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At least 451 records · Page 25

Magnetospheres and winds of the helium strong stars: Dependence on rotation

Large aperture, low resolution spectra of 24 stars of types 05, 04, and 03 were obtained, and from these the energy distribution between 1200 and 3200 angstrom was derived in absolute units. The energies were combined with energies deduced from uvby and UBV photometry and corrected for interstellar extinction. Angular diameters and effective temperatures are also derived. The effective temperatures range from 24800K to 63000K. There is no correlation between effective temperature and spectral type or luminosity class for the early 0 stars. The size of the expected errors are also studied.

Barker, P. K.↗

X-ray focusing using microchannel plates

We present measurements of the X-ray focusing properties of square-pore microchannel plates (MCP's). Square-pore MCP's contain large numbers of closely packed optical surfaces, as required for grazing incidence X-ray optics. The surface of individual MCP channels has been measured and found to have high microroughness transverse to the channel axis and low microroughness parallel to the axis. The high frequency transverse roughness, on length scales greater than 400 nm, has a rms value of 5.9 nm and a Gaussian autocorrelation function with correlation length of 1.41 micron. We find that the geometric misalignments of the surfaces of different channels limit the angular resolution obtainable with current samples of MCP's to 7.1 arcmin.

Kaaret, P.↗

A Study of Cross Polarization Effects in Reflector Antenna Arrays

This paper addresses the issue of cross-polarized field components of an array of antennas as compared to that of individual elements of the array. For a single antenna, the co- and cross-polarization components are completely correlated in terms of phase and amplitude in a given direction. The co/cross-pol relations vary as a function of angular position from peak of the beam, which is important when there is pointing error. More specifically, for the reflector antennas, this relation might vary as the antenna points in different directions in azimuth and elevation, due to the changes in gravity profile, wind effects, temperature changes, etc., on the surface and feed/sub/main reflector alignment. In an array environment, these changes will vary among various antennas in the array, and indeed very small mechanical and design variations in the antenna elements (in terms of feed horns, feed/reflector misalignments, surface variations, etc., will contribute to the cross polarization variations.

cross polarization↗

Electron correlation and relativistic effects in the excited states of radium monofluoride

Highly accurate and precise electronic structure calculations of heavy radioactive atoms and their molecules are important for several research areas, including chemical, nuclear, and particle physics. Ab initio quantum chemistry can elucidate structural details in these systems that emerge from the interplay of relativistic and electron correlation effects, but the large number of electrons complicates the calculations, and the scarcity of experiments prevents insightful theory-experiment comparisons. Here we report the spectroscopy of the 14 lowest excited electronic states in the radioactive molecule radium monofluoride (RaF), which is proposed as a sensitive probe for searches of new physics. The observed excitation energies are compared with state-of-the-art relativistic Fock-space coupled cluster calculations, which achieve an agreement of ≥99.64% (within ~12 meV) with experiment for all states. Guided by theory, a firm assignment of the angular momentum and term symbol is made for 10 states and a tentative assignment for 4 states. The role of high-order electron correlation and quantum electrodynamics effects in the excitation energies is studied and found to be important for all states.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

Cross Correlation of the 2-10 keV X-Ray Background with Radio Sources: Constraining the Large Scale Structure of the X-Ray Background

We present cross-correlation analyses of the HEAO 2-10 keV diffuse X-ray map with both the combined GB6/Parkes-MIT-NRAO (GB6-PMN) 5 GHz and the FIRST 1.4 GHz radio surveys. The cross-correlation functions (CCFs) of both radio surveys with the unresolved X-ray background were detected at the 5 u level. While the large angular resolution (3 deg) of the X-ray map makes it difficult to separate the contributions of clustering from those of Poisson fluctuations, the amplitude of the CCF provides important constraints on the X-ray emissivity of the radio sources, as well as on the clustering properties of radio and X-ray sources. These constraints are subject to a number of modeling parameters, e.g., X-ray luminosity evolution, clustering evolution, the radio luminosity function, cosmological model, etc. For reasonable choices of parameters the X-ray/FIRST CCF is consistent with a correlation scale length of 6/h Mpc. This is somewhat smaller than the scale length inferred from the autocorrelation function of the FIRST survey and implies that X-ray sources are less strongly clustered than strong radio sources, a result that is consistent with previous constraints on X-ray clustering. The X-ray/GB6-PMN CCF is several times larger and is likely to be dominated by Poisson fluctuations. This implies that approx. 2% of the diffuse X-ray background arises from the GB6-PMN sources.

