SINGLE-SHOT LONGITUDINAL DIAGNOSTICS WITH THZ RADIATION AT THE FREE-ELECTRON LASER FLASH
The longitudinal charge distribution in the electron bunches has a strong impact on the lasing process in a Free-Electron Laser based on the principle of Self Amplified Spontaneous Emission of radiation. For the ultraviolet and soft X ray FEL FLASH at DESY, structures in the range of ten to hundred micrometers play a crucial role. The investigation of the longitudinal charge distribution in the electron bunches on a bunch-by-bunch basis is an important issue for optimizing the bunch compression and improving the performance of the machine. This paper introduces a new tool for longitudinal diagnostics based on THz spectroscopy of coherent radiation. A novel spectrometer has been designed which permits to analyze the radiation of single electron bunches in a broad spectral range and with high resolution. Preliminary measurements with this spectrometer are presented.

title: Ultrabroadband terahertz source and beamline based on coherent transition radiation
abstract: Coherent transition radiation (CTR) in the THz regime is an important diagnostic tool for analyzing the temporal structure of the ultrashort electron bunches needed in ultraviolet and x-ray free-electron lasers. It is also a powerful source of such radiation, covering an exceptionally broad frequency range from about 200 GHz to 100 THz. At the soft x-ray free-electron laser FLASH we have installed a beam transport channel for transition radiation (TR) with the intention to guide a large fraction of the radiation to a laboratory outside the accelerator tunnel. The radiation is produced on a screen inside the ultrahigh vacuum beam pipe of the linac, coupled out through a diamond window and transported to the laboratory through an evacuated tube equipped with five focusing and four plane mirrors. The design of the beamline has been based on a thorough analysis of the generation of TR on metallic screens of limited size. The optical propagation of the radiation has been computed taking into account the effects of near-field (Fresnel) diffraction. The theoretical description of the TR source is presented in the first part of the paper, while the design principles and the technical layout of the beamline are described in the second part. First experimental results demonstrate that the CTR beamline covers the specified frequency range and preserves the narrow time structure of CTR pulses emitted by short electron bunches.

title: BUNCH COMPRESSION MONITOR
abstract: The longitudinal charge distribution in the electron bunches has a strong impact on the lasing process in a Free-Electron Laser based on the principle of Self Amplified Spontaneous Emission of radiation. For the ultraviolet and soft X ray FEL FLASH at DESY, structures in the range of ten to hundred micrometers play a crucial role. The investigation of the longitudinal charge distribution in the electron bunches on a bunch-by-bunch basis is an important issue for optimizing the bunch compression and improving the performance of the machine. This paper introduces a new tool for longitudinal diagnostics based on THz spectroscopy of coherent radiation. A novel spectrometer has been designed which permits to analyze the radiation of single electron bunches in a broad spectral range and with high resolution. Preliminary measurements with this spectrometer are presented. A strong variation of the CTR intensity in the 40 μm regime is observed when the off-crest phase in the accelerating cavities preceding the first magnetic bunch compressor is changed in small steps. This variation in the CTR intensity is found to be correlated with a similar variation in the pulse energy of the FEL light. Hence the THz spectrometer appears to be a very sensitive device for controlling the parameters of the bunch compression scheme.

title: Luminosity determination at HERA-B
abstract: A detailed description of an original method used to measure the luminosity accumulated by the HERA-B experiment for a data sample taken during the 2002–2003 HERA running period is reported. We show that, with this method, a total luminosity measurement can be achieved with a typical precision, including overall systematic uncertainties, at a level of 5% or better. We also report evidence for the detection of δ -rays generated in the target and comment on the possible use of such delta rays to measure luminosity.

title: Anisotropic low energy electron collision cross sections for methane derived from transport coefficients
abstract: Based on a comprehensive set of transport parameters of electrons in methane derived from single electron spectra in the range of field 0.01-15 Td the authors determined a set of elastic and inelastic scattering cross sections up to 3 eV. The necessity to include anisotropic elastic scattering in a Boltzmann analysis of methane is demonstrated. In addition the drift velocity in a mixture of methane with helium was used to enhance the reliability of the derived cross sections. The low energy part of the cross sections for elastic scattering is subject to a MERT analysis and is compared with total cross section data from single scattering experiments.

