arXiv subjects

T. Okuda

Publications and source records attributed to T. Okuda.

At least 91 records · Page 5Linked to original sources

arXiv2012

The surface detector array of the Telescope Array experiment

The Telescope Array (TA) experiment, located in the western desert of Utah,USA, is designed for observation of extensive air showers from extremely high energy cosmic rays. The experiment has a surface detector array surrounded by three fluorescence detectors to enable simultaneous detection of shower particles at ground level and fluorescence photons along the shower track. The TA surface detectors and fluorescence detectors started full hybrid observation in March, 2008. In this article we describe the design and technical features of the TA surface detector.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2012

Topological Surface States with Persistent High Spin Polarization across Dirac Point in Bi$_{2}$Te$_{2}$Se and Bi$_{2}$Se$_{2}$Te

Helical spin textures with the marked spin polarizations of topological surface states have been firstly unveiled by the state-of-the-art spin- and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy for two promising topological insulators Bi$_2$Te$_2$Se and Bi$_2$Se$_2$Te. The highly spin-polarized natures are found to be persistent across the Dirac point in both compounds. This novel finding paves a pathway to extending their utilization of topological surface state for future spintronic applications.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2012

Experimental verification of PbBi$_{2}$Te$_{4}$ as a 3D topological insulator

The first experimental evidence is presented of the topological insulator state in PbBi$_{2}$Te$_{4}$. A single surface Dirac cone is observed by angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) with synchrotron radiation. Topological invariants $\mathbb{Z}_2$ are calculated from the {\it ab initio} band structure to be 1; (111). The observed two-dimensional iso-energy contours in the bulk energy gap are found to be the largest among the known three-dimensional topological insulators. This opens a pathway to achieving a sufficiently large spin current density in future spintronic devices.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2012

The Energy Spectrum of Telescope Array's Middle Drum Detector and the Direct Comparison to the High Resolution Fly's Eye Experiment

The Telescope Array's Middle Drum fluorescence detector was instrumented with telescopes refurbished from the High Resolution Fly's Eye's HiRes-1 site. The data observed by Middle Drum in monocular mode was analyzed via the HiRes-1 profile-constrained geometry reconstruction technique and utilized the same calibration techniques enabling a direct comparison of the energy spectra and energy scales between the two experiments. The spectrum measured using the Middle Drum telescopes is based on a three-year exposure collected between December 16, 2007 and December 16, 2010. The calculated difference between the spectrum of the Middle Drum observations and the published spectrum obtained by the data collected by the HiRes-1 site allows the HiRes-1 energy scale to be transferred to Middle Drum. The HiRes energy scale is applied to the entire Telescope Array by making a comparison between Middle Drum monocular events and hybrid events that triggered both Middle Drum and the Telescope Array's scintillator Ground Array.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2011

Spin-polarized Dirac-cone-like surface state with $d$ character at W(110)

The surface of W(110) exhibits a Dirac-cone-like surface state with $d$ character within a spin-orbit-induced symmetry gap. As a function of wave vector parallel to the surface, it shows nearly massless energy dispersion and a pronounced spin polarization, which is antisymmetric with respect to the Brillouin zone center. In addition, the observed constant energy contours are strongly anisotropic for all energies. This discovery opens new pathways to the study of surface spin-density waves arising from a strong Fermi surface nesting as well as $d$-electron-based topological properties.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2011

Relocation of the topological surface state of Bi$_{2}$Se$_{3}$ beneath the surface by Ag intercalation

We studied the Ag-intercalated 3D topological insulator Bi$_{2}$Se$_{3}$ by scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, combined with a first principles calculations. We demonstrate that silver atoms deposited on the surface of Bi$_{2}$Se$_{3}$ are intercalated between the quintuple layer (QL) units of the crystal, causing a expansion of the van der Waals gaps and the detachment of topmost QLs from the bulk crystal. This leads to a relocation (in the real space) of the the topological state beneath the detached quintuple layers, accompanied by the emergence of parabolic and "M-shaped" trivial bands localized above the relocated topological states. These novel findings open a pathway to the engineering of Dirac fermions shielded from the ambient contamination and may facilitate the realization of fault-tolerant quantum devices.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2011

