123477095
High-energy pulsed gamma rays from pulsars
Ten pulsars were observed for pulsed emission of gamma rays at energies greater than 500 GeV, using an atmospheric Cerenkov emission technique. Signals at the levels of 3.85 and 3.56 sigmas were detected from PSR 0950+08 and PSR 0531+21 (Crab pulsar), respectively. If the signal from the Crab pulsar is attributed to the main pulse, a further 2.2-sigma signal is found in the same data, precisely at the place predicted for interpulse by the observations on low-energy gamma rays from COS-B satellite. The statistical significance of the results is discussed.
119032709
Emission of Radiation at Energies > 1014 eV: Binary X-Ray Sources SCO X-1, CYG X-1, HER X-1 and Others
55612742
Recent results from the GRAPES-3 experiment
The GRAPES-3 is a dense extensive air shower array operating with ~400 scintillator detectors and a 560 m 2 large tracking muon detector (E μ > 1 GeV), at Ooty in India. The muon detector has been used to observe acceleration of muons during thunderstorm conditions. The muon multiplicity distribution of the EAS is used to probe the composition of primary cosmic rays below 1 PeV, with an overlap with direct measurements. More recently we have explored the possibility of using the angular distribution of >1 GeV muons to identify the best from among several low- and high-energy hadronic interaction models. We have major expansion plans to enhance the sensitivity of the GRAPES-3 experiment in all of the areas listed above.
67815721
The angular resolution of the GRAPES-3 array from the shadows of the Moon and the Sun
Abstract The absence of a well established point source of very high energy ( ≳ 10 TeV ) γ-rays in the sky, makes the measurement of the angular resolution and the absolute pointing accuracy of an extensive air shower (EAS) array a challenging task. In the past, several groups have utilized the reduction in the isotropic flux of cosmic rays due to the shadows of the Moon and the Sun, to measure the angular resolution and the absolute pointing accuracy of their arrays. The data collected from the GRAPES-3 EAS array, over the period of 4 years from 2000 to 2003, has been used to observe the shadow of the Moon at a level of ∼ 5 σ and that of the Sun at a lower level of significance. The high density of the detectors in GRAPES-3 enabled an angular resolution of 0.7° to be obtained at energies as low as 30 TeV. The angular resolution studies were further extended by using two other techniques, namely, the even–odd and the left–right methods. All three techniques have yielded nearly identical results on the energy dependent angular resolution.
121254838
Sporadic emission of ultra high energy gamma rays from Crab pulsar
In a further study of sporadic emission from pulsars we find evidence for short lived intense emission from the Crab pulsar.
55926788
A large area muon tracking detector for ultra-high energy cosmic ray astrophysics — the GRAPES-3 experiment
Certain aspects of ultra-high energy (UHE) cosmic ray astrophysics require correlated studies on the electron and muon components of air showers, namely, the search for cosmic ray sources through g-ray astronomy and studies on the variation of the nuclear composition of primary cosmic rays with energy. While studies on the electron component provide basic information about the arrival direction and energy, it is the muon component that plays a crucial role in distinguishing primary g-rays from charged cosmic ray particles and in determining the composition. A large area (560m), tracking muon detector of the GRAPES-3 experiment, operating at Ooty in southern India, has been designed for detailed studies on both of these aspects of UHE cosmic ray astrophysics. We present here the details of the muon detector, associated electronics and the data acquisition system. A brief discussion of the potential of the muon detector is presented through simulation studies. r 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. PACS: 98.70.Sa; 96.40.Pq; 96.40.De; 98.70.Rz; 95.55.Vj; 13.85.Tp
128078572
A preshower photon multiplicity detector for the WA93 experiment
Abstract A fine granularity preshower detector has been designed, fabricated and installed in the WA93 experiment for the first ever measurement of photon multiplicity in ultra-relativistic heavy ion collisions. Photons are counted by detecting the preshower signal in plastic scintillator pads placed behind a lead converter and applying a threshold on the scintillator signal to reject the minimum ionizing particles. The photon detection efficiency estimated using Monte-Carlo and beam test results is found to be ∼65–75% depending on centrality. Simulation and performance results of the detector for counting of photons and rejection of hadrons in the large multiplicity environment of ultra-relativistic heavy ion collisions are described.
119419540
Analyticity and the phase diagram of QCD
Some consequences of the analyticity of the free energy (pressure) of QCD at finite chemical potential are deduced. Lattice simulations at imaginary chemical potential are possible due to the positivity of the measure. We show that such a theory cannot be interpreted as a thermodynamic system with a phase diagram in the usual sense. However, simulations at imaginary chemical potential are useful because the free energy can be analytically continued and information on the thermodynamic system at real chemical potential can be extracted by two means-either by the usual method of Taylor expansions, or by using this data to extract Yang-Lee zeroes of the grand-canonical partition function. We also comment on the structure of zeroes expected for the usual picture of the phases of QCD, following a discussion of the physics of imaginary chemical potential.
19594756
Properties of the largest fragment in multifragmentation: A canonical thermodynamic calculation
Many calculations for the production of light and intermediate particles resulting from heavy ion collisions at intermediate energies exist. Calculations of properties of the largest fragment resulting from multifragmentation are rare. In this paper we compute these properties and compare them with the data for the case of gold on carbon. We use the canonical thermodynamic model. The model also gives a bimodal distribution for the largest fragment in a narrow energy range.
119853101
Jet production from nuclei and the cumulative region in nuclear structure functions
Abstract We show that recent data on nuclear dependence of large- E T jet production in proton-nucleus collisions can be accounted for by the nuclear dependence of structure functions, in the framework of lowest order perturbative QCD. A crucial role seems to be played by the extension of nuclear structure functions in the region x > 1 (cumulative region). Such an extension is expected in some models of nuclear effects.
118904356
Multiplicity distributions of intermediate mass fragments in the thermodynamic model
Multiplicity distributions of intermediate mass fragments (IMFs) seen in intermediate energy heavy ion collisions have been of great interest in the last ten years. The distributions of single intermediate sized elements are close to Poissonian and have been subjected to widely different physical interpretations. We calculate the multiplicity distributions in a thermodynamic model whose physical basis is equal populations in phase space, which implies equilibrium statistics. We found distributions of a single element are to a good approximation Poissonian, and this result is attributed to the small emission probability of a given IMF among all the possible channels. We also found significant deviation from a Poisson distribution for a range of IMFs, and suggest strong correlations as an explanation. The systematics of the multiplicity distributions are explored in both one-component and two-component models. In the one-component model, sudden changes for the multiplicity distributions are found at the phase transition region. In the two-component model, the multiplicity distributions have more subtleties. Results from the current model are compared with available data, and good agreements are found. New signals for the multiparticle correlations are also suggested.