title: HATSouth: A Global Network of Fully Automated Identical Wide-Field Telescopes*
abstract: HATSouth is the world's first network of automated and homogeneous telescopes that is capable of year-round 24 hr monitoring of positions over an entire hemisphere of the sky. The primary scientific goal of the network is to discover and characterize a large number of transiting extrasolar planets, reaching out to long periods and down to small planetary radii. HATSouth achieves this by monitoring extended areas on the sky, deriving high precision light curves for a large number of stars, searching for the signature of planetary transits, and confirming planetary candidates with larger telescopes. HATSouth employs six telescope units spread over three prime locations with large longitude separation in the southern hemisphere (Las Campanas Observatory, Chile; HESS site, Namibia; Siding Spring Observatory, Australia). Each of the HATSouth units holds four 0.18 m diameter f/2.8 focal ratio telescope tubes on a common mount producing an 8.2° × 8.2° field of view on the sky, imaged using four 4 K × 4 K CCD cameras and Sloan r filters, to give a pixel scale of 3.7'' pixel-1. The HATSouth network is capable of continuously monitoring 128 square arc degrees at celestial positions moderately close to the anti-solar direction. We present the technical details of the network, summarize operations, and present detailed weather statistics for the three sites. Robust operations have meant that on average each of the six HATSouth units has conducted observations on ~500 nights over a 2 years time period, yielding a total of more than 1 million science frames at a 4 minute integration time and observing ~10.65 hr day-1 on average. We describe the scheme of our data transfer and reduction from raw pixel images to trend-filtered light curves and transiting planet candidates. Photometric precision reaches ~6 mmag at 4 minute cadence for the brightest non-saturated stars at r ≈ 10.5. We present detailed transit recovery simulations to determine the expected yield of transiting planets from HATSouth. We highlight the advantages of networked operations, namely, a threefold increase in the expected number of detected planets, as compared to all telescopes operating from the same site.

title: ESC observations of SN 2005cf. II. Optical spectroscopy and the high-velocity features
abstract: The ESC-RTN optical spectroscopy data set for SN 2005cf is presented and analyzed. The observations range from −11. 6a nd +77.3 days with respect to B-band maximum light. The evolution of the spectral energy distribution of SN 2005cf is characterized by the presence of high velocity Si ii and Ca ii features. SYNOW synthetic spectra are used to investigate the ejecta geometry of silicon. Based on the synthetic spectra, the Si ii high-velocity feature appears detached at 19 500 km s −1 . We also securely establish the presence of such a feature in SN 1990N, SN 1994D, SN 2002er, and SN 2003du. In a morphological study both the Ca ii IR triplet and H&K absorption lines of SN 2005cf show high-velocity features centered around 24 000 km s −1 . When compared with other type Ia SNe based on the scheme presented in Benetti et al. (2005, ApJ, 623, 1011), SN 2005cf definitely belongs to the LVG group.

title: A glimpse of the end of the dark ages: the gamma-ray burst of 23 April 2009 at redshift 8.3
abstract: It is thought that the first generations of massive stars in the Universe were an important, and quite possibly dominant, source of the ultra-violet radiation that reionized the hydrogen gas in the intergalactic medium (IGM); a state in which it has remained to the present day. Measurements of cosmic microwave background anisotropies suggest that this phase-change largely took place in the redshift range z=10.8 +/- 1.4, while observations of quasars and Lyman-alpha galaxies have shown that the process was essentially completed by z=6. However, the detailed history of reionization, and characteristics of the stars and proto-galaxies that drove it, remain unknown. Further progress in understanding requires direct observations of the sources of ultra-violet radiation in the era of reionization, and mapping the evolution of the neutral hydrogen fraction through time. The detection of galaxies at such redshifts is highly challenging, due to their intrinsic faintness and high luminosity distance, whilst bright quasars appear to be rare beyond z~7. Here we report the discovery of a gamma-ray burst, GRB 090423, at redshift z=8.26 -0.08 +0.07. This is well beyond the redshift of the most distant spectroscopically confirmed galaxy (z=6.96) and quasar (z=6.43). It establishes that massive stars were being produced, and dying as GRBs, ~625 million years after the Big Bang. In addition, the accurate position of the burst pinpoints the location of the most distant galaxy known to date. Larger samples of GRBs beyond z~7 will constrain the evolving rate of star formation in the early universe, while rapid spectroscopy of their afterglows will allow direct exploration of the progress of reionization with cosmic time.

