73 research outputs found
Dikes of distinct composition intruded into Noachian-aged crust exposed in the walls of Valles Marineris
International audienceValles Marineris represents the deepest natural incision in the Martian upper crust. Previous studies showed that the upper parts of the walls were made of finely layered probable basalts in most of the chasmata, while the base of the stratigraphy reveals primary Noachian crustal blocks. Exposures of pristine Noachian bedrock are rare on Mars, and mostly observed outside of their geological context. The occurrence of well-preserved and extended outcrops of pristine material in this giant rift could bring valuable information on the early processes that took place at the surface of Mars. Analyses of high resolution data over the best exposures of lower walls in Coprates Chasma, central Valles Marineris, revealed the presence of multiple magmatic intrusions interpreted as dikes. These dikes intrude an old, massive, fractured bedrock interpreted as being preserved ancient Noachian crust. Their composition, determined using CRISM data, and distribution, limited to this ancient crust at the bottom walls, indicate that they might have formed early in the rift formation, and therefore represent exceptionally well-preserved outcrops of the early history of Mars
Reaching micro-arcsecond astrometry with long baseline optical interferometry; application to the GRAVITY instrument
A basic principle of long baseline interferometry is that an optical path
difference (OPD) directly translates into an astrometric measurement. In the
simplest case, the OPD is equal to the scalar product between the vector
linking the two telescopes and the normalized vector pointing toward the star.
However, a too simple interpretation of this scalar product leads to seemingly
conflicting results, called here "the baseline paradox". For micro-arcsecond
accuracy astrometry, we have to model in full the metrology measurement. It
involves a complex system subject to many optical effects: from pure baseline
errors to static, quasi-static and high order optical aberrations. The goal of
this paper is to present the strategy used by the "General Relativity Analysis
via VLT InTerferometrY" instrument (GRAVITY) to minimize the biases introduced
by these defects. It is possible to give an analytical formula on how the
baselines and tip-tilt errors affect the astrometric measurement. This formula
depends on the limit-points of three type of baselines: the wide-angle
baseline, the narrow-angle baseline, and the imaging baseline. We also,
numerically, include non-common path higher-order aberrations, whose amplitude
were measured during technical time at the Very Large Telescope Interferometer.
We end by simulating the influence of high-order common-path aberrations due to
atmospheric residuals calculated from a Monte-Carlo simulation tool for
Adaptive optics systems. The result of this work is an error budget of the
biases caused by the multiple optical imperfections, including optical
dispersion. We show that the beam stabilization through both focal and pupil
tracking is crucial to the GRAVITY system. Assuming the instrument pupil is
stabilized at a 4 cm level on M1, and a field tracking below 0.2, we
show that GRAVITY will be able to reach its objective of 10as accuracy.Comment: 14 pages. Accepted by A&
MULTIPASS: gestion des consentements pour accéder aux données des exploitations dans une chaßne de confiance afin de favoriser l'émergence de nouveaux services pour les agriculteurs
12th EFITA International Conference, Rhode island, GRC, 27-/06/2019 - 29/06/2019International audienceWith the emergence of digital technologies, farms become a relevant source of data to meet the challenges of multi-performance agriculture. Beyond the services provided, access to farmers' data depends on a clear understanding of their use, which must be done in a transparent way. Several codes of conduct at a national or international level push for a voluntary commitment to respect some good practices in the use of agricultural data. To provide a tool and answer farmer's questions on the control of their data and the transparency of the data processing, the partners of the MULTIPASS project, have imagined an interoperable ecosystem of farmer consents management, protecting farmers from no consented uses of their data.Farmers' expectations of such an ecosystem have been expressed during workshops. They want to better identify existing data flows, including actors, data processes, and data clusters. Based on the farmers' expectations, the MULTIPASS project stakeholders have proposed the architecture of an ecosystem integrating two consent management tools as "pilots". This ecosystem should take in charge the interoperability between each consent management tools or with