As new radio telescopes and processing facilities are being built, the amount of data that has to be processed is growing continuously. This poses significant challenges, especially if the real-time processing is required, which is important for surveys looking for poorly understood objects, such as Fast Radio Bursts, where quick detection and localisation can enable rapid follow-up observations at different frequencies. With the data rates increasing all the time, new processing techniques using the newest hardware, such as GPUs, have to be developed. A new pipeline, called PAFINDER, has been developed to process data taken with a phased array feed, which can generate up to 36 beams on the sky, with data rates of 25 GBps per beam. With the majority of work done on GPUs, the pipeline reaches real-time performance when generating filterbank files used for offline processing. The full real-time processing, including single-pulse searches has also been implemented and has been shown to perform well under favourable conditions. The pipeline was successfully used to record and process data containing observations of RRAT J1819-1458 and positions on the sky where 3 FRBs have been observed previously, including the repeating FRB121102. Detailed examination of J1819-1458 single-pulse detections revealed a complex emission environment with pulses coming from three different rotation phase bands and a number of multi-component emissions. No new FRBs and no repeated bursts from FRB121102 have been detected. The GMRT High Resolution Southern Sky survey observes the sky at high galactic latitudes, searching for new pulsars and FRBs. 127 hours of data have been searched for the presence of any new bursts, with the help of new pipeline developed for this survey. No new FRBs have been found, which can be the result of bad RFI pollution, which was not fully removed despite new techniques being developed and combined with the existing solutions to mitigate these negative effects. Using the best estimates on the total amount of data that has been processed correctly, obtained using new single-pulse simulation software, no detections were found to be consistent with the expected rates for standard candle FRBs with a flat or positive spectrum.

In hippocampal CA1 and CA3 regions, various properties of neuronal activity follow skewed, lognormal-like distributions, including average firing rates, rate and magnitude of spike bursts, magnitude of population synchrony, and correlations between pre- and postsynaptic spikes. In recent studies, the lognormal features of hippocampal activities were well replicated by a multi-timescale adaptive threshold (MAT) neuron network of lognormally distributed excitatory-to-excitatory synaptic weights, though it remains unknown whether and how other neuronal and network properties can be replicated in this model. Here we implement two additional studies of the same network: first, we further analyze its burstiness properties by identifying and clustering neurons with exceptionally bursty features, once again demonstrating the importance of the lognormal synaptic weight distribution. Second, we characterize dynamical patterns of activity termed neuronal avalanches in in vivo CA3 recordings of behaving rats and in the model network, revealing the similarities and differences between experimental and model avalanche size distributions across the sleep-wake cycle. These results show the comparison between the MAT neuron network and hippocampal readings in a different approach than shown before, providing more insight into the mechanisms behind activity in hippocampal subregions. / Nas regiões CA1 e CA3 do hipocampo, várias propriedades da atividade neuronal seguem distribuições assimétricas com características lognormais, incluindo frequência de disparo média, frequência e magnitude de rajadas de disparo (bursts), magnitude da sincronia populacional e correlações entre disparos pré- e pós-sinápticos. Em estudos recentes, as características lognormais das atividades hipocampais foram bem reproduzidas por uma rede de neurônios de limiar adaptativo (multi-timescale adaptive threshold, MAT) com pesos sinápticos entre neurônios excitatórios seguindo uma distribuição lognormal, embora ainda não se saiba se e como outras propriedades neuronais e da rede podem ser replicadas nesse modelo. Nesse trabalho implementamos dois estudos adicionais da mesma rede: primeiramente, analisamos mais a fundo as propriedades dos bursts identificando e agrupando neurônios com capacidade de burst excepcional, mostrando mais uma vez a importância da distribuição lognormal de pesos sinápticos. Em seguida, caracterizamos padrões dinâmicos de atividade chamados avalanches neuronais no modelo e em aquisições in vivo do CA3 de roedores em atividades comportamentais, revelando as semelhanças e diferenças entre as distribuições de tamanho de avalanche através do ciclo sono-vigília. Esses resultados mostram a comparação entre a rede de neurônios MAT e medições hipocampais em uma abordagem diferente da apresentada anteriormente, fornecendo mais percepção acerca dos mecanismos por trás da atividade em subregiões hipocampais.

