Weak lensing in the second post-Newtonian approximation: gravitomagnetic potentials and the integrated Sachs–Wolfe effect

Dark matter currents in the large-scale structure give rise to gravitomagnetic terms in the metric, which affect the light propagation. Corrections to the weak-lensing power spectrum due to these gravitomagnetic potentials are evaluated by perturbation theory. A connection between gravitomagnetic lensing and the integrated Sachs–Wolfe (iSW) effect is drawn, which can be described by a line-of-sight integration over the divergence of the gravitomagnetic vector potential. This allows the power spectrum of the iSW-effect to be derived within the framework of the same formalism as derived for gravitomagnetic lensing and reduces the iSW-effect to a second-order lensing phenomenon. The three-dimensional power spectra are projected by means of a generalized Limber-equation to yield the angular power spectra. Gravitomagnetic corrections to the weak-lensing spectrum are negligible at currently accessible scales, and cosmic-variance considerations suggest that the detection of the iSW-effect's contribution to the cosmic microwave background angular power spectrum is too small to be detectable at multipoles probed by the Planck satellite.     

Site evaluation and RFI spectrum measurements in Portugal at the frequency range 0.408–10 GHz for a GEM polarized galactic radio emission experiment

We probed for radio frequency interference (RFI) at three potential galactic emission mapping experiment (GEM) sites in Portugal using custom made omnidirectional disconic antennas and directional pyramidal horn antennas. For the installation of a 10-m dish dedicated to the mapping of polarized galactic emission foreground planned for 2005–2007 in the 5–10 GHz band, the three sites chosen as suitable to host the antenna were surveyed for local radio pollution in the frequency range 0.01–10 GHz. Tests were done to look for radio broadcasting and mobile phone emission lines in the radio spectrum. The results show one of the sites to be almost entirely RFI clean and showing good conditions to host the experiment.     

全球巨震的天文背景

分析了全球8．5M以上巨震的天文背景，分析结果表明，这些巨震大都发生在处于月亮轨道运动所对应的地震活跃期的地震带区，太阳活动的下降段与地球自转的加速期。这是就天文因素的长周期变化而言。对于天文因素的短周期变化，无论是对于地方时，地方恒星时与月相，都有集中发生在某一段时间的现象；对于地球自转的短周期变化更是比较明显，要么发生在其变化最快时期，要么发生在其变化的最慢时期。这一切都表明，这些地震的发生是受天文因素的影响的。天文因素是外界发震动力之一，长周期变化的天文因素可能是对地震的孕育、发展与发生起着调制作用，而短期变化的天文因素则是当其作用于远离平衡态的发震构造上时，引起系统的巨涨落，从而诱发地震。     

PAPPA: Primordial anisotropy polarization pathfinder array

The primordial anisotropy polarization pathfinder array (PAPPA) is a balloon-based instrument to measure the polarization of the cosmic microwave background and search for the signal from gravity waves excited during an inflationary epoch in the early universe. PAPPA will survey a 20° × 20° patch at the North Celestial Pole using 32 pixels in 3 passbands centered at 89, 212, and 302 GHz. Each pixel uses MEMS switches in a superconducting microstrip transmission line to combine the phase modulation techniques used in radio astronomy with the sensitivity of transition-edge superconducting bolometers. Each switched circuit modulates the incident polarization on a single detector, allowing nearly instantaneous characterization of the Stokes I, Q, and U parameters. We describe the instrument design and status.     

空间碎片天基光电光学可见条件与预报

随着航天活动的增加，产生的空间碎片也越来越多，空间环境日趋恶化，已经对人类的空间活动构成了威胁。监视测量这些空间碎片，天基光电比地基光电更为有利，而天基光电的光学可见条件与地基光电相比，有相似的，也有不同的，针对天基光电，给出了空间碎片的光学可见条件，即日光条件、地影条件、地光条件、地球背景条件、月光条件。在天基光电轨道特征、光学可见条件及天基光电坐标系已知的情况下，建立起天基光电预报方法。既可用于空间碎片预报，也可以用于空间碎片的轨道识别。     

The largest scale perturbations: A window on the physics of the beginning

I present results of new statistical techniques for the interpretation of the temperature and polarization maps and power spectra of the cosmic microwave background. We show that the power deficit at low ℓ in the WMAP1 data is consistent with a statistical fluctuation at the 10% level; that future high S/N maps of the temperature and polarization anisotropies can be combined into a reconstruction of the metric perturbations imprinted during inflation; and that machine learning techniques can accelerate cosmological parameter estimation by orders of magnitude while being highly accurate and robust.