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Superconducting traveling-wave parametric amplifiers are a promising amplification technology suitable for applications in submillimeter astronomy. Their implementation relies on the use of Floquet transmission lines in order to create strong stopbands to suppress undesired harmonics. In the design process, amplitude equations are used to predict their gain, operation frequency, and bandwidth. However, usual amplitude equations do not take into account the real and imaginary parts of the dispersion and characteristic impedance that results from the use of Floquet lines, hindering reliable design. In order to overcome this limitation, we have used the multiple-scales method to include those effects. We demonstrate that complex dispersion and characteristic impedance have a stark effect on the transmission line's gain, even suppressing it completely in certain cases. The equations presented here can, thus, guide to a better design and understanding of the properties of this kind of amplifiers., Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures, submitted to IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity

A spectral survey of methyl acetylene (CH3CCH) was conducted toward the hot molecular core/outflow G331.512-0.103. Our APEX observations allowed the detection of 41 uncontaminated rotational lines of CH3CCH in the frequency range between 172-356 GHz. Through an analysis under the local thermodynamic equilibrium assumption, by means of rotational diagrams, we determined Texc = 50 \pm 1 K, N(CH3CCH) = (7.5 \pm 0.4) x 10^{15} cm^{-2}, X[CH3CCH/H2] ~ (0.8-2.8) x 10^{-8} and X[CH3CCH/CH3OH] ~ 0.42 \pm 0.05 for an extended emitting region (~10 arcsec). The relative intensities of the K=2 and K=3 lines within a given K-ladder are strongly negatively correlated to the transitions' upper J quantum-number (r=-0.84). Pure rotational spectra of CH3CCH were simulated at different temperatures, in order to interpret this observation. The results indicate that the emission is characterized by a non-negligible temperature gradient with upper and lower limits of ~45 and ~60 K, respectively. Moreover, the line widths and peak velocities show an overall strong correlation with their rest frequencies, suggesting that the warmer gas is also associated with stronger turbulence effects. The K=0 transitions present a slightly different kinematic signature than the remaining lines, indicating that they might be tracing a different gas component. We speculate that this component is characterized by lower temperatures, and therefore larger sizes. Moreover, we predict and discuss the temporal evolution of the CH3CCH abundance using a two-stage zero-dimensional model of the source constructed with the three-phase Nautilus gas-grain code.

The edges of ionized (HII) regions are important sites for the formation of (high-mass) stars. Indeed, at least 30% of the galactic high mass star formation is observed there. The radiative and compressive impact of the HII region could induce the star formation at the border following different mechanisms such as the Collect & Collapse (C&C) or the Radiation Driven Implosion (RDI) models and change their properties. We study the properties of two zones located in the Photo Dissociation Region (PDR) of the Galactic HII region RCW120 and discussed them as a function of the physical conditions and young star contents found in both clumps. Using the APEX telescope, we mapped two regions of size 1.5'$\times$1.5' toward the most massive clump of RCW120 hosting young massive sources and toward a clump showing a protrusion inside the HII region and hosting more evolved low-mass sources. The $^{12}$CO($J=3-2$), $^{13}$CO($J=3-2$) and C$^{18}$O($J=3-2$) lines are used to derive the properties and dynamics of these clumps. We discuss their relation with the hosted star-formation. The increase of velocity dispersion and $T_{ex}$ are found toward the center of the maps, where star-formation is observed with Herschel. Furthermore, both regions show supersonic Mach number. No strong evidences have been found concerning the impact of far ultraviolet (FUV) radiation on C$^{18}$O photodissociation. The fragmentation time needed for the C&C to be at work is equivalent to the dynamical age of RCW120 and the properties of region B are in agreement with bright-rimmed clouds. It strengthens the fact that, together with evidences of compression, C&C might be at work at the edges of RCW120. Additionally, the clump located at the eastern part of the PDR is a good candidate of pre-existing clump where star-formation may be induced by the RDI mechanism., Comment: 13 pages, 12 Figures To be published in A&A

Carbon-bearing molecules, particularly CO, have been widely used as tracers of molecular gas in the interstellar medium (ISM). In this work, we aim to study the properties of molecules in diffuse, cold environments, where CO tends to be under-abundant and/or sub-thermally excited. We performed one of the most sensitive (down to $\mathrm{\tau_{rms}^{CO} \sim 0.002}$ and $\mathrm{\tau_{rms}^{HCO^+} \sim 0.0008}$) sub-millimeter molecular absorption line observations towards 13 continuum sources with the ALMA. CO absorption was detected in diffuse ISM down to $\mathrm{A_v< 0.32\,mag}$ and \hcop was down to $\mathrm{A_v < 0.2\,mag}$, where atomic gas and dark molecular gas (DMG) starts to dominate. Multiple transitions measured in absorption toward 3C454.3 allow for a direct determination of excitation temperatures $\mathrm{T_{ex}}$ of 4.1\,K and 2.7\,K, for CO and for \hcop, respectively, which are close to the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and provide explanation for their being undercounted in emission surveys. A stronger linear correlation was found between $\mathrm{N_{HCO^+}}$ and $\mathrm{N_{H_2}}$ (Pearson correlation coefficient P $\sim$ 0.93) than that of $\mathrm{N_{CO}}$ and $\mathrm{N_{H_2}}$ (P $\sim$ 0.33), suggesting \hcop\ being a better tracer of H$_2$ than CO in diffuse gas. The derived CO-to-\h2 conversion factor (the CO X-factor) of (14 $\pm$ 3) $\times$ 10$^{20}$ cm$^{-2}$ (K \kms)$^{-1}$ is approximately 6 times larger than the average value found in the Milky Way.

