683 research outputs found
Principal Component Analysis of Weak Lensing Surveys
We study degeneracies between cosmological parameters and measurement errors
from cosmic shear surveys using a principal component analysis of the Fisher
matrix. We simulate realistic survey topologies with non-uniform sky coverage,
and quantify the effect of survey geometry, depth and noise from intrinsic
galaxy ellipticities on the parameter errors. This analysis allows us to
optimise the survey geometry. Using the shear two-point correlation functions
and the aperture mass dispersion, we study various degeneracy directions in a
multi-dimensional parameter space spanned by Omega_m, Omega_Lambda, sigma_8,
the shape parameter Gamma, the spectral index n_s, along with parameters that
specify the distribution of source galaxies. If only three parameters are to be
obtained from weak lensing data, a single principal component is dominant and
contains all information about the main parameter degeneracies and their
errors. The variance of the dominant principal component of the Fisher matrix
shows a minimum for survey strategies which have small cosmic variance and
measure the shear correlation up to several degrees [abridged].Comment: 13 pages, 17 figures. A&A in press, matches the version to be
publishe
Measured dose distributions of iodine-125 sources and the computerised optimisation of their positions in brachytherapy planning
Includes bibliographies.The use of 1-125 seeds in brachytherapy is widespread and becoming increasingly varied. The spatial dose distributions around two types of 1-125 seeds in general use, were measured using a Geiger-Muller chamber. Seeds with the 1-125 adsorbed onto resin spheres had a 10% less anisotropic dose distribution than seeds containing a silver wire with the 1-125 adsorbed onto it. An interpolative method was developed for fast dose calculations taking this anisotropy into account
Tuning a gravimetric quasigeoid to GPS-levelling by non-stationary least-squares collocation
This paper addresses implementation issues in order to apply non-stationary least-squares collocation (LSC) to a practical geodetic problem: fitting a gravimetric quasigeoid to discrete geometric quasigeoid heights at a local scale. This yields a surface that is useful for direct GPS heighting. Non-stationary covariance functions and a nonstationary model of the mean were applied to residual gravimetric quasigeoid determination by planar LSC in the Perth region ofWestern Australia. The non-stationarymodel of the mean did not change the LSC results significantly. However, elliptical kernels in non-stationary covariance functions were used successfully to create an iterative optimisation loop to decrease the difference between the gravimetric quasigeoid and geometric quasigeoid at 99 GPS-levelling points to a user-prescribed tolerance
Gaining Confidence in Navigating Rosetta at Mars Swing-By
The Mars swing-by in the early morning of the 25th of February 2007 was one of the most critical events the Rosetta mission has experienced so far on its way to the comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The closest approach took place at a distance of only 250 km from the planet s surface. Missing the optimal target would have translated into considerable fuel cost. In order to achieve confidence in operating through this highly critical mission phase, a navigation analysis exercise was carried out beforehand. This paper describes the purpose and the chosen approach for this preparatory Flight Dynamics activity. It presents and discusses results of the analysis. Emphasis is put on the question of what is needed to simulate a valuable data set representative for operations. The results of the navigation analysis are compared with real data obtained during swing-by operations
F-formation Detection: Individuating Free-standing Conversational Groups in Images
Detection of groups of interacting people is a very interesting and useful
task in many modern technologies, with application fields spanning from
video-surveillance to social robotics. In this paper we first furnish a
rigorous definition of group considering the background of the social sciences:
this allows us to specify many kinds of group, so far neglected in the Computer
Vision literature. On top of this taxonomy, we present a detailed state of the
art on the group detection algorithms. Then, as a main contribution, we present
a brand new method for the automatic detection of groups in still images, which
is based on a graph-cuts framework for clustering individuals; in particular we
are able to codify in a computational sense the sociological definition of
F-formation, that is very useful to encode a group having only proxemic
information: position and orientation of people. We call the proposed method
Graph-Cuts for F-formation (GCFF). We show how GCFF definitely outperforms all
the state of the art methods in terms of different accuracy measures (some of
them are brand new), demonstrating also a strong robustness to noise and
versatility in recognizing groups of various cardinality.Comment: 32 pages, submitted to PLOS On
Structure and Kinematics of the Nearby Dwarf Galaxy UGCA 105
Owing to their shallow stellar potential, dwarf galaxies possess thick gas
disks, which makes them good candidates for studies of the galactic vertical
kinematical structure. We present 21 cm line observations of the isolated
nearby dwarf irregular galaxy UGCA 105, taken with the Westerbork Synthesis
Radio Telescope (WSRT), and analyse the geometry of its neutral hydrogen (HI)
disk and its kinematics. The galaxy shows a fragmented HI distribution. It is
more extended than the optical disk, and hence allows one to determine its
kinematics out to very large galacto-centric distances. The HI kinematics and
morphology are well-ordered and symmetric for an irregular galaxy. The HI is
sufficiently extended to observe a substantial amount of differential rotation.
