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At least 37 records · Page 2

Circular polarization of sunlight reflected by clouds.

Measurements of circular polarization of visible light from planets have recently been reported. It is pointed out that the values measured for the circular polarization for Jupiter and Venus are of the magnitude expected for sunlight reflected by a cloudy planetary atmosphere. The variations of the sense of the polarization with phase angle and with location on the planetary disk are also consistent with expectations for reflection by clouds.

Hansen, J. E.↗

A technique for an array to generate circular polarization with linearly polarized elements

A method is presented for generating circularly polarized radiation from an array composed of linearly polarized elements having unique angular and phase arrangements. With this technique the complexity, weight, and RF loss of the array feed can be significantly reduced, especially in a large array. This uniquely formed array has the capability of generating excellent circular polarization (CP) over a relatively wide frequency bandwidth. In addition, the array is capable of scanning its main beam in the principal planes to relatively wide angles from its broadside direction without serious degradation to its CP quality. Another feature of this uniquely arranged array is a reduction in the occurrence of mutual coupling.

Huang, J.↗

All-Metal Dual Band Circular Polarized UHF Patch Antenna

An all-metal circularly polarized UHF antenna element is presented. The patch antenna gives a wideband impedance and axial ratio bandwidth of 24% over the 0.3-0.38 GHz frequency band with 90% efficiency. The main advantage is the use of a single feed point to generate circular polarization (CP). The antenna can be used to set up a dual-band (0.3-0.32 GHz and 0.36-0.38 GHz) communication link, with an axial ratio better than 3 dB and a realized CP gain better than 8 dBiC and 10 dBiC, respectively. The interaction between the cavity walls and the patch element, results in near-field coupling and improves the impedance bandwidth as well as the axial ratio bandwidth of the antenna. Being a high gain, high aperture efficiency, low profile, light weight, and single feed point radiating element, this single patch antenna is an excellent candidate for future antenna array.

Chahat, Nacer↗

High Performance Circularly Polarized Microstrip Antenna

A microstrip antenna for radiating circularly polarized electromagnetic waves comprising a cluster array of at least four microstrip radiator elements, each of which is provided with dual orthogonal coplanar feeds in phase quadrature relation achieved by connection to an asymmetric T-junction power divider impedance notched at resonance. The dual fed circularly polarized reference element is positioned with its axis at a 45 deg angle with respect to the unit cell axis. The other three dual fed elements in the unit cell are positioned and fed with a coplanar feed structure with sequential rotation and phasing to enhance the axial ratio and impedance matching performance over a wide bandwidth. The centers of the radiator elements are disposed at the corners of a square with each side of a length d in the range of 0.7 to 0.9 times the free space wavelength of the antenna radiation and the radiator elements reside in a square unit cell area of sides equal to 2d and thereby permit the array to be used as a phased array antenna for electronic scanning and is realizable in a high temperature superconducting thin film material for high efficiency.

Bondyopadhyay, Probir K.↗

Interstellar circular polarization and the composition of interstellar dust

This paper shows that optical observations of circular polarization produced by aligned interstellar grains could yield valuable information about the grain material. The interstellar medium is known to be linearly dichroic from observations of interstellar linear polarization; many different grain models using a large variety of compositions can be found to reproduce these observations. Since the same aligned grains make the medium linearly birefringent, a small component of circular polarization can result from incident linearly polarized light if the position angle of the linear polarization does not coincide with either principal axis of the medium. Here calculations are presented to demonstrate that the wavelength of the circular polarization is sensitive to the imaginary part of the complex refractive index of the grain material. This provides an opportunity of investigating whether the grains are characteristically dielectric or metallic. Some possible observations are suggested.

Martin, P. G.↗

A simple antenna with good circular polarization.

Simple antenna with good circular polarization over wide space sector, showing geometry, normalized orthogonal field distributions and beamwidth range, considering slot combinations

Levenson, M. M.↗

Intensity-dependent circular polarization and circumstellar magnetic fields from the observation of SiO masers

A new aspect of the propagation of astrophysical maser radiation in the presence of a magnetic field is described in which circular polarization is created. The resulting antisymmetric spectral line profile for this circular polarization resembles that produced by the ordinary Zeeman effect when the Zeeman splittings are much less than the spectral line breadth. It is caused by the change, with increasing maser intensity, in the axis of symmetry for the molecular quantum states from a direction that is parallel to the magnetic field to a direction that is parallel to the direction of propagation. When the maser is radiatively saturated, and the rate for stimulated emission is within an order of magnitude of the Zeeman splitting in frequency units, this 'intensity-dependent circular polarization' is greater than that due to the ordinary Zeeman effect by factors as large as 1000. The circular polarization that is observed in the spectra of circumstellar SiO (J = 1-0) masers associated with late-type giants and supergiants may then be caused by magnetic fields as weak as about 10 mG. With the standard Zeeman interpretation of the observations, magnetic fields of 10-100 G are indicated. The lower fields are similar to the limits obtained from the observation of the 22 GHz water masers which are typically somewhat further from the central star. The observed tendency for the fractional linear polarization of SiO masers to increase with increasing angular momentum of the molecular state is shown to be a likely result of anisotropic pumping. Errors are identified that invalidate a recent conflicting claim in the literature about the basic theory of maser polarization in the regime that is relevant here.

