Polarization Observations with the Cosmic Background Imager

We describe polarization observations of the CMBR with the Cosmic Background Imager, a 13 element interferometer which operates in the 26-36 GHz band from Llano de Chajnantour in northern Chile. The array consists of 90-cm Cassegrain antennas mounted on a steerable platform which can be rotated about the optical axis to facilitate polarization observations. The CBI employs single mode circularly polarized receivers which sample multipoles from ℓ~400 to ℓ~4250. The instrumental polarization of the CBI was calibrated with 3C279, a bright polarized point source which was monitored with the VLA

An Empirical Study of Public Defender Effectiveness: Self-Selection by the "Marginally Indigent"

Abstract: An econometric study of all felony cases filed in Denver, Colorado, in 2002, shows that public defenders achieved poorer outcomes than their privately retained counterparts, measured by the actual sentences defendants received. But this study suggests that the traditional explanation for this difference—under-funding resulting in overburdened public defenders—may not tell the whole story. The authors discovered a large segment of what they call “marginally indigent” defendants, who appear capable of hiring private counsel if the charges against them are sufficiently serious. When the sentence data was controlled for the seriousness of the charges, however, public defenders still performed more poorly than private counsel. These results suggest that at least one explanation for poor public defender outcomes may be that public defender clients, by self selection, tend to have less defensible cases. If marginally indigent defendants can find the money to hire private counsel when the charges are sufficiently serious, perhaps they can also find the money when they are innocent, or think they have a strong case

230 GHz VLBI OBSERVATIONS OF M87: EVENT‐HORIZON‐SCALE STRUCTURE DURING AN ENHANCED VERY‐HIGH‐ENERGY γ‐RAY STATE IN 2012

We report on 230 GHz (1.3 mm) very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) observations of M87 with the Event Horizon Telescope using antennas on Mauna Kea in Hawaii, Mt. Graham in Arizona, and Cedar Flat in California. For the first time, we have acquired 230 GHz VLBI interferometric phase information on M87 through measurement of the closure phase on the triangle of long baselines. Most of the measured closure phases are consistent with 0° as expected by physically motivated models for 230 GHz structure such as jet models and accretion disk models. The brightness temperature of the event-horizon-scale structure is ~1 X 10[superscript 10] K derived from the compact flux density of ~1 Jy and the angular size of ~40 µas ~ 5.5 R[subscript s], which is broadly consistent with the peak brightness of the radio cores at 1–86 GHz located within ~10[superscript 2] R[subscript s]. Our observations occurred in the middle of an enhancement in very-high-energy (VHE) γ-ray flux, presumably originating in the vicinity of the central black hole. Our measurements, combined with results of multi-wavelength observations, favor a scenario in which the VHE region has an extended size of ~20–60 R[subscript s]

The Murchison Widefield Array: Design Overview

The Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) is a dipole-based aperture array synthesis telescope designed to operate in the 80-300 MHz frequency range. It is capable of a wide range of science investigations, but is initially focused on three key science projects. These are detection and characterization of 3-dimensional brightness temperature fluctuations in the 21cm line of neutral hydrogen during the Epoch of Reionization (EoR) at redshifts from 6 to 10, solar imaging and remote sensing of the inner heliosphere via propagation effects on signals from distant background sources,and high-sensitivity exploration of the variable radio sky. The array design features 8192 dual-polarization broad-band active dipoles, arranged into 512 tiles comprising 16 dipoles each. The tiles are quasi-randomly distributed over an aperture 1.5km in diameter, with a small number of outliers extending to 3km. All tile-tile baselines are correlated in custom FPGA-based hardware, yielding a Nyquist-sampled instantaneous monochromatic uv coverage and unprecedented point spread function (PSF) quality. The correlated data are calibrated in real time using novel position-dependent self-calibration algorithms. The array is located in the Murchison region of outback Western Australia. This region is characterized by extremely low population density and a superbly radio-quiet environment,allowing full exploitation of the instrumental capabilities.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures, 1 table. Accepted for publication in Proceedings of the IEE

Detection of intrinsic source structure at ~3 Schwarzschild radii with Millimeter-VLBI observations of SAGITTARIUS A*

We report results from very long baseline interferometric (VLBI) observations of the supermassive black hole in the Galactic center, Sgr A*, at 1.3 mm (230 GHz). The observations were performed in 2013 March using six VLBI stations in Hawaii, California, Arizona, and Chile. Compared to earlier observations, the addition of the APEX telescope in Chile almost doubles the longest baseline length in the array, provides additional {\it uv} coverage in the N-S direction, and leads to a spatial resolution of $\sim$30 $\mu$as ($\sim$3 Schwarzschild radii) for Sgr A*. The source is detected even at the longest baselines with visibility amplitudes of $\sim$4-13% of the total flux density. We argue that such flux densities cannot result from interstellar refractive scattering alone, but indicate the presence of compact intrinsic source structure on scales of $\sim$3 Schwarzschild radii. The measured nonzero closure phases rule out point-symmetric emission. We discuss our results in the context of simple geometric models that capture the basic characteristics and brightness distributions of disk- and jet-dominated models and show that both can reproduce the observed data. Common to these models are the brightness asymmetry, the orientation, and characteristic sizes, which are comparable to the expected size of the black hole shadow. Future 1.3 mm VLBI observations with an expanded array and better sensitivity will allow a more detailed imaging of the horizon-scale structure and bear the potential for a deep insight into the physical processes at the black hole boundary.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures, accepted to Ap

First narrow-band search for continuous gravitational waves from known pulsars in advanced detector data

Spinning neutron stars asymmetric with respect to their rotation axis are potential sources of continuous gravitational waves for ground-based interferometric detectors. In the case of known pulsars a fully coherent search, based on matched filtering, which uses the position and rotational parameters obtained from electromagnetic observations, can be carried out. Matched filtering maximizes the signalto- noise (SNR) ratio, but a large sensitivity loss is expected in case of even a very small mismatch between the assumed and the true signal parameters. For this reason, narrow-band analysis methods have been developed, allowing a fully coherent search for gravitational waves from known pulsars over a fraction of a hertz and several spin-down values. In this paper we describe a narrow-band search of 11 pulsars using data from Advanced LIGO’s first observing run. Although we have found several initial outliers, further studies show no significant evidence for the presence of a gravitational wave signal. Finally, we have placed upper limits on the signal strain amplitude lower than the spin-down limit for 5 of the 11 targets over the bands searched; in the case of J1813-1749 the spin-down limit has been beaten for the first time. For an additional 3 targets, the median upper limit across the search bands is below the spin-down limit. This is the most sensitive narrow-band search for continuous gravitational waves carried out so far