Total reflection X-ray fluorescence (TXRF) analysis of “low Z” elements, Ti, Fe, Ni, Cu, Zn and “high Z” elements, Zr, W, Au, Pb, are required for micro scale semiconductor device production processes. In the past, the W–Lβ X-rays have been used for the analysis of S to Zn.

This paper describes a new three crystal monochromator coupled with a gold direct-drive rotating anode target. This development has produced significant improvements in the sensitivities and LLD's for all measured elements. The monochromator makes the Au Lα (9.71 keV), Au Lβ (11.44 keV) and Au Lγ (13.33 keV) available for routine use in TXRF analyses. The Au Lα X-ray is best used for the lower Z elements, Na to Cu. The best result for W, Cu and Zn are obtained with the Au Lβ X-ray. This is the result of both increased peak intensity and lower background. For the heavier elements, such as Au and Pb, the Au L X-ray yields intensities 100 times higher than what has been achieved in the past.

The problem of background radiation in X-ray fluorescence trace element analysis of fused-glass iron ore samples is addressed. A first-order model of coherent and Comptcn scattering with primary absorption is presented and used to correct measurements. Overlap coefficients for elements in iron ores are presented. The importance of these corrections is demonstrated. The accuracy achieved with X-ray measurements after background corrections compares well with the accuracy of chemical analysis.

Measurements in the infrared wavelength domain allow direct assessment of the physical state and energy balance of cool matter in space, enabling the detailed study of the processes that govern the formation and evolution of stars and planetary systems in galaxies over cosmic time. Previous infrared missions revealed a great deal about the obscured Universe, but were hampered by limited sensitivity.

SPICA takes the next step in infrared observational capability by combining a large 2.5-meter diameter telescope, cooled to below 8 K, with instruments employing ultra-sensitive detectors. A combination of passive cooling and mechanical coolers will be used to cool both the telescope and the instruments. With mechanical coolers the mission lifetime is not limited by the supply of cryogen. With the combination of low telescope background and instruments with state-of-the-art detectors SPICA provides a huge advance on the capabilities of previous missions.

SPICA instruments offer spectral resolving power ranging from R ~50 through 11 000 in the 17–230 μm domain and R ~28.000 spectroscopy between 12 and 18 μm. SPICA will provide efficient 30–37 μm broad band mapping, and small field spectroscopic and polarimetric imaging at 100, 200 and 350 μm. SPICA will provide infrared spectroscopy with an unprecedented sensitivity of ~5 × 10−20 W m−2 (5σ/1 h)—over two orders of magnitude improvement over what earlier missions. This exceptional performance leap, will open entirely new domains in infrared astronomy; galaxy evolution and metal production over cosmic time, dust formation and evolution from very early epochs onwards, the formation history of planetary systems.

IR spectroscopy in the range 12–230 μm with the SPace IR telescope for Cosmology and Astrophysics (SPICA) will reveal the physical processes governing the formation and evolution of galaxies and black holes through cosmic time, bridging the gap between the James Webb Space Telescope and the upcoming Extremely Large Telescopes at shorter wavelengths and the Atacama Large Millimeter Array at longer wavelengths. The SPICA, with its 2.5-m telescope actively cooled to below 8 K, will obtain the first spectroscopic determination, in the mid-IR rest-frame, of both the star-formation rate and black hole accretion rate histories of galaxies, reaching lookback times of 12 Gyr, for large statistically significant samples. Densities, temperatures, radiation fields, and gas-phase metallicities will be measured in dust-obscured galaxies and active galactic nuclei, sampling a large range in mass and luminosity, from faint local dwarf galaxies to luminous quasars in the distant Universe. Active galactic nuclei and starburst feedback and feeding mechanisms in distant galaxies will be uncovered through detailed measurements of molecular and atomic line profiles. The SPICA’s large-area deep spectrophotometric surveys will provide mid-IR spectra and continuum fluxes for unbiased samples of tens of thousands of galaxies, out to redshifts of z ~ 6.

