636 research outputs found
Large-Scale Structure of the Molecular Gas in Taurus Revealed by High Linear Dynamic Range Spectral Line Mapping
We report the results of a 100 square degree survey of the Taurus Molecular
Cloud region in the J = 1-0 transition of 12CO and 13CO. The image of the cloud
in each velocity channel includes ~ 3 million Nyquist sampled pixels on a 20"
grid. The high sensitivity and large linear dynamic range of the maps in both
isotopologues reveal a very complex, highly structured cloud morphology. There
are large scale correlated structures evident in 13CO emission having very fine
dimensions, including filaments, cavities, and rings. The 12CO emission shows a
quite different structure, with particularly complex interfaces between regions
of greater and smaller column density defining the boundaries of the
largest-scale cloud structures. The axes of the striations seen in the 12CO
emission from relatively diffuse gas are aligned with the direction of the
magnetic field. Using a column density-dependent model for the CO fractional
abundance, we derive the mass of the region mapped to be 24,000 solar masses, a
factor of three greater than would be obtained with canonical CO abundance
restricted to the high column density regions. We determine that half the mass
of the cloud is in regions having column density below 2.1x10^{21} per square
cm. The distribution of young stars in the region covered is highly nonuniform,
with the probability of finding a star in a pixel with a specified column
density rising sharply for N(H2) = 6x10^{21} cm^{-2}. We determine a relatively
low star formation efficiency (mass of young stars/mass of molecular gas),
between 0.3 and 1.2 %, and an average star formation rate during the past 3 Myr
of 8x10^{-5} stars yr^{-1}.Comment: 53 pages, 21 figure
Resource Allocation in Full-Duplex UAV Enabled Multi Small Cell Networks
Flying platforms such as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are a promising solution for future small cell networks. UAVs can be used as aerial Base Stations (BSs) to enhance coverage, capacity and reliability of wireless networks. Also, with recent advances of Self Interference Cancellation (SIC) techniques in Full-Duplex (FD) systems, practical implementation of FD BSs is feasible. In this paper, we investigate the problem of resource allocation for multi-small cell networks with FD-UAVs as aerial BSs with imperfect SIC. We consider three different scenarios: a) maximizing the DL sum-rate, b) maximizing the UL sum-rate, and finally c) maximizing the sum of UL and DL sum-rates. The aforementioned problems result in non-convex optimization problems, therefore, successive convex approximation algorithms are developed by leveraging D.C. (Difference of Convex functions) programming to find sub-optimal solutions. Simulation results illustrated validity and effectiveness of the proposed radio resource management algorithms in comparison with ground BSs, in both FD mode and its half-duplex (HD) counterpart. The results also indicate those situations where using aerial BS is advantageous over ground BS and reveal how FD transmission enhances the network performance in comparison with HD one
The <i>Castalia</i> mission to Main Belt Comet 133P/Elst-Pizarro
We describe Castalia, a proposed mission to rendezvous with a Main Belt Comet (MBC), 133P/Elst-Pizarro. MBCs are a recently discovered population of apparently icy bodies within the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, which may represent the remnants of the population which supplied the early Earth with water. Castalia will perform the first exploration of this population by characterising 133P in detail, solving the puzzle of the MBC’s activity, and making the first in situ measurements of water in the asteroid belt. In many ways a successor to ESA’s highly successful Rosetta mission, Castalia will allow direct comparison between very different classes of comet, including measuring critical isotope ratios, plasma and dust properties. It will also feature the first radar system to visit a minor body, mapping the ice in the interior. Castalia was proposed, in slightly different versions, to the ESA M4 and M5 calls within the Cosmic Vision programme. We describe the science motivation for the mission, the measurements required to achieve the scientific goals, and the proposed instrument payload and spacecraft to achieve these
Shedding light on the formation of the pre-biotic molecule formamide with ASAI
Formamide (NH2CHO) has been proposed as a pre-biotic precursor with a key
role in the emergence of life on Earth. While this molecule has been observed
in space, most of its detections correspond to high-mass star-forming regions.
Motivated by this lack of investigation in the low-mass regime, we searched for
formamide, as well as isocyanic acid (HNCO), in 10 low- and intermediate-mass
pre-stellar and protostellar objects. The present work is part of the IRAM
Large Programme ASAI (Astrochemical Surveys At IRAM), which makes use of
unbiased broadband spectral surveys at millimetre wavelengths. We detected HNCO
in all the sources and NH2CHO in five of them. We derived their abundances and
analysed them together with those reported in the literature for high-mass
sources. For those sources with formamide detection, we found a tight and
almost linear correlation between HNCO and NH2CHO abundances, with their ratio
being roughly constant -between 3 and 10- across 6 orders of magnitude in
luminosity. This suggests the two species are chemically related. The sources
without formamide detection, which are also the coldest and devoid of hot
corinos, fall well off the correlation, displaying a much larger amount of HNCO
relative to NH2CHO. Our results suggest that, while HNCO can be formed in the
gas phase during the cold stages of star formation, NH2CHO forms most
efficiently on the mantles of dust grains at these temperatures, where it
remains frozen until the temperature rises enough to sublimate the icy grain
mantles. We propose hydrogenation of HNCO as a likely formation route leading
to NH2CHO.Comment: 26 pages, 9 figures. Accepted by Monthly Notices of the Royal
Astronomical Societ
A City-Scale ITS-G5 Network for Next-Generation Intelligent Transportation Systems: Design Insights and Challenges
As we move towards autonomous vehicles, a reliable Vehicle-to-Everything
(V2X) communication framework becomes of paramount importance. In this paper we
present the development and the performance evaluation of a real-world
vehicular networking testbed. Our testbed, deployed in the heart of the City of
Bristol, UK, is able to exchange sensor data in a V2X manner. We will describe
the testbed architecture and its operational modes. Then, we will provide some
insight pertaining the firmware operating on the network devices. The system
performance has been evaluated under a series of large-scale field trials,
which have proven how our solution represents a low-cost high-quality framework
for V2X communications. Our system managed to achieve high packet delivery
ratios under different scenarios (urban, rural, highway) and for different
locations around the city. We have also identified the instability of the
packet transmission rate while using single-core devices, and we present some
future directions that will address that.Comment: Accepted for publication to AdHoc-Now 201
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