Boughn, Stephen P.↗

Density weighted angular redshift fluctuations: a new cosmological observable

We propose the use of angular fluctuations in the galaxy redshift field as a new way to extract cosmological information in the Universe. This new probe $\delta z (\hat{\mathbf {n}})$ consists of the statistics of sky maps built by projecting redshifts under a Gaussian window of width σz centred upon a redshift zobs, and weighted by the galaxy density field. We compute the angular power spectrum of the $\delta z (\hat{\mathbf {n}})$ field in both numerical simulations and in linear perturbation theory. From these, we find that the $\delta z (\hat{\mathbf {n}})$ field (i) is sensitive to the underlying density and peculiar velocity fields; (ii) is highly correlated, at the $\gtrsim 60\, {{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ level, to the line-of-sight projected peculiar velocity field; (iii) for narrow windows (σz < 0.03), it is almost completely uncorrelated to the projected galaxy angular density field under the same redshift window; and (iv) it is largely unaffected by multiplicative and additive systematic errors on the observed number of galaxies that are redshift-independent over ~σz. We conclude that $\delta z (\hat{\mathbf {n}})$ is a simple and robust tomographic measure of the cosmic density and velocity fields, complementary to angular clustering, that will contribute to more complete exploitations of current and upcoming galaxy redshift surveys.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Timescales of Quantum Equilibration, Dissipation and Fluctuation in Nuclear Collisions

Understanding the dynamics of equilibration processes in quantum systems as well as their interplay with dissipation and fluctuation is a major challenge in quantum many-body theory. The timescales of such processes are investigated in collisions of atomic nuclei using fully microscopic approaches. Findings from time-dependent Hartree-Fock and time-dependent random-phase approximation calculations are compared for 13 systems over a broad range of energies. The timescale for full mass equilibration ( ~ 2 × 10 - 20 s ) is found to be much larger than timescales for neutron-to-proton equilibration, kinetic energy, and angular momentum dissipations which are on the order of 10 - 21 s . Fluctuations of mass numbers in the fragments and correlations between their neutron and proton numbers build up within only a few 10 - 21 s . This suggests that dissipation is basically not impacted by mass equilibration, but is mostly driven by the exchange of nucleons between the fragments.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

Measurement and Modeling of Polarized Atmosphere at the South Pole with SPT-3G

We present the detection and characterization of fluctuations in linearly polarized emission from the atmosphere above the South Pole. These measurements make use of data from the SPT-3G receiver on the South Pole Telescope in three frequency bands centered at 95, 150, and 220 GHz. We use the cross-correlation between detectors to produce an unbiased estimate of the power in Stokes I, Q, and U parameters on large angular scales. Our results are consistent with the polarized signal being produced by the combination of Rayleigh scattering of thermal radiation from the ground and thermal emission from a population of horizontally aligned ice crystals with an anisotropic distribution described by Kolmogorov turbulence. The measured spatial scaling, frequency scaling, and elevation dependence of the polarized emission are explained by this model. Polarized atmospheric emission has the potential to significantly impact observations on the large angular scales being targeted by searches for inflationary B-mode CMB polarization. We present the distribution of measured angular power spectrum amplitudes in Stokes Q and I for 4 yr of Austral winter observations, which can be used to simulate the impact of atmospheric polarization and intensity fluctuations at the South Pole on a specified experiment and observation strategy. We present a mitigation strategy that involves both downweighting significantly contaminated observations and subtracting a polarized atmospheric signal from the 150 GHz band maps. In observations with the SPT-3G instrument, the polarized atmospheric signal is a well-understood and subdominant contribution to the measured noise after implementing the mitigation strategies described here.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Characterization of solid particle erosion resistance of ductile metals based on their properties

This paper presents experimental results pertaining to spherical glass bead and angular crushed glass particle impingement. A concept of energy absorption to explain the failure of material is proposed and is correlated with the erosion characteristics of several pure metals. Analyses of extensive erosion data indicate that the properties - surface energy, specific melting energy, strain energy, melting point, bulk modulus, hardness, atomic volume - and the product of the parameters - linear coefficient of thermal expansion x bulk modulus x temperature rise required for melting, and ultimate resilience x hardness - exhibit the best correlations. The properties of surface energy and atomic volume are suggested for the first time for correlation purposes and are found to correlate well with erosion rates at different angles of impingement. It further appears that both energy and thermal properties contribute to the total erosion.

Rao, P. V.↗

The autocorrelation properties of fluctuations in the cosmic X-ray background

The HEAO 1 A-2 all-sky survey data have been analyzed to investigate the autocorrelation function of the surface brightness fluctuations of the extragalactic 2-10 keV X-ray background on angular scales ranging from 3 to 27 deg. The derived upper limits are compatible with optical estimates of the spatial correlation function of Abell's clusters and set interesting constraints on possible AGN clustering.

