Apparatus for aiding a pilot in avoiding a midair collision between aircraft

An apparatus for aiding a pilot in avoiding a midair collision between aircraft is described. A protected aircraft carries a transmitter, a transponder, a receiver, and a data processor; and an intruding cooperating aircraft carries a transponder. The transmitter of the protected aircraft continuously transmits a signal to the transponders of all intruding aircraft. The transponder of each of the intruding aircraft adds the altitude of the intruding aircraft to the signal and transmits it back to the receiver of the protected aircraft. The receiver selects only the signal from the most hazardous intruding aircraft and applies it to the data processor. From this selected signal the data processor determines the closing velocity between the protected and intruding aircraft, the range between the two aircraft, their altitude difference and the time to a possible collision

The NASA-Lewis/ERDA solar heating and cooling technology program

Plans by NASA to carry out a major role in a solar heating and cooling program are presented. This role would be to create and test the enabling technology for future solar heating, cooling, and combined heating/cooling systems. The major objectives of the project are to achieve reduction in solar energy system costs, while maintaining adequate performance, reliability, life, and maintenance characteristics. The project approach is discussed, and will be accomplished principally by contract with industry to develop advanced components and subsystems. Advanced hardware will be tested to establish 'technology readiness' both under controlled laboratory conditions and under real sun conditions

Aspherical Core-Collapse Supernovae in Red Supergiants Powered by Nonrelativistic Jets

We explore the observational characteristics of jet-driven supernovae by simulating bipolar-jet-driven explosions in a red supergiant progenitor. We present results of four models in which we hold the injected kinetic energy at a constant $10^{51}$ ergs across all jet models but vary the specific characteristics of the jets to explore the influence of the nature of jets on the structure of the supernova ejecta. We evolve the explosions past shock-breakout and into quasi-homologous expansion of the supernova envelope into a red supergiant wind. The oppositely-directed, nickel-rich jets give a large-scale asymmetry that may account for the non-spherical excitation and substructure of spectral lines such as H$\alpha$ and He I 10830\AA. Jets with a large fraction of kinetic to thermal energy punch through the progenitor envelope and give rise to explosions that would be observed to be asymmetric from the earliest epochs, inconsistent with spectropolarimetric measurements of Type II supernovae. Jets with higher thermal energy fractions result in explosions that are roughly spherical at large radii but are significantly elongated at smaller radii, deep inside the ejecta, in agreement with the polarimetric observations. We present shock breakout light curves that indicate that strongly aspherical shock breakouts are incompatible with recent {\it GALEX} observations of shock breakout from red supergiant stars. Comparison with observations indicates that jets must deposit their kinetic energy efficiently throughout the ejecta while in the hydrogen envelope. Thermal energy-dominated jets satisfy this criterion and yield many of the observational characteristics of Type II supernovae.Comment: 21 pages, 19 figures, submitted to ApJ on 4 Nov 200

Multidimensional Simulations of Rotating Pair Instability Supernovae

We study the effects of rotation on the dynamics, energetics and Ni-56 production of Pair Instability Supernova explosions by performing rotating two-dimensional ("2.5-D") hydrodynamics simulations. We calculate the evolution of eight low metallicity (Z = 10^-3, 10^-4 Zsun) massive (135-245 Msun) PISN progenitors with initial surface rotational velocities 50% that of the critical Keplerian value using the stellar evolution code MESA. We allow for both the inclusion and the omission of the effects of magnetic fields in the angular momentum transport and in chemical mixing, resulting in slowly-rotating and rapidly-rotating final carbon-oxygen cores, respectively. Increased rotation for carbon-oxygen cores of the same mass and chemical stratification leads to less energetic PISN explosions that produce smaller amounts of Ni-56 due to the effect of the angular momentum barrier that develops and slows the dynamical collapse. We find a non-monotonic dependence of Ni-56 production on rotational velocity in situations when smoother composition gradients form at the outer edge of the rotating cores. In these cases, the PISN energetics are determined by the competition of two factors: the extent of chemical mixing in the outer layers of the core due to the effects of rotation in the progenitor evolution and the development of angular momentum support against collapse. Our 2.5-D PISN simulations with rotation are the first presented in the literature. They reveal hydrodynamic instabilities in several regions of the exploding star and increased explosion asymmetries with higher core rotational velocity.Comment: 31 pages, 23 figures, accepted for publication in the Ap

Luminosity Distributions within Rich Clusters - III: A comparative study of seven Abell/ACO clusters

We recover the luminosity distributions over a wide range of absolute magnitude (-24.5 < M_{R} < -16.5) for a sample of seven rich southern galaxy clusters. We find a large variation in the ratio of dwarf to giant galaxies, DGR: 0.8\le $DGR$\le 3.1. This variation is shown to be inconsistent with a ubiquitous cluster luminosity function. The DGR shows a smaller variation from cluster to cluster in the inner regions (r \ls 0.56 Mpc). Outside these regions we find the DGR to be strongly anti-correlated with the mean local projected galaxy density with the DGR increasing towards lower densities. In addition the DGR in the outer regions shows some correlation with Bautz-Morgan type. Radial analysis of the clusters indicate that the dwarf galaxies are less centrally clustered than the giants and form a significant halo around clusters. We conclude that measurements of the total cluster luminosity distribution based on the inner core alone are likely to be severe underestimates of the dwarf component, the integrated cluster luminosity and the contribution of galaxy masses to the cluster's total mass. Further work is required to quantify this. The observational evidence that the unrelaxed, lower density outer regions of clusters are dwarf-rich, adds credence to the recent evidence and conjecture that the field is a predominantly dwarf rich environment and that the dwarf galaxies are under-represented in measures of the local field luminosity function.Comment: 31 pages including 11 figures. Also available from http://star-www.st-and.ac.uk/~spd3/bib.htm

