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Stellar bars and spiral arms co-exist and co-evolve in most disc galaxies in the local Universe. However, the physical nature of this interaction remains a matter of debate. In this work, we present a set of numerical simulations based on isolated galactic models aimed to explore how the bar properties affect the induced spiral structure. We cover a large combination of bar properties, including the bar length, axial ratio, mass and rotation rate. We use three galactic models describing galaxies with rising, flat and declining rotation curves. We found that the pitch angle best correlates with the bar pattern speed and the spiral amplitude with the bar quadrupole moment. Our results suggest that galaxies with declining rotation curves are the most efficient forming grand design spiral structure, evidenced by spirals with larger amplitude and pitch angle. We also test the effects of the velocity ellipsoid in a subset of simulations. We found that as we increase the radial anisotropy, spirals increase their pitch angle but become less coherent with smaller amplitude., Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS. 16 pages, 16 figures

We present the Strategic Scientific Plan (SSP) for the direction and activities of the Gemini Observatory in the 2020s. The overarching goal is to ensure that Gemini best uses the available resources to serve the needs of its international user community throughout the coming decade. The actionable items fall into three general categories: (1) preserving Gemini's current facilities and strengths; (2) developing instrumentation and software systems, including data pipelines, to enable new scientific capabilities that build on those strengths; (3) strategizing how visiting instruments can deliver additional valuable capabilities. We provide a high-level timeline (schematically illustrated in one figure) for the main developments discussed in this SSP. The schedule is ambitious, but in light of the recent Gemini in the Era of Multi-Messenger Astronomy (GEMMA) award from the NSF, the plan becomes achievable. Lists of milestones are given for gauging progress. As these milestones are reached and new instruments become available, some current instruments will need to be retired; we make recommendations in this regard. The final section concludes by reemphasizing the importance of a strong partnership committed to the needs of all members., Comment: Basic version with minimal illustration, 30 pages with 4 figures. For richly illustrated versions with the same textual content, see: http://www.gemini.edu/news/gemini-strategic-scientific-plan

We present an assessment of a multi-method approach based on ion beam analysis to obtain high-resolution depth profiles of the total chemical composition of complex alloy systems. As a model system we employ an alloy based on several transition metals and containing light species. Samples have been investigated by a number of different ion-beam based techniques, i.e., Rutherford Backscattering Spectrometry, Particle-Induced X-ray Emission, Elastic Backscattering Spectrometry and Time-of-Flight/Energy Elastic Recoil Detection Analysis. Sets of spectra obtained from these different techniques were analyzed both independently and following an iterative and self-consistent approach yielding a more accurate depth profile of the sample, including both metallic heavy constituents (Cr, Fe and Ni) as well as the rather reactive light species (C, O) in the alloy. A quantitative comparison in terms of achievable precision and accuracy is made and the limitations of the single method approach are discussed for the different techniques. The multi-method approach is shown to yield significantly improved and accurate information on stoichiometry, depth distribution, and thickness of the alloy with the improvements being decisive for a detailed correlation of composition to the material properties such as corrosion strength. The study also shows the increased relative importance of experimental statistics for the achievable accuracy in the multi-method approach., Comment: 18 pages, 6 figures and 1 table

The travelling-wave MRI approach is an alternative to overcome the B1 inhomogeneity at UHF MRI for human applications. More recently, this concept has been also used with animal MR imagers. We used a parallel-plate waveguide and a bio-inspired surface coil to generate mouse images at 15.2T. Ex vivo mouse images were acquired without high dielectric materials to conduct the signal at the right frequency. These results are in very good concordance with results obtained at 3T and 9.4T. These results show that travelling wave MRI with high SNR can be performed with a simple waveguide.

