As I prepare to make my New Year’s Eve dinner I realize that, although there are several hours to go here, it’s already 2024 in many parts of the world (including Sydney, Australia). Before I get cooking, therefore, I thought I’d wish all my readers around the world a very Happy New Year!
(You might be wondering why I chose a picture from Sydney to illustrate this post. Well, wait and see…)
Aller Anfang ist heiter, die Schwelle ist der Platz der Erwartung.
Goethe
It’s New Year’s Eve and I just remembered that there was a paper at the Open Journal of Astrophysics site that we published before Christmas but that I haven’t yet announced on here, so for the sake of completeness here it is. It takes us to 50 papers published in 2023.
The paper in question is the 50th and final paper in Volume 6 (2023) and it’s the 115th altogether. This one was actually published on Friday 22nd December 2023 but owing to the vacations we had to wait a bit to get the metadata registered.
The title of this one is “What are the parities of photon-ring images near a black hole?” and is a discussion of the Fermat potential (also known as the arrival-time surface) in the context of gravitational lensing by strong gravitational fields and the implication for image parities thereby produced. This one is actually listed in General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc, on arXiv) but is cross-listed as Cosmology and Non-galactic Astrophysics so is eligible for publication here in the appropriate folder.
The authors are Ashish Kumar Meena (Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel) and Prasenjit Saha (University of Zurich, Switzerland).
Here is the overlay of the paper containing the abstract:
You can click on the image of the overlay to make it larger should you wish to do so. You can find the officially accepted version of the paper on the arXiv here.
And that concludes Volume 6 of the Open Journal of Astrophysics. Roll on Volume 7.
Back in October, not long after I arrived in Barcelona, I got an email from the HSE saying that sixty-somethings such as myself should get a seasonal Covid-19 booster shot (and possibly a flu jab too). It is over a year since I had my last booster. The procedural difference this time is that, unlike the mass vaccinations of previous years, the injections are being given at local pharmacies with limited capacity rather than large vaccination centres, so I had to book well ahead to find a time and a place. It wasn’t easy to find a slot, actually, even at two months’ notice, but with a bit of help from a nice lady at the HSE I managed.
And so it came to pass that yesterday I had my third booster shot (Pfizer), which means I’ve had five injections in all. Apart from the usual slight numbness in my left arm, I had no after side affects. I’m glad I managed to get the booster, as a large number of people I know have either got Covid-19 or have had it recently, many of them having picked it up at conferences and work events where face coverings are no longer worn by most people. Some people I know have had Covid-19 four or five times now but, as far as I’m aware I still haven’t had it. I may of course have had a mild infection, without significant symptoms, but I’ve certainly never tested positive for it.
There has been a rapid increase in Covid and ‘flu cases in Ireland recently, but the severity of the situation with respect to the coronavirus is hard to gauge, as there is no longer any routine testing. Take -up of booster vaccines in Ireland has been slow, but I don’t know whether that is increased reluctance or just that it’s difficult to get an appointment. In any case the seasonal booster is generally only available for people over the age of 50 (unless there are other medical reasons).
Finally, let me take this opportunity to wish everyone who has come down with Covid-19 recently a speedy recovery and a healthy New Year!
I was leafing through my copy of the 2023 Private Eye Annual and thought it would be fun to do a sort of annual for the Open Journal of Astrophysics, so here you are: all 50 of the papers in Volume 6 (2023) in glorious technicolour.
I could have linked each image to the relevant paper, but I’m way to lazy to do that!
In case you are interested here is the breakdown into different sections:
You can see that over half the papers we published are in Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics, and just three arXiv categories account for 90% of the publications. I hope we can increase our diversity in 2024!
I have now entered that strange twilight zone between Christmas and New Year during which it is difficult to remember which day is which, so I thought I’d just do a quick retrospective about the thing that has the biggest effect on my professional life in 2023, namely the Euclid satellite.
Euclid was launched halfway through the year, on July 1st, an event that took place just a week after or so after the annual Euclid Consortium Meeting in Copenhagen when I took over as Chair of the Euclid Consortium Diversity Committee. The latter led to a huge increase in the number of telecons I had to attend, not only the ECDC’s own bi-weekly Zoom meetings but also various other committees that the ECDC Chair attends ex officio. Much of the Chair’s work is confidential, which means there is no-one to consult with about the difficult matters. Had I not been on sabbatical since September I don’t think I would have had either the time or the energy to carry out these duties. It has taken me quite a while to get the hang of this role, but I do feel that it’s important and that I have contributed in a small way to the Euclid Consortium.
As for the scientific side of Euclid, after a few technical issues the commissioning of Euclid’s instruments is now more-or-less over and the final preparations are being made for the survey proper, which will take commence in the New Year. What is going on now is called a phase diversity analysis, which is being used to verify and improve the performance of the optical system.
In November, a set of Early Release Observations were published. Early in the New Year a number of scientific papers about these will be published, along with other papers about Euclid in general, including an overview paper that provides a high-level description of the mission. Data relating to the Early Release Observations will also be released to the general public.
After that the survey will begin in earnest. The full exercise will take six years to complete – I’ll have retired before it finishes – but there will be a first data release (DR1) using one year’s worth of survey data. That should give a good idea of how well it’s all going to work out for the full survey. That data will be made available to the public.
If all goes to plan, after the annual EC meeting (which next year will be in Rome, from 17th to 21st June), I’ll be stepping down as ECDC Chair and indeed from the ECDC altogether. That is just as well because my sabbatical will be over at the end of August and I’ll be back to a full teaching and admin load at Maynooth, assuming there’s still a Department to return to!
With gale force winds, torrential rain and hailstones, the weather is pulling out all the stops today; so here, from the album Shakespeare and all that Jazz by Cleo Laine with a band led by John Dankworth, here is a lovely version of the song Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind from As You Like It by William Shakespeare
I always loved how Cleo Laine sang Jazz without trying to put on an American accent!
And here are the words, if you want to sing along at home:
by Wassily Kandinsky (1923, watercolor and ink on paper, 35.5 x 25.2 cm, Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid)
Here we are then, Christmas Day. I thought I’d do a quick yule blog before (late) breakfast. I can’t possibly compete with my post of yesterday featuring Miggledy Higgins, so I’ll keep it brief. Let me just wish you all a Merry Christmas, Nadolig Llawen, Nollaig Shona, Fröhliche Weihnachten, Joyeux Noël, Buon Natale, Feliz Navidad, Feliç Nadal, etc.
I’m not in Barcelona at the moment but I thought you might enjoy this old traditional carol from Catalonia called Fum, fum, fum.
And in the words of a traditional Irish toast:
Go mbeirimid beo ag an am seo arís!
(“May we all live to see this time next year”)
It’s Christmas Eve so I thought I’d share this Christmas message from the President of Ireland (Uachtarán na hÉireann) Michael D. Higgins, a person I admire greatly and am proud to call my President. He is a rare example of a politician who is also a decent and likeable human being.
The whole speech is worth listening to, but I draw your attention in particular to this excerpt:
… may I express my gratitude to the migrants who now call Ireland their home. Their presence enriches our culture, contributes to our society, bringing as they do experiences, traditions, and perspectives that make us stronger as a nation.
It’s such a refreshing change to hear such words, contrasting with the toxic rhetoric being spewed out by so many politicians across the world. Well said, Michael Higgins!
In the Dark 