905 research outputs found
Fog detection using airport radar
Fog is a significant factor affecting the Air Traffic Control (ATC). Significant limitations of the airport capacity are due to fog that causes the reduction of the visibility (Runway Visual Range, RVR). Today METAR (Meteorological Aviation Report) and forecasts TAF (Terminal Aerodrome Forecast) are only available to estimate the visibility variations, but not to estimate the RVR. Scope of this paper is to evaluate the performance of airport radar sensors to detect the fog
Exoplanet atmospheres with GIANO II. Detection of molecular absorption in the dayside spectrum of HD 102195b
The study of exoplanetary atmospheres is key to understand the differences
between their physical, chemical and dynamical processes. Up to now, the bulk
of atmospheric characterization analysis has been conducted on transiting
planets. On some sufficiently bright targets, high-resolution spectroscopy
(HRS) has also been successfully tested for non-transiting planets. We study
the dayside of the non-transiting planet HD 102195b using the GIANO
spectrograph mounted at TNG, demonstrating the feasibility of atmospheric
characterization measurements and molecular detection for non-transiting
planets with the HRS technique using 4-m class telescopes. The Doppler-shifted
planetary signal changes on the order of many km/s during the observations, in
contrast with the telluric absorption which is stationary in wavelength,
allowing us to remove the contamination from telluric lines while preserving
the features of the planetary spectrum. The emission signal from HD 102195b's
atmosphere is then extracted by cross-correlating the residual spectra with
atmospheric models. We detect molecular absorption from water vapor at
4.4 level. We also find convincing evidence for the presence of
methane, which is detected at the 4.1 level. The two molecules are
detected with a combined significance of 5.3, at a semi-amplitude of
the planet radial velocity km/s. We estimate a planet true mass
of and orbital inclination between 72.5 and
84.79 (1). Our analysis indicates a non-inverted atmosphere
for HD 102195b, as expected given the relatively low temperature of the planet,
inefficient to keep TiO/VO in gas phase. Moreover, a comparison with
theoretical expectations and chemical model predictions corroborates our
methane detection and suggests that the detected and signatures
could be consistent with a low C/O ratio.Comment: 12 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in A&
Carbon monoxide and water vapor in the atmosphere of the non-transiting exoplanet HD 179949 b
(Abridged) In recent years, ground-based high-resolution spectroscopy has
become a powerful tool for investigating exoplanet atmospheres. It allows the
robust identification of molecular species, and it can be applied to both
transiting and non-transiting planets. Radial-velocity measurements of the star
HD 179949 indicate the presence of a giant planet companion in a close-in
orbit. Here we present the analysis of spectra of the system at 2.3 micron,
obtained at a resolution of R~100,000, during three nights of observations with
CRIRES at the VLT. We targeted the system while the exoplanet was near superior
conjunction, aiming to detect the planet's thermal spectrum and the radial
component of its orbital velocity. We detect molecular absorption from carbon
monoxide and water vapor with a combined S/N of 6.3, at a projected planet
orbital velocity of K_P = (142.8 +- 3.4) km/s, which translates into a planet
mass of M_P = (0.98 +- 0.04) Jupiter masses, and an orbital inclination of i =
(67.7 +- 4.3) degrees, using the known stellar radial velocity and stellar
mass. The detection of absorption features rather than emission means that,
despite being highly irradiated, HD 179949 b does not have an atmospheric
temperature inversion in the probed range of pressures and temperatures. Since
the host star is active (R_HK > -4.9), this is in line with the hypothesis that
stellar activity damps the onset of thermal inversion layers owing to UV flux
photo-dissociating high-altitude, optical absorbers. Finally, our analysis
favors an oxygen-rich atmosphere for HD 179949 b, although a carbon-rich planet
cannot be statistically ruled out based on these data alone.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures. Accepted for publication in Astronomy and
Astrophysic
Exoplanet atmospheres with GIANO. I. Water in the transmission spectrum of HD 189733b
High-resolution spectroscopy (R 20,000) at near-infrared wavelengths
can be used to investigate the composition, structure, and circulation patterns
of exoplanet atmospheres. However, up to now it has been the exclusive dominion
of the biggest telescope facilities on the ground, due to the large amount of
photons necessary to measure a signal in high-dispersion spectra. Here we show