Persic, M.↗

A determination of the mass of Sagittarius A* from its radio spectral and source size measurements

There is growing evidence that Sgr A* may be a million solar mass black hole accreting from the Galactic center wind. A consideration of the spectral and source size characteristics associated with this process can offer at least two distinct means of inferring the mass M, complementing the more traditional dynamical arguments. We show that M is unmistakably correlated with both the radio spectral index and the critical wavelength below which the intrinsic source size dominates over the angular broadening due to scattering in the interstellar medium. Current observations can already rule out a mass much in excess of 2 x 10 exp 6 solar masses and suggest a likely value close to 1 x 10 exp 6 solar masses, in agreement with an earlier study matching the radio and high-energy spectral components. We anticipate that such a mass may be confirmed with the next generation of source-size observations using milliarcsecond angular resolution at 0.5 - 1 cm wavelengths.

Melia, Fulvio↗

An atlas of high-resolution IRAS maps on nearby galaxies

An atlas of far-infrared IRAS maps with near 1 arcmin angular resolution of 30 optically large galaxies is presented. The high-resolution IRAS maps were produced with the Maximum Correlation Method (MCM) image construction and enhancement technique developed at IPAC. The MCM technique, which recovers the spatial information contained in the overlapping detector data samples of the IRAS all-sky survey scans, is outlined and tests to verify the structural reliability and photometric integrity of the high-resolution maps are presented. The infrared structure revealed in individual galaxies is discussed. The atlas complements the IRAS Nearby Galaxy High-Resolution Image Atlas, the high-resolution galaxy images encoded in FITS format, which is provided to the astronomical community as an IPAC product.

Rice, Walter↗

Soft X-ray and H I surveys of the low N(sub H) region in Ursa Major

A region of almost 300 deg squared in Ursa Major around the direction of the lowest neutral hydrogen column density in the sky has been surveyed in the 1/4 keV X-ray band (approximately 0.12 to 0.284 keV at 10% of the peak response) using the ROSAT position sensitive proportional counter (PSPC) and has been fully mapped in the 21 cm line of neutral hydrogen with an angular resolution of 21' or better. We present maps of these two data sets and an analysis of the spatial correlation between them. Over the entire field, the 1/4 keV band X-ray count rate shows a strong negative correlation with the column density of Galactic neutral hydrogen. We discuss the local, extragalactic, and halo contributions to the observed diffuse X-ray intensity and derive an upper limit to the Galactic X-ray emission originating beyond this H I distribution that is more than a factor of 7 smaller than the inferred flux beyond the Draco nebula, an apparent halo object located approximately 41 degs away. This implies that while there may be significant amounts of hot gas in the Galactic halo, its properties must vary strongly across the sky.

Snowden, S. L.↗

Remote Sensing of Multiple Cloud Layer Heights Using Multi-Angular Measurements

Cloud top height (CTH) affects the radiative properties of clouds. Improved CTH observations will allow for improved parameterizations in large-scale models and accurate information on CTH is also important when studying variations in freezing point and cloud microphysics. NASAs airborne Research Scanning Polarimeter (RSP) is able to measure cloud top height using a novel multi-angular contrast approach. For the determination of CTH, a set of consecutive nadir reflectances is selected and the cross-correlations between this set and co-located sets at other viewing angles are calculated for a range of assumed cloud top heights, yielding a correlation profile. Under the assumption that cloud reflectances are isotropic, local peaks in the correlation profile indicate cloud layers. This technique can be applied to every RSP footprint and we demonstrate that detection of multiple peaks in the correlation profile allow retrieval of heights of multiple cloud layers within single RSP footprints. This paper provides an in-depth description of the architecture and performance of the RSPs CTH retrieval technique using data obtained during the Studies of Emissions and Atmospheric Composition, Clouds and Climate Coupling by Regional Surveys (SEAC(exp. 4)RS) campaign. RSP retrieved cloud heights are evaluated using collocated data from the Cloud Physics Lidar (CPL). The method's accuracy associated with the magnitude of correlation, optical thickness, cloud thickness and cloud height are explored. The technique is applied to measurements at a wavelength of 670 nm and 1880 nm and their combination. The 1880-nm band is virtually insensitive to the lower troposphere due to strong water vapor absorption.

