge. In this paper, we develop a practical and rotation-invariant framework for multi-class geospatial object detection and geographic image classification based on collection of part detectors (COPD). The COPD is composed of a set of representative and discriminative part detectors, where each part detector is a linear support vector machine (SVM) classifier used for the detection of objects or recurring spatial patterns within a certain range of orientation. Specifically, when performing multi-class geospatial object detection, we learn a set of seed-based part detectors where each part detector corresponds to a particular viewpoint of an object class, so the collection of them provides a solution for rotation-invariant detection of multi-class objects. When performing geographic image classification, we utilize a large number of pre-trained part detectors to discovery distinctive visual parts from images and use them as attributes to represent the images. Comprehensive evaluations on two remote sensing image databases and comparisons with some state-of-the-art approaches demonstrate the effectiveness and superiority of the developed framework.     

Whipple telescope observations of LS I +61 303: 2004–2006

In this paper we present the results of the past two years observations on the galactic microquasar LS I +61 303 with the Whipple 10 m gamma-ray telescope. The recent MAGIC detection of the source between 200 GeV and 4 TeV suggests that the source is periodic with very high energy (VHE) gamma-ray emission linked to its orbital cycle. The entire 50-hour data set obtained with Whipple from 2004 to 2006 was analyzed with no reliable detection resulting. The upper limits obtained in the 2005–2006 season covered several of the same epochs as the MAGIC Telescope detections, albeit with lower sensitivity. Upper limits are placed on emission during the orbital phases of 0→0.1 and 0.8→1, phases which are not included in the MAGIC data set.      

A local control system for the test masses of the Virgo gravitational wave detector

The mirrors of interferometric detectors of gravitational waves (GW) are suspended in order to be isolated from external disturbances. A local control system able to keep them correctly aligned and to damp the angular modes of the suspension is necessary. In this paper we present the solution adopted for Virgo based on a CCD camera sensor and on digital controls. With this solution the mirrors are kept aligned at the level of less than 1 μrad rms, enough to lock the interferometer and start the automatic alignment system.