The ninth data release of the sloan digital sky survey: first spectroscopic data from the sdss-iiI baryon oscillation spectroscopic survey
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey III (SDSS-III) presents the first spectroscopic data from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS). This ninth data release (DR9) of the SDSS project includes 535,995 new galaxy spectra (median z ~ 0.52), 102,100 new quasar spectra (median z ~ 2.32), and 90,897 new stellar spectra, along with the data presented in previous data releases. These spectra were obtained with the new BOSS spectrograph and were taken between 2009 December and 2011 July. In addition, the stellar parameters pipeline, which determines radial velocities, surface temperatures, surface gravities, and metallicities of stars, has been updated and refined with improvements in temperature estimates for stars with T eff -0.5. DR9 includes new stellar parameters for all stars presented in DR8, including stars from SDSS-I and II, as well as those observed as part of the SEGUE-2. The astrometry error introduced in the DR8 imaging catalogs has been corrected in the DR9 data products. The next data release for SDSS-III will be in Summer 2013, which will present the first data from the APOGEE along with another year of data from BOSS, followed by the final SDSS-III data release in 2014 December.

title: APPLICATION OF THE GIGE VISION DIGITAL CAMERA FOR BEAM DIAGNOSTICS IN HLS
abstract: Ethernet vision standard) is a new interface standard for the latest vision of cameras with higher performance compared to analogue vision standard and other digital vision standard. In recent years, the market of industrial vision components is evolving towards GigE Vision. The cameras comply with GigE Vision are capable of providing low distortion for image transmission over long distance with high image rate. This paper will present applications of GigE Vision digital camera for the measurement of beam profile and emittance at the storage ring of HLS (Hefei Light Source).

title: MARVELS-1: A FACE-ON DOUBLE-LINED BINARY STAR MASQUERADING AS A RESONANT PLANETARY SYSTEM AND CONSIDERATION OF RARE FALSE POSITIVES IN RADIAL VELOCITY PLANET SEARCHES
abstract: We have analyzed new and previously published radial velocity (RV) observations of MARVELS-1, known to have an ostensibly substellar companion in a ~6 day orbit. We find significant (~100 m s–1) residuals to the best-fit model for the companion, and these residuals are naively consistent with an interior giant planet with a P = 1.965 days in a nearly perfect 3:1 period commensurability (|Pb /Pc – 3| < 10–4). We have performed several tests for the reality of such a companion, including a dynamical analysis, a search for photometric variability, and a hunt for contaminating stellar spectra. We find many reasons to be critical of a planetary interpretation, including the fact that most of the three-body dynamical solutions are unstable. We find no evidence for transits, and no evidence of stellar photometric variability. We have discovered two apparent companions to MARVELS-1 with adaptive optics imaging at Keck; both are M dwarfs, one is likely bound, and the other is likely a foreground object. We explore false-alarm scenarios inspired by various curiosities in the data. Ultimately, a line profile and bisector analysis lead us to conclude that the ~100 m s–1 residuals are an artifact of spectral contamination from a stellar companion contributing ~15%-30% of the optical light in the system. We conclude that origin of this contamination is the previously detected RV companion to MARVELS-1, which is not, as previously reported, a brown dwarf, but in fact a G dwarf in a face-on orbit.

title: Accurate Group-Delay Measurement for Radial-Velocity Instruments Using the Dispersed Fixed-Delay Interferometer Method
abstract: The dispersed fixed-delay Intereferometer (DFDI) method is attractive for its low cost, compact size, and multiobject capability in precision radial-velocity (RV) measurements. The phase shift of fringes of stellar absorption lines is measured and then converted to an RV shift via an important parameter, phase-to-velocity scale (PV scale), determined by the group delay (GD) of a fixed-delay interferometer. Two methods of GD measurement using a DFDI Doppler instrument are presented in this article: (1) GD measurement using white-light combs generated by the fixed-delay interferometer and (2) GD calibration using an RV reference star. These two methods provide adequate precision of GD measurement and calibration, given the current RV precision achieved by a DFDI Doppler instrument. They can potentially be used to measure GD of an fixed-delay interferometer for submeter-precision Doppler measurement with a DFDI instrument. Advantages and limitations of each method are discussed in detail. The two methods can serve as standard procedures of PV-scale calibration for DFDI instruments and cross-checks for each other.

