No abstract

Motivated by the recent discovery of 30 new millisecond pulsars in Terzan 5, made using the Green Bank Telescope's S-band receiver and the Pulsar Spigot spectrometer, we have set out to use the same observing system in a systematic search for pulsars in other globular clusters. Here we report on the discovery of five new pulsars in NGC 6440 and three in NGC 6441; each cluster previously had one known pulsar. Using the most recent distance estimates to these clusters, we conclude that there are as many potentially observable pulsars in NGC 6440 and NGC 6441 as in Terzan 5. We present timing solutions for all of the pulsars in these globular clusters. Four of the new discoveries are in binary systems; one of them, PSR J1748À2021B (NGC 6440B), has a wide (P b ¼ 20:5 days) and eccentric (e ¼ 0:57) orbit. This allowed a measurement of its rate of advance of periastron,! ¼ 0:00391 (18) yr À1 . If this is a purely relativistic effect, the total mass of this binary system is 2:92 AE 0:20 M (1 ) implying a median pulsar mass of 2:74 AE 0:21 M . There is a 1% probability that the inclination is low enough that pulsar mass is below 2 M , and 0.10% probability that it is between 1.20 and 1.44 M . If confirmed, this anomalously large mass would strongly constrain the equation of state for dense matter. The other highly eccentric binary, PSR J1750À37A, has e ¼ 0:71, and! ¼ 0:0055(3) yr À1 , implying a total system mass of 1:97 AE 0:15 M and, along with the mass function, maximum and median pulsar masses of 1.65 and 1.26 M , respectively.

We report a 5.4σ detection of pulsed gamma rays from PSR B1821−24 in the globular cluster M28 using ∼44 months of Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) data that have been reprocessed with improved instrument calibration constants. We constructed a -3phase-coherent ephemeris, with post-fit residual RMS of 3 µs, using radio data spanning ∼23.2 years, enabling measurements of the multi-wavelength light curve properties of PSR B1821−24 at the milliperiod level. We fold RXTE observations of PSR B1821−24 from 1996 to 2007 and discuss implications on the emission zones. The gamma-ray light curve consists of two peaks, separated by 0.41±0.02 in phase, with the first gammaray peak lagging the first radio peak by 0.05±0.02 in phase, consistent with the phase of giant radio pulses. We observe significant emission in the off-peak interval of PSR B1821−24 with a best-fit LAT position inconsistent with the core of M28. We do not detect significant gamma-ray pulsations at the spin or orbital periods from any other known pulsar in M28, and we place limits on the number of energetic pulsars in the cluster. The derived gamma-ray efficiency, ∼2%, is typical of other gamma-ray pulsars with comparable spin-down power, suggesting that the measured spin-down rate (2.2 × 10 36 erg s −1 ) is not appreciably distorted by acceleration in the cluster potential. This confirms PSR B1821−24 as the second very energetic millisecond pulsar in a globular cluster and raises the question of whether these represent a separate class of objects that only form in regions of very high stellar density.

We present a Chandra X-ray Observatory investigation of the millisecond pulsars (MSPs) in the globular cluster M28 (NGC 6626). In what is one of the deepest X-ray observations of a globular cluster, we firmly detect seven and possibly detect two of the twelve known M28 pulsars. With the exception of PSRs B1821-24 and J1824-2452H, the detected pulsars have relatively soft spectra, with X-ray luminosities 10 30−31 ergs s −1 (0.3-8 keV), similar to most "recycled" pulsars in 47 Tucanae and the field of the Galaxy, implying thermal emission from the pulsar magnetic polar caps. We present the most detailed X-ray spectrum to date of the energetic PSR B1821-24. It is well described by a purely non-thermal spectrum with spectral photon index Γ = 1.23 and luminosity 1.4 × 10 33 Θ(D/5.5 kpc) 2 ergs s −1 (0.3-8 keV), where Θ is the fraction of the sky covered by the X-ray emission beam(s). We find no evidence for the previously reported line emission feature around 3.3 keV, most likely as a consequence of improvements in instrument calibration. The X-ray spectrum and pulse profile of PSR B1821-24 suggest that the bulk of unpulsed emission from this pulsar is not of thermal origin, and is likely due to low-level non-thermal magnetospheric radiation, an unresolved pulsar wind nebula, and/or small-angle scattering of the pulsed X-rays by interstellar dust grains. The peculiar binary PSR J1824-2452H shows a relatively hard X-ray spectrum and possible variability at the binary period, indicative of an intrabinary shock formed by interaction between the relativistic pulsar wind and matter from its non-degenerate companion star.

We present a wavelength-swept coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (WS-CARS) spectroscopy system for hyperspectral imaging in thick tissue. We use a strategy where the Raman lines are excited sequentially, circumventing the need for a spectrometer. This fibre laser system, consisting of a pump laser synchronized with a rapidly tunable programmable laser (PL), can access Raman lines over a significant fraction of the high wavenumber region (2700–2950 cm−1) at rates of up to 10,000 spectral points per second. To demonstrate its capabilities, we have acquired WS-CARS spectra of several samples as well as images and hyperspectral images (HSI) of thick tissue both in forward and epi-detection. This instrument should be especially useful in providing local biochemical information with surrounding context supplied by imaging.

The use of coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering microscopy tuned to the lipid vibration for quantitative myelin imaging suffers from the excitation polarization dependence of this third-order nonlinear optical effect. The contrast obtained depends on the orientation of the myelin membrane, which in turn affects the morphometric parameters that can be extracted with image analysis. We show how circularly polarized laser beams can be used to avoid this complication, leading to images free of excitation polarization dependence. The technique promises to be optimal for in vivo imaging and the resulting images can be used for coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering optical histology on native state tissue.

We report on the optical identification of the companion star to the eclipsing millisecond pulsar PSR J1824-2452H in the galactic globular cluster M28 (NGC 6626). This star is at only 0.2 ′′ from the nominal position of the pulsar and it shows optical variability (∼ 0.25 mag) that nicely correlates with the pulsar orbital period. It is located on the blue side of the cluster main sequence, ∼ 1.5 mag fainter than the turn-off point. The observed light curve shows two distinct and asymmetric minima, suggesting that the companion star is suffering tidal distortion from the pulsar. This discovery increases the number of non-degenerate MSP companions optically identified so far in globular clusters (4 out of 7), suggesting that these systems could be a common outcome of the pulsar recycling process, at least in dense environments where they can be originated by exchange interactions.

A fully automated method for large-scale segmentation of nerve fibers from coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (CARS) microscopy images is presented. The method is specifically designed for CARS images of transverse cross sections of nervous tissue but is also suitable for use with standard light microscopy images. After a detailed description of the two-part segmentation algorithm, its accuracy is quantified by comparing the resulting binary images to manually segmented images. We then demonstrate the ability of our method to retrieve morphological data from CARS images of nerve tissue. Finally, we present the segmentation of a large mosaic of CARS images covering more than half the area of a mouse spinal cord cross section and show evidence of clusters of neurons with similar g-ratios throughout the spinal cord.