Moreover, UGCA 105 shows strong signatures for the presence of a kinematically
anomalous gas component. Performing tilted-ring modelling by use of the
least-squares fitting routine TiRiFiC, we found that the HI disk of UGCA 105
has a moderately warped and diffuse outermost part. Probing a wide range of
parameter combinations, we succeeded in modelling the data cube as a disk with
a strong vertical gradient in rotation velocity (), as well as vertically increasing inwards motion
() within the radius of the stellar
disk. The inferred radial gas inflow amounts to , which is similar to the star formation rate of the galaxy. The
observed kinematics are hence compatible with direct or indirect accretion from
the intergalactic medium, an extreme backflow of material that has formerly
been expelled from the disk, or a combination of both.Comment: 15 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy &
Astrophysic
Methods and tools for preliminary low thrust mission analysis
The aim of the present thesis is to develop new methods that are useful for a space mission analyst to design low thrust trajectories in the preliminary phases of a mission study, where the focus is more on exploring various concepts than on obtaining one optimal transfer. The tools cover three main axes: generating low thrust trajectories from scratch, improving existing low thrust trajectories and exploring large search spaces related to multiple gravity assist transfers. Stress is put on the computational efficiency of the tools.
Transfer arcs are generated with shaped based approaches, which have the advantage of having the ability to reproduce close to optimal transfers satisfying time of flight constraints and varied boundary constraints without the need for propagation. This thesis presents a general framework for the development of shape-based approaches to low-thrust trajectory design. A novel shaping method, based on a three-dimensional description of the trajectory in spherical coordinates, is developed within this general framework. Both the exponential sinusoid and the inverse polynomial shaping are demonstrated to be particular two-dimensional cases of the spherical one. The pseudo-equinoctial shaping is revisited within the new framework, and the nonosculating nature of the pseudo-equinoctial elements is analysed. A two-step approach is introduced to solve the time of flight constraint, related to the design of low-thrust arcs with boundary constraints for both spherical and pseudo-equinoctial shaping.
The solutions derived from the shaping approach are improved with a feedback linear-quadratic controller and compared against a direct collocation method based on finite elements in time. Theoretical results are given on the validity of the method and a theorem is derived on the criteria of optimality of the results. The shaping approaches and the combination of shaping and linear-quadratic controller are tested on four case studies: a mission to Mars, a mission to asteroid 1989ML, to comet Tempel-1 and to Neptune.
The design of low thrust multiple gravity assist trajectories is tackled by an incremental pruning approach. The incremental pruning of reduced search spaces is performed for decoupled pairs of transfer legs, after which regions of the total search space are identified where all acceptable pairs can be linked together. The gravity assists are not powered therefore the trajectory is purely low thrust and the transfer arcs are modelled by shaping functions and improved with the linear quadratic controller. Such an approach can reduce the computational burden of finding a global optimum. Numerical examples are presented for LTMGA transfers from Earth to asteroid Apollo and to Jupiter
Numerical Loop-Tree Duality: contour deformation and subtraction
We introduce a novel construction of a contour deformation within the
framework of Loop-Tree Duality for the numerical computation of loop integrals
featuring threshold singularities in momentum space. The functional form of our
contour deformation automatically satisfies all constraints without the need
for fine-tuning. We demonstrate that our construction is systematic and
efficient by applying it to more than 100 examples of finite scalar integrals
featuring up to six loops. We also showcase a first step towards handling
non-integrable singularities by applying our work to one-loop infrared
divergent scalar integrals and to the one-loop amplitude for the ordered
production of two and three photons. This requires the combination of our
contour deformation with local counterterms that regulate soft, collinear and
ultraviolet divergences. This work is an important step towards computing
higher-order corrections to relevant scattering cross-sections in a fully
numerical fashion.Comment: 87 page
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