2,226 research outputs found
Observations of the magnetic field and plasma flow in Jupiter's magnetosheath
Large scale (many minutes to 10 hours) magnetic field structures consisting predominantly of nearly north-south field direction were discovered in Jupiter's magnetosheath from the data of Voyagers 1 and 2 and Pioneer 10 during their outbound encounter trajectories. The Voyager 2 data, and that of Voyager 1 to a lesser extent, show evidence of a quasi-period of 10 hours (and occasionally 5 hours) for these structures. The north-south components of the field and plasma velocity were strongly correlated in the outbound magnetosheath as observed by Voyagers 1 and 2, and the components orthogonal to the north-south direction showed weak correlations. For both Voyager encounters the sense (positive and negative) of the north-south correlations were directly related to the direction of the ecliptic plane component of the interplanetary magnetic field using the field and plasma measurements of the non-encountering spacecraft
High Field de Haas - van Alphen Studies of the Fermi Surfaces of LaMIn (M = Co, Rh, Ir)
We report measurements of the de Haas - van Alphen effect on a series of
compounds, LaMIn (M = Co, Rh, Ir). The results show that each of the Co
and Ir Fermi surfaces (FSs) exhibit some portions that are two dimensional and
some portions that are three dimensional. The most two dimensional character is
exhibited in LaCoIn, less two dimensional behavior is seen in
LaIrIn, no part of Fermi surface of LaRhIn is found to have a two
dimensional character. Thus the two dimensionality of portions of the FSs is
largely determined by the d character of the energy bands while all of the
effective masses remain 1.2. This fact has implications for the causes
of the heavy fermion nature of superconductivity and magnetism in the Ce-based
compounds having the similar composition and structure. All of the measurements
were performed at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory using either
cantilever magnetometry or field modulation methods.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure
Predicting magnetopause crossings at geosynchronous orbit during the Halloween storms
[1] In late October and early November of 2003, the Sun unleashed a powerful series of events known as the Halloween storms. The coronal mass ejections launched by the Sun produced several severe compressions of the magnetosphere that moved the magnetopause inside of geosynchronous orbit. Such events are of interest to satellite operators, and the ability to predict magnetopause crossings along a given orbit is an important space weather capability. In this paper we compare geosynchronous observations of magnetopause crossings during the Halloween storms to crossings determined from the Lyon-Fedder-Mobarry global magnetohydrodynamic simulation of the magnetosphere as well to predictions of several empirical models of the magnetopause position. We calculate basic statistical information about the predictions as well as several standard skill scores. We find that the current Lyon-Fedder-Mobarry simulation of the storm provides a slightly better prediction of the magnetopause position than the empirical models we examined for the extreme conditions present in this study. While this is not surprising, given that conditions during the Halloween storms were well outside the parameter space of the empirical models, it does point out the need for physics-based models that can predict the effects of the most extreme events that are of significant interest to users of space weather forecasts
Unusual metamagnetism in CeIrIn
We report a high field investigation (up to 45 T) of the metamagnetic
transition in CeIrIn with resistivity and de-Haas-van-Alphen (dHvA) effect
measurements in the temperature range 0.03-1 K. As the magnetic field is
increased the resistivity increases, reaches a maximum at the metamagnetic
critical field, and falls precipitously for fields just above the transition,
while the amplitude of all measurable dHvA frequencies are significantly
attenuated near the metamagnetic critical field. However, the dHvA frequencies
and cyclotron masses are not substantially altered by the transition. In the
low field state, the resistivity is observed to increase toward low
temperatures in a singular fashion, a behavior that is rapidly suppressed above
the transition. Instead, in the high field state, the resistivity monotonically
increases with temperature with a dependence that is more singular than the
iconic Fermi-liquid, temperature-squared, behavior. Both the damping of the
dHvA amplitudes and the increased resistivity near the metamagnetic critical
field indicate an increased scattering rate for charge carriers consistent with
critical fluctuation scattering in proximity to a phase transition. The dHvA
amplitudes do not uniformly recover above the critical field, with some
hole-like orbits being entirely suppressed at high fields. These changes, taken
as a whole, suggest that the metamagnetic transition in CeIrIn is
associated with the polarization and localization of the heaviest of
quasiparticles on the hole-like Fermi surface.Comment: 29 pages, 9 figure
Polarization of Broad Absorption Line QSOs I. A Spectropolarimetric Atlas
