TTF: a flexible approach to narrowband imaging

The Taurus Tunable Filter (TTF) is a tunable narrowband interference filter covering wavelengths from 6300 A to the sensitivity drop-off of conventional CCDs (9600 A), although a blue `arm' (3700-6500 A) is to be added by the end of 1997. The TTF offers monochromatic imaging at the cassegrain foci of both the Anglo-Australian and William Herschel Telescopes, with an adjustable passband of between 6 and 60 A. In addition, frequency switching with the TTF can be synchronized to movement of charge (charge shuffling) on the CCD which has many important applications in astrophysics. Here we review different modes of TTF. We maintain a web site at http://msowww.anu.edu.au/~dhj/ttf.html describing all aspects of TTF and its operation. In addition to general use, the instrument is available in AAT service time. Details can be found at http://www.aao.gov.au/local/www/jmc/service/service.html.Comment: 8 pages; Latex; 5 encapsulated postscript figures. Invited talk at the "AAO/UKST Galactic Plane H-alpha Survey", International Workshop, Sydney, Australi

Spin and Charge Transport on the Surface of a Topological Insulator

We derive diffusion equations, which describe spin-charge coupled transport on the helical metal surface of a three-dimensional topological insulator. The main feature of these equations is a large magnitude of the spin-charge coupling, which leads to interesting and observable effects. In particular, we predict a new magnetoresistance effect, which manifests in a nonohmic correction to a voltage drop between a ferromagnetic spin-polarized electrode and a nonmagnetic electrode, placed on top of the helical metal. This correction is proportional to the cross-product of the spin polarization of the ferromagnetic electrode and the charge current between the two electrodes. We also demonstrate tunability of this effect by applying a gate voltage, which makes it possible to operate the proposed device as a transistor.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure; published versio

MMTF: The Maryland-Magellan Tunable Filter

This paper describes the Maryland-Magellan Tunable Filter (MMTF) on the Magellan-Baade 6.5-meter telescope. MMTF is based on a 150-mm clear aperture Fabry-Perot (FP) etalon that operates in low orders and provides transmission bandpass and central wavelength adjustable from ~5 to ~15 A and from ~5000 to over ~9200 A, respectively. It is installed in the Inamori Magellan Areal Camera and Spectrograph (IMACS) and delivers an image quality of ~0.5" over a field of view of 27' in diameter (monochromatic over ~10'). This versatile and easy-to-operate instrument has been used over the past three years for a wide variety of projects. This paper first reviews the basic principles of FP tunable filters, then provides a detailed description of the hardware and software associated with MMTF and the techniques developed to observe with this instrument and reduce the data. The main lessons learned in the course of the commissioning and implementation of MMTF are highlighted next, before concluding with a brief outlook on the future of MMTF and of similar facilities which are soon coming on line.Comment: 38 pages, 12 figures, 3 tables, now accepted for publication to the Astronomical Journa

The large scale distribution of warm ionized gas around nearby radio galaxies with jet-cloud interactions

Deep, narrow-band Halpha observations taken with the TAURUS Tunable Filter (TTF) on the 4.2m WHT telescope are presented for two nearby radio galaxies with strong jet-cloud interactions. Although the brightest emission line components are closely aligned with the radio jets --- providing nearby examples of the ``alignment effect'' most commonly observed in high redshift (z > 0.5) radio galaxies --- lower surface brightness emission line structures are detected at large distances (10's of kpc) from the radio jet axis. These latter structures cannot be reconciled with anisotropic illumination of the ISM by obscured quasar-like sources, since parts of the structures lay outside any plausible quasar ionization cones. Rather, the distribution of the emission lines around the fringes of the extended radio lobes suggests that the gas is ionized either by direct interaction with the radio components, or by the diffuse photoionizing radiation fields produced in the shocks generated in such interactions. These observations serve to emphasise that the ionizing effects of the radio components can extend far from the radio jet axes, and that deep emission line imaging observations are required to reveal the true distribution of warm gas in the host galaxies. We expect future deep imaging observations to reveal similar structures perpendicular to the radio axes in the high-z radio galaxies.Comment: 18 pages, 4 figures, to be published in MNRA

A Tunable Echelle Imager

We describe and evaluate a new instrument design called a Tunable Echelle Imager (TEI). In this instrument, the output from an imaging Fabry-Perot interferometer is cross-dispersed by a grism in one direction and dispersed by an echelle grating in the perpendicular direction. This forms a mosaic of different narrow-band images of the same field on a detector. It offers a distinct wavelength multiplex advantage over a traditional imaging Fabry-Perot device. Potential applications of the TEI include spectrophotometric imaging and OH-suppressed imaging by rejection.Comment: 11 pages, 12 figures, accepted by PAS

Nineteen-port photonic lantern with multimode delivery fiber

We demonstrate efficient multimode (MM) to single-mode (SM) conversion in a 19-port photonic lantern with a 50 μm core MM delivery fiber. The photonic lantern can be used within the field of astrophotonics for coupling MM starlight to an ensemble of SM fibers in order to perform fiber-Bragg-grating-based spectral filtering. An MM delivery fiber spliced to the photonic lantern offers the advantage that the delivery fiber guides the light from the focal plane of the telescope to the splitter. Therefore, it is no longer necessary to have the splitter mounted directly in the focal plane of the telescope. The coupling loss from a 50 μm core MM fiber to an ensemble of 19 SM fibers and back to a 50 μm core MM fiber is below 1.1 dB.3 page(s

Valence evaluation of LiMnO2 and related battery materials by x-ray absorption spectroscopy

We present an x-ray absorption study of the oxidation states of transition-metal-ions of LiMnO2 and its related materials, widely used as cathodes in Li-ion batteries. The comparison between the obtained spectrum and the configuration-interaction cluster-model calculations showed that the Mn3+ in LiMnO2 is a mixture of the high-spin and low-spin states. We found that Li deficiencies occur in the case of Cr substitution, whereas there are no Li deficiencies in the case of Ni substitution. We conclude that the substitution of charge-transfer-type Ni or Cu is effective for LiMnO2 battery materials.Comment: 3 pages, 3 figure