Digging for Formational Clues in the Halos of Early-type Galaxies

Many of the fundamental properties of early-type galaxies (ellipticals and lenticulars) can only be accessed by venturing beyond their oft-studied centers into their large-radius halo regions. Advances in observations of kinematical tracers allow early-type halos to be increasingly well probed. This review focuses on recent findings on angular momentum and dark matter content, and discusses some possible implications for galaxy structure and formation.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, to appear in "Hunting for the Dark: The Hidden Side of Galaxy Formation", Malta, 19-23 Oct. 2009, eds. V.P. Debattista & C.C. Popescu, AIP Conf. Ser., in pres

Agencies Obligation to Interpret the Statute

Conventionally, when a statute delegates authority to an agency, courts defer to agency interpretations of that statute. Most agencies and scholars view such deference as a grant of permission to the agency to adopt any reasonable interpretation. That is wrong, jurisprudentially and ethically. An agency that commands deference bears a duty to adopt what it believes to be the best interpretation of the relevant statute. Deference assigns to the agency, rather than to a court, power authoritatively to declare what the law is. That power carries with it a duty to give the statute the best reading the agency can. Notwithstanding substantial jurisprudential disagreement about what it means to give a statute its best interpretation, an agency does not abide its role when it seems to achieve anything less. An agency is legally and ethically obligated to privilege what it views as optimal statutory interpretation over what it considers to be optimal policy. If the two conflict, as they sometimes will, the agency must act consistently with the former to the detriment of the latter. To behave otherwise is to fail to adhere to principles of legislative supremacy and fidelity to law

The Lick AGN Monitoring Project 2011: Reverberation Mapping of Markarian 50

The Lick AGN Monitoring Project 2011 observing campaign was carried out over the course of 11 weeks in spring 2011. Here we present the first results from this program, a measurement of the broad-line reverberation lag in the Seyfert 1 galaxy Mrk 50. Combining our data with supplemental observations obtained prior to the start of the main observing campaign, our data set covers a total duration of 4.5 months. During this time, Mrk 50 was highly variable, exhibiting a maximum variability amplitude of a factor of ~4 in the U-band continuum and a factor of ~2 in the Hβ line. Using standard cross-correlation techniques, we find that Hβ and Hγ lag the V-band continuum by τ_(cen) = 10.64^(+0.82)_(–0.93) and 8.43^(+1.30)_(–1.28) days, respectively, while the lag of He II λ4686 is unresolved. The Hβ line exhibits a symmetric velocity-resolved reverberation signature with shorter lags in the high-velocity wings than in the line core, consistent with an origin in a broad-line region (BLR) dominated by orbital motion rather than infall or outflow. Assuming a virial normalization factor of f = 5.25, the virial estimate of the black hole mass is (3.2 ± 0.5) × 10^7 M_☉. These observations demonstrate that Mrk 50 is among the most promising nearby active galaxies for detailed investigations of BLR structure and dynamics

Sfermion Interference in Neutralino Decays at the LHC

If the two lightest neutralinos of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model have a mass splitting less than the Z boson mass, interference effects in the three-body decay chi_2^0 --> chi_1^0 f f can be important. We formulate an observable that contains information on the nature of the interference: the ratio BR(chi_2^0 --> chi_1^0 b b) / BR(chi_2^0 --> chi_1^0 l+ l-). This will give a constraint on the supersymmetry breaking parameters that is complementary to many techniques already existing in the literature. We present some ideas on how to perform a simple counting experiment to determine this ratio.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figure

Co-author weighting in bibliometric methodology and subfields of a scientific discipline

Collaborative work and co-authorship are fundamental to the advancement of modern science. However, it is not clear how collaboration should be measured in achievement-based metrics. Co-author weighted credit introduces distortions into the bibliometric description of a discipline. It puts great weight on collaboration - not based on the results of collaboration - but purely because of the existence of collaborations. In terms of publication and citation impact, it artificially favors some subdisciplines. In order to understand how credit is given in a co-author weighted system (like the NRC's method), we introduced credit spaces. We include a study of the discipline of physics to illustrate the method. Indicators are introduced to measure the proportion of a credit space awarded to a subfield or a set of authors.Comment: 11 pages, 1 figure, 4 table

Scale-up of electrospray atomization using linear arrays of Taylor cones

Linear arrays of Taylor cones were established on capillary electrode tubes opposite a slotted flat plate counterelectrode to investigate the feasibility of increasing the liquid throughput rate in electrospray atomizers. It was found that individual Taylor cones could be established on each capillary over a wide range of the capillary radius to spacing ratio R/S. The onset potential Vs required to establish the cones varied directly with R/S, but the liquid flow rate per cone and current per cone were nearly independent of R/S for a given overpotential ratio P=V/Vs. Only six working capillaries were used, but the results per cone are applicable to larger arrays of cones since end effects were minimized