1,094 research outputs found
Polarimetric variations of binary stars. II. Numerical simulations for circular and eccentric binaries in Mie scattering envelopes
We present numerical simulations of the periodic polarimetric variations
produced by a binary star placed at the center of an empty spherical cavity
inside a circumbinary ellipsoidal and optically thin envelope made of dust
grains. Mie single-scattering is considered along with pre- and post-scattering
extinction factors which produce a time-varying optical depth and affect the
morphology of the periodic variations. We are interested in the effects that
various parameters will have on the average polarization, the amplitude of the
polarimetric variations, and the morphology of the variability. We show that
the absolute amplitudes of the variations are smaller for Mie scattering than
for Thomson scattering. Among the four grain types that we have studied, the
highest polarizations are produced by grains with sizes in the range 0.1-0.2
micron. In general, the variations are seen twice per orbit. In some cases,
because spherical dust grains have an asymmetric scattering function, the
polarimetric curves produced also show variations seen once per orbit.
Circumstellar disks produce polarimetric variations of greater amplitude than
circumbinary envelopes.
Another goal of these simulations is to see if the 1978 BME (Brown, McLean, &
Emslie, ApJ, 68, 415) formalism, which uses a Fourier analysis of the
polarimetric variations to find the orbital inclination for Thomson-scattering
envelopes, can still be used for Mie scattering. We find that this is the case,
if the amplitude of the variations is sufficient and the true inclinations is
i_true > 45 deg. For eccentric orbits, the first-order coefficients of the
Fourier fit, instead of second-order ones, can be used to find almost all
inclinations.Comment: 23 pages, 5 figures, to be published in Astronomical Journa
Polarimetric variations of binary stars. III Periodic polarimetric variations of the Herbig Ae/Be star MWC 1080
We present polarimetric observations of a massive pre-main sequence
short-period binary star of the Herbig Ae/Be type, MWC 1080. The mean
polarization at 7660 A is 1.60% at 81.6 deg, or 0.6% at 139 deg if an estimate
of the interstellar polarization is subtracted. The intrinsic polarization
points to an asymmetric geometry of the circumstellar or circumbinary
environment while the 139 deg intrinsic position angle traces the axis of
symmetry of the system and is perpendicular to the position angle of the
outflow cavity. The polarization and its position angle are clearly variable,
at all wavelengths, and on time scales of hours, days, months, and years.
Stochastic variability is accompanied by periodic variations caused by the
orbital motion of the stars in their dusty environment. These periodic
polarimetric variations are the first phased-locked ones detected for a
pre-main sequence binary. The variations are not simply double-periodic (seen
twice per orbit) but include single-periodic (seen once per orbit) and
higher-order variations. The presence of single-periodic variations could be
due to non equal mass stars, the presence of dust grains, an asymmetric
configuration of the circumstellar or circumbinary material, or the
eccentricity of the orbit. MWC 1080 is an eclipsing binary with primary and
secondary eclipses occurring at phases 0.0 and 0.55. The signatures of the
eclipses are seen in the polarimetric observations.Comment: 30 pages, 8 figures, to be published in the Astronomical Journa
Neural NILM: Deep Neural Networks Applied to Energy Disaggregation
Energy disaggregation estimates appliance-by-appliance electricity
consumption from a single meter that measures the whole home's electricity
demand. Recently, deep neural networks have driven remarkable improvements in
classification performance in neighbouring machine learning fields such as
image classification and automatic speech recognition. In this paper, we adapt
three deep neural network architectures to energy disaggregation: 1) a form of
recurrent neural network called `long short-term memory' (LSTM); 2) denoising
autoencoders; and 3) a network which regresses the start time, end time and
average power demand of each appliance activation. We use seven metrics to test
the performance of these algorithms on real aggregate power data from five
appliances. Tests are performed against a house not seen during training and
against houses seen during training. We find that all three neural nets achieve
better F1 scores (averaged over all five appliances) than either combinatorial
optimisation or factorial hidden Markov models and that our neural net
algorithms generalise well to an unseen house.Comment: To appear in ACM BuildSys'15, November 4--5, 2015, Seou
Polarimetric variations of binary stars. V. Pre-main-sequence spectroscopic binaries located in Ophiuchus and Scorpius
We present polarimetric observations of 7 pre-main-sequence (PMS)
spectroscopic binaries located in the rho Oph and Upper Sco star forming
regions (SFRs). The average observed polarizations at 7660A are between 0.5%
and 3.5%. After estimates of the interstellar polarization are removed, all
binaries have an intrinsic polarization above 0.4%. Two binaries,
NTTS162814-2427 and NTTS162819-2423S, present high levels of intrinsic
polarization between 1.5% and 2.1%. All 7 PMS binaries have a statistically
variable or possibly variable polarization. Combining these results with our
previous sample of binaries located in the Tau, Aur and Ori SFRs, 68% of the
binaries have an intrinsic polarization above 0.5%, and 90% of the binaries are
polarimetrically variable or possibly variable. NTTS160814-1857,
NTTS162814-2427, and NTTS162819-2423S are clearly polarimetrically variable.