New air fluorescence detectors employed in the Telescope Array experiment

Since 2007, the Telescope Array (TA) experiment, based in Utah, USA, has been observing ultra high energy cosmic rays to understand their origins. The experiment involves a surface detector (SD) array and three fluorescence detector (FD) stations. FD stations, installed surrounding the SD array, measure the air fluorescence light emitted from extensive air showers (EASs) for precise determination of their energies and species. The detectors employed at one of the three FD stations were relocated from the High Resolution Fly's Eye experiment. At the other two stations, newly designed detectors were constructed for the TA experiment. An FD consists of a primary mirror and a camera equipped with photomultiplier tubes. To obtain the EAS parameters with high accuracies, understanding the FD optical characteristics is important. In this paper, we report the characteristics and installation of new FDs and the performances of the FD components. The results of the monitored mirror reflectance during the observation time are also described in this report.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2011

Quasiparticle interference on the surface of 3D topological insulator Bi$_{2}$Se$_{3}$ induced by cobalt adatom in the absence of ferromagnetic ordering

Quasiparticle interference induced by cobalt adatoms on the surface of the topological insulator Bi$_{2}$Se$_{3}$ is studied by scanning tunneling microscopy, angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy and X-ray magnetic circular dichroism. It is found that Co atoms are selectively adsorbed on top of Se sites and act as strong scatterers at the surface, generating anisotropic standing waves. A long-range magnetic order is found to be absent, and the surface state Dirac cone remains gapless. The anisotropy of the standing wave is ascribed to the heavily warped iso-energy contour of unoccupied states, where the scattering is allowed due to a non-zero out-of-plane spin.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2011

Digital Spectro-Correlator System for the Atacama Compact Array of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array

We have developed an FX-architecture digital spectro-correlator for the Atacama Compact Array (ACA) of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array. The correlator is able to simultaneously process four pairs of dual polarization signals with the bandwidth of 2 GHz, which are received by up to sixteen antennas. It can calculate auto- and cross-correlation spectra including cross-polarization in all combinations of all the antennas, and output correlation spectra with flexible spectral configuration such as multiple frequency ranges and multiple frequency resolutions. Its spectral dynamic range is estimated to be higher than 10^4 relative to Tsys from processing results of thermal noise for eight hours with a typical correlator configuration. The sensitivity loss is also confirmed to be 0.9 % with the same configuration. In this paper, we report the detailed design of the correlator and the verification results of the developed hardware.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2011

A Detailed Study of the Molecular and Atomic Gas Toward the γ-ray SNR RX J1713.7-3946: Spatial TeV γ-ray and ISM Gas Correspondence

RX J1713.7$-$3946 is the most remarkable TeV $γ$-ray SNR which emits $γ$-rays in the highest energy range. We made a new combined analysis of CO and \ion{H}{1} in the SNR and derived the total protons in the interstellar medium (ISM). We have found that the inclusion of the \ion{H}{1} gas provides a significantly better spatial match between the TeV $γ$-rays and ISM protons than the H$_2$ gas alone. In particular, the southeastern rim of the $γ$-ray shell has a counterpart only in the \ion{H}{1}. The finding shows that the ISM proton distribution is consistent with the hadronic scenario that comic ray (CR) protons react with ISM protons to produce the $γ$-rays. This provides another step forward for the hadronic origin of the $γ$-rays by offering one of the necessary conditions missing in the previous hadronic interpretations. We argue that the highly inhomogeneous distribution of the ISM protons is crucial in the origin of the $γ$-rays. Most of the neutral gas was likely swept up by the stellar wind of an OB star prior to the SNe to form a low-density cavity and a swept-up dense wall. The cavity explains the low-density site where the diffusive shock acceleration of charged particles takes place with suppressed thermal X-rays, whereas the CR protons can reach the target protons in the wall to produce the $γ$-rays. The present finding allows us to estimate the total CR proton energy to be $\sim 10^{48}$ ergs, 0.1% of the total energy of a SNe.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2011

Surface Scattering via Bulk Continuum States in the 3D Topological Insulator Bi$_{2}$Se$_{3}$

We have performed scanning tunneling microscopy and differential tunneling conductance ($dI/dV$) mapping for the surface of the three dimensional topological insulator Bi$_{2}$Se$_{3}$. The fast Fourier transformation applied to the $dI/dV$ image shows an electron interference pattern near Dirac node despite the general belief that the backscattering is well suppressed in the bulk energy gap region. The comparison of the present experimental result with theoretical surface and bulk band structures shows that the electron interference occurs through the scattering between the surface states near the Dirac node and the bulk continuum states.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2011

