In order to determine the location of the gamma-ray emission site in blazars, we investigate the time-domain relationship between their radio and gamma-ray emission. Light curves for the brightest ...detected blazars from the first 3 yr of the mission of the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope are cross-correlated with 4 yr of 15 GHz observations from the Owens Valley Radio Observatory 40 m monitoring programme. The large sample and long light-curve duration enable us to carry out a statistically robust analysis of the significance of the cross-correlations, which is investigated using Monte Carlo simulations including the uneven sampling and noise properties of the light curves. Modelling the light curves as red noise processes with power-law power spectral densities, we find that only one of 41 sources with high-quality data in both bands shows correlations with significance larger than 3σ (AO 0235+164), with only two more larger than even 2.25σ (PKS 1502+106 and B2 2308+34). Additionally, we find correlated variability in Mrk 421 when including a strong flare that occurred in 2012 July–September. These results demonstrate very clearly the difficulty of measuring statistically robust multiwavelength correlations and the care needed when comparing light curves even when many years of data are used. This should be a caution. In all four sources, the radio variations lag the gamma-ray variations, suggesting that the gamma-ray emission originates upstream of the radio emission. Continuous simultaneous monitoring over a longer time period is required to obtain high significance levels in cross-correlations between gamma-ray and radio variability in most blazars.
Abstract
We use results of our 3 yr polarimetric monitoring programme to investigate the previously suggested connection between rotations of the polarization plane in the optical emission of blazars ...and their gamma-ray flares in the GeV band. The homogeneous set of 40 rotation events in 24 sources detected by RoboPol is analysed together with the gamma-ray data provided by Fermi-LAT. We confirm that polarization plane rotations are indeed related to the closest gamma-ray flares in blazars and the time lags between these events are consistent with zero. Amplitudes of the rotations are anticorrelated with amplitudes of the gamma-ray flares. This is presumably caused by higher relativistic boosting (higher Doppler factors) in blazars that exhibit smaller amplitude polarization plane rotations. Moreover, the time-scales of rotations and flares are marginally correlated.
The C-Band All-Sky Survey (C-BASS) is an all-sky full-polarization survey at a frequency of 5 GHz, designed to provide complementary data to the all-sky surveys of WMAP and Planck, and future CMB ...B-mode polarization imaging surveys. The observing frequency has been chosen to provide a signal that is dominated by Galactic synchrotron emission, but suffers little from Faraday rotation, so that the measured polarization directions provide a good template for higher frequency observations, and carry direct information about the Galactic magnetic field. Telescopes in both northern and southern hemispheres with matched optical performance are used to provide all-sky coverage from a ground-based experiment. A continuous-comparison radiometer and a correlation polarimeter on each telescope provide stable imaging properties such that all angular scales from the instrument resolution of 45 arcmin up to full sky are accurately measured. The northern instrument has completed its survey and the southern instrument has started observing. We expect that C-BASS data will significantly improve the component separation analysis of Planck and other CMB data, and will provide important constraints on the properties of anomalous Galactic dust and the Galactic magnetic field.