In hippocampal CA1 and CA3 regions, various properties of neuronal activity follow skewed, lognormal-like distributions, including average firing rates, rate and magnitude of spike bursts, magnitude of population synchrony, and correlations between pre- and postsynaptic spikes. In recent studies, the lognormal features of hippocampal activities were well replicated by a multi-timescale adaptive threshold (MAT) neuron network of lognormally distributed excitatory-to-excitatory synaptic weights, though it remains unknown whether and how other neuronal and network properties can be replicated in this model. Here we implement two additional studies of the same network: first, we further analyze its burstiness properties by identifying and clustering neurons with exceptionally bursty features, once again demonstrating the importance of the lognormal synaptic weight distribution. Second, we characterize dynamical patterns of activity termed neuronal avalanches in in vivo CA3 recordings of behaving rats and in the model network, revealing the similarities and differences between experimental and model avalanche size distributions across the sleep-wake cycle. These results show the comparison between the MAT neuron network and hippocampal readings in a different approach than shown before, providing more insight into the mechanisms behind activity in hippocampal subregions. / Nas regiões CA1 e CA3 do hipocampo, várias propriedades da atividade neuronal seguem distribuições assimétricas com características lognormais, incluindo frequência de disparo média, frequência e magnitude de rajadas de disparo (bursts), magnitude da sincronia populacional e correlações entre disparos pré- e pós-sinápticos. Em estudos recentes, as características lognormais das atividades hipocampais foram bem reproduzidas por uma rede de neurônios de limiar adaptativo (multi-timescale adaptive threshold, MAT) com pesos sinápticos entre neurônios excitatórios seguindo uma distribuição lognormal, embora ainda não se saiba se e como outras propriedades neuronais e da rede podem ser replicadas nesse modelo. Nesse trabalho implementamos dois estudos adicionais da mesma rede: primeiramente, analisamos mais a fundo as propriedades dos bursts identificando e agrupando neurônios com capacidade de burst excepcional, mostrando mais uma vez a importância da distribuição lognormal de pesos sinápticos. Em seguida, caracterizamos padrões dinâmicos de atividade chamados avalanches neuronais no modelo e em aquisições in vivo do CA3 de roedores em atividades comportamentais, revelando as semelhanças e diferenças entre as distribuições de tamanho de avalanche através do ciclo sono-vigília. Esses resultados mostram a comparação entre a rede de neurônios MAT e medições hipocampais em uma abordagem diferente da apresentada anteriormente, fornecendo mais percepção acerca dos mecanismos por trás da atividade em subregiões hipocampais.

Ultraluminous X-ray (ULX) sources are non-nuclear extragalactic accreting compact objects whose X-ray luminosities exceed the Eddington limit for stellar mass black hole binaries (BHB). Their high luminosities suggest they are either intermediate mass black holes, that their emission is beamed, or that they are emitting at super-Eddington rates. We observed the ULX IC 342 X-1 simultaneously in X-ray and radio with Chandra and the VLA to investigate previously reported unresolved radio emission coincident with the ULX. The Chandra spectrum appears to be consistent with an accretion disc-dominated thermal state and suggests a mass of the black hole using the modeled inner disc temperature to be 157Mʘ ≤ M √ (cosi) ≤ 200 Mʘ. No significant radio emission was observed, consistent with the source being in a thermal disc-dominated state. Reanalysis of previous X-ray observations of the source shows that high energy curvature often interpreted as evidence for supercritical accretion cannot confidently be identified using the 2-10 keV energy band. Black hole systems such as BHBs, ULXs, and AGN represent the greatest test labs in the universe for the study of extreme gravity. Emission from the accretion disk and scattering from the surrounding corona allow study of the ultra-strong gravity and magnetic fields very near the central BH engine. However, many of these effects are imprinted as polarization of the emission and are invisible to spectral and timing studies alone. The outflows from AGN are also thought to play a key role in galaxy shaping and cluster formation. High efficiency and spectral resolution are required to measure ionization-velocities and density parameters from these sources to constrain the outflow structure. Beamline studies and theoretical modeling were carried out to characterize the throughput and spectral resolving power of off-plane gratings for use in future x-ray observatories which will make these measurements. Additionally, synchrotron measurements were carried out to test theoretical predictions of strong polarization response for off-plane diffraction gratings. The empirical results of this study are the first to demonstrate a lack of polarization sensitivity for grazing-incidence off-plane gratings and support more complex modeling results than used previously.

