15,577 research outputs found
Inertial energy storage hardware definition study (ring rotor)
Rotor analysis, interference stresses, fabrication/assembly, failure analysis, ring tolerances, stren plots, and drawings are discussed
Radio/X-ray Offsets of Large Scale Jets Caused by Synchrotron Time Lags
In the internal shock scenario, we argue that electrons in most kpc (or even
larger) scale jets can be accelerated to energies high enough to emit
synchrotron X-rays, if shocks exist on these scales. These high energy
electrons emit synchrotron radiation at high frequencies and cool as they
propagate downstream along the jet, emitting at progressively lower frequencies
and resulting in time lags and hence radio/X-ray (and optical/X-ray if the
optical knot is detectable) offsets at bright knots, with the centroids of
X-ray knots being closer to the core. Taking into account strong effects of jet
expansion, the behaviour of radio/X-ray and optical/X-ray offsets at bright
knots in M87, Cen A, 3C 66B, 3C 31, 3C 273, and PKS 1127-145 is consistent with
that of synchrotron time lags due to radiative losses. This suggests that the
large scale X-ray and optical jets in these sources are due to synchrotron
emission.Comment: 4 pages, Accepted for publication in ApJ Letter
Mechanical capacitor
A new energy storage system (the mechanical capacitor), using a spokeless magnetically levitated composite ring rotor, is described and design formulas for sizing the components are presented. This new system is configured around a permanent magnet (flux biased) suspension which has active servo control in the radial direction and passive control in the axial direction. The storage ring is used as a moving rotor and electronic commutation of the stationary armature coils is proposed. There is no mechanical contact with the rotating spokeless ring; therefore, long life and near zero rundown losses are projected. A 7-kW h system is sized to demonstrate feasibility. A literature review of flywheel energy storage systems is also presented and general formulas are developed for comparing rotor geometries
Magnetically suspended flywheel system study
A program to study the application of a graphite/epoxy, magnetically suspended, pierced disk flywheel for the combined function of spacecraft attitude control and energy storage (ACES) is described. Past achievements of the program include design and analysis computer codes for the flywheel rotor, a magnetically suspended flywheel model, and graphite/epoxy rotor rings that were successfully prestressed via interference assembly. All hardware successfully demonstrated operation of the necessary subsystems which form a complete ACES design. Areas of future work include additional rotor design research, system definition and control strategies, prototype development, and design/construction of a UM/GSFC spin test facility. The results of applying design and analysis computer codes to a magnetically suspended interference assembled rotor show specific energy densities of 42 Wh/lb (92.4 Wh/kg) are obtained for a 1.6 kWh system
Particle acceleration at ultrarelativistic shocks: an eigenfunction method
We extend the eigenfunction method of computing the power-law spectrum of
particles accelerated at a relativistic shock fronts to apply to shocks of
arbitrarily high Lorentz factor. In agreement with the findings of Monte-Carlo
simulations, we find the index of the power-law distribution of accelerated
particles which undergo isotropic diffusion in angle at an ultrarelativistic,
unmagnetized shock is s=4.23 (where s=-d(ln f)/dp with f the Lorentz invariant
phase-space density and p the momentum). This corresponds to a synchrotron
index for uncooled electrons of a=0.62 (taking cooling into account a=1.12),
where a=-d(ln F)/dn, F is the radiation flux and n the frequency. We also
present an approximate analytic expression for the angular distribution of
accelerated particles, which displays the effect of particle trapping by the
shock: compared with the non-relativistic case the angular distribution is
weighted more towards the plane of the shock and away from its normal. We
investigate the sensitivity of our results to the transport properties of the
particles and the presence of a magnetic field. Shocks in which the ratio of
Poynting to kinetic energy flux upstream is not small are less compressive and
lead to larger values of .Comment: Minor additions on publicatio
Analysis and identification of subsynchronous vibration for a high pressure parallel flow centrifugal compressor
The summary of a complete analytical design evaluation of an existing parallel flow compressor is presented and a field vibration problem that manifested itself as a subsynchronous vibration that tracked at approximately 2/3 of compressor speed is reviewed. The comparison of predicted and observed peak response speeds, frequency spectrum content, and the performance of the bearing-seal systems are presented as the events of the field problem are reviewed. Conclusions and recommendations are made as to the degree of accuracy of the analytical techniques used to evaluate the compressor design
Optimising Spectroscopic and Photometric Galaxy Surveys: Efficient Target Selection and Survey Strategy
The next generation of spectroscopic surveys will have a wealth of
photometric data available for use in target selection. Selecting the best
