Environmental Effects of Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Motor Exhaust Plumes

The deposition of NOx and HCl in the stratosphere from the space shuttle solid rocket motors (SRM) and exhaust plume is discussed. A detailed comparison between stratospheric deposition rates using the baseline SRM propellant and an alternate propellant, which replaces ammonium perchlorate by ammonium nitrate, shows the total NOx deposition rate to be approximately the same for each propellant. For both propellants the ratio of the deposition rates of NOx to total chlorine-containing species is negligibly small. Rocket exhaust ground cloud transport processes in the troposphere are also examined. A brief critique of the multilayer diffusion models (presently used for predicting pollutant deposition in the troposphere) is presented, and some detailed cloud rise calculations are compared with data for Titan 3C launches. The results show that, when launch time meteorological data are used as input, the model can reasonably predict measured cloud stabilization heights

Light-cone Quantum Mechanics of the Eleven-dimensional Superparticle

The linearized interactions of eleven-dimensional supergravity are obtained in a manifestly supersymmetric light-cone gauge formalism. These vertices are used to calculate certain one-loop processes involving external gravitini, antisymmetric three-form potentials and gravitons, thereby determining some protected terms in the effective action of M-theory compactified on a two-torus.Comment: 31 pages, harvmac (b); A minor TeX error correcte

NO sub X Deposited in the Stratosphere by the Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Motors

The possible effects of the interaction of the plumes from the two solid rocket motors (SRM) from the space shuttles and mixing of the rocket exhaust products and ambient air in the base recirculation region on the total nitrous oxide deposition rate in the stratosphere were investigated. It was shown that these phenomena will not influence the total NOx deposition rate. It was also shown that uncertainties in the particle size of Al2O3, size distributions and particle/gas drag and heat transfer coefficients will not have a significant effect on the predicted NOx deposition rate. The final results show that the total mass flow of NOx leaving the plume at 30 km altitude is 4000 g./sec with a possible error factor of 3. For a vehicle velocity of 1140 meter/sec this yields an NOx deposition rate of about 3.5 g./meter. The corresponding HCl deposition rate at this altitude is about a factor of 500 greater than this value

Cosmological perturbations in a gravity with quadratic order curvature couplings

We present a set of equations describing the evolution of the scalar-type cosmological perturbation in a gravity with general quadratic order curvature coupling terms. Equations are presented in a gauge ready form, thus are ready to implement various temporal gauge conditions depending on the problems. The Ricci-curvature square term leads to a fourth-order differential equation for describing the spacetime fluctuations in a spatially homogeneous and isotropic cosmological background.Comment: 5 pages, no figure, To appear in Phys. Rev.

Conserved cosmological structures in the one-loop superstring effective action

A generic form of low-energy effective action of superstring theories with one-loop quantum correction is well known. Based on this action we derive the complete perturbation equations and general analytic solutions in the cosmological spacetime. Using the solutions we identify conserved quantities characterizing the perturbations: the amplitude of gravitational wave and the perturbed three-space curvature in the uniform-field gauge both in the large-scale limit, and the angular-momentum of rotational perturbation are conserved independently of changing gravity sector. Implications for calculating perturbation spectra generated in the inflation era based on the string action are presented.Comment: 5 pages, no figure, To appear in Phys. Rev.

The Origin of Structures in Generalized Gravity

In a class of generalized gravity theories with general couplings between the scalar field and the scalar curvature in the Lagrangian, we can describe the quantum generation and the classical evolution of both the scalar and tensor structures in a simple and unified manner. An accelerated expansion phase based on the generalized gravity in the early universe drives microscopic quantum fluctuations inside a causal domain to expand into macroscopic ripples in the spacetime metric on scales larger than the local horizon. Following their generation from quantum fluctuations, the ripples in the metric spend a long period outside the causal domain. During this phase their evolution is characterized by their conserved amplitudes. The evolution of these fluctuations may lead to the observed large scale structures of the universe and anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background radiation.Comment: 5 pages, latex, no figur

Relativistic Hydrodynamic Cosmological Perturbations

Relativistic cosmological perturbation analyses can be made based on several different fundamental gauge conditions. In the pressureless limit the variables in certain gauge conditions show the correct Newtonian behaviors. Considering the general curvature ($K$) and the cosmological constant ($\Lambda$) in the background medium, the perturbed density in the comoving gauge, and the perturbed velocity and the perturbed potential in the zero-shear gauge show the same behavior as the Newtonian ones in general scales. In the first part, we elaborate these Newtonian correspondences. In the second part, using the identified gauge-invariant variables with correct Newtonian correspondences, we present the relativistic results with general pressures in the background and perturbation. We present the general super-sound-horizon scale solutions of the above mentioned variables valid for general $K$, $\Lambda$, and generally evolving equation of state. We show that, for vanishing $K$, the super-sound-horizon scale evolution is characterised by a conserved variable which is the perturbed three-space curvature in the comoving gauge. We also present equations for the multi-component hydrodynamic situation and for the rotation and gravitational wave.Comment: 16 pages, no figure, To appear in Gen. Rel. Gra

Electron-boson spectral density of LiFeAs obtained from optical data

We analyze existing optical data in the superconducting state of LiFeAs at $T =$ 4 K, to recover its electron-boson spectral density. A maximum entropy technique is employed to extract the spectral density $I^2\chi(\omega)$ from the optical scattering rate. Care is taken to properly account for elastic impurity scattering which can importantly affect the optics in an $s$-wave superconductor, but does not eliminate the boson structure. We find a robust peak in $I^2\chi(\omega)$ centered about $\Omega_R \cong$ 8.0 meV or 5.3 $k_B T_c$ (with $T_c =$ 17.6 K). Its position in energy agrees well with a similar structure seen in scanning tunneling spectroscopy (STS). There is also a peak in the inelastic neutron scattering (INS) data at this same energy. This peak is found to persist in the normal state at $T =$ 23 K. There is evidence that the superconducting gap is anisotropic as was also found in low temperature angular resolved photoemission (ARPES) data.Comment: 17 pages, 6 figure

Anisotropic strains and magnetoresistance of La_{0.7}Ca_{0.3}MnO_{3}

Thin films of perovskite manganite La_{0.7}Ca_{0.3}MnO_{3} were grown epitaxially on SrTiO_3(100), MgO(100) and LaAlO_3(100) substrates by the pulsed laser deposition method. Microscopic structures of these thin film samples as well as a bulk sample were fully determined by x-ray diffraction measurements. The unit cells of the three films have different shapes, i.e., contracted tetragonal, cubic, and elongated tetragonal for SrTiO_3, MgO, and LaAlO_3 cases, respectively, while the unit cell of the bulk is cubic. It is found that the samples with cubic unit cell show smaller peak magnetoresistance than the noncubic ones do. The present result demonstrates that the magnetoresistance of La_{0.7}Ca_{0.3}MnO_{3} can be controlled by lattice distortion via externally imposed strains.Comment: Revtex, 10 pages, 2 figure