We present the design for the first narrowband filter NB964 for the Dark Energy Camera (DECam), which is operated on the 4m Blanco Telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory. The NB964 filter profile is essentially defined by maximizing the power of searching for Lyman alpha emitting galaxies (LAEs) in the epoch of reionization, with the consideration of the night sky background in the near-infrared and the DECam quantum efficiency. The NB964 filter was manufactured by Materion in 2015.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe Gemini Planet Imager's adaptive optics (AO) subsystem was designed specifically to facilitate high-contrast imaging. A definitive description of the system's algorithms and technologies as built is given. 564 AO telemetry measurements from the Gemini Planet Imager Exoplanet Survey campaign are analyzed.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDirectly detecting thermal emission from young extrasolar planets allows measurement of their atmospheric compositions and luminosities, which are influenced by their formation mechanisms. Using the Gemini Planet Imager, we discovered a planet orbiting the ~20-million-year-old star 51 Eridani at a projected separation of 13 astronomical units. Near-infrared observations show a spectrum with strong methane and water-vapor absorption.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe Gemini Planet Imager is a dedicated facility for directly imaging and spectroscopically characterizing extrasolar planets. It combines a very high-order adaptive optics system, a diffraction-suppressing coronagraph, and an integral field spectrograph with low spectral resolution but high spatial resolution. Every aspect of the Gemini Planet Imager has been tuned for maximum sensitivity to faint planets near bright stars.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAn epidemiological study and the simultaneous evaluation of anti-HAV antibody using radio immunoassay (RIA) and immunoadherence hemagglutination assay (IAHA) was performed during three hepatitis A epidemics in the Tours area (France). Fifty-seven sera from 35 subjects with viral hepatitis type A and 16 sera from nine children who did not develop any clinical signs of hepatitis were studied. The more explosive epidemic occurred in an institution for mentally retarded children (attack rate 68%).
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