133,178 research outputs found
Fossil Glasses Produced by Impact of Meteorites, Asteroids and Possibly Comets with the Planet Earth
In recent times one of the most intriguing mysteries of geology bas been the occurrence of aerodynamically-shaped glasses on five continents of the earth. These glasses under discussion are obviously not of fulgurite origin. Recent research indicates that these glasses known as tektites are ~he result of meteorite, asteroid, or possibly comet impact. Impact glasses, in general, differ from volcanic glasses in that they are lower in water content, have lower gallium and germanium contents, and are not necessarily in magmatically unstable continental areas
Constrained Molecular Dynamics Simulations of Atomic Ground-States
Constrained molecular dynamics(CoMD) model, previously introduced for nuclear
dynamics, has been extended to the atomic structure and collision calculations.
Quantum effects corresponding to the Pauli and Heisenberg principle are
enforced by constraints, in a parameter-free way. Our calculations for small
atomic system, H, He, Li, Be, F reproduce the ground-state binding energies
within 3%, compared with the results of quantum mechanical Hartree-Fock
calculations.Comment: 3 pages, 2 figure
Anomalous diffusion in a plasma formed from the exhaust beam of an electron-bombardment ion thruster
Electron diffusion process in beam plasma passing through electrically floating anod
Experimental investigation of a 2.5 centimeter diameter Kaufman microthruster
A 2.5-centimeter-diameter Kaufman electron bombardment microthruster was fabricated and tested. The microthruster design was based on the 15-centimeter-diameter SERT 2 and 5-centimeter-diameter Lewis experimental thruster designs. The microthruster with a two-grid system, operating at a net accelerating potential of 600 volts and an accelerator potential of 500 volts, produced a calculated 445 micronewton thrust when it was run with a 9-milliampere beam current. A glass grid was initially used in testing. Later a two-grid system was successfully incorporated. Both the propellant utilization efficiency and the total power efficiency were lower than for large-size advanced thrusters, as expected; but they were sufficiently high that 2.5-centimeter thrusters show promise for future space applications. Total power of the microthruster with an assumed 7-watt hollow-cathode neutralizer was less than 30 watts at a thrust level of 445 micronewton (100 Nu LBf). The hollow cathode was operated at zero tip heater power for power requirement tests
The Detailed Chemical Abundance Patterns of M31 Globular Clusters
We present detailed chemical abundances for 20 elements in 30
globular clusters in M31. These results have been obtained using high
resolution (24,000) spectra of their integrated
light and analyzed using our original method. The globular clusters have
galactocentric radii between 2.5 kpc and 117 kpc, and therefore provide
abundance patterns for different phases of galaxy formation recorded in the
inner and outer halo of M31. We find that the clusters in our survey have a
range in metallicity of [Fe/H]. The inner halo clusters cover
this full range, while the outer halo globular clusters at R20 kpc have a
small range in abundance of [Fe/H]. We also measure abundances
of alpha, r- and s-process elements. These results constitute the first
abundance pattern constraints for old populations in M31 that are comparable to
those known for the Milky Way halo.Comment: XII International Symposium on Nuclei in the Cosmos August 5-12, 2012
Cairns, Australia. To appear in Proceedings of Scienc
Diffuse radio emission in the merging cluster MACS J0717.5+3745: the discovery of the most powerful radio halo
Hierarchical models of structure formation predict that galaxy clusters grow
via mergers of smaller clusters and galaxy groups, as well as through
continuous accretion of gas. MACS J0717.5+3745 is an X-ray luminous and complex
merging cluster, located at a redshift of 0.55. Here we present Giant Metrewave
Radio Telescope (GMRT) radio observations at 610 MHz of this cluster. The main
aim of the observations is to search for diffuse radio emission within the
galaxy cluster MACS J0717.5+3745 related to the ongoing merger. These GMRT
observations are complemented by Very Large Array (VLA) archival observations
at 1.4, 4.9 and 8.5 GHz. We have discovered a radio halo in the cluster MACS
J0717.5+3745 with a size of about 1.2 Mpc. The radio power P_1.4 GHz is 5 x
10^25 W/Hz, which makes it the most powerful radio halo known till date. A 700
kpc radio structure, which we classify as a radio relic, is located in between
the merging substructures of the system. The location of this relic roughly
coincides with regions of the intra-cluster medium (ICM) that have a
significant enhancement in temperature as shown by Chandra. The major axis of
the relic is also roughly perpendicular to the merger axis. This shows that the
relic might be the result of a merger-related shock wave, where particles are
accelerated via the diffuse shock acceleration (DSA) mechanism. Alternatively,
the relic might trace an accretion shock of a large-scale galaxy filament to
the south-west. The global spectral index of radio emission within the cluster
is found to be -1.24 +/-0.05 between 4.9 GHz and 610 MHz. We derive a value of
5.8 microGauss for the equipartition magnetic field strength at the location of
the radio halo. [abridged].Comment: 8 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in A&A on August 3, 200
Probing Fine-Scale Ionospheric Structure with the Very Large Array Radio Telescope
High resolution (~1 arcminute) astronomical imaging at low frequency (below
150 MHz) has only recently become practical with the development of new
calibration algorithms for removing ionospheric distortions. In addition to
opening a new window in observational astronomy, the process of calibrating the
ionospheric distortions also probes ionospheric structure in an unprecedented
way. Here we explore one aspect of this new type of ionospheric measurement,
the differential refraction of celestial source pairs as a function of their
angular separation. This measurement probes variations in the spatial gradient
of the line-of-sight total electron content (TEC) to 0.001 TECU/km accuracy
over spatial scales of under 10 km to over 100 km. We use data from the VLA
Low-frequency Sky Survey (VLSS; Cohen et al. 2007, AJ 134, 1245), a nearly
complete 74 MHz survey of the entire sky visible to the Very Large Array (VLA)
telescope in Socorro, New Mexico. These data comprise over 500 hours of
observations, all calibrated in a standard way. While ionospheric spatial
structure varies greatly from one observation to the next, when analyzed over
hundreds of hours, statistical patterns become apparent. We present a detailed
characterization of how the median differential refraction depends on source
pair separation, elevation and time of day. We find that elevation effects are
large, but geometrically predictable and can be "removed" analytically using a
"thin-shell" model of the ionosphere. We find significantly greater ionospheric
spatial variations during the day than at night. These diurnal variations
appear to affect the larger angular scales to a greater degree indicating that
they come from disturbances on relatively larger spatial scales (100s of km,
rather than 10s of km).Comment: Accepted for publication by The Astronomical Journa
Non-equilibrium steady state of sparse systems
A resistor-network picture of transitions is appropriate for the study of
energy absorption by weakly chaotic or weakly interacting driven systems. Such
"sparse" systems reach a novel non-equilibrium steady state (NESS) once coupled
to a bath. In the stochastic case there is an analogy to the physics of
percolating glassy systems, and an extension of the fluctuation-dissipation
phenomenology is proposed. In the mesoscopic case the quantum NESS might differ
enormously from the stochastic NESS, with saturation temperature determined by
the sparsity. A toy model where the sparsity of the system is modeled using a
log-normal random ensemble is analyzed.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures, EPL accepted versio
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