We present a spectropolarimetric survey of 36 broad absorption line
quasi-stellar objects (BAL QSOs). The continuum, absorption trough, and
emission line polarization of BAL QSOs yield clues about their structure. We
confirm that BAL QSOs are in general more highly polarized than non-BAL QSOs,
consistent with a more equatorial viewing direction for the former than the
latter. We have identified two new highly-polarized QSOs in our sample
(1232+1325 and 1333+2840). The polarization rises weakly to the blue in most
objects, perhaps due to scattering and absorption by dust particles. We find
that a polarization increase in the BAL troughs is a general property of
polarized BAL QSOs, indicating an excess of scattered light relative to direct
light, and consistent with the unification of BAL QSOs and non-BAL QSOs. We
have also discovered evidence of resonantly scattered photons in the red wing
of the C IV broad emission lines of a few objects. In most cases, the broad
emission lines have lower polarization and a different position angle than the
continuum. The polarization characteristics of low-ionization BAL QSOs are
similar to those of high-ionization BAL QSOs, suggesting a similar BAL wind
geometry.Comment: 39 pages, 6 figures (20 .gif files), accepted for publication in The
Astrophysical Journal Supplement
The Host Galaxy of the Gamma--Ray Burst 971214
We report on Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observations of the host galaxy of
GRB 971214, about four months after the burst. The redshift of the proposed
host galaxy at z=3.418, combined with optical and radio observations of the
burst afterglow, implies the extremely large isotropic energy release from the
burst in gamma-rays of approximately 3x10^53 ergs, some two orders of magnitude
higher than the previously commonly assumed numbers. The positional offset
between the optical transient observed at the Keck telescope and the centroid
of the proposed host galaxy in the HST image is 0.14 -+0.07 arcsec. We find no
evidence in our deep HST image for a chance foreground galaxy superposed along
the line of sight to the proposed host at z=3.418. The morphology and
photometric properties of this galaxy, such as the total flux, morphology,
radial surface profile and scale length, are typical as compared to other,
spectroscopically confirmed z>3 galaxies.Comment: LaTex, 10 pages, 3 figures, accepted to ApJ
Optical conductivity and superconductivity in LaSb
We have measured the resistivity, optical conductivity, and magnetic
susceptibility of LaSb to search for clues as to the cause of the
extraordinarily large linear magnetoresistance and to explore the properties of
the superconducting state. We find no evidence in the optical conductivity for
the formation of a charge density wave state above 20 K despite the highly
layered crystal structure. In addition, only small changes to the optical
reflectivity with magnetic field are observed indicating that the MR is due to
scattering rate, not charge density, variations with field. Although a
superconducting ground state was previously reported below a critical
temperature of 0.4 K, we observe, at ambient pressure, a fragile
superconducting transition with an onset at 2.5 K. In crystalline samples, we
find a high degree of variability with a minority of samples displaying a full
Meissner fraction below 0.2 K and fluctuations apparent up to 2.5 K. The
application of pressure stabilizes the superconducting transition and reduces
the anisotropy of the superconducting phase.Comment: 4 pages with 4 figure
The Radio Afterglow and the Host Galaxy of the X-Ray Rich GRB 981226
We report the discovery of a radio transient VLA 232937.2-235553, coincident
with the proposed X-ray afterglow for the gamma-ray burst GRB 981226. This GRB
has the highest ratio of X-ray to gamma-ray fluence of all the GRBs detected by
BeppoSAX so far and yet no corresponding optical transient was detected. The
radio light curve of VLA 232937.2-235553 is qualitatively similar to that of
several other radio afterglows. At the sub-arcsecond position provided by the
radio detection, optical imaging reveals an extended R=24.9 mag object, which
we identify as the host galaxy of GRB 981226. Afterglow models which invoke a
jet-like geometry for the outflow or require an ambient medium with a radial
density dependence, such as that produced by a wind from a massive star, are
both consistent with the radio data. Furthermore, we show that the observed
properties of the radio afterglow can explain the absence of an optical
transient without the need for large extinction local to the GRB.Comment: Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Thirteen pages. Three Postscript figure
Fermi Surface Properties of Low Concentration CeLaB: dHvA
The de Haas-van Alphen effect is used to study angular dependent extremal
areas of the Fermi Surfaces (FS) and effective masses of CeLaB alloys for between 0 and 0.05. The FS of these alloys was previously
observed to be spin polarized at low Ce concentration ( = 0.05). This work
gives the details of the initial development of the topology and spin
polarization of the FS from that of unpolarized metallic LaB to that of
spin polarized heavy Fermion CeB .Comment: 7 pages, 9 figures, submitted to PR
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