title: FUNDAMENTAL PERFORMANCE OF A DISPERSED FIXED DELAY INTERFEROMETER IN SEARCHING FOR PLANETS AROUND M DWARFS
abstract: We present a new method to calculate fundamental Doppler measurement limits with a dispersed fixed delay interferometer (DFDI) in the near-infrared (NIR) wavelength region for searching for exoplanets around M dwarfs in the coming decade. It is based on calculating the Q factor, a measure of flux-normalized Doppler sensitivity in the fringing spectra created with DFDI. We calculate the Q factor as a function of spectral resolution R, stellar-projected rotational velocity Vsin i, stellar effective temperature T eff, and optical path difference (OPD) of the interferometer. We also compare the DFDI Q factor to that for the popular cross-dispersed echelle spectrograph method (the direct echelle (DE) method). We find that (1) Q DFDI is a factor of 1.5-3 higher than Q DE at R ranging from 5000 to 20,000; (2) Q DFDI and Q DE converge at a very high R (R ≥ 100,000); (3) Q DFDI increases as R increases and Vsin i deceases; (4) for a given R, Q DFDI increases as T eff drops from 3100 K to 2400 K (M4V to M9V). We also investigate how Q DFDI is affected by OPD and find that a 5 mm deviation from the optimal OPD does not significantly affect Q DFDI (10% or less) for a wide range of R. Given that the NIR Doppler measurement is likely to be detector-limited for a while, we introduce new merit functions, which is directly related to photon-limited radial velocity (RV) uncertainty, to evaluate Doppler performance with the DFDI and DE methods. We find that DFDI has strength in wavelength coverage and multi-object capability over the DE for a limited detector resource. We simulate the performance of the InfraRed Exoplanet Tracker (IRET) based on the DFDI design, being considered for the next generation IR Doppler measurements. The predicted photon-limited RV uncertainty suggests that IRET is capable of detecting Earth-like exoplanets in habitable zone around nearby bright M dwarfs if they exist. A new method is developed to quantitatively estimate the influence of telluric lines on RV uncertainty. Our study shows that photon-limited RV uncertainty can be reached if 99% of the strength of telluric lines can be removed from the measured stellar spectra. At low to moderate levels of telluric line strength removal (50%-90%), the optimal RV uncertainty is typically a factor of two to three times larger than photon-limited RV uncertainty.

title: PLANET HUNTERS. V. A CONFIRMED JUPITER-SIZE PLANET IN THE HABITABLE ZONE AND 42 PLANET CANDIDATES FROM THE KEPLER ARCHIVE DATA*
abstract: We report the latest Planet Hunter results, including PH2 b, a Jupiter-size (R PL = 10.12 ? 0.56 R ?) planet orbiting in the habitable zone of a solar-type star. PH2 b was elevated from candidate status when a series of false-positive tests yielded a 99.9% confidence level that transit events detected around the star KIC?12735740 had a planetary origin. Planet Hunter volunteers have also discovered 42 new planet candidates in the Kepler public archive data, of which 33 have at least 3 transits recorded. Most of these transit candidates have orbital periods longer than 100?days and 20 are potentially located in the habitable zones of their host stars. Nine candidates were detected with only two transit events and the prospective periods are longer than 400?days. The photometric models suggest that these objects have radii that range between those of Neptune and Jupiter. These detections nearly double the number of gas-giant planet candidates orbiting at habitable-zone distances. We conducted spectroscopic observations for nine of the brighter targets to improve the stellar parameters and we obtained adaptive optics imaging for four of the stars to search for blended background or foreground stars that could confuse our photometric modeling. We present an iterative analysis method to derive the stellar and planet properties and uncertainties by combining the available spectroscopic parameters, stellar evolution models, and transiting light curve parameters, weighted by the measurement errors. Planet Hunters is a citizen science project that crowd sources the assessment of NASA Kepler light curves. The discovery of these 43 planet candidates demonstrates the success of citizen scientists at identifying planet candidates, even in longer period orbits with only two or three transit events.

title: Relation between Starlight and Nebular Emission Lines of Star-Forming Galaxies
abstract: We present an exercise that intends to establish a relationship between the strength of nebular emission lines and optical stellar features in the spectrum of a galaxy. After accurately subtracting the stellar continuum and the underlying stellar absorption, we made reliable measurements of the emission lines of all the galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 2 (SDSS DR2). More than 4000 star-forming galaxies with high S/N ratio of both the stellar spectrum and the emission lines are selected. These galaxy spectra are fitted with the 10 PCs of Yip et al., after all the emission line regions have been filtered out. We find that the flux of hydrogen Balmer emission lines, H α and H β can be well recovered from the PCs, while the metal lines are not well reproduced. The fluxes of H α and H β measured from the PC-reconstructed spectra and from the observed spectra agree well with an rms scatter of only ~0.1 dex. This result suggests that, with moderate spectral resolution and S/N ratio, the optical stellar spectrum of a galaxy can serve as an indicator of star formation rate.