Core-Collapse Supernova Simulations including Neutrino Interactions from the Virial EOS

Core-collapse supernova explosions are driven by a central engine that converts a small fraction of the gravitational binding energy released during core collapse to outgoing kinetic energy. The suspected mode for this energy conversion is the neutrino mechanism, where a fraction of the neutrinos emitted from the newly formed protoneutron star are absorbed by and heat the matter behind the supernova shock. Accurate neutrino-matter interaction terms are crucial for simulating these explosions. In this proceedings for IAUS 331, SN 1987A, 30 years later, we explore several corrections to the neutrino-nucleon scattering opacity and demonstrate the effect on the dynamics of the core-collapse supernova central engine via two dimensional neutrino-radiation-hydrodynamics simulations. Our results reveal that the explosion properties are sensitive to corrections to the neutral-current scattering cross section at the 10-20% level, but only for densities at or above $\sim 10^{12}$ g cm$^{-3}$Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, appears in Proc. IAU Symposium 331, SN 1987A, 30 years later - Cosmic Rays and Nuclei from Supernovae and Their Aftermath

Exploratory wind tunnel tests of a shock-swallowing air data sensor at a Mach number of approximately 1.83

The test probe was designed to measure free-stream Mach number and could be incorporated into a conventional airspeed nose boom installation. Tests were conducted in the Langley 4-by 4-foot supersonic pressure tunnel with an approximate angle of attack test range of -5 deg to 15 deg and an approximate angle of sideslip test range of + or - 4 deg. The probe incorporated a variable exit area which permitted internal flow. The internal flow caused the bow shock to be swallowed. Mach number was determined with a small axially movable internal total pressure tube and a series of fixed internal static pressure orifices. Mach number error was at a minimum when the total pressure tube was close to the probe tip. For four of the five tips tested, the Mach number error derived by averaging two static pressures measured at horizontally opposed positions near the probe entrance were least sensitive to angle of attack changes. The same orifices were also used to derive parameters that gave indications of flow direction

Cluster Galaxy Evolution from a New Sample of Galaxy Clusters at 0.3 < z < 0.9

(Abridged) We analyze photometry and spectroscopy of a sample of 63 clusters at 0.3<z<0.9 drawn from the Las Campanas Distant Cluster Survey to empirically constrain models of cluster galaxy evolution. Specifically, by combining data on our clusters with those from the literature we parametrize the redshift dependence of 1) M*_I in the observed frame; 2) the V-I color of the E/S0 red sequence in the observed frames; and 3) the I-K' color of the E/S0 red sequence in the observed frame. Using the peak surface brightness of the cluster detection, S, as a proxy for cluster mass, we find no correlation between S and M* or the location of the red envelope in V-I. We suggest that these observations can be explained with a model in which luminous early type galaxies (or more precisely, the progenitors of current day luminous early type galaxies) form the bulk of their stellar populations at high redshift (>~ 5) and in which many of these galaxies, if not all, accrete mass either in the form of evolved stellar populations or gas that causes only a short term episode of star formation at lower redshifts (1.5 < z < 2). Our data are too crude to reach conclusions regarding the evolutionary state of any particular cluster or to investigate whether the morphological evolution of galaxies matches the simple scenario we discuss, but the statistical nature of this study suggests that the observed evolutionary trends are universal in massive clusters.Comment: 35 pages, accepted for publication in Ap

Luminosity Distributions within Rich Clusters - II: Demonstration and Verification via Simulation

We present detailed simulations of long exposure CCD images. The simulations are used to explore the validity of the statistical method for reconstructing the luminosity distribution of galaxies within a rich cluster i.e. by the subtraction of field number-counts from those of a sight-line through the cluster. In particular we use the simulations to establish the reliability of our observational data presented in Paper 3. Based on our intended CCD field-of-view (6.5 by 6.5 arcmins) and a 1-sigma detection limit of 26 mags per sq arcsecond, we conclude that the luminosity distribution can be robustly determined over a wide range of absolute magnitude (-23 < M_{R} < -16) provided: (a) the cluster has an Abell richness 1.5 or greater, (b) the cluster's redshift lies in the range 0.1 < z < 0.3, (c) the seeing is better than FWHM 1.25'' and (d) the photometric zero points are accurate to within Delta m = \pm 0.12. If these conditions are not met then the recovered luminosity distribution is unreliable and potentially grossly miss-leading. Finally although the method clearly has limitations, within these limitations the technique represents an extremely promising probe of galaxy evolution and environmental dependencies.Comment: 24 pages, 8 figures accepted for publication in MNRAS also available from http://star-www.st-and.ac.uk/~spd3/bib.htm