The European Space Agency’s Planck satellite, dedicated to studying the early Universe and its subsequent evolution, was launched 14 May 2009 and has been scanning the microwave and submillimetre sky ...continuously since 12 August 2009. In March 2013, ESA and the Planck Collaboration released the initial cosmology products based on the first 15.5 months of Planck data, along with a set of scientific and technical papers and a web-based explanatory supplement. This paper gives an overview of the mission and its performance, the processing, analysis, and characteristics of the data, the scientific results, and the science data products and papers in the release. The science products include maps of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and diffuse extragalactic foregrounds, a catalogue of compact Galactic and extragalactic sources, and a list of sources detected through the Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect. The likelihood code used to assess cosmological models against the Planck data and a lensing likelihood are described. Scientific results include robust support for the standard six-parameter ΛCDM model of cosmology and improved measurements of its parameters, including a highly significant deviation from scale invariance of the primordial power spectrum. The Planck values for these parameters and others derived from them are significantly different from those previously determined. Several large-scale anomalies in the temperature distribution of the CMB, first detected by WMAP, are confirmed with higher confidence. Planck sets new limits on the number and mass of neutrinos, and has measured gravitational lensing of CMB anisotropies at greater than 25σ. Planck finds no evidence for non-Gaussianity in the CMB. Planck’s results agree well with results from the measurements of baryon acoustic oscillations. Planck finds a lower Hubble constant than found in some more local measures. Some tension is also present between the amplitude of matter fluctuations (σ8) derived from CMB data and that derived from Sunyaev-Zeldovich data. The Planck and WMAP power spectra are offset from each other by an average level of about 2% around the first acoustic peak. Analysis of Planck polarization data is not yet mature, therefore polarization results are not released, although the robust detection of E-mode polarization around CMB hot and cold spots is shown graphically.
Abstract
We identify rotations of the polarization angle in a sample of blazars observed for three seasons with the RoboPol instrument. A simplistic stochastic variability model is tested against ...this sample of rotation events. The model is capable of producing samples of rotations with parameters similar to the observed ones, but fails to reproduce the polarization fraction at the same time. Even though we can neither accept nor conclusively reject the model, we point out various aspects of the observations that are fully consistent with a random walk process.
Over the past three decades the global prevalence of childhood overweight and obesity has increased by 47%. Marketing of energy-dense nutrient-poor foods and beverages contributes to this worldwide ...increase. Previous research on food marketing to children largely uses self-report, reporting by parents, or third-party observation of children's environments, with the focus mostly on single settings and/or media. This paper reports on innovative research, Kids'Cam, in which children wore cameras to examine the frequency and nature of everyday exposure to food marketing across multiple media and settings.
Kids'Cam was a cross-sectional study of 168 children (mean age 12.6 years, SD = 0.5) in Wellington, New Zealand. Each child wore a wearable camera on four consecutive days, capturing images automatically every seven seconds. Images were manually coded as either recommended (core) or not recommended (non-core) to be marketed to children by setting, marketing medium, and product category. Images in convenience stores and supermarkets were excluded as marketing examples were considered too numerous to count.
On average, children were exposed to non-core food marketing 27.3 times a day (95% CI 24.8, 30.1) across all settings. This was more than twice their average exposure to core food marketing (12.3 per day, 95% CI 8.7, 17.4). Most non-core exposures occurred at home (33%), in public spaces (30%) and at school (19%). Food packaging was the predominant marketing medium (74% and 64% for core and non-core foods) followed by signs (21% and 28% for core and non-core). Sugary drinks, fast food, confectionary and snack foods were the most commonly encountered non-core foods marketed. Rates were calculated using Poisson regression.
Children in this study were frequently exposed, across multiple settings, to marketing of non-core foods not recommended to be marketed to children. The study provides further evidence of the need for urgent action to reduce children's exposure to marketing of unhealthy foods, and suggests the settings and media in which to act. Such action is necessary if the Commission on Ending Childhood Obesity's vision is to be achieved.
Planck 2015 results Ade, P A R; Aghanim, N; Arnaud, M ...
