Sharif Digital Repository

In this work, we study the advantages of using a Lucky Imaging camera for the observations of potential planetary microlensing events. Our aim is to reduce the blending effect and enhance exoplanet signals in binary lensing systems composed of an exoplanet and the corresponding parent star. We simulate planetary microlensing light curves based on present microlensing surveys and follow-up telescopes where one of them is equipped with a Lucky Imaging camera. This camera is used at the Danish 1.54-m follow-up telescope. Using a specific observational strategy, for an Earth-mass planet in the resonance regime, where the detection probability in crowded fields is smaller, Lucky Imaging... 

The first phase of the Alborz Observatory Array (Alborz-1) consists of 20 plastic scintillation detectors each one with surface area of 0.25 m2 spread over an area of 40×40 m2 realized to the study of Extensive Air Showers around the knee at the Sharif University of Technology campus. The first stage of the project including construction and operation of a prototype system has now been completed and the electronics that will be used in the array instrument has been tested under field conditions. In order to achieve a realistic estimate of the array performance, a large number of simulated CORSIKA showers have been used. In the present work, theoretical results obtained in the study of... 

The design and operation of a simple mechanical drive system, which is able to perform a fine course of angular motion, are reported. The system consists of a lead screw, a drive nut, sine bar legs, and an output shaft that can scan the optical holder mount. With a stepper motor coupled to the lead screw and interfaced to a PC, it is possible to control the scanning operation. When a 800 step/turn motor is used, it is possible to have an angular resolution of about 0.5 mdegree for a dynamic range of about 23°. The reproducibility of the results is about 0.22% for the scan angle and the hysteresis effect of the system is in the range of 1.71%. For a total scan of 51,200 steps, a scan angle of... 

Data from a small air shower array were used to examine the cosmic ray shadow of the Moon at energies more than 100 TeV. A simple technique has been used for the analysis of this data. In this technique the number of EAS events with arrival directions falling in error circles centered about the moving moon is compared to the mean number of events falling in error circles with centers randomly chosen in the sky. For any assumed angular radius of the error circle the deficit in EAS event count in the direction of moon which is a moon-related effect is interpreted as the shadow of the moon. A simple theoretical model has been developed to relate the mean number of EAS events, Nsky, to the... 

Aims. We aim to obtain time-series photometry of the very crowded central regions of Galactic globular clusters; to obtain better angular resolution thanhas been previously achieved with conventional CCDs on ground-based telescopes; and to complete, or improve, the census of the variable star population in those stellar systems. Methods. Images were taken using the Danish 1.54-m Telescope at the ESO observatory at La Silla in Chile. The telescope was equipped with an electron-multiplying CCD, and the short-exposure-time images obtained (ten images per second) were stacked using the shift-and-add technique to produce the normal-exposure-time images (minutes). Photometry was performed via... 

Context. The formation and dynamical history of hot Jupiters is currently debated, with wide stellar binaries having been suggested as a potential formation pathway. Additionally, contaminating light from both binary companions and unassociated stars can significantly bias the results of planet characterisation studies, but can be corrected for if the properties of the contaminating star are known. Aims. We search for binary companions to known transiting exoplanet host stars, in order to determine the multiplicity properties of hot Jupiter host stars. We also search for and characterise unassociated stars along the line of sight, allowing photometric and spectroscopic observations of the... 

Context. Wide binaries are a potential pathway for the formation of hot Jupiters. The binary fraction among host stars is an important discriminator between competing formation theories, but has not been well characterised. Additionally, contaminating light from unresolved stars can significantly affect the accuracy of photometric and spectroscopic measurements in studies of transiting exoplanets. Aims. We observed 101 transiting exoplanet host systems in the Southern hemisphere in order to create a homogeneous catalogue of both bound companion stars and contaminating background stars, in an area of the sky where transiting exoplanetary systems have not been systematically searched for... 

The first phase of the Alborz Observatory Array (Alborz-I) consists of 20 plastic scintillation detectors each one with surface area of 0.25 m2spread over an area of 40 × 40 m2 realized to the study of Extensive Air Showers around the knee at the Sharif University of Technology campus. The first stage of the project including construction and operation of a prototype system has now been completed and the electronics that will be used in the array instrument has been tested under field conditions. In order to achieve a realistic estimate of the array performance, a large number of simulated CORSIKA showers have been used. In the present work, theoretical results obtained in the study of... 

Two previously unknown variable stars in the crowded central region of the globular cluster NGC 6981 are presented. The observations were made using the electron multiplying CCD (EMCCD) camera at the Danish 1.54 m Telescope at La Silla, Chile. The two variableswere not previously detected by conventional CCD imaging because of their proximity to a bright star. This discovery demonstrates that EMCCDs are a powerful tool for performing high-precision time-series photometry in crowded fields and near bright stars, especially when combined with difference image analysis  

Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) is a common method for the investigation of brain white matter. In this method, it is assumed that diffusion of water molecules is Gaussian and so, it fails in fiber crossings where this assumption does not hold. High Angular Resolution Diffusion Imaging (HARDI) allows more accurate investigation of microstructures of the brain white matter; it can present fiber crossing in each voxel. HARDI contains complex orientation information of the fibers. Therefore, registration of these images is more complicated than the scalar images. In this paper, we propose a HARDI registration algorithm based on the feature vectors that are extracted from the Orientation... 