We looked for a biological analogy to developed an improved surface coil to acquire magnetic resonance images. Nature offers engineering solutions that can be exploited to improve the performance of devices, such as MRI RF coils. In this paper, we proposed a coil layout based on flower petal patterns for UHF MRI at 15.2 T. This particular configuration offers the possibility to use a different number of petals and shapes. The petal resonator coil and the magnetron coil have similar layouts, which have proved to outperform the popular circular coil. Phantom images were acquired with our coil prototype to demonstrate it feasibility. These phantom images show no image degradation caused by the mutual inductance of the adjacent petals in both orientations. The SNR was also calculated using the image data and giving 31.16. Phantom images showed the coil viability and compatibility with conventional pulse sequences at 15.2 T. It still remains to investigate whether this bio-inspired surface coil is able to outperformed the popular circular coil.

For each square matrix polynomial $P(\lambda)$ of odd degree, a block-symmetric block-tridiagonal pencil $\mathcal{T}_{P}(\lambda)$ was introduced by Antoniou and Vologiannidis in 2004, and a variation $\mathcal{R}_P(\lambda)$ was introduced by Mackey et al. in 2010. These two pencils have several appealing properties, namely they are always strong linearizations of $P(\lambda)$, they are easy to construct from the coefficients of $P(\lambda)$, the eigenvectors of $P(\lambda)$ can be recovered easily from those of $\mathcal{T}_P(\lambda)$ and $\mathcal{R}_P(\lambda)$, the two pencils are symmetric (resp. Hermitian) when $P(\lambda)$ is, and they preserve the sign characteristic of $P(\lambda)$ when $P(\lambda)$ is Hermitian. In this paper we study the numerical behavior of $\mathcal{T}_{P}(\lambda)$ and $\mathcal{R}_P(\lambda)$. We compare the conditioning of a finite, nonzero, simple eigenvalue $\delta$ of $P(\lambda)$, when considered an eigenvalue of $P(\lambda)$ and an eigenvalue of $\mathcal{T}_{P}(\lambda)$. We also compare the backward error of an approximate eigenpair $(z,\delta)$ of $\mathcal{T}_{P}(\lambda)$ with the backward error of an approximate eigenpair $(x,\delta)$ of $P(\lambda)$, where $x$ was recovered from $z$ in an appropriate way. When the matrix coefficients of $P(\lambda)$ have similar norms and $P(\lambda)$ is scaled so that the largest norm of the matrix coefficients of $P(\lambda)$ is one, we conclude that $\mathcal{T}_{P}(\lambda)$ and $\mathcal{R}_P(\lambda)$ have good numerical properties in terms of eigenvalue conditioning and backward error. Moreover, we compare the numerical behavior of $\mathcal{T}_{P}(\lambda)$ with that of other well-studied linearizations in the literature, and conclude that $\mathcal{T}_{P}(\lambda)$ performs better than these linearizations when $P(\lambda)$ has odd degree and has been scaled.

Albeit radial migration must be a ubiquitous process in disc galaxies, its significance in the evolution of stellar discs is not always reflected through global trends. However, there are other key observables, such as the metallicity distribution function (MDF), that may shed some light in this matter. We argue that the shape of the MDF not only tells us whether the stellar disc experienced radial migration, but it also contains important clues on the structure that triggered it. Specifically, the MDF contains information about the dynamics and morphology of the spiral pattern. To constrain the spiral parameters, we have included a detailed chemical tagging in our simulations; this allows us to produce a restriction of the structural parameters of the spiral arms in the Milky Way as well as a method to constrain chemical evolution models towards the center of the Galactic disc, where no chemical model provides information. We also found that it is unlikely that the Sun was formed near its current galactocentric position, therefore it might be inaccurate to consider the Sun as representative of the chemical abundances in the solar neighborhood. We also show that a stellar disc of the Milky Way, after evolving dynamically and chemically for 5 Gyr, preserves 80% of its original global metallicity gradient despite having suffered important heating and radial migration; this means that the presence of a metallicity gradient in a given galaxy, does not guarantee that radial mixing has not played a role in its evolution., Comment: 15 pages, 17 Figures, 3 Tables. Accepted for publication in MNRAS