title: Performance of the NOMAD-STAR detector
abstract: The NOMAD-STAR detector is a silicon vertex installed in the NOMAD spectrometer at the CERN SPS neutrino beam. It consists of four layers of a passive boron carbide target with a total mass of 45 kg and five layers of 600 single sided silicon microstrip detectors covering a total area of 1.14m^2. About 11,500 nu_mu charged current interactions were reconstructed in the fiducial volume of NOMAD-STAR from the neutrino run in 1998. The potential use of silicon detectors for nu_mu (nu_e) nu_tau oscillations depends on the observation of the tau candidates by the experimental signature of a large impact parameter, in the case of the one prong decay of the tau, or a double vertex, in the case of the three prong decay. The main aim of NOMAD-STAR is to measure the impact parameter and vertex distributions of charged current interactions, which constitute the main backgrounds for the oscillation signals, to understand the significance of a potential signal in a future experiment. The present paper describes the experience gained in the operation of this silicon vertex detector, and the peformance achieved with it.

title: Study of D*+ production in nu/mu charged current interactions in the NOMAD experiment
abstract: A search was made among ν μ charged current events collected in the NOMAD experiment for the reaction: ν μ +N→μ − +D ★+ + hadrons ↪ D 0 +π + ↪ K − +π + . A high purity D ★+ sample composed of 35 events was extracted. The D ★+ yield in ν μ charged current interactions was measured to be T =(0.79±0.17(stat.)±0.10(syst.))%. The mean fraction of the hadronic jet energy taken by the D ★+ is 0.67±0.02(stat.)±0.02(syst.). The distributions of the fragmentation variables z, P T 2 and x F for D ★+ are also presented.

title: The farthest known supernova: Support for an accelerating universe and a glimpse of the epoch of deceleration
abstract: We present photometric observations of an apparent Type Ia supernova (SN Ia) at a redshift of approximately 1.7, the farthest SN observed to date. The supernova, SN 1997, was discovered in a repeat observation by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) of the Hubble Deep Field{North (HDF-N), and serendipitously monitored with NICMOS on HST throughout the Thompson et al. GTO campaign. The SN type can be determined from the host galaxy type: an evolved, red elliptical lacking enough recent star formation to provide a significant population of core-collapse supernovae. The classification is further supported by diagnostics available from the observed colors and temporal behavior of the SN, both of which match a typical SN Ia. The photometric record of the SN includes a dozen flux measurements in the I, J, and H bands spanning 35 days in the observed frame. The redshift derived from the SN photometry, z = 1:7 plus or minus 0:1, is in excellent agreement with the redshift estimate of z = 1:65 plus or minus 0:15 derived from the U_300 B_450 V_-606 I_814 J_110 J_125 H_160 H_165 K_s photometry of the galaxy. Optical and near-infrared spectra of the host provide a very tentative spectroscopic redshift of 1.755. Fits to observations of the SN provide constraints for the redshift-distance relation of SNe Ia and a powerful test of the current accelerating Universe hypothesis. The apparent SN brightness is consistent with that expected in the decelerating phase of the preferred cosmological model, Omega_M approximately equal to 1/3; Omega_Lambda approximately equal to 2/3. It is inconsistent with grey dust or simple luminosity evolution, candidate astrophysical effects which could mimic previous evidence for an accelerating Universe from SNe Ia at z approximately equal to 0:5. We consider several sources of potential systematic error including gravitational lensing, supernova misclassification, sample selection bias, and luminosity calibration errors. Currently, none of these effects alone appears likely to challenge our conclusions. Additional SNe Ia at z > 1 will be required to test more exotic alternatives to the accelerating Universe hypothesis and to probe the nature of dark energy.