This thesis reports the design, construction, and the initial results obtained from a digital spectrograph for observations of radio burst emission from the Sun. One of the distinct advantages of radio spectral studies of the Sun during events such as solar flares, coronal mass ejections (CMEs), etc. is that it gives a straight forward estimate of the speed of the outflowing material into the outer atmosphere of the Sun and subsequently the interplanetary medium. It is well known that in the solar atmosphere, the electron density and consequently the plasma frequency gradually decreases with increasing distance from the center. Therefore in a time-frequency plane, the intensity of the associated radio emission should generally drift from high to low frequencies with time. From this, and from a knowledge of the height of the successive plasma levels in the solar atmosphere, one can deduce the speed of the outward moving disturbance. In this respect, a study of the radio bursts at decameter wavelengths is important since such radiation originates from the corona at heights ≥1.3 R⊙ (1 R⊙ = 6.96 x 10° km = radius of the Sun) from the center of the Sun, which are otherwise accessible only through the use of white light coronagraphs atop high altitude mountains and onboard space vehicles. The primary units of the instrument are (i) zero-crossing detector (ZCD), (ii) sampler and (iii) correlator. The function of the ZCD is to digitize the input signal waveform. In the present case, we use a one-bit quantizer, i.e., its output is either a '1' or '0' depending on whether the input is above or below the zero level, respectively. The digitized signals are then sampled at the Nyquist rate using the sampler. The output of the sampler is then passed through a set of shift registers, and finally fed to the correlator. The latter measures the correlation between the signals at its input as a function of the delay (introduced by the shift registers) between them. After successful completion of several static/dynamic tests in the laboratory, the system was moved to the Gauribidanur radio observatory (Latitude: 13°36’12”; Longitude:77°27’07”), and is presently used along with the existing radiohe-liograph to derive both the spectral and spatial information of the various radio emitting transient sources on the Sun, respectively. The R..F. signal (40-150 MHz) from one of the antenna groups of the ra-dioheliograph forms the input to the spectrograph. The signal from the field goes through a series of amplification and mixing operations to bring it down to an I.F. of 10 MHz with a bandwidth of 1 MHz, and then fed to the spectrograph. The present frequency range of the spectrograph is 40 MHz, and the data corresponding to the above band is obtained in steps of 1 MHz by switching the local oscillator through a GPIB interface, after each integration period. Each 1 MHz data is then Fourier tranformed to get its corresponding power spectrum. Successive data sets are then arranged in order according to the frequency of the local oscillator signal to get the spectrum corresponding to the entire 40 MHz band. The initial results obtained with our instrument are also presented.

The IceCube Neutrino Observatory has reported the observation of 35 neutrino events above 30 TeV with evidence for an astrophysical neutrino flux using data collected from May 2010 to May 2013. These events provide the first high-energy astrophysical neutrino flux ever observed. The sources of these events are currently unknown. IceCube has looked for correlations between these events and a list of TeV photon sources including a catalog of 36 galactic sources and 42 extragalactic sources, correlations with the galactic plane and center, and spatial and temporal clustering. These searches have shown no significant correlations. The isotropic distribution of the event directions gives indications that the events could be extragalactic in nature and therefore may originate in the same processes that generate ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs). The sources of these UHECRs are still unknown; however, gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) have been proposed as one possible source class. By determining the source of these high-energy neutrinos, it may be possible to determine the sources of UHECRs as well. This study is a search for directional and temporal correlation between 856 GRBs and the astrophysical neutrino flux observed by IceCube. Nearly 10,000 expanding time windows centered on the earliest reported time of the burst were examined. The time windows start at ±10 s and extend to ±15 days. We find no evidence of correlations for these time windows and set an upper limit on the fraction of the astrophysical flux that can be attributed to the observed GRBs as a function of the time window. GRBs can contribute at most 12% of the astrophysical neutrino flux if the neutrino-GRB correlation time is less than ≈20 hours, and no more than 38% of the astrophysical neutrino flux can be attributed to the known GRBs at time scales up to 15 days. We conclude that GRBs observable by satellites are not solely responsible for IceCube’s astrophysical neutrino flux, even if very long correlation time scales are assumed.

