22,143 research outputs found
The evolution of planetary nebulae VII. Modelling planetary nebulae of distant stellar systems
By means of hydrodynamical models we do the first investigations of how the
properties of planetary nebulae are affected by their metal content and what
can be learned from spatially unresolved spectrograms of planetary nebulae in
distant stellar systems. We computed a new series of 1D radiation-hydrodynamics
planetary nebulae model sequences with central stars of 0.595 M_sun surrounded
by initial envelope structures that differ only by their metal content. At
selected phases along the evolutionary path, the hydrodynamic terms were
switched off, allowing the models to relax for fixed radial structure and
radiation field into their equilibrium state with respect to energy and
ionisation. The analyses of the line spectra emitted from both the dynamical
and static models enabled us to systematically study the influence of
hydrodynamics as a function of metallicity and evolution. We also recomputed
selected sequences already used in previous publications, but now with
different metal abundances. These sequences were used to study the expansion
properties of planetary nebulae close to the bright cut-off of the planetary
nebula luminosity function. Our simulations show that the metal content
strongly influences the expansion of planetary nebulae: the lower the metal
content, the weaker the pressure of the stellar wind bubble, but the faster the
expansion of the outer shell because of the higher electron temperature. This
is in variance with the predictions of the interacting-stellar-winds model (or
its variants) according to which only the central-star wind is thought to be
responsible for driving the expansion of a planetary nebula. Metal-poor objects
around slowly evolving central stars become very dilute and are prone to depart
from thermal equilibrium because then adiabatic expansion contributes to gas
cooling. ...abridged abstract.Comment: 35 pages, 43 figures, accepted for publication by A&
Paternal alcoholism and offspring conduct disorder: Evidence for the \u27common genes\u27 hypothesis
The study of parameter optimization in vehicle-borne tracking systems Final technical report
Data smoothing technique for parameter optimization in free flight orbit vehicle-borne tracking system
Analysis of the Kondo effect in ferromagnetic atomic-sized contacts
Atomic contacts made of ferromagnetic metals present zero-bias anomalies in
the differential conductance due to the Kondo effect. These systems provide a
unique opportunity to perform a statistical analysis of the Kondo parameters in
nanostructures since a large number of contacts can be easily fabricated using
break-junction techniques. The details of the atomic structure differ from one
contact to another so a large number of different configurations can be
statistically analyzed. Here we present such a statistical analysis of the
Kondo effect in atomic contacts made from the ferromagnetic transition metals
Ni, Co and Fe. Our analysis shows