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
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: Very-low-mass Stellar and Substellar Companions to Solar-like Stars from Marvels. III. A Short-period Brown Dwarf Candidate around an Active G0IV Subgiant
abstract: We present an eccentric, short-period brown dwarf candidate orbiting the active, slightly evolved subgiant star TYC 2087-00255-1, which has effective temperature T_(eff) = 5903 ± 42 K, surface gravity log (g) = 4.07 ± 0.16 (cgs), and metallicity [Fe/H] = -0.23 ± 0.07. This candidate was discovered using data from the first two years of the Multi-object APO Radial Velocity Exoplanets Large-area Survey, which is part of the third phase of Sloan Digital Sky Survey. From our 38 radial velocity measurements spread over a two-year time baseline, we derive a Keplerian orbital fit with semi-amplitude K = 3.571 ± 0.041 km s^(–1), period P = 9.0090 ± 0.0004 days, and eccentricity e = 0.226 ± 0.011. Adopting a mass of 1.16 ± 0.11 M_☉ for the subgiant host star, we infer that the companion has a minimum mass of 40.0 ± 2.5 M_(Jup). Assuming an edge-on orbit, the semimajor axis is 0.090 ± 0.003 AU. The host star is photometrically variable at the ~1% level with a period of ~13.16 ± 0.01 days, indicating that the host star spin and companion orbit are not synchronized. Through adaptive optics imaging we also found a point source 643 ± 10 mas away from TYC 2087-00255-1, which would have a mass of 0.13 M_☉ if it is physically associated with TYC 2087-00255-1 and has the same age. Future proper motion observation should be able to resolve if this tertiary object is physically associated with TYC 2087-00255-1 and make TYC 2087-00255-1 a triple body system. Core Ca II H and K line emission indicate that the host is chromospherically active, at a level that is consistent with the inferred spin period and measured v_(rot) sin i, but unusual for a subgiant of this T_(eff). This activity could be explained by ongoing tidal spin-up of the host star by the companion.

title: On the eccentricity distribution of short-period single-planet systems
abstract: We apply standard Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) analysis techniques to 50 short-period, single-planet systems discovered with radial velocity technique. We develop a new method for accessing the significance of a non-zero orbital eccentricity, namelyanalysis, which combines the frequentist bootstrap approach with Bayesian analysis of each simulated data set. We find that the eccentricity estimations from theanalysis are generally consistent with the results from both the standard MCMC analysis and previous references. Themethod is particular useful for assessing the significance of small eccentricities. Our results suggest that the current sample size is insufficient to draw robust conclusions about the roles of tidal interaction and perturbations in shaping the eccentricity distribution of short-period single- planet systems. We use a Bayesian population analysis to show that a mixture of analytical distributions is a good approximation of the underlying eccentricity distribution. For short- period planets, we find the most probable values of parameters in the analytical functions given the observed eccentricities. These analytical functions can be used in theoretical investigations or as priors for the eccentricity distribution when analysing short-period planets. As the measurement precision improves and sample size increases, the method can be applied to more complex parametrizations for the underlying distribution of eccentricity for extrasolar planetary systems.

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: INTEGRAL and Swift/XRT observations of IGR J18179−1621
abstract: IGR J18179-1621 is a hard X-ray binary transient discovered recently by INTEGRAL. Here we report on detailed timing and spectral analysis of IGR J18179-1621 in X-rays based on available INTEGRAL and Swift data. From the INTEGRAL analysis, IGR J18179-1621 is detected with a significance of 21.6s in the 1840 keV band by ISGRI and 15.3s in the 325 keV band by JEM-X, between 2012 February 29 and 2012 March 1. We analyse two quasi-simultaneous Swift ToO observations. A clear 11.82-s pulsation is detected above the white noise at a confidence level larger than 99.99 per cent. The pulse fraction is estimated as 22 +/- 8 per cent at 0.210 keV. No sign of pulsation is detected by INTEGRAL/ISGRI in the 1840 keV band. With Swift and INTEGRAL spectra combined in soft and hard X-rays, IGR J18179-1621 could be fitted by an absorbed power law with a high-energy cut-off plus a Gaussian absorption line centred at 21.5 keV. An additional absorption intrinsic to the source is found, while the absorption line is evidence for a most probable origin from cyclotron resonant scattering and suggests a magnetic field in the emitting region of 2.4 x 1012 G.