Sinclair, Kenneth↗

Coupled Boltzmann transport equations of heavy quarks and quarkonia in quark-gluon plasma

We develop a framework of coupled transport equations for open heavy flavor and quarkonium states, in order to describe their transport inside the quark-gluon plasma. Our framework is capable of studying simultaneously both open and hidden heavy flavor observables in heavy-ion collision experiments and can account for both, uncorrelated and correlated recombination. Our recombination implementation depends on real-time open heavy quark and antiquark distributions. We carry out consistency tests to show how the interplay among open heavy flavor transport, quarkonium dissociation and recombination drives the system to equilibrium. We then apply our framework to study bottomonium production in heavy-ion collisions. We include Υ(1S), Υ(2S), Υ(3S), χb (1P) and χb (2P) in the framework and take feed-down contributions during the hadronic gas stage into account. Cold nuclear matter effects are included by using nuclear parton distribution functions for the initial primordial heavy flavor production. A calibrated 2 + 1 dimensional viscous hydrodynamics is used to describe the bulk QCD medium. We calculate both the nuclear modification factor R AA of all bottomonia states and the azimuthal angular anisotropy coefficient v 2 of the Υ(1S) state and find that our results agree reasonably with experimental measurements. Our calculations indicate that correlated cross-talk recombination is an important production mechanism of bottomonium in current heavy-ion experiments. The importance of correlated recombination can be tested experimentally by measuring the ratio of R AA ( χb (1P)) and R AA (Υ(2S)).

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Small-correlated-against-large estimator for the lensing of the cosmic microwave background

Weak gravitational lensing of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) carries imprints of the physics operating at redshifts much lower than that of recombination and serves as an important probe of cosmological structure formation, dark matter physics, and the mass of neutrinos. Reconstruction of the CMB lensing deflection field through use of quadratic estimators has proven successful with existing data but is known to be sub-optimal on small angular scales ($\ell > 3000$) for experiments with low noise levels. Future experiments will provide better observations in this regime, but these techniques will remain statistically limited by their approximations. We show that correlations between fluctuations of the large-scale temperature gradient power of the CMB sourced by $\ell < 2000$, and fluctuations of the local small-scale temperature power reveal a lensing signal which is prominent in even the real-space pixel statistics across a CMB temperature map. We present the development of the Small Correlated Against Large Estimator (SCALE), a novel estimator for the CMB lensing spectrum which offers promising complementary analysis alongside other reconstruction techniques in this regime. The SCALE method computes correlations between both the large/small-scale temperature gradient power in harmonic space, and it is able to quantitatively recover unbiased statistics of the CMB lensing field without the need for map-level reconstruction. SCALE can outperform quadratic estimator signal-to-noise by a factor of up to 1.5 in current and upcoming experiments for CMB lensing power spectra $C_{6000 < L < 8000}^{\phi\phi}$.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

RCC Plug Repair Thermal Tools for Shuttle Mission Support

A thermal math model for the Space Shuttle Reinforced Carbon-Carbon (RCC) Plug Repair was developed to increase the confidence in the repair entry performance and provide a real-time mission support tool. The thermal response of the plug cover plate, local RCC, and metallic attach hardware can be assessed with this model for any location on the wing leading edge. The geometry and spatial location of the thermal mesh also matches the structural mesh which allows for the direct mapping of temperature loads and computation of the thermoelastic stresses. The thermal model was correlated to a full scale plug repair radiant test. To utilize the thermal model for flight analyses, accurate predictions of protuberance heating were required. Wind tunnel testing was performed at CUBRC to characterize the heat flux in both the radial and angular directions. Due to the complexity of the implementation of the protuberance heating, an intermediate program was developed to output the heating per nodal location for all OML surfaces in SINDA format. Three Design Reference Cases (DRC) were evaluated with the correlated plug thermal math model to bound the environments which the plug repair would potentially be used.

Rodriguez, Alvaro C.↗

Angular Momentum Variation of the Milky Way Thick Disk: The Dependence of Chemical Abundance and Evidence of the Inside-out Formation Scenario

We investigate the angular momentum of mono-abundance populations (MAPs) of the Milky Way thick disk by using a sample of 26,076 giant stars taken from APOGEE Data Release (DR) 17 and Gaia early DR3. The vertical and perpendicular angular momentum components, L Z and L P , of the MAPs in narrow bins have significant variations across the [α/M]–[M/H] plane. L Z and L P systematically change with [M/H] and [α/M] and can be alternatively quantified by the chemical gradients: d[M/H]/dL Z = 1.2 × 10 -3 dex kpc -1 km -1 s, d[M/H]/dL P = -5.0 × 10 -3 dec kpc -1 km -1 s, and d[α/M]/dL Z = -3.0 × 10 -4 dex kpc -1 km -1 s, d[α/M]/dL P = 1.2 × 10 -3 dec kpc -1 km -1 s. These correlations can also be explained as the chemical dependence of the spatial distribution shape of the MAPs. We also exhibit the corresponding age dependence of the angular momentum components. Under the assumption that the guiding radius (R g ) is proportional to L Z , this provides direct observational evidence of the inside-out structure formation scenario of the thick disk, with dR g /dAge = -1.9 kpc Gyr -1 . The progressive changes in the disk thickness can be explained by the upside-down formation or/and the consequent kinematical heating.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