future tools. This solution is based on a shared typology of data and data processes as well as on the specifications of the consent message content. All these elements should be easily accessible to meet the interoperability need of the ecosystem. It is also based on a router, which provides unified access to consent management tools (using API). In particular, it provides the farmer (beneficiary) with an exhaustive view of his/her consents (which can be distributed on several consent management systems), meeting farmers' expectations for transparency. It is also the point where a data provider can check whether the consent required to provide data exists, without needing to know which consent management system is concerned. In this project, the stakeholders want to demonstrate to agricultural professional organizations the benefits and feasibility of a consent management ecosystem. By strengthening the confidence of farmers to share data, the project will allow the emergence of new knowledge and new services
Error Estimators for Proper Generalized Decomposition in Time-Dependent Electromagnetic Field Problems
Due to fine discretization in space and time, the simulation of transient electromagnetic phenomena results in a large system of equations. To cope with this computational effort, model order reduction techniques can be employed. To assess the accuracy of the solution of the reduced model, an error estimation is crucial. A commonly used approach consists of the evaluation of the deviation between the reduced and the full model. This yields a loss of the a-priori property of the Proper Generalized Decomposition. To overcome this problem two a-priori criteria are presented in this paper.This work was supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG) within the research project number 347941356 âNumerical Analysis of Electromagnetic Fields by Proper Generalized Decomposition in Electrical Machinesâ
The Stellar Cusp Around the Supermassive Black Hole in the Galactic Center
We analyze deep near-IR adaptive optics imaging as well as new proper motion
data of the nuclear star cluster of the Milky Way. The surface density
distribution of faint stars peaks within 0.2" of the black hole candidate
SgrA*. The radial density distribution of this stellar 'cusp' follows a power
law of exponent 1.3-1.4. The K-band luminosity function of the overall nuclear
stellar cluster (within 9" of SgrA*) resembles that of the large scale,
Galactic bulge, but shows an excess of stars at K<14.
We find that most of the massive early type stars at distances 1-10" from
SgrA* are located in two rotating and geometrically thin disks. These disks are
inclined at large angles and counter-rotate with respect to each other. Their
stellar content is essentially the same, indicating that they formed at the
same time.
The star closest to SgrA* in 2002, S2, exhibits a 3.8 micron excess. We
propose that the mid-IR emission either comes from the accretion flow around
the black hole itself, or from dust in the accretion flow that is heated by the
ultra-violet emission of S2.Comment: 59 pages, 18 figure
GRAVITY: getting to the event horizon of Sgr A*
We present the second-generation VLTI instrument GRAVITY, which currently is
in the preliminary design phase. GRAVITY is specifically designed to observe
highly relativistic motions of matter close to the event horizon of Sgr A*, the
massive black hole at center of the Milky Way. We have identified the key
design features needed to achieve this goal and present the resulting
instrument concept. It includes an integrated optics, 4-telescope, dual feed
beam combiner operated in a cryogenic vessel; near infrared wavefront sensing
adaptive optics; fringe tracking on secondary sources within the field of view
of the VLTI and a novel metrology concept. Simulations show that the planned
design matches the scientific needs; in particular that 10 microarcsecond
astrometry is feasible for a source with a magnitude of K=15 like Sgr A*, given
the availability of suitable phase reference sources.Comment: 13 pages, 11 figures, to appear in the conference proceedings of SPIE
Astronomical Instrumentation, 23-28 June 2008, Marseille, Franc
Evidence for X-ray synchrotron emission from simultaneous mid-IR to X-ray observations of a strong Sgr A* flare
This paper reports measurements of Sgr A* made with NACO in L' -band (3.80
um), Ks-band (2.12 um) and H-band (1.66 um) and with VISIR in N-band (11.88 um)
at the ESO VLT, as well as with XMM-Newton at X-ray (2-10 keV) wavelengths. On
4 April, 2007, a very bright flare was observed from Sgr A* simultaneously at
L'-band and X-ray wavelengths. No emission was detected using VISIR. The
resulting SED has a blue slope (beta > 0 for nuL_nu ~ nu^beta, consistent with
nuL_nu ~ nu^0.4) between 12 micron and 3.8 micron.