An antenna in geostationary orbit was used for VLBI observations at 2.3 GHz, in combination with ground antennas in Australia and Japan. 23 of the 25 observed sources were detected on orbiter-ground baselines, with baseline lengths as large as 2.15 earth diameters. Brightness temperatures between 1012 K and 4 × 1012 K were measured for 10 sources.

Space astrometry missions Nano-JASMINE and small-JASMINE are planned in Japan. Data analysis tasks are performed under Gaia-JASMINE collaboration in long time. We expected to achieve 3 mas accuracy in Nano-JASMINE, and 20 micro arcsec in small-JASMINE of astrometric performance. Gaia DR1 publication and instruction is done from NAOJ and Niigata University.

This report discusses the one-dimensional freezing of dry snow/ wet snow systems for the condition first examined by Stefan: the problem of heat conduction with phase change. There are two systems of internal freezing: one is a closed system of temperature rise in a dry snow layer sandwiched between upper and lower wet snow layers; the other an open system of freezing of a thin wet layer provoked mainly by an upper dry snow layer facing the atmosphere at its surface. The latter negatively concerns the release of some avalanches, because the weak layers of surface avalanches in districts where the melt-freeze metamorphism prevails (as in the Horuriku district of Japan) may be the thin wet granular snow layers.

Numerical results are given for different conditions of internal freezing. A comparison with field observations reveals the fundamental aspect of this phenomenon and the possibility of avalanche release.

In order to investigate the distinguishability about the progenitors of FeCCSNe and ECSNe, we calculate the luminosities and spectra of their pre-SN neutrinos and estimate the number of events at neutrino detectors.

Here we discuss requirements for high performance and solution processable organic semiconductors, by presenting a systematic investigation of 7-alkyl-2-phenyl[1]benzothieno[3,2-b][1]benzothiophenes (Ph-BTBT-C n ’s). We found that the solubility and thermal properties of Ph-BTBT-C n ’s depend systematically on the substituted alkyl-chain length n. The observed features are well understood in terms of the change of molecular packing motif with n: The compounds with n ≤ 4 do not form independent alkyl chain layers, whereas those with n ≥ 5 form isolated alkyl chain layers. The latter compounds afford a series of isomorphous bilayer-type crystal structures that form two-dimensional carrier transport layers within the crystals. We also show that the Ph-BTBT-C10 afford high performance single-crystalline field-effect transistors the mobility of which reaches as high as 15.9 cm2/Vs. These results demonstrate a crucial role of the substituted alkyl chain length for obtaining high performance organic semiconductors and field-effect transistors.

We have made a CO(J=2-1) observations using the Nobeyama 45m telescope aimed at examining the physical properties of the molecular gas in this object. The upper limit obtained is 1.8 mK (3σ) at a velocity resolution of 100 km s−1, which leads to an upper limit on the molecular gas mass of 5.3 × 1011 M ⊙, if we assume a line width of 250 km s−1 obtained in the CO(J = 5 - 4) line (rest-frame) and the Galactic CO-to-H2 conversion factor of 4.5 (M ⊙ K km s−1 pc2). The line ratio between the 2–1 line and the 5–4 line as well as those from the 7–6 and the 4–3 lines (Omont et al. 1996, Nature, 382, 428) imply that the mean gas density is as high as 103–5 cm−3, which is comparable to that in nearby star burst galaxies (e.g., Solomon et al. 1992, ApJ, 387, L55).

RXJ 13434+0001 is a rare example of radio-quiet type-2 quasars at high redshift. It was discovered through deep ROSAT observations and identified with a galaxy with a strong but narrow Lyα emission line at z = 2.35. In order to constrain the hard-X-ray properties we observed RXJ 13434+0001 with ASCA. The main purpose is to study the origin of the X-ray emission observed with ROSAT. If it is a scattered component from a strongly absorbed AGN, we could see it much brighter in the hard X-ray band.

We discuss the fragmentation of primordial gas clouds in the universe after decoupling. Comparing the timescale of collapse (t dyn ) with that of fragmentation (t frag ), we obtained the minimum mass of a fragment analytically as following way.

