Feedback local optimality principle applied to rocket vertical landing VTVL

Vertical landing is becoming popular in the last fifteen years, a technology known under the acronym VTVL, Vertical Takeoff and Vertical Landing [1,2]. The interest in such landing technology is dictated by possible cost reductions [3,4], that impose spaceship’s recycling. The rockets are not generally de- signed to perform landing operations, rather their design is aimed at takeoff operations, guaranteeing a very high forward acceleration to gain the velocity needed to escape the gravitational force. In this paper a new control method based on Feedback Local Optimality Principle, named FLOP is applied to the rocket landing problem. The FLOP belongs to a special class of optimal controllers, developed by the mechatronic and vehicle dynamics lab of Sapienza, named Variational Feedback Controllers - VFC, that are part of an ongoing research and are recently applied in different field: nonlinear system [5], marine and terrestrial autonomous vehicles [6,7,8], multi agents interactions and vibration control [9, 10]. The paper is devoted to show the robustness of the nonlinear controlled system, comparing the performances with the LQR, one of the most acknowledged methods in optimal control

Dust-grain processing in circumbinary discs around evolved binaries. The RV Tauri spectral twins RU Cen and AC Her

Context: We study the structure and evolution of circumstellar discs around evolved binaries and their impact on the evolution of the central system. Aims: To study in detail the binary nature of RUCen and ACHer, as well as the structure and mineralogy of the circumstellar environment. Methods: We combine multi-wavelength observations with a 2D radiative transfer study. Our radial velocity program studies the central stars, while our Spitzer spectra and broad-band SEDs are used to constrain mineralogy, grain sizes and physical structure of the circumstellar environment. Results: We determine the orbital elements of RUCen showing that the orbit is highly eccentric with a rather long period of 1500 days. The infrared spectra of both objects are very similar and the spectral dust features are dominated by Mg-rich crystalline silicates. The small peak-to-continuum ratios are interpreted as being due to large grains. Our model contains two components with a cold midplain dominated by large grains, and the near- and mid-IR which is dominated by the emission of smaller silicates. The infrared excess is well modelled assuming a hydrostatic passive irradiated disc. The profile-fitting of the dust resonances shows that the grains must be very irregular. Conclusions: These two prototypical RVTauri pulsators with circumstellar dust are binaries where the dust is trapped in a stable disc. The mineralogy and grain sizes show that the dust is highly processed, both in crystallinity and grain size. The cool crystals show that either radial mixing is very efficient and/or that the thermal history at grain formation has been very different from that in outflows. The physical processes governing the structure of these discs are similar to those observed in protoplanetary discs around young stellar objects.Comment: 11 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication by A&

Constraining the Circumbinary Envelope of Z CMa via imaging polarimetry

Z CMa is a complex binary system, composed of a Herbig Be and an FU Ori star. The Herbig star is surrounded by a dust cocoon of variable geometry, and the whole system is surrounded by an infalling envelope. Previous spectropolarimetric observations have reported a preferred orientation of the polarization angle, perpendicular to the direction of a large, parsec-sized jet associated with the Herbig star. The variability in the amount of polarized light has been associated to changes in the geometry of the dust cocoon that surrounds the Herbig star. We aim to constrain the properties of Z CMa by means of imaging polarimetry at optical wavelengths. Using ExPo, a dual-beam imaging polarimeter which operates at optical wavelengths, we have obtained imaging (linear) polarimetric data of Z CMa. Our observations were secured during the return to quiescence after the 2008 outburst. We detect three polarized features over Z CMa. Two of these features are related to the two jets reported in this system: the large jet associated to the Herbig star, and the micro-jet associated to the FU Ori star. Our results suggest that the micro-jet extends to a distance ten times larger than reported in previous studies. The third feature suggests the presence of a hole in the dust cocoon that surrounds the Herbig star of this system. According to our simulations, this hole can produce a pencil beam of light that we see scattered off the low-density envelope surrounding the system.Comment: Accepted for publication in A\&