The first two also exhibit phase-locked variations over ~10 and ~40 orbits
respectively. NTTS160905-1859 shows periodic variations that are not
phased-locked and only present for short intervals of time. The amplitudes of
the variations reach a few tenths of a percent. The high-eccentricity system
NTTS162814-2427 shows single-periodic variations, in agreement with our
previous numerical simulations. Non-periodic events introduce stochastic noise
that partially masks the periodic variations and prevents the Brown, McLean, &
Emslie (1978) formalism from finding a reasonable estimate of the inclination.Comment: 63 pages, including 21 figures and 18 tables, accepted by A
Kinks Dynamics in One-Dimensional Coupled Map Lattices
We examine the problem of the dynamics of interfaces in a one-dimensional
space-time discrete dynamical system. Two different regimes are studied : the
non-propagating and the propagating one. In the first case, after proving the
existence of such solutions, we show how they can be described using Taylor
expansions. The second situation deals with the assumption of a travelling wave
to follow the kink propagation. Then a comparison with the corresponding
continuous model is proposed. We find that these methods are useful in simple
dynamical situations but their application to complex dynamical behaviour is
not yet understood.Comment: 17pages, LaTex,3 fig available on cpt.univ-mrs.fr directory
pub/preprints/94/dynamical-systems/94-P.307
New Candidate Interstellar Particle in Stardust IS Aerogel Collector: Analysis by STXM and Ptychography
The Stardust Interstellar Preliminary Examination (ISPE) reported in 2014 the discovery of 7 probable contemporary interstellar (IS) particles captured in Stardust IS Collector aerogel and foils. The ISPE reports represented work done over 6 years by more than 60 scientists and >30,000 volunteers, which emphasizes the challenge identifying and analyzing Stardust IS samples was far beyond the primary Stardust cometary collection. We present a new potentially interstellar particle resulting from a continuation of analyses of the IS aerogel collection
Inspection d'interfaces et critères ergonomiques
Projet PSYCHO ERGOLes méthodes analytiques d'évaluation d'interfaces utilisateurs (par opposition aux méthodes empiriques d'évaluation, comme les tests utilisateurs) ne reposent pas directement sur des performances ou des opinions d'utilisateurs recueillies en situation ou en laboratoire, mais reposent sur l'examen, plus ou moins guidé, plus ou moins automatisé, d'interfaces spécifiées, simulées, ou opérationnelles, à partir de théories, de modèles formels de l'interaction homme-ordinateur, de guides, de check-lists, d'heuristiques, etc. Un sous-ensemble de ces méthodes peut être regroupé sous le vocable de "méthodes d'inspection ergonomique", il s'agit de méthodes qui consistent en un examen d'interfaces par des spécialistes (évaluation experte) ou des non-spécialistes au moyen de diverses techniques d'inspection, essentiellement basées sur certaines dimensions de l'utilisabilité. L'examen de ces dimensions est au centre des études décrites ici. En particulier, on décrit la problématique et les grandes étapes de recherche menées pour établir un ensemble particulier de dimensions de l'utilisabilité: les Critères Ergonomiques. Quatre étapes sont décrites: la construction itérative des critères et trois expériences de validation de ces critères. La première expérience traite notamment de la validité intrinsèque des critères ; la seconde expérience concerne l'efficacité et l'utilisabilité des critères ; la troisième expérience a également trait à l'efficacité et à l'utilisabilité des critères, mais d'un point de vue comparatif, et pour une population de non-experts. La dernière section décrit l'état actuel de la méthode critères et les perspectives envisagées
Neon and Helium in the Surface of Stardust Cell C2028
Previous studies of light noble gases in Stardust aerogel samples detected a variety of isotopically non-terrestrial He and Ne compositions. However, with one exception, in none of these samples was there visible evidence for the presence of particles that could have hosted the gases. The exception is materials keystoned from track 41, cell C2044, which contained observable fragments of the impacting Wild 2 comet coma grain. Here we report noble gas data from a second aerogel sample in which grains are observed, cut from the surface of a cell (C2028) riddled with tiny tracks and particles that are thought to be secondary in origin, ejected toward the cell when a parent grain collided with the spacecraft structure and fragmented. Interestingly, measured 20Ne/22Ne ratios in the track 41 and C2028 samples are similar, and within error of the meteoritic "Q-phase" Ne composition
Disc orientations in pre-main-sequence multiple systems. A study in southern star formation regions
Classical T Tauri stars are encircled by accretion discs most of the time
unresolved by conventional imaging observation. However, numerical simulations
show that unresolved aperture linear polarimetry can be used to extract
information about the geometry of the immediate circumstellar medium that
scatter the starlight. Monin, Menard & Duchene (1998) previously suggested that
polarimetry can be used to trace the relative orientation of discs in young
binary systems in order to shed light on the stellar and planet formation
process. In this paper, we report on new VLT/FORS1 optical linear polarisation
measurements of 23 southern binaries spanning a range of separation from 0.8''
to 10''. In each field, the polarisation of the central binary is extracted, as
well as the polarisation of nearby stars in order to estimate the local
interstellar polarisation. We find that, in general, the linear polarisation
vectors of individual components in binary systems tend to be parallel to each
other. The amplitude of their polarisations are also correlated. These findings
are in agreement with our previous work and extend the trend to smaller
separations. They are also similar to other studies, e.g., Donar et al. 1999;
Jensen et al. 2000, 2004; Wolf et al. 2001. However, we also find a few systems
showing large differences in polarisation level, possibly indicating different
inclinations to the line-of-sight for their discs.Comment: 13 pages, 11 figures, accepted in Astronomy and Astrophysics.
accepted in Astronomy and Astrophysics (A&A
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