We obtained near-infrared and new deep optical images of the field near the radio-loud quasar 1335.8+2834 at z=1.086 where excess of galaxy surface number density was reported by Huthings et al. [AJ, 106, 1324]. We found a clustering of objects with very red optical-NIR color, 4 < R–K < 6 and 3 < I–K < 5 near the quasar. The colors and magnitude of the reddest objects are consistent with those predicted for luminous (> 0.5L ∗) and old (2-4 Gyr old) passively evolving elliptical galaxies at z=1.1.

We investigated the environment of the radio-loud quasar 1335.8+2834 at z = 1.086 where an excess surface number density of galaxies was reported by Huthings et al. (1993). By obtaining near-infrared and new deep optical images of the field, we found a clustering of objects with very red optical-NIR color, 4 < R - K < 6 and 3 < I - K < 5 near the quasar. The colors and magnitude of the reddest objects are consistent with those predicted for old (2–4 Gyr) passively evolving elliptical galaxies at z = 1.1.

To reveal the origin of the cosmic X-ray background (CXB) in the hard band, we are now conducting a wide (~ 7 deg2) and deep (~ 1 × 10−13 erg sec−1 cm−2 in the 2-10 keV band) survey with the ASCA (the ASCA Large Sky Survey, hereafter LSS). We have detected 83 sources above 4 sigma level in the 0.7-10 keV band with the GIS and resolved ~30% of the CXB in the 2-10 keV band into discrete sources (Ueda 1996). AGNs (type 1 and type 2) and clusters of galaxies are expected to be major contributers to these X-ray sources.

ASCA DSS was intended to carry out unbiased surveys in wide energy range of 0.5-10 keV. The strategy of this project is to survey small sky region with extremely high sensitivity reaching to the source confusion limit of ASCA XRT, in contrast to the Large Sky Survey project (Ueda 1996) which covers much larger sky area with relatively shallow exposure.

There are several regions where a group of quasars are significantly clustered in the physical space. In the “CFHT grens survey” conducted by Crampton et al. (Crampton et al. 1989 and references therein), the 23 quasars between z=1.036 and 1.185 were found to be clustered over ~ 2° × 2° in the region denoted as 1338+27 At the mean redshift z ave = 1.113, the angular extent 6000 arcsec (CHH89) of this cluster corresponds to 60 h −1Mpc(q 0 = 0.5) and the dispergion of the redshift λz = 0.044 to 45 h −1Mpc.

We have made a CO (J=2−1) observation using the Nobeyama 45m telescope aimed at examining physical properties of the molecular gas in the object. Upper limit obtained is 1.8 mK (3σ) at a velocity resolution of 100 km s−1, which leads to an upper limit on the molecular gas mass of 5.3 × 1011 M ⊙, if we assume a line width of 250 km s−1 obtained in J = 5–4 line and the Galactic CO-to-H2 conversion factor of 4.5 M ⊙ K km s−1 pc2. The line ratio between 2–1 line and 5–4 line as well as those from 7–6 and 4–3 lines (Omont et al. 1996) imply that the mean gas density is as high as 103–5 cm−3, which is comparable to that in nearby star burst galaxies (e.g., Solomon et al. 1992).

The origin of the Cosmic X-ray Background (CXB) radiation has been investigated extensively by soft X-ray deep survey imaging observations with Einstein and ROSAT. In contrast, the lack of telescopes capable of detecting hard X-rays has prevented us from extensive study of the nature of the CXB in the energy range above 2 keV before ASCA.

Since the bulk of the energy density of the Cosmic X-ray Background (CXB) resides in the harder energy band than that of the ROSAT band (0.5-2 keV) and since the X-ray sources identified in the ROSAT band have X-ray spectra softer than that of the CXB, investigation of nature of the X-ray sources at the harder energy band is indispensable to solve the origin of the CXB. However, only 2-3% of the CXB in the hard band (2-10 keV) had been resolved into discrete sources (Piccinotti et al. 1982, ApJ 253, 485). We present our preliminary results of optical follow-up observations of the ASCA Lynx deep survey.