title: Measurement of the muonic branching fractions of the narrow upsilon resonances.
abstract: The decay branching fractions of the three narrow Upsilon resonances to mu(+)mu(-) have been measured by analyzing about 4.3 fb(-1) e(+)e(-) data collected with the CLEO III detector. The branching fraction B(Upsilon(1S)-->mu(+)mu(-))=(2.49+/-0.02+/-0.07)% is consistent with the current world average, but B(Upsilon(2S)-->mu(+)mu(-))=(2.03+/-0.03+/-0.08)% and B(Upsilon(3S)-->mu(+)mu(-))=(2.39+/-0.07+/-0.10)% are significantly larger than prior results. These new muonic branching fractions imply a narrower total decay width for the Upsilon(2S) and Upsilon(3S) resonances and lower other branching fractions that rely on these decays in their determination.

title: RDDS cell design and optimization for the linear collider linacs
abstract: Each of the JLC/NLC main linacs will consist of /spl sim/1 million complex 3D accelerating cells that make up the 1.8 meter Rounded Damped Detuned Structures (RDDS) along its eight kilometer length. The RDDS is designed to provide maximum accelerating gradient to the beam while being able to suppress the long-range transverse wakefields to a satisfactory level. Using the 2D finite element code, Omega2, a 15% improvement in shunt impedance is found by changing the basic cell shape from a straight cylinder to a round outer wall contour that connects to slightly bulging circular disk noses. The HOM damping manifold is then designed around this optimal cell shape to improve the cell-to-manifold coupling for the dipole mode and the vacuum conductance under the frequency and minimal Q-reduction constraints for the fundamental mode. We use both MAFIA and the 3D finite element Omega3 code for this step to obtain a manifold geometry that consists of a round waveguide with additional narrow coupling slots that cut into the cell disks. As a time and cost saving measure for the JLC/NLC, the RDDS cell dimensions are being determined through computer modeling to within fabrication precision so that no tuning may be needed once the structures are assembled. At the X-band operating frequency, this corresponds to an error of a few microns in the cell radius. Such a level of resolution requires highly accurate field solvers and vast amount of computer resources. We will present calculations with the parallel code Omega3P that utilizes massively parallel computers such as the Cray T3E at NERSC. The numerical results will be compared with cold test measurements performed on RDDS prototypes that are diamond-turned with dimensions based on Omega3P simulations.

title: Ensemble Learning for Independent Component Analysis of Normal Galaxy Spectra
abstract: In this paper, we employ a new statistical analysis technique, ensemble learning for independent component analysis (EL-ICA), on the synthetic galaxy spectra from a newly released high-resolution evolutionary model by Bruzual & Charlot. We find that EL-ICA can sufficiently compress the synthetic galaxy spectral library to six nonnegative independent components (ICs), which are good templates for modeling huge amounts of normal galaxy spectra, such as the galaxy spectra in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Important spectral parameters, such as starlight reddening, stellar velocity dispersion, stellar mass, and star formation histories, can be given simultaneously by the fit. Extensive tests show that the fit and the derived parameters are reliable for galaxy spectra with the typical quality of the SDSS.

title: The X-Ray Absorber in Broad Absorption Line Quasars
abstract: Recent observations of Broad Absorption Line (BAL) quasars demonstrated that the soft X-ray emission of these objects is extremely weak, and convincing evidence for very strong absorption by a high column density (~1023.5 cm-2) was obtained for PG 1411+442, even though it is one of the few BAL QSOs strongly detected in soft X-rays. This paper examines the ionization status and geometry of the X-ray absorber by combining the properties of the UV lines with the X-ray continuum absorption. We show that the gas has to have large column densities in ions of major UV absorption lines, such as C IV, N V, O VI, and Ne VIII, in order to have sufficient opacity around 0.2-0.35 keV. The UV absorption lines have to be saturated if the X-ray absorber intersects the line of sight to the UV continuum emission region. A uniformly covering UV and X-ray absorption model can be constructed for PG 1411+442, but in some other soft X-ray-detected BAL QSOs, such as PG 1001+054, the observed line optical depth is much lower than expected from the X-ray-absorbing material. We propose a scheme in which a substantial fraction of the line of sight to the continuum source may be covered by either an optically thick flow or clouds in a narrow velocity range, but in which the total covering factor of either the whole flow or all clouds is close to unity. The absorber can contribute significantly to the extremely highly ionized emission lines, such as O VI λλ1032/1037 and Ne VIII λλ770/780, if it covers a substantial fraction of solid angle and if the density is higher than 108 cm-3. However, it has very little impact on the medium- and low-ionization UV lines such as N V and C IV. The profiles of Ne VIII and O VI lines may be indicators for the kinematics of the X-ray absorber in QSOs. The observed Ne VIII line profiles in QSOs suggest that the velocity of the gas projected onto our line of sight is similar to that seen in the outflows of the UV BALs.