Astronomy and astrophysics (Berlin),
10/2016, Letnik:
594
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
We present the implications for cosmic inflation of the Planck measurements of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies in both temperature and polarization based on the full Planck survey, ...which includes more than twice the integration time of the nominal survey used for the 2013 release papers. The Planck full mission temperature data and a first release of polarization data on large angular scales measure the spectral index of curvature perturbations to be n sub(s)= 0.968 + or - 0.006 and tightly constrain its scale dependence to dn sub(s)/ dlnk= -0.003 + or - 0.007 when combined with the Planck lensing likelihood. When the Planck high-scriptl polarization data are included, the results are consistent and uncertainties are further reduced. The upper bound on the tensor-to-scalar ratio is r sub(0.002)< 0.11 (95% CL). This upper limit is consistent with the B-mode polarization constraint r< 0.12 (95% CL) obtained from a joint analysis of the BICEP2/Keck Array and Planck data. These results imply that V(phi) proportional = to phi super(2) and natural inflation are now disfavoured compared to models predicting a smaller tensor-to-scalar ratio, such as R super(2) inflation. We search for several physically motivated deviations from a simple power-law spectrum of curvature perturbations, including those motivated by a reconstruction of the inflaton potential not relying on the slow-roll approximation. We find that such models are not preferred, either according to a Bayesian model comparison or according to a frequentist simulation-based analysis. Three independent methods reconstructing the primordial power spectrum consistently recover a featureless and smooth scriptP sub()R super(()k)over the range of scales 0.008 Mpc super(-1)< or = k< or = 0.1 Mpc super(-1). At large scales, each method finds deviations from a power law, connected to a deficit at multipoles scriptlapproximate 20-40 in the temperature power spectrum, but at an uncompelling statistical significance owing to the large cosmic variance present at these multipoles. By combining power spectrum and non-Gaussianity bounds, we constrain models with generalized Lagrangians, including Galileon models and axion monodromy models. The Planck data are consistent with adiabatic primordial perturbations, and the estimated values for the parameters of the base Lambda cold dark matter (LambdaCDM) model are not significantly altered when more general initial conditions are admitted. In correlated mixed adiabatic and isocurvature models, the 95% CL upper bound for the non-adiabatic contribution to the observed CMB temperature variance is alpha sub(non - adi) < 1.9%, 4.0%, and 2.9% for CDM, neutrino density, and neutrino velocity isocurvature modes, respectively. We have tested inflationary models producing an anisotropic modulation of the primordial curvature power spectrum findingthat the dipolar modulation in the CMB temperature field induced by a CDM isocurvature perturbation is not preferred at a statistically significant level. We also establish tight constraints on a possible quadrupolar modulation of the curvature perturbation. These results are consistent with the Planck 2013 analysis based on the nominal mission data and further constrain slow-roll single-field inflationary models, as expected from the increased precision of Planck data using the full set of observations.
Planck 2015 results Ade, P A R; Aghanim, N; Arnaud, M ...
Astronomy and astrophysics (Berlin),
10/2016, Letnik:
594
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
This paper presents cosmological results based on full-mission Planck observations of temperature and polarization anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation. Our results are in ...very good agreement with the 2013 analysis of the Planck nominal-mission temperature data, but with increased precision. The temperature and polarization power spectra are consistent with the standard spatially-flat 6-parameter LambdaCDM cosmology with a power-law spectrum of adiabatic scalar perturbations (denoted "base LambdaCDM" in this paper). From the Planck temperature data combined with Planck lensing, for this cosmology we find a Hubble constant, H sub(0)= (67.8 + or - 0.9) km s super(-1) Mpc super(-1), a matter density parameter Omega sub(m)= 0.308 + or - 0.012, and a tilted scalar spectral index with n sub(s)= 0.968 + or - 0.006, consistent with the 2013 analysis. Note that in this abstract we quote 68% confidence limits on measured parameters and 95% upper limits on other parameters. We present the first results of polarization measurements with the Low Frequency Instrument at large angular scales. Combined with the Planck temperature and lensing data, these measurements give a reionization optical depth of T= 0.066 + or - 0.016, corresponding to a reionization redshift of (ProQuest: Formulae and/or non-USASCII text omitted). These results are