Space shuttle orbit maneuvering engine reusable thrust chamber program

Tests were conducted on the regenerative cooled thrust chamber of the space shuttle orbit maneuvering engine. The conditions for the tests and the durations obtained are presented. The tests demonstrated thrust chamber operation over the nominal ranges of chamber pressure mixture ratio. Variations in auxiliary film coolant flowrate were also demonstrated. High pressure tests were conducted to demonstrate the thrust chamber operation at conditions approaching the design chamber pressure for the derivative space tug application

Extreme Nonlinear Optics in a Femtosecond Enhancement Cavity

Intrinsic to the process of high-order harmonic generation is the creation of plasma and the resulting spatiotemporal distortions of the driving laser pulse. Inside a high finesse cavity where the driver pulse and gas medium are reused, this can lead to optical bistability of the cavity-plasma system, accumulated self-phase modulation of the intracavity pulse, and coupling to higher order cavity modes. We present an experimental and theoretical study of these effects and discuss their implications for power scaling of intracavity high-order harmonic generation and extreme ultraviolet frequency combs

Space Technology Presentation: DARPA Phoenix Industry Day 2011

Space technology programs approach and future goals presentation by NASA ARC CCT

A Late-Time Flattening of Afterglow Light Curves

We present a sample of radio afterglow light curves with measured decay slopes which show evidence for a flattening at late times compared to optical and X-ray decay indices. The simplest origin for this behavior is that the change in slope is due to a jet-like outflow making a transition to sub-relativistic expansion. This can explain the late-time radio light curves for many but not all of the bursts in the sample. We investigate several possible modifications to the standard fireball model which can flatten late-time light curves. Changes to the shock microphysics which govern particle acceleration, or energy injection to the shock (either radially or azimuthally) can reproduce the observed behavior. Distinguishing between these different possibilities will require simultaneous optical/radio monitoring of afterglows at late times.Comment: ApJ, submitte

3D integrated superconducting qubits

As the field of superconducting quantum computing advances from the few-qubit stage to larger-scale processors, qubit addressability and extensibility will necessitate the use of 3D integration and packaging. While 3D integration is well-developed for commercial electronics, relatively little work has been performed to determine its compatibility with high-coherence solid-state qubits. Of particular concern, qubit coherence times can be suppressed by the requisite processing steps and close proximity of another chip. In this work, we use a flip-chip process to bond a chip with superconducting flux qubits to another chip containing structures for qubit readout and control. We demonstrate that high qubit coherence ($T_1$, $T_{2,\rm{echo}} > 20\,\mu$s) is maintained in a flip-chip geometry in the presence of galvanic, capacitive, and inductive coupling between the chips

In search of progenitors for supernova-less GRBs 060505 and 060614: re-examination of their afterglows

GRB060505 and GRB060614 are nearby long-duration gamma-ray bursts (LGRBs) without accompanying supernovae (SNe) down to very strict limits. They thereby challenge the conventional LGRB-SN connection and naturally give rise to the question: are there other peculiar features in their afterglows which would help shed light on their progenitors? To answer this question, we combine new observational data with published data and investigate the multi-band temporal and spectral properties of the two afterglows. We find that both afterglows can be well interpreted within the framework of the jetted standard external shock wave model, and that the afterglow parameters for both bursts fall well within the range observed for other LGRBs. Hence, from the properties of the afterglows there is nothing to suggest that these bursts should have another progenitor than other LGRBs. Recently, Swift-discovered GRB080503 also has the spike + tail structure during its prompt gamma-ray emission seemingly similar to GRB060614. We analyse the prompt emission of this burst and find that this GRB is actually a hard-spike + hard-tail burst with a spectral lag of 0.8$\pm$0.4 s during its tail emission. Thus, the properties of the prompt emission of GRB060614 and GRB080503 are clearly different, motivating further thinking of GRB classification. Finally we note that, whereas the progenitor of the two SN-less bursts remains uncertain, the core-collapse origin for the SN-less bursts would be quite certain if a wind-like environment can be observationally established, e.g, from an optical decay faster than the X-ray decay in the afterglow's slow cooling phase.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figures, 4 tables, ApJ in press; added Fig. 7 of the lag-luminosity relatio

Mixed Branes Interaction in Compact Spacetime

We present a general description of two mixed branes interactions. For this we consider two mixed branes with dimensions p_1 and p_2, in external field B_{\mu\nu} and arbitrary gauge fields A^1_{\alpha_1} and A^2_{\alpha_2} on the world volume of them, in spacetime in which some of its directions are compactified on circles with different radii. Some examples are considered to clear these general interactions. Finally contribution of the massless states on the interactions is extracted. Closed string with mixed boundary conditions and boundary state formalism, provide useful tools for calculation of these interactions.Comment: 22 pages, to appear in Nucl. Phys.

Theoretical Expectations For High Mass Photon Pairs in L+ L- Gamma Gamma Events at LEP/SLC

Recently, the L3 collaboration has reported the observation of four events in the reactions e+ e- --> L+ L- + (2 Photons), L = e, mu, tau, with the invariant photon pair mass near 60 GeV in a data sample collected in the L3 detector corresponding to 950,000 produced Z0's. More recently, more data from the other LEP collaborations have become available. In this paper, we use the Monte Carlo genrator YFS3 and our recent exact results on e+ e- --> L+ L- + (2 Photons) to assess the QED expectations for such L3-type high mass photon pair events in e+ e- --> L+ L- + (n Photons) near the Z0 resonance.Comment: 9 pages (LaTeX + 6 uu-encoded figures), UTHEP-93-1002 (version with corrected preprint number

Discovery of Early Optical Emission from GRB 021211

We report our discovery and early time optical, near-infrared, and radio wavelength follow-up observations of the afterglow of the gamma-ray burst GRB 021211. Our optical observations, beginning 21 min after the burst trigger, demonstrate that the early afterglow of this burst is roughly three magnitudes fainter than the afterglow of GRB 990123 at similar epochs, and fainter than almost all known afterglows at an epoch of 1d after the GRB. Our near-infrared and optical observations indicate that this is not due to extinction. Combining our observations with data reported by other groups, we identify the signature of a reverse shock. This reverse shock is not detected to a 3-sigma limit of 110 uJy in an 8.46-GHz VLA observation at t=0.10d, implying either that the Lorentz factor of the burst gamma <~ 200, or that synchrotron self-absorption effects dominate the radio emission at this time. Our early optical observations, near the peak of the optical afterglow (forward shock), allow us to characterize the afterglow in detail. Comparing our model to flux upper limits from the VLA at later times, t >~ 1 week, we find that the late-time radio flux is suppressed by a factor of two relative to the >~ 80 uJy peak flux at optical wavelengths. This suppression is not likely to be due to synchrotron self-absorption or an early jet break, and we suggest instead that the burst may have suffered substantial radiative corrections.Comment: 13 pages, 2 figures, ApJL accepted; edits for lengt