It is a common assumption that high-altitude open clusters live longer compared with clusters moving close to the Galactic plane. This is because at high altitudes, open clusters are far from the disruptive effects of in-plane substructures, such as spiral arms, molecular clouds and the bar. However, an important aspect to consider in this scenario is that orbits of high-altitude open clusters will eventually cross the Galactic plane, where the vertical tidal field of the disk is strong. In this work we simulate the interaction of open clusters with the tidal field of a detailed Milky Way Galactic model at different average altitudes and galactocentric radii. We find that the life expectancy of clusters decreases as the maximum orbital altitude increases and reaches a minimum at altitudes of approximately 600 pc. Clusters near the Galactic plane live longer because they do not experience strong vertical tidal shocks from the Galactic disk; then, for orbital altitudes higher than 600 pc, clusters start again to live longer due to the decrease in the number of encounters with the disk. With our study, we find that the compressive nature of the tides in the arms region and the bar have an important role on the survival of small clusters by protecting them from disruption: clusters inside the arms can live up to twice as long as those outside the arms at similar galactocentric distance., Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, 1 table. Accepted for publication in ApJ

A beam optics scheme has been designed for the Future Circular Collider-e+e- (FCC-ee). The main characteristics of the design are: beam energy 45 to 175 GeV, 100 km circumference with two interaction points (IPs) per ring, horizontal crossing angle of 30 mrad at the IP and the crab-waist scheme [1] with local chromaticity correction. The crab-waist scheme is implemented within the local chromaticity correction system without additional sextupoles, by reducing the strength of one of the two sextupoles for vertical chromatic correction at each side of the IP. So-called "tapering" of the magnets is applied, which scales all fields of the magnets according to the local beam energy to compensate for the effect of synchrotron radiation (SR) loss along the ring. An asymmetric layout near the interaction region reduces the critical energy of SR photons on the incoming side of the IP to values below 100 keV, while matching the geometry to the beam line of the FCC proton collider (FCC-hh) [2] as closely as possible. Sufficient transverse/longitudinal dynamic aperture (DA) has been obtained, including major dynamical effects, to assure an adequate beam lifetime in the presence of beamstrahlung and top-up injection. In particular, a momentum acceptance larger than +/-2% has been obtained, which is better than the momentum acceptance of typical collider rings by about a factor of 2. The effects of the detector solenoids including their compensation elements are taken into account as well as synchrotron radiation in all magnets. The optics presented in this paper is a step toward a full conceptual design for the collider. A number of issues have been identified for further study.

Recent observations show that the Milky Way's metallicity distribution function (MDF) changes its shape as a function of radius. This new evidence of radial migration within the stellar disc sets additional constraints on Galactic models. By performing controlled test particle simulations in a very detailed, observationally motivated model of the Milky Way, we demonstrate that, in the inner region of the disc, the MDF is shaped by the joint action of the bar and spiral arms, while at outer radii the MDF is mainly shaped by the spiral arms. We show that the spiral arms are able to imprint their signature in the radial migration, shaping the MDF in the outskirts of the Galactic disc with a minimal participation of the bar. Conversely, this work has the potential to characterise some structural and dynamical parameters of the spiral arms based on radial migration and the shape of the MDF. Finally, the resemblance obtained with this approximation to the MDF curves of the Galaxy as seen by APOGEE, show that a fundamental factor influencing their shape is the Galactic potential., Comment: 9 pages, 4 Figures, 1 Table. Accepted for publication in MNRAS