that spectrographs with a novel design - in particular a large spectral range -
can open exoplanet characterisation to smaller telescope facilities too. We aim
to demonstrate the concept on a series of spectra of the exoplanet HD 189733 b
taken at the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo with the near-infrared spectrograph
GIANO during two transits of the planet. In contrast to absorption in the
Earth's atmosphere (telluric absorption), the planet transmission spectrum
shifts in radial velocity during transit due to the changing orbital motion of
the planet. This allows us to remove the telluric spectrum while preserving the
signal of the exoplanet. The latter is then extracted by cross-correlating the
residual spectra with template models of the planet atmosphere computed through
line-by-line radiative transfer calculations, and containing molecular
absorption lines from water and methane. By combining the signal of many
thousands of planet molecular lines, we confirm the presence of water vapour in
the atmosphere of HD 189733 b at the 5.5- level. This signal was
measured only in the first of the two observing nights. By injecting and
retrieving artificial signals, we show that the non-detection on the second
night is likely due to an inferior quality of the data. The measured strength
of the planet transmission spectrum is fully consistent with past CRIRES
observations at the VLT, excluding a strong variability in the depth of
molecular absorption lines.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures. Accepted for publication in Astronomy &
Astrophysics. v2 includes language editin
Traduzioni di opere in versi e in prosa di scrittori ucraini dalla fine del XX al primo decennio del XXI secolo
The paper gives an overview of the Italian translations of works of Ukrainian poets and writers. Main trends, problems of publication policy and socio-literary issues are examinated
Fossil vs. active geothermal systems: A field and laboratory method to disclose the relationships between geothermal fluid flow and geological structures at depth
Comparison between fossil and analogue active geothermal systems permit to obtain key-parameters to define a conceptual model of the area under exploration. The approach is based on structural, kinematic, and fluid inclusions analyses. The fossil system is investigated to describe the distribution of the hydrothermal mineralization as witness of the fluid flow through geological structures and bodies, at depth. Structural and kinematic data (to define the preferential direction of fluid flow) are collected in structural stations and by scan lines and scan boxes on key outcrops. Distribution, length, width of fractures, and hydrothermal veins bring to evaluate permeability in the fossil system and, by analogy, in the deep roots of the active system. Fluid inclusions analysis shed light on density, viscosity, and temperature of the paleo-fluids. Data integration provides the hydraulic conductivity. In active geothermal systems, fieldwork is addressed to paleo-stress analysis with data from recent faults (<2 Ma), to compare with local focal mechanisms. By this, indications on the present fluid pathways are given. The main advantage resides in obtaining parameters normally got after drilling, thus contributing to strengthen the strategy of exploration, de-risking unsuccessful boreholes
Security Issues in Component-based Design
Abstract We propose a behavioural extension of the concept of interface of components. We aim to uniformly reason about correctness properties of both closed and open component-based systems. The characterizing feature of our approach is that we perform a local analysis over finite fragments of interactions naturally modeling mobility and coordination aspects. We present a semi-automatic technique that reduces the verification of security properties of protocols to the verification of correctness in component-based systems
Detection of carbon monoxide in the high-resolution day-side spectrum of the exoplanet HD 189733b
[Abridged] After many attempts over more than a decade, high-resolution
spectroscopy has recently delivered its first detections of molecular
absorption in exoplanet atmospheres, both in transmission and thermal emission
spectra. Targeting the combined signal from individual lines in molecular
bands, these measurements use variations in the planet radial velocity to
disentangle the planet signal from telluric and stellar contaminants. In this
paper we apply high resolution spectroscopy to probe molecular absorption in
the day-side spectrum of the bright transiting hot Jupiter HD 189733b. We
observed HD 189733b with the CRIRES high-resolution near-infrared spectograph
on the Very Large Telescope during three nights. We detect a 5-sigma absorption
signal from CO at a contrast level of ~4.5e-4 with respect to the stellar
continuum, revealing the planet orbital radial velocity at 154+4/-3 km s-1.