The BAT Slew Survey (BATSS) is the first wide-field survey of the hard X-ray sky (15–150 keV) with a slewing coded aperture imaging telescope. Its fine time resolution, high sensitivity and large sky coverage make it particularly well-suited for detections of transient sources with variability timescales in the \(\sim 1 sec–1 hour\) range, such as Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs), flaring stars and Blazars. As implemented, BATSS observations are found to be consistently more sensitive than their BAT pointing-mode counterparts, by an average of 20% over the 10 sec–3 ksec exposure range, due to intrinsic systematic differences between them. The survey’s motivation, development and implementation are presented, including a description of the software and hardware infrastructure that made this effort possible. The analysis of BATSS science data concentrates on the results of the 4.8-year BATSS GRB survey, beginning with the discovery of GRB 070326 during its preliminary testing phase. A total of nineteen (19) GRBs were detected exclusively in BATSS slews over this period, making it the largest contribution to the Swift GRB catalog from all ground-based analysis. The timing and spectral properties of prompt emission from BATSS GRBs reveal their consistency with Swift long GRBs (L-GRBs), though with instances of GRBs with unusually soft spectra or X-Ray Flashes (XRFs), GRBs near the faint end of the fluence distribution accessible to Swift-BAT, and a probable short GRB with extended emission, all uncommon traits within the general Swift GRB population. In addition, the BATSS overall detection rate of 0.49 GRBs/day of instrument time is a significant increase (45%) above the BAT pointing detection rate. This result was confirmed by a GRB detection simulation model, which further showed the increased sky coverage of slews to be the dominant effect in enhancing GRB detection probabilities. A review of lessons learned is included, with specific proposals to broaden both the number and range of astrophysical sources found in future enhancements. The BATSS survey results provide solid empirical evidence in support of an all-slewing hard X-ray survey mission, a prospect that may be realized with the launch of the proposed MIRAX-HXI mission in 2017. / Physics

Astrophysical flows have an enormous dynamic range of relevant length scales. The physics occurring on the smallest scales often influences the physics of the largest scales, and vice versa. I present a detailed study of the multiscale and multidimensional behavior of three high-energy astrophysical flows: jet-driven supernovae, massive black hole accretion, and current-driven instabilities in gamma-ray burst external shocks. Both theory and observations of core-collapse supernovae indicate these events are not spherically-symmetric; however, the observations are often modeled assuming a spherically-symmetric explosion. I present an in-depth exploration of the effects of aspherical explosions on the observational characteristics of supernovae. This is accomplished in large part by high-resolution, multidimensional numerical simulations of jet-driven supernovae. The existence of supermassive black holes in the centers of most large galaxies is a well-established fact in observational astronomy. How such black holes came to be so massive, however, is not well established. In this work, I discuss the implications of radiative feedback and multidimensional behavior on black hole accretion. I show that the accretion rate is drastically reduced relative to the Eddington rate, making it unlikely that stellar mass black holes could grow to supermassive black holes in less than a Hubble time. Finally, I discuss a mechanism by which magnetic field strength could be enhanced behind a gamma-ray burst external shock. This mechanism relies on a current-driven instability that would cause reorganization of the pre-shock plasma into clumps. Once shocked, these clumps generate vorticity in the post-shock plasma and ultimately enhance the magnetic energy via a relativistic dynamo process. / text

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Tufts University, 2002. / Adviser: Alexander Vilenkin. Submitted to the Dept. of Physics. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 95-98). Access restricted to members of the Tufts University community. Also available via the World Wide Web;

Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Western Sydney, 2002. / "Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, University of Western Sydney" Bibliography.