Molecular clouds in the Trifid nebula M20; Possible evidence for a cloud-cloud collision in triggering the formation of the first generation stars

A large-scale study of the molecular clouds toward the Trifid nebula, M20, has been made in the J=2-1 and J=1-0 transitions of 12CO and 13CO. M20 is ionized predominantly by an O7.5 star HD164492. The study has revealed that there are two molecular components at separate velocities peaked toward the center of M20 and that their temperatures - 30-50 K as derived by an LVG analysis - are significantly higher than the 10 K of their surroundings. We identify that the two clouds as the parent clouds of the first generation stars in M20. The mass of each cloud is estimated to be ~10^3 Msun and their separation velocity is ~8 km/s over ~1-2 pc. We find the total mass of stars and molecular gas in M20 is less than ~3.2 \times 103 Msun, which is too small by an order of magnitude to gravitationally bind the system. We argue that the formation of the first generation stars, including the main ionizing O7.5 s tar, was triggered by the collision between the two clouds in a short time scale of ~1 Myrs, a second example alongside Westerlund 2, where a super star cluster may have been formed due to cloud-cloud collision triggering.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2010

Star Forming Dense Cloud Cores in the TeV γ-ray SNR RX J1713.7-3946

RX J1713.7-3946 is one of the TeV γ-ray supernova remnants (SNRs) emitting synchrotron X rays. The SNR is associated with molecular gas located at ~1 kpc. We made new molecular observations toward the dense cloud cores, peaks A, C and D, in the SNR in the 12CO(J=2-1) and 13CO(J=2-1) transitions at angular resolution of 90". The most intense core in 13CO, peak C, was also mapped in the 12CO(J=4-3) transition at angular resolution of 38". Peak C shows strong signs of active star formation including bipolar outflow and a far-infrared protostellar source and has a steep gradient with a r^{-2.2$\pm$0.4} variation in the average density within radius r. Peak C and the other dense cloud cores are rim-brightened in synchrotron X rays, suggesting that the dense cloud cores are embedded within or on the outer boundary of the SNR shell. This confirms the earlier suggestion that the X rays are physically associated with the molecular gas (Fukui et al. 2003). We present a scenario where the densest molecular core, peak C, survived against the blast wave and is now embedded within the SNR. Numerical simulations of the shock-cloud interaction indicate that a dense clump can indeed survive shock erosion, since shock propagation speed is stalled in the dense clump. Additionally, the shock-cloud interaction induces turbulence and magnetic field amplification around the dense clump that may facilitate particle acceleration in the lower-density inter-clump space leading to the enhanced synchrotron X rays around dense cores.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2008

ASTE CO(3--2) Observations of the Southern Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 986: a Large Gaseous Bar Filled with Dense Molecular Medium

We present CO(3-2) emission observations toward the 3'x3' (or 20x20kpc at a distance of 23Mpc) region of the southern barred spiral galaxy NGC 986 using the Atacama Submillimeter Telescope Experiment (ASTE). This effort is a part of our on-going extragalactic CO(3-2) imaging project ADIoS (ASTE Dense gas Imaging of Spiral galaxies). Our CO(3-2) image revealed the presence of a large (the major axis is 14 kpc in total length) gaseous bar filled with dense molecular medium along the dark lanes observed in optical images. This is the largest ``dense-gas rich bar'' known to date. The dense gas bar discovered in NGC 986 could be a huge reservoir of possible ``fuel'' for future starbursts in the central region, and we suggest that the star formation in the central region of NGC 986 could still be in a growing phase. We found a good spatial coincidence between the overall distributions of dense molecular gas traced by CO(3-2) and the massive star formation depicted by H$α$. The global CO(3-2) luminosity $L'_{\rm CO(3-2)}$ of NGC 986 was determined to be $(5.4 \pm 1.1) \times 10^8$ K km s$^{-1}$ pc$^2$. The CO(3-2)/CO(1-0) integrated intensity ratio was found to be 0.60 +/- 0.13 at a spatial resolution of 44'' or 5 kpc, and a CO(3-2)/CO(2-1) ratio was 0.67 +/- 0.14 at a beam size of ~25'' or ~2.8 kpc. These line ratios suggest moderate excitation conditions of CO lines ($n_{\rm H_2} \sim 10^{3-4}$ cm$^{-3}$) in the central a few kpc region of NGC 986.