We report on detection, from observations obtained with the APOGEE spectroscopic survey, of a metal-poor ([Fe/H] $= -1.3$ dex) field giant star with an extreme Mg-Al abundance ratio ([Mg/Fe] $= -0.31$ dex; [Al/Fe] $= 1.49$ dex). Such low Mg/Al ratios are seen only among the second-generation population of globular clusters, and are not present among Galactic disk field stars. The light element abundances of this star, 2M16011638-1201525, suggest that it could have been born in a globular cluster. We explore several origin scenarios, in particular studying the orbit of the star to check the probability of it being kinematically related to known globular clusters. We performed simple orbital integrations assuming the estimated distance of 2M16011638-1201525 and the available six-dimensional phase-space coordinates of 63 globular clusters, looking for close encounters in the past with a minimum distance approach within the tidal radius of each cluster. We found a very low probability that 2M16011638-1201525 was ejected from most globular clusters; however, we note that the best progenitor candidate to host this star is globular cluster $\omega$ Centauri (NGC 5139). Our dynamical investigation demonstrates that 2M16011638-1201525 reaches a distance $|Z_{max}| < 3 $ kpc from the Galactic plane and a minimum and maximum approach to the Galactic center of $R_{min}<0.62$ kpc and $R_{max}<7.26$ kpc in an eccentric ($e\sim0.53$) and retrograde orbit. Since the extreme chemical anomaly of 2M16011638-1201525 has also been observed in halo field stars, this object could also be considered a halo contaminant, likely been ejected into the Milky Way disk from the halo. We conclude that, 2M16011638-20152 is also kinematically consistent with the disk but chemically consistent with halo field stars., Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ

We present a dynamical study of the effect of the bar and spiral arms on the simulated orbits of open clusters in the Galaxy. Specifically, this work is devoted to the puzzling presence of high-altitude open clusters in the Galaxy. For this purpose we employ a very detailed observationally motivated potential model for the Milky Way and a careful set of initial conditions representing the newly born open clusters in the thin disk. We find that the spiral arms are able to raise an important percentage of open clusters (about one-sixth of the total employed in our simulations, depending on the structural parameters of the arms) above the Galactic plane to heights beyond 200 pc, producing a bulge-shaped structure toward the center of the Galaxy. Contrary to what was expected, the spiral arms produce a much greater vertical effect on the clusters than the bar, both in quantity and height; this is due to the sharper concentration of the mass on the spiral arms, when compared to the bar. When a bar and spiral arms are included, spiral arms are still capable of raising an important percentage of the simulated open clusters through chaotic diffusion (as tested from classification analysis of the resultant high-z orbits), but the bar seems to restrain them, diminishing the elevation above the plane by a factor of about two., Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures. Accepted for publication in ApJ Letters

The FCC (Future Circular Collider) study represents a vision for the next large project in high energy physics, comprising an 80-100 km tunnel that can house a future 100 TeV hadron collider. The study also includes a high luminosity e+e- collider operating in the centre-of-mass energy range of 90-350 GeV as a possible intermediate step, the FCC-ee. The FCC-ee aims at definitive electro-weak precision measurements of the Z, W, H and top particles, and search for rare phenomena. Although FCC-ee is based on known technology, the goal performance in luminosity and energy calibration make it quite challenging. During 2014 the study went through an exploration phase. The study has now entered its second year and the aim is to produce a conceptual design report during the next three to four years. We here report on progress since the last IPAC conference., Comment: Poster presented at IPAC15,Richmond, VA, USA, May 2015

We recover spiral and barred spiral patterns in disk galaxy simulations with a Wave Dark Matter (WDM) background (also known as Scalar Field Dark Matter (SFDM), Ultra-Light Axion (ULA) dark matter, and Bose-Einstein Condensate (BEC) dark matter). Here we show how the interaction between a baryonic disk and its Dark Matter Halo triggers the formation of spiral structures when the halo is allowed to have a triaxial shape and angular momentum. This is a more realistic picture within the WDM model since a non-spherical rotating halo seems to be more natural. By performing hydrodynamic simulations, along with earlier test particles simulations, we demonstrate another important way in which wave dark matter is consistent with observations. The common existence of bars in these simulations is particularly noteworthy. This may have consequences when trying to obtain information about the dark matter distribution in a galaxy, the mere presence of spiral arms or a bar usually indicates that baryonic matter dominates the central region and therefore observations, like rotation curves, may not tell us what the DM distribution is at the halo center. But here we show that spiral arms and bars can develop in DM dominated galaxies with a central density core without supposing its origin on mechanisms intrinsic to the baryonic matter., Comment: 15 pages, 6 figures. Accepted for publication in JCAP