This allows us to solve for the planet and stellar mass in a similar way as for
stellar eclipsing binaries, resulting in Ms= 0.846+0.068/-0.049 Msun and Mp=
1.162+0.058/-0.039 MJup. No significant absorption is detected from H2O, CO2 or
CH4 and we determined upper limits on their line contrasts here. The detection
of CO in the day-side spectrum of HD 189733b can be made consistent with the
haze layer proposed to explain the optical to near-infrared transmission
spectrum if the layer is optically thin at the normal incidence angles probed
by our observations, or if the CO abundance is high enough for the CO
absorption to originate from above the haze. Our non-detection of CO2 at 2.0
micron is not inconsistent with the deep CO2 absorption from low resolution
NICMOS secondary eclipse data in the same wavelength range. If genuine, the
absorption would be so strong that it blanks out any planet light completely in
this wavelength range, leaving no high-resolution signal to be measured.Comment: A&A, accepted for publication. Fig.1 reduced in qualit
The GROUSE project III: Ks-band observations of the thermal emission from WASP-33b
In recent years, day-side emission from about a dozen hot Jupiters has been
detected through ground-based secondary eclipse observations in the
near-infrared. These near-infrared observations are vital for determining the
energy budgets of hot Jupiters, since they probe the planet's spectral energy
distribution near its peak. The aim of this work is to measure the Ks-band
secondary eclipse depth of WASP-33b, the first planet discovered to transit an
A-type star. This planet receives the highest level of irradiation of all
transiting planets discovered to date. Furthermore, its host-star shows
pulsations and is classified as a low-amplitude delta-Scuti. As part of our
GROUnd-based Secondary Eclipse (GROUSE) project we have obtained observations
of two separate secondary eclipses of WASP-33b in the Ks-band using the LIRIS
instrument on the William Herschel Telescope (WHT). The telescope was
significantly defocused to avoid saturation of the detector for this bright
star (K~7.5). To increase the stability and the cadence of the observations,
they were performed in staring mode. We collected a total of 5100 and 6900
frames for the first and the second night respectively, both with an average
cadence of 3.3 seconds. On the second night the eclipse is detected at the
12-sigma level, with a measured eclipse depth of 0.244+0.027-0.020 %. This
eclipse depth corresponds to a brightness temperature of 3270+115-160 K. The
measured brightness temperature on the second night is consistent with the
expected equilibrium temperature for a planet with a very low albedo and a
rapid re-radiation of the absorbed stellar light. For the other night the short
out-of-eclipse baseline prevents good corrections for the stellar pulsations
and systematic effects, which makes this dataset unreliable for eclipse depth
measurements. This demonstrates the need of getting a sufficient out-of-eclipse
baseline.Comment: 12 pages, 10 figures. Accepted for publication in Astronomy and
Astrophysic
Detection of water absorption in the day side atmosphere of HD 189733 b using ground-based high-resolution spectroscopy at 3.2 microns
We report a 4.8 sigma detection of water absorption features in the day side
spectrum of the hot Jupiter HD 189733 b. We used high-resolution (R~100,000)
spectra taken at 3.2 microns with CRIRES on the VLT to trace the
radial-velocity shift of the water features in the planet's day side atmosphere
during 5 h of its 2.2 d orbit as it approached secondary eclipse. Despite
considerable telluric contamination in this wavelength regime, we detect the
signal within our uncertainties at the expected combination of systemic
velocity (Vsys=-3 +5-6 km/s) and planet orbital velocity (Kp=154 +14-10 km/s),
and determine a H2O line contrast ratio of (1.3+/-0.2)x10^-3 with respect to
the stellar continuum. We find no evidence of significant absorption or
emission from other carbon-bearing molecules, such as methane, although we do
note a marginal increase in the significance of our detection to 5.1 sigma with
the inclusion of carbon dioxide in our template spectrum. This result
demonstrates that ground-based, high-resolution spectroscopy is suited to
finding not just simple molecules like CO, but also to more complex molecules
like H2O even in highly telluric contaminated regions of the Earth's
transmission spectrum. It is a powerful tool that can be used for conducting an
immediate census of the carbon- and oxygen-bearing molecules in the atmospheres
of giant planets, and will potentially allow the formation and migration
history of these planets to be constrained by the measurement of their
atmospheric C/O ratios.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS Letter
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