astro-ph↗

arXiv2008

Performance Measurements of 8-Gsps 1-bit ADCs Developed for Wideband Radio Astronomical Observations

8-Gsps 1-bit Analog-to-Digital Converters (ADCs) were newly developed toward the realization of the wideband observation. The development of the wideband ADCs is one of the most essential developments for the radio interferometer. To evaluate its performance in interferometric observations, the time (phase) stability and frequency response were measured with a noise source and a signal generator. The results of these measurements show that the developed ADCs can achieve the jitter time less than 0.05 psec at the time interval of 1 sec, the passband frequency response with the slope less than 0.73 dB/GHz and the ripple less than 1.8 dB, and the aperture time less than 20 psec. The details of the developed ADC design, the measurement methods, and the results of these measurements are presented in this paper.

astro-ph↗

arXiv2007

Shock oscillation model for QPOs in stellar-mass and supermassive black holes

We numerically examine centrifugally supported shock waves in 2D rotating accretion flows around a stellar-mass (10M_sun) and a supermassive (10^6M_sun) black holes over a wide range of input accretion rates of 10^7 >\dot M/\dot M_E>10^{-4}. The resultant 2D-shocks are unstable with time and the luminosities show quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) with modulations of a factor of 2-3 andwith periods of a tenth seconds to several hours, depending on the black hole masses. The shock oscillation model may explain the intermediate frequency QPOs with 1-10 Hz observed in the stellar-mass black hole candidates and also suggest the existence of QPOs with the period of hours in AGNs. When the accretion rate is low, the luminosity increases in proportion to the accretion rate. However, when the accretion rate exceeds greatly the Eddington critical rate \dot M_E, the luminosity is insensitive to the accretion rate and is kept constantly around 3 L_E. On the other hand, the mass-outflow rate increases in proportion to the accretion rate and it amounts to about a few percent of theinput mass-flow rate.

astro-ph↗

arXiv2004

Starbursting Nuclear CO Disks of Early-type Spiral Galaxies

We have initiated the first CO interferometer survey of early-type spiral galaxies (S0-Sab). We observed five early-type spiral galaxies with HII nuclei (indicating circumnuclear starburst activities). These observations indicate gas masses for the central kiloparsec of \sim 1-5% of the dynamical masses. Such low gas mass fractions suggest that large-scale gravitational instability in the gas is unlikely to be the driving cause for the starburst activities. The Toomre Q values were >1 (mostly >3) within the central kiloparsec, indicating that the gas disks are globally gravitationally stable. The area filling factor of the gas disks is estimated to be about 0.05. This small value indicates the existence of lumpy structure, i.e. molecular clouds, in the globally-gravitationally stable disks. The typical surface density of the molecular clouds is as high as \sim 3000 Msun pc^{-2}. We reconsider the nature of the Toomre Q criterion, and conclude that the Q derived from CO observations indicates neither star formation nor molecular cloud formation. This argument should be valid not only for the circumnuclear disks but also for any region in galactic disks. We tentatively explore an alternative model, i.e. cloud-cloud collisions, as an initiating mechanism of star formation.

astro-ph↗

arXiv2004

Nobeyama Millimeter Array Observations of GRB 030329: a Decay of Afterglow with Bumps and Molecular Gas in the Host Galaxy

Nobeyama Millimeter Array was used to observe millimeter-wave afterglow of GRB 030329 at 93 GHz and 141 GHz from 2003 April 6 to 2003 May 30. A sensitive search for CO(J=1-0) emission/absorption from the host galaxy of GRB 030329 was also carried out. Unresolved millimeter continuum emission at the position of GRB 030329 was detected until 2003 April 21. We found a steep decline of continuum flux (\propto t^{-2.0}) during this period, in accord with a previous report. Moreover, our data implies that the decay was accompanied by possible plateaus phases, or bumps, on a time scale of several days. From an integrated spectrum, produced by summing up the data from 2003 April 10 to 2003 May 30, we found a possible emission feature, which could be a redshifted CO(J=1-0) line. Its position and redshift coincide well with those of GRB 030329, though further observations are required to confirm the detection. If the emission feature is real, the observed CO flux is 1.4 +/- 0.52 Jy km/s, corresponding to a large molecular gas mass of M(H_2) > 10^9 Mo. This implies that the host galaxy, which is optically faint, is highly obscured due to a rich interstellar medium.

astro-ph↗