For the first time our high quality data allow a detailed comparison of
infrared and X-ray light curves with a resolution of a few minutes. The IR and
X-ray flares are simultaneous to within 3 minutes. However the IR flare lasts
significantly longer than the X-ray flare (both before and after the X-ray
peak) and prominent substructures in the 3.8 micron light curve are clearly not
seen in the X-ray data. From the shortest timescale variations in the L'-band
lightcurve we find that the flaring region must be no more than 1.2 R_S in
size.
The high X-ray to infrared flux ratio, blue nuL_nu slope MIR to L' -band, and
the soft nuL_nu spectral index of the X-ray flare together place strong
constraints on possible flare emission mechanisms. We find that it is
quantitatively difficult to explain this bright X-ray flare with inverse
Compton processes. A synchrotron emission scenario from an electron
distribution with a cooling break is a more viable scenario.Comment: ApJ, 49 pages, 9 figure
Inward Bound: Studying the Galactic Centre with NAOS/CONICA
We report on the first results obtained using adaptive optics measurements of
the Galactic Centre done with NAOS/CONICA.Comment: 19 pages, 7 figure
GCIRS34W: An irregular variable in the Galactic Centre
We report the results of time-resolved photometric and spectroscopic
near-infrared observations of the Ofpe/WN9 star and LBV candidate GCIRS34W in
the Galactic Centre star cluster. Diffraction limited resolution photometric
observations obtained in H and K bands show a strong, non-periodic variability
on time scales from months to years in both bands accompanied by variations of
the stellar colour. Three K band spectra obtained in 1996, 2003 and 2004 with
integral field spectrometers are identical within their accuracies and exclude
significant spectroscopic variability. The most probable explanation of the
stellar photometric variability is obscuration by circumstellar material
ejected by the star. The approximated position of GCIRS34W in a HR diagram is
located between O supergiants and LBVs, suggesting that this star is a
transitional object between these two phases of stellar evolution.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, accepted by A&
Direct discovery of the inner exoplanet in the HD 206893 system : Evidence for deuterium burning in a planetary-mass companion
Aims.
HD 206893 is a nearby debris disk star that hosts a previously identified brown dwarf companion with an orbital separation of âŒ10 au. Long-term precise radial velocity (RV) monitoring, as well as anomalies in the system proper motion, has suggested the presence of an additional, inner companion in the system.
Methods.
Using information from ongoing precision RV measurements with the HARPS spectrograph, as well as Gaia host star astrometry, we have undertaken a multi-epoch search for the purported additional planet using the VLTI/GRAVITY instrument.
Results.
We report a high-significance detection over three epochs of the companion HD 206893c, which shows clear evidence for Keplerian orbital motion. Our astrometry with âŒ50â100 ÎŒarcsec precision afforded by GRAVITY allows us to derive a dynamical mass of 12.7MJup and an orbital separation of 3.53 au for HD 206893c. Our fits to the orbits of both companions in the system use both Gaia astrometry and RVs to also provide a precise dynamical estimate of the previously uncertain mass of the B component, and therefore allow us to derive an age of 155 ± 15 Myr for the system. We find that theoretical atmospheric and evolutionary models that incorporate deuterium burning for HD 206893c, parameterized by cloudy atmosphere models as well as a âhybrid sequenceâ (encompassing a transition from cloudy to cloud-free), provide a good simultaneous fit to the luminosity of both HD 206893B and c. Thus, accounting for both deuterium burning and clouds is crucial to understanding the luminosity evolution of HD 206893c.
Conclusions.
In addition to using long-term RV information, this effort is an early example of a direct imaging discovery of a bona fide exoplanet that was guided in part by Gaia astrometry. Utilizing Gaia astrometry is expected to be one of the primary techniques going forward for identifying and characterizing additional directly imaged planets. In addition, HD 206893c is an example of an object narrowly straddling the deuterium-burning limit but unambiguously undergoing deuterium burning. Additional discoveries like this may therefore help clarify the discrimination between a brown dwarf and an extrasolar planet. Lastly, this discovery is another example of the power of optical interferometry to directly detect and characterize extrasolar planets where they form, at ice-line orbital separations of 2â4 au
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