Recent observations of tidal debris around galaxies have revealed that the structural properties of the spheroidal components of tidally disturbed galaxies are similar to those found in non-interacting early-type galaxies(ETGs), likely due to minor merging events that do not strongly affect the bulge region or to major mergers that happened a long time ago. We show that independently of merger events, tidal features like shells or rings can also arise if the the dark matter is an ultra light scalar field of mass ~10$^{-22}$eV/c$^2$. In the scalar field dark matter (SFDM) model the small mass precludes halo formation below ~10$^8$ M$_{\odot}$ reducing the number of small galaxies today, it produces shallow density profiles due to the uncertainty principle in contrast to the steep profiles found in the standard cold dark matter (CDM) paradigm, in addition to the usual soliton solution there exists dark matter haloes in multistates, characterized by ripples in their density profiles, which are stable provided that most of the halo mass resides in the ground state. We use the hydrodynamics code ZEUS to track the gas evolution in a background potential given by a superposition of the ground and first excited state of the scalar field, we study this configuration when it is initially unstable (excited state more massive than ground state) but by a population inversion in the states it eventually becomes stable, this could happen when haloes decoupled from the expansion of the universe and collapse to reach a state of equilibrium. We found that tidal structures like rings are formed at a particular radii as a direct consequence of the wavelike structure of the dark matter halo(abridged), Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures. Submitted to MNRAS

The first mechanism invoked to explain the existence of the thick disk in the Milky Way Galaxy, were the spiral arms. Up-to-date work summon several other possibilities that together seem to better explain this component of our Galaxy. All these processes must affect differently in distinct types of galaxies, but the contribution of each one has not been straightforward to quantify. In this work, we present a first comprehensive study of the effect of the spiral arms in the formation of thick disks, as going from early to late type disk galaxies, in an attempt to characterize and quantify this specific mechanism in galactic potentials. To this purpose, we perform numerical simulations of test particles in a three-dimensional spiral galaxy potential of normal spiral galaxies (from early to late types). By varying the parameters of the spiral arms we found that the vertical heating of the stellar disk becomes very important in some cases, and strongly depends on the galaxy morphology, pitch angle, arms mass and its pattern speed. The later the galaxy type, the larger is the effect on the disk heating. This study shows that the physical mechanism causing the vertical heating is different from simple resonant excitation. The spiral pattern induce chaotic behavior not linked necessarily to resonances but to direct scattering of disk stars, which leads to an increase of the velocity dispersion. We applied this study to the specific example of the Milky Way Galaxy, for which we have also added an experiment that includes the Galactic bar. From this study we deduce that the effect of spiral arms of a Milky-Way-like potential, on the dynamical vertical heating of the disk is negligible, unlike later galactic potentials for disks., Comment: 18 pages, 24 figures, 3 tables. Accepted for publication in ApJ

We analyse the velocity dispersion for eight of the Milky Way dwarf spheroidal satellites in the context of finite temperature scalar field dark mater. In this model the finite temperature allows the scalar field to be in configurations that possess excited states, a feature that has proved to be necessary in order to explain the asymptotic rotational velocities found in low surface brightness (LSB) galaxies. In this work we show that excited states are not only important in large galaxies but also have visible effects in dwarf spheroidals. Additionally, we stress that contrary to previous works where the scalar field dark matter haloes are consider to be purely Bose-Einstein condensates, the inclusion of excited states in these halo configurations provides a consistent framework capable of describing LSBs and dwarf galaxies of different sizes without arriving to contradictions within the scalar field dark matter model. Using this new framework we find that the addition of excited states accounts very well for the raise in the velocity dispersion in Milky Way dwarf spheroidal galaxies improving the fit compared to the one obtained assuming all the DM to be in the form of a Bose Einstein Condensate., Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures. Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. D