Nedoluha, Gerald E.↗

Linear and circular polarization of the cosmic background radiation

New data which consist of continued measurements of the linear polarization of the cosmic background radiation as well as the first measurement of the circular polarization are examined. Eleven declinations have been surveyed for linear polarization and one declination for circular polarization, all at 9 mm wavelength. No evidence is found for either a significant linear or circular component with statistical errors on the linear component of 20-60 microK for various models. For linear polarization, a 95 percent confidence level limit of 0.1 mK (0.00003) for an axisymmetric anisotropic model is achieved, while for spherical harmonics through third order, a corresponding limit of 0.2 mK is achieved. For a declination of 37 deg, a limit of 12 mK is placed on the time-varying component and 20 mK on the dc component of the circular polarization at the 95 percent confidence level. At 37 percent declination, the sensitivity per beam patch (7 deg) is 0.2 mK.

Lubin, P.↗

A High-gain Circularly Polarized Ka-band Microstrip Reflectarray

A half-meter, 32 GHz, circularly polarized microstrip reflectarray antenna has been developed. Excellent efficiency, good bandwidth, and low average sideglobe and cross-pol levels are achieved. It is believed that this is electrically the largest microstrip reflectarray (6924 elements) that has ever been developed, and it is the first time that circular polarization has been demonstrated using microstrip elements.

reflectarray antenna microstrip Ka-band circular p↗

Circularly polarized microstrip antennas

A simple microstrip antenna can be made to radiate EM waves of any polarization, in particular, the circular polarization (CP) without any phasing network and power divider. A simple and accurate theory for this family of antennas was developed. However, the CP bandwidth, (CPBW) the bandwidth in which the axial ratio (AR) is less than a certain specified value, is very small. Most of the experimental designs were made for a feed placed along the diagonal of the patch. It is shown that there are practically infinitely many possible designs with different feed location. The speculation that other designs might give a wider bandwidth is clarified and an effective method for broadening the bandwidth is shown.

Lo, Y. T.↗

Simple, low-profile, circularly polarized arrays

A low-profile, circularly polarized antenna can be made using an annular sector of strip conductor parallel to a closely spaced ground plane. This antenna has a very wide impedance bandwidth and is particularly well suited for use in series-fed arrays. Control of the excitation coefficients can be accomplished by a simple variation in the geometry of each element. Interconnection of the elements has been realized both in coaxial cable and in microstrip. Axial ratios less than 1 dB in the broadside direction are easily obtainable.

Mayes, Paul↗

Effect of Faraday rotation on the circular polarization of the Crab Nebula

The effect of Faraday rotation on the circular polarization of an electromagnetic wave propagating through a magnetized plasma is calculated for various limits of the plasma and wave parameters appropriate to a 30-Hz wave in the Crab Nebula. It is shown that a static magnetic field of the proper geometry and only a few times stronger than the wave field can reduce the circular polarization of the nonlinear inverse Compton radiation to a value below the observed upper limit.-

Gerver, M. J.↗

Modulational instability of finite-amplitude, circularly polarized Alfven waves

The simple theory of the decay instability of Alfven waves is strictly applicable only to a small-amplitude parent wave in a low-beta plasma, but, if the parent wave is circularly polarized, it is possible to analyze the situation without either of these restrictions. Results show that a large-amplitude circularly polarized wave is unstable with respect to decay into three waves, one longitudinal and one transverse wave propagating parallel to the parent wave and one transverse wave propagating antiparallel. The transverse decay products appear at frequencies which are the sum and difference of the frequencies of the parent wave and the longitudinal wave. The decay products are not familiar MHD modes except in the limit of small beta and small amplitude of the parent wave, in which case the decay products are a forward-propagating sound wave and a backward-propagating circularly polarized wave. In this limit the other transverse wave disappears. The effect of finite beta is to reduce the linear growth rate of the instability from the value suggested by the simple theory. Possible applications of these results to the theory of the solar wind are briefly touched upon.

Derby, N. F., Jr.↗

Parametric instabilities of finite-amplitude, circularly polarized Alfven waves in an anisotropic plasma

A class of parametric instabilities of finite-amplitude, circularly polarized Alfven waves in a plasma with pressure anisotropy is studied by application of the CGL equations. A linear perturbation analysis is used to find the dispersion relation governing the instabilities, which is a fifth-order polynomial and is solved numerically. A large-amplitude, circularly polarized wave is unstable with respect to decay into three waves: one sound-like wave and two side-band Alfven-like waves. It is found that, in addition to the decay instability, two new instabilities that are absent in the framework of the MHD equations can occur, depending on the plasma parameters.

Hamabata, Hiromitsu↗