targets is likely to be one of the most important hurdles in making these
spectroscopic campaigns as successful as possible. Our ability to measure dark
energy depends strongly on the types of targets that we are able to select with
a given photometric data set. We show in this paper that we will be able to
successfully select the targets needed for the next generation of spectroscopic
surveys. We also investigate the details of this selection, including
optimisation of instrument design and survey strategy in order to measure dark
energy. We use color-color selection as well as neural networks to select the
best possible emission line galaxies and luminous red galaxies for a
cosmological survey. Using the Fisher matrix formalism we forecast the
efficiency of each target selection scenario. We show how the dark energy
figures of merit change in each target selection regime as a function of target
type, survey time, survey density and other survey parameters. We outline the
optimal target selection scenarios and survey strategy choices which will be
available to the next generation of spectroscopic surveys.Comment: 16 pages, 22 figures, accepted to MNRAS in dec 201
K2 Variable Catalogue II: Machine Learning Classification of Variable Stars and Eclipsing Binaries in K2 Fields 0-4
We are entering an era of unprecedented quantities of data from current and
planned survey telescopes. To maximise the potential of such surveys, automated
data analysis techniques are required. Here we implement a new methodology for
variable star classification, through the combination of Kohonen Self
Organising Maps (SOM, an unsupervised machine learning algorithm) and the more
common Random Forest (RF) supervised machine learning technique. We apply this
method to data from the K2 mission fields 0-4, finding 154 ab-type RR Lyraes
(10 newly discovered), 377 Delta Scuti pulsators, 133 Gamma Doradus pulsators,
183 detached eclipsing binaries, 290 semi-detached or contact eclipsing
binaries and 9399 other periodic (mostly spot-modulated) sources, once class
significance cuts are taken into account. We present lightcurve features for
all K2 stellar targets, including their three strongest detected frequencies,
which can be used to study stellar rotation periods where the observed
variability arises from spot modulation. The resulting catalogue of variable
stars, classes, and associated data features are made available online. We
publish our SOM code in Python as part of the open source PyMVPA package, which
in combination with already available RF modules can be easily used to recreate
the method.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS, 16 pages, 13 figures. Updated with
proof corrections. Full catalogue tables available at
https://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/physics/research/astro/people/armstrong/
or at the CD
Connected component identification and cluster update on GPU
Cluster identification tasks occur in a multitude of contexts in physics and
engineering such as, for instance, cluster algorithms for simulating spin
models, percolation simulations, segmentation problems in image processing, or
network analysis. While it has been shown that graphics processing units (GPUs)
can result in speedups of two to three orders of magnitude as compared to
serial codes on CPUs for the case of local and thus naturally parallelized
problems such as single-spin flip update simulations of spin models, the
situation is considerably more complicated for the non-local problem of cluster
or connected component identification. I discuss the suitability of different
approaches of parallelization of cluster labeling and cluster update algorithms
for calculations on GPU and compare to the performance of serial
implementations.Comment: 15 pages, 14 figures, one table, submitted to PR
K2 Variable Catalogue: Variable Stars and Eclipsing Binaries in K2 Campaigns 1 and 0
We have created a catalogue of variable stars found from a search of the
publicly available K2 mission data from Campaigns 1 and 0. This catalogue
provides the identifiers of 8395 variable stars, including 199 candidate
eclipsing binaries with periods up to 60d and 3871 periodic or quasi-periodic
objects, with periods up to 20d for Campaign 1 and 15d for Campaign 0.
Lightcurves are extracted and detrended from the available data. These are
searched using a combination of algorithmic and human classification, leading
to a classifier for each object as an eclipsing binary, sinusoidal periodic,
quasi periodic, or aperiodic variable. The source of the variability is not
identified, but could arise in the non-eclipsing binary cases from pulsation or
stellar activity. Each object is cross-matched against variable star related
guest observer proposals to the K2 mission, which specifies the variable type
in some cases. The detrended lightcurves are also compared to lightcurves
currently publicly available. The resulting catalogue is made available online
via the MAST archive at https://archive.stsci.edu/prepds/k2varcat/, and gives
the ID, type, period, semi-amplitude and range of the variation seen. We also
make available the detrended lightcurves for each object.Comment: Accepted by A&A. 6 pages, 6 figures. Catalogue and lightcurves are
available online via MAST at https://archive.stsci.edu/prepds/k2varcat
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