4,170 research outputs found
Shadows of Relic Neutrino Masses and Spectra on Highest Energy GZK Cosmic Rays
The Ultra High Energy (UHE) neutrino scattering onto relic cosmic neutrinos
in galactic and local halos offers an unique way to overcome GZK cut-off. The
UHE nu secondary of UHE photo-pion decays may escape the GZK cut-off and travel
on cosmic distances hitting local light relic neutrinos clustered in dark
halos. The Z resonant production and the competitive W^+W^-, ZZ pair production
define a characteristic imprint on hadronic consequent UHECR spectra. This
imprint keeps memory both of the primary UHE nu spectra as well as of the
possible relic neutrino masses values, energy spectra and relic densities. Such
an hadronic showering imprint should reflect into spectra morphology of cosmic
rays near and above GZK 10^{19}-10^{21}eV cut-off energies. A possible neutrino
degenerate masses at eVs or a more complex and significant neutrino mass split
below or near Super-Kamiokande \triangle m_{\nu_{SK}}= 0.1 eV masses might be
reflected after each corresponding Z peak showering, into new twin unexpected
UHECR flux modulation behind GZK energies: E_{p} sim 3(frac{triangle
m_{\nu_{SK}}}/m_{\nu}10^{21}),eV.
Other shadowsof lightest, nearly massless, neutrinos m_{nu_{2K} simeq 0.001eV
simeq kT_{\nu}, their lowest relic temperatures, energies and densities might
be also reflected at even higher energies edges near Grand Unification: E_{p}
\sim 2.2(m_{\nu_{2K}/E_{\nu}})10^{23}, eV .Comment: 14 pages, 6 Figures,Invited Talk Heidelberg DARK 200
Hydrogen Re-embrittlement of Aerospace Grade High Strength Steels
Hydrogen Re-Embrittlement on anodically coated high strength steels is a relevant risk for aerospace structures due to the possibility of hydrogen uptake during the operative life of the components. AISI 4340 and Maraging 250 unnotched tensile specimens were subjected to SSRT in order to evaluate the influence of test environment on time to failure. Fracture surfaces were examined by SEM analysis to evaluate the degree of embrittlement and to correlate it with hydrogen diffusivity of the tested steels
Small crater populations on Vesta
The NASA Dawn mission has extensively examined the surface of asteroid Vesta,
the second most massive body in the main belt. The high quality of the gathered
data provides us with an unique opportunity to determine the surface and
internal properties of one of the most important and intriguing main belt
asteroids (MBAs). In this paper, we focus on the size frequency distributions
(SFDs) of sub-kilometer impact craters observed at high spatial resolution on
several selected young terrains on Vesta. These small crater populations offer
an excellent opportunity to determine the nature of their asteroidal precursors
(namely MBAs) at sizes that are not directly observable from ground-based
telescopes (i.e., below ~100 m diameter). Moreover, unlike many other MBA
surfaces observed by spacecraft thus far, the young terrains examined had
crater spatial densities that were far from empirical saturation. Overall, we
find that the cumulative power-law index (slope) of small crater SFDs on Vesta
is fairly consistent with predictions derived from current collisional and
dynamical models down to a projectile size of ~10 m diameter (Bottke et al.,
2005a,b). The shape of the impactor SFD for small projectile sizes does not
appear to have changed over the last several billions of years, and an argument
can be made that the absolute number of small MBAs has remained roughly
constant (within a factor of 2) over the same time period. The apparent steady
state nature of the main belt population potentially provides us with a set of
intriguing constraints that can be used to glean insights into the physical
evolution of individual MBAs as well as the main belt as an ensemble.Comment: Accepted by PSS, to appear on Vesta cratering special issu
Spectrophotometric properties of dwarf planet Ceres from the VIR spectrometer on board the Dawn mission
We study the spectrophotometric properties of dwarf planet Ceres in the
VIS-IR spectral range by means of hyper-spectral images acquired by the VIR
imaging spectrometer on board the NASA Dawn mission. Disk-resolved observations
with a phase angle within the interval were used
to characterize Ceres' phase curve in the 0.465-4.05 m spectral range.
Hapke's model was applied to perform the photometric correction of the dataset,
allowing us to produce albedo and color maps of the surface. The -band
magnitude phase function of Ceres was fitted with both the classical linear
model and H-G formalism. The single-scattering albedo and the asymmetry
parameter at 0.55m are and ,
respectively (two-lobe Henyey-Greenstein phase function); the modeled geometric
albedo is ; the roughness parameter is
. Albedo maps indicate small variability
on a global scale with an average reflectance of . Isolated
areas such as the Occator bright spots, Haulani, and Oxo show an albedo much
higher than average. We measure a significant spectral phase reddening, and the
average spectral slope of Ceres' surface after photometric correction is
and at VIS and IR wavelengths, respectively.
Broadband color indices are and . H-G
modeling of the -band magnitude phase curve for gives
and , while the classical linear model provides
and . The comparison with
spectrophotometric properties of other minor bodies indicates that Ceres has a
less back-scattering phase function and a slightly higher albedo than comets
and C-type objects. However, the latter represents the closest match in the
usual asteroid taxonomy.Comment: 14 pages, 20 figures, published online on Astronomy and Astrophysics
on 13 February 2017. Revised to reflect minor changes in text and figures
made in proofs, updated value of V-R and R-
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