title: Progress report on high-gradient RF studies in copper accelerator structures
abstract: This paper is a progress report on studies carried out at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center to understand the behavior of copper accelerator structures under extremely high RF fields. Such structures are being designed for future electron-positron linear colliders. Recent studies include field emission and breakdown experiments with an S-band slotted-disk structure, a single demountable S-band cavity and a short X-band structure which has not yet been tested. The demountable cavity was built specifically to examine the effects of copper quality, surface conditioning, gaseous exposures, and surface damage. Results to date and recent theoretical conjectures are discussed.

title: A Lattice Non-Perturbative Hamiltonian Construction of 1+1D Anomaly-Free Chiral Fermions and Bosons - on the equivalence of the anomaly matching conditions and the boundary fully gapping rules
abstract: A non-perturbative Hamiltonian construction of chiral fermions and bosons with anomaly-free symmetry $G$ in 1+1D spacetime is proposed. More precisely, we ask "whether there is a local short-range finite quantum Hamiltonian system realizing onsite symmetry $G$ defined on a 1D spatial lattice with a continuous time, such that its low energy physics produces a 1+1D anomaly-free chiral matter theory of symmetry $G$?" Our answer is "yes." In particular, we show that the 3$_L$-5$_R$-4$_L$-0$_R$ U(1) chiral fermion theory, with two left-moving fermions of charge-3 and charge-4, and two right-moving fermions of charge-5 and charge-0 at low energy, can be put on a 1D spatial lattice where the U(1) symmetry is realized as an onsite symmetry, if we include properly-designed interactions between fermions with intermediate strength. We show how to design such proper interactions by looking for interaction terms with extra symmetries. In general, we show that any 1+1D U(1)-anomaly-free chiral matter theory can be defined as a finite system on 1D lattice with onsite symmetry, by using a quantum Hamiltonian with a continuous time, if we include properly-designed interactions between matter fields. We comment on the new ingredients and the differences of ours comparing to Eichten-Preskill and Chen-Giedt-Poppitz models, and suggest modifying Chen-Giedt-Poppitz model to have successful mirror-decoupling. As an additional remark, we show a topological non-perturbative proof on the equivalence relation between 't Hooft anomaly matching conditions and the boundary fully gapping rules of U(1) symmetry.

title: On the minimum mass ratio of W UMa binaries
abstract: Using Eggleton’s stellar evolution code, we study the minimum mass ratio (qmin) of W Ursae Majoris (W UMa) binaries that have different primary masses. It is found that the minimum mass ratio of W UMa binaries decreases with increasing mass of the primary if the primary’s mass is less than about 1.3M⊙, and above this mass the ratio is roughly constant. By comparing the theoretical minimum mass ratio with the observational data, it is found that the existence of low-q systems can be explained by the different structure of the primaries with different masses. This suggests that the dimensionless gyration radius (k 1 ) and thus the structure of the primary is very important in determining the minimum mass ratio. In addition, we investigate the mass loss during the merging process of W UMa systems and calculate the rotation velocities of the single stars formed by the merger of W UMa binaries due to tidal instability. It is found that in the case of the conservation of mass and angular momentum, the merged single stars rotate with a equatorial velocity of about 588 ∼ 819 km s, which is much larger than their break-up velocities (vb). This suggests that the merged stars should extend to a very large radius (3.7∼5.3 times the radii of the primaries) or W UMa systems would lose a large amount of mass (21∼33 per cent of the total mass) during the merging process. If the effect of magnetic braking is considered, the mass loss decreases to be 12∼18 per cent of their total masses. This implies that the significant angular momentum and mass might be lost from W UMa systems in the course of the merging process, and this kind of mass and angular momentum