consistent with those from WMAP polarization measurements cleaned for dust emission using 353-GHz polarization maps from the High Frequency Instrument. We find no evidence for any departure from base LambdaCDM in the neutrino sector of the theory; for example, combining Planck observations with other astrophysical data we find N sub(eff)= 3.15 + or - 0.23 for the effective number of relativistic degrees of freedom, consistent with the value N sub(eff)= 3.046 of the Standard Model of particle physics. The sum of neutrino masses is constrained to Sigma m sub(nu)< 0.23 eV. The spatial curvature of our Universe is found to be very close to zero, with Omega sub()K< 0.005. Adding a tensor component as a single-parameter extension to base LambdaCDM we find an upper limit on the tensor-to-scalar ratio of r sub(0.002)< 0.11, consistent with the Planck 2013 results and consistent with the B-mode polarization constraints from a joint analysis of BICEP2, Keck Array, and Planck(BKP) data. Adding the BKP B-mode data to our analysis leads to a tighter constraint of r 0.002 < 0.09 and disfavours inflationarymodels with a V(phi) proportional = to phi super(2) potential. The addition of Planck polarization data leads to strong constraints on deviations from a purely adiabatic spectrum of fluctuations. We find no evidence for any contribution from isocurvature perturbations or from cosmic defects. Combining Planck data with other astrophysical data, including Type Ia supernovae, the equation of state of dark energy is constrained to w= -1.006 + or - 0.045, consistent with the expected value for a cosmological constant. The standard big bang nucleosynthesis predictions for the helium and deuterium abundances for the best-fit Planck base LambdaCDM cosmology are in excellent agreement with observations. We also constraints on annihilating dark matter and on possible deviations from the standard recombination history. In neither case do we find no evidence for new physics. The Planck results for base LambdaCDM are in good agreement with baryon acoustic oscillation data and with the JLA sample of Type Ia supernovae. However, as in the 2013 analysis, the amplitude of the fluctuation spectrum is found to be higher than inferred from some analyses of rich cluster counts and weak gravitational lensing. We show that these tensions cannot easily be resolved with simple modifications of the base LambdaCDM cosmology. Apart from these tensions, the base LambdaCDM cosmology provides an excellent description of the Planck CMB observations and many other astrophysical data sets.
We present results from four years of twice-weekly 15 GHz radio monitoring of about 1500 blazars with the Owens Valley Radio Observatory 40 m telescope. Using the intrinsic modulation index to ...measure variability amplitude, we find that, with >6σ significance, the radio variability of radio-selected gamma-ray-loud blazars is stronger than that of gamma-ray-quiet blazars. Our extended data set also includes at least 21 months of data for all AGN with 'clean' associations in the Fermi Large Area Telescope First AGN Catalog, 1LAC. With these additional data, we examine the radio variability properties of a gamma-ray-selected blazar sample. Within this sample, we find no evidence for a connection between radio variability amplitude and optical classification. In contrast, for our radio-selected sample we find that the BL Lac object subpopulation is more variable than the flat-spectrum radio quasar (FSRQ) subpopulation. Radio variability is found to correlate with the synchrotron peak frequency, with low- and intermediate-synchrotron-peaked blazars varying more than high-synchrotron-peaked ones. We find evidence for a significant negative correlation between redshift and radio variability among bright FSRQs.
Bacteria residing in the guts of pollinating insects play a key role in nutrient acquisition, digestion, and resistance to pests and diseases. Imbalances in microbial flora in response to ...environmental change and stress can therefore impact insect health and resilience. This study is aimed at defining the core gut microbiome of the Australian native stingless bee,
Tetragonula carbonaria
, and exploring the impact of colony transplantation on gut health. The gut microbiomes of nine forager bees from natural (log) and manufactured (box) hives were examined via 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing. Some differences were observed at the ASV level between the microbiomes of log and box hive bees. However, a core microbiome, dominated by
Lactobacillus
spp., unclassified Acetobacteraceae spp., and
Bombella
spp., was maintained. Further, the inferred functional potential of the microbiomes was consistent across all individuals. This study highlights that although hive transplantation has an impact on the overall diversity of stingless bee gut microbiomes, it is unlikely to have a significant negative impact on the overall health and resilience of the colony.
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