Diffusion tensor magnetic resonance imaging (DTMRI) is a non-invasive method for investigating the brain white matter structure. It can be used to evaluate fiber bundles in the brain but in the regions with crossing fibers, it fails. To resolve this problem, high angular resolution diffusion imaging (HARDI) with a large number of diffusion encoding directions is used and for reconstruction, the Q-ball method is applied. In this method, orientation distribution function (ODF) of fibers can be calculated. Mathematical models play a crucial role in the field of ODF. For instance, in registering Q-ball images for applications like group analysis or atlas construction, one needs to interpolate... 

Aims. In this paper, we present the analysis of time-series observations from 2013 and 2014 of five metal-rich ([Fe/H] > -1) globular clusters: NGC 6388, NGC 6441, NGC 6528, NGC 6638, and NGC 6652. The data have been used to perform a census of the variable stars in the central parts of these clusters. Methods. The observations were made with the electron-multiplying charge-couple device (EMCCD) camera at the Danish 1.54m Telescope at La Silla, Chile, and they were analysed using difference image analysis to obtain high-precision light curves of the variable stars. Results. It was possible to identify and classify all of the previously known or suspected variable stars in the central regions... 

Context. We show the benefits of using electron-multiplying CCDs and the shift-and-add technique as a tool to minimise the effects of atmospheric turbulence, such as blending between stars in crowded fields, and to avoid saturated stars in the fields observed. We intend to complete, or improve on, the census of the variable star population in globular cluster NGC 6715. Aims. Our aim is to obtain high-precision time-series photometry of the very crowded central region of this stellar system via the collection of better angular resolution images than has been previously achieved with conventional CCDs on ground-based telescopes. Methods. Observations were carried out using the Danish 1.54-m... 

Diffusion weighted imaging is a non-invasive method for investigation of brain fiber bundles. In diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), the diffusion of water molecules is assumed Gaussian, therefore, it can just show a single fiber direction in a voxel. To overcome this limitation, a number of high angular resolution diffusion imaging methods have been proposed. One of these techniques is Q-ball imaging. Using this method, we can extract orientation distribution function (ODF) that shows the orientations of multiple fibers in a voxel. For extracting the fiber directions, the maxima of the ODFs are conventionally determined. However, the results of this approach are sensitive to noise. To improve... 

A cosmic ray tracking telescope has been made for the measurement of the secondary cosmic ray flux at ground level. The observations have been made both looking in the direction of the sun and away from the sun. Our observations by the telescope shows a deficiency in the detected number of cosmic rays entering the telescope when its axis was pointing to the sun compared to that entering the telescope with no sun in its field of view. The statistical significance of this deficit with the Li and Ma method stands near 1.3σ for all of our observations. © 2016 Elsevier B.V  

At ALBORZ Observatory in Tehran (51° 200 , 35 ° 430' , 1200 m) we accumulated a complete year of data by a 4-fold square array of Water Cherenkov Detectors (WCDs) with the side 6.08 m. It is recorded about 800,000 fine EAS events from 2006/11/12 to 2007/11/20 by the approximate recording rate of 0.03. Time differences between each two, three, four, five and ... have a very good agreement with gammafunction, which shows the correct random nature of the events. Of course we expect that about less than 1% of the EAS events (≤9000 events) be electromagnetic and naturally not random, but the contribution is so small. Then by Farley/Storey procedure [1] we found a signature of real sidereal data.... 

In conventional arrays, improving angular resolution requires larger aperture which demands more number of elements. On the other hand, array thinning is an efficient method of achieving narrow beamwidth (high angular resolution) with fewer number of elements. Reducing the number of elements results in reducing weight, cost, hardware complexity, and energy consumption. In this paper, a novel dynamic programming algorithm of array thinning with the objective of reducing sidelobe levels (SLLs), desired for large circular arrays, is proposed. The circular array is partitioned into annular rings, and the objective of the optimization problem is to determine the number of active elements in each... 

An array including five scintillation detectors at Sharif University of Technology in Tehran (35°43′N, 51°20′E, 1200m a.s.l= 897 gcm−2), over a year from October 2016 to October 2017, collected more than 5.6×105 extensive air shower (EAS) events in the energy range between 0.03PeV and 3PeV. Data from the array were used to examine the cosmic ray shadow of the Moon in the energy range mentioned. The observation of a deficit of cosmic rays in the direction of the moon can be an estimate of the accuracy of the measurement of the primary particles of the air showers. The deficit of cosmic rays from the direction of the moon, in fact, is due to the presence of the moon in the early direction of... 

In additive manufacturing processes, the part build orientation (PBO) is one of the most important factors that can affect the characteristics of the quality product such as the amount of support structure and the surface roughness. In most previous methods, the optimal PBO cannot be determined with high precision and accuracy in 3D space. In this paper, to find the precise and accurate optimal PBO with a desired angular accuracy, a new Taguchi-based method, called the Zooming-Taguchi method, is proposed. The proposed simulation-based method can precisely find the optimal PBO in absence of the noise effects. In order to find the optimal PBO with the desired angular resolution, the zooming... 

Context. Not only is gravitational microlensing a successful tool for discovering distant exoplanets, but it also enables characterization of the lens and source stars involved in the lensing event. Aims. In high-magnification events, the lens caustic may cross over the source disk, which allows determination of the angular size of the source and measurement of its limb darkening. Methods. When such extended-source effects appear close to maximum magnification, the resulting light curve differs from the characteristic Paczyński point-source curve. The exact shape of the light curve close to the peak depends on the limb darkening of the source. Dense photometric coverage permits measurement...