Little is known about how high-mass stars form. Around 30\% of the young high-mass stars in the Galaxy are observed at the edges of ionized (HII) regions. Therefore these are places of choice to study the earliest stages of high-mass star formation, especially towards the most massive condensations. High-spatial resolution observations in the millimeter range might reveal how these stars form and how they assemble their mass. We want to study the fragmentation process down to the 0.01~pc scale in the most massive condensation observed at the south-western edge of the HII region RCW~120 where the most massive Herschel cores ($\sim$124~$M_{\odot}$ in average) could form high-mass stars. Using ALMA 3~mm continuum observations towards the densest and most massive millimetric condensation (Condensation 1) of RCW~120, we used the getimages and getsources algorithms to extract the sources detected with ALMA and obtained their physical parameters. The fragmentation of the hersche cores is discussed through their Jeans mass to understand the properties of the future stars. We extracted 18 fragments from the ALMA continuum observation at 3~mm towards 8 cores detected with Herschel, whose mass and deconvolved size range from 2~$M_{\odot}$ to 32~$M_{\odot}$ and from 1.6~mpc to 28.8~mpc, respectively. The low degree of fragmentation observed, regarding to the thermal Jeans fragmentation, suggests that the observed fragmentation is inconsistent with ideal gravitational fragmentation and other ingredients such as turbulence or magnetic fields should be added in order to explain it. Finally, the range of fragments' mass indicates that the densest condensation of RCW~120 is a favourable place for the formation of high-mass stars with the presence of a probable UCHII region associated with the 27~$M_{\odot}$ Fragment 1 of Core 2., Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures

Dual sideband (2SB) receivers are well suited for the spectral observation of complex astronomical signals over a wide frequency range. They are extensively used in radio astronomy, their main advantages being to avoid spectral confusion and to diminish effective system temperature by a factor two with respect to double sideband (DSB) receivers. Using available millimeter-wave analog technology, wideband 2SB receivers generally obtain sideband rejections ratios (SRR) of 10-15dB, insufficient for a number of astronomical applications. We report here the design and implementation of an FPGA-based sideband separating FFT spectrometer. A 4GHz analog front end was built to test the design and measure sideband rejection. The setup uses a 2SB front end architecture, except that the mixer outputs are directly digitized before the IF hybrid, using two 8bits ADCs sampling at 1GSPS. The IF hybrid is implemented on the FPGA together with a set of calibration vectors that, properly chosen, compensate for the analog front end amplitude and phase imbalances. The calibrated receiver exhibits a sideband rejection ratio in excess of 40dB for the entire 2GHz RF bandwidth., Comment: 7pp

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array(ALMA) Band 1 receiver covers the 35-50 GHz frequency band. Development of prototype receivers, including the key components and subsystems has been completed and two sets of prototype receivers were fully tested. We will provide an overview of the ALMA Band 1 science goals, and its requirements and design for use on the ALMA. The receiver development status will also be discussed and the infrastructure, integration, evaluation of fully-assembled band 1 receiver system will be covered. Finally, a discussion of the technical and management challenges encountered will be presented.

We have mapped the Orion-A Giant Molecular Cloud in the CO (J=4-3) line with the Tsukuba 30-cm submillimeter telescope.The map covered a 7.125 deg^2 area with a 9' resolution, including main components of the cloud such as Orion Nebula, OMC-2/3, and L1641-N. The most intense emission was detected toward the Orion KL region. The integrated intensity ratio between CO (J=4-3) and CO (J=1-0) was derived using data from the Columbia-Univ. de Chile CO survey, which was carried out with a comparable angular resolution. The ratio was r_{4-3/1-0} ~ 0.2 in the southern region of the cloud and 0.4-0.8 at star forming regions. We found a trend that the ratio shows higher value at edges of the cloud. In particular the ratio at the north-eastern edge of the cloud at (l, b) = (208.375 deg, -19.0 deg) shows the specific highest value of 1.1. The physical condition of the molecular gas in the cloud was estimated by non-LTE calculation. The result indicates that the kinetic temperature has a gradient from north (Tkin=80 K) to south (20 K). The estimation shows that the gas associated with the edge of the cloud is warm (Tkin~60 K), dense (n_{H_2}~10^4 cm^{-3}), and optically thin, which may be explained by heating and sweeping of interstellar materials from OB clusters., Comment: 12 pages, 11 figures; Accepted for publication in PASJ