Scattered light mapping of protoplanetary disks

High-contrast scattered light observations have revealed the surface morphology of several dozens of protoplanetary disks at optical and near-infrared wavelengths. Inclined disks offer the opportunity to measure part of the phase function of the dust grains that reside in the disk surface which is essential for our understanding of protoplanetary dust properties and the early stages of planet formation. We aim to construct a method which takes into account how the flaring shape of the scattering surface of an (optically thick) protoplanetary disk projects onto the image plane of the observer. This allows us to map physical quantities (scattering radius and scattering angle) onto scattered light images and retrieve stellar irradiation corrected (r^2-scaled) images and dust phase functions. We apply the method on archival polarized intensity images of the protoplanetary disk around HD 100546 that were obtained with VLT/SPHERE in R'-band and VLT/NACO in H- and Ks-band. The brightest side of the r^2-scaled R'-band polarized intensity image of HD 100546 changes from the far to the near side of the disk when a flaring instead of a geometrically flat disk surface is used for the r^2-scaling. The decrease in polarized surface brightness in the scattering angle range of ~40-70 deg is likely a result of the dust phase function and degree of polarization which peak in different scattering angle regimes. The derived phase functions show part of a forward scattering peak which indicates that large, aggregate dust grains dominate the scattering opacity in the disk surface. Projection effects of a protoplanetary disk surface need to be taken into account to correctly interpret scattered light images. Applying the correct scaling for the correction of stellar irradiation is crucial for the interpretation of the images and the derivation of the dust properties in the disk surface layer.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A, 6 pages, 3 figure

The D0 same-charge dimuon asymmetry and possibile new CP violation sources in the Bs−BˉsB_s-\bar{B}_s system

Recently, the D0 collaboration reported a large CP violation in the same-sign dimuon charge asymmetry which has the $3.2 \sigma$ deviation from the value estimated in the Standard Model. In this paper, several new physics models are considered: the MSSM, two Higgs doublet model, the recent dodeca model, and a new $Z'$ model. Generally, it is hard to achieve such a large CP violation consistently with other experimental constraints. We find that a scheme with extra non-anomalous U(1)$'$ gauge symmetry is barely consistent. In general, the extra $Z'$ gauge boson induces the flavor changing neutral current interactions at tree level, which is the basic reason allowing a large new physics CP violation. To preserve the U(1)$'$ symmetry at high energy, SU(2)$_L$ singlet exotic heavy quarks of mass above 1 TeV and the Standard Model gauge singlet scalars are introduced.Comment: 12 pages, 13 figure

Quantization of Gauge Field Theories on the Front-Form without Gauge Constraints I : The Abelian Case

Recently, we have proposed a new front-form quantization which treated both the $x^{+}$ and the $x^{-}$ coordinates as front-form 'times.' This quantization was found to preserve parity explicitly. In this paper we extend this construction to local Abelian gauge fields . We quantize this theory using a method proposed originally by Faddeev and Jackiw . We emphasize here the feature that quantizing along both $x^+$ and $x^-$ , gauge theories does not require extra constraints (also known as 'gauge conditions') to determine the solution uniquely.Comment: 18 pages, phyzz

Iron oxide doped boron nitride nanotubes: structural and magnetic properties

A first-principles formalism is employed to investigate the interaction of iron oxide (FeO) with a boron nitride (BN) nanotube. The stable structure of the FeO-nanotube has Fe atoms binding N atoms, with bond length of roughly $\sim$2.1 \AA, and binding between O and B atoms, with bond length of 1.55 \AA. In case of small FeO concentrations, the total magnetic moment is (4$\mu_{Bohr}$) times the number of Fe atoms in the unit cell and it is energetically favorable to FeO units to aggregate rather than randomly bind to the tube. As a larger FeO concentration case, we study a BN nanotube fully covered by a single layer of FeO. We found that such a structure has square FeO lattice with Fe-O bond length of 2.11 \AA, similar to that of FeO bulk, and total magnetic moment of 3.94$\mu_{Bohr}$ per Fe atom. Consistently with experimental results, the FeO covered nanotube is a semi-half-metal which can become a half-metal if a small change in the Fermi level is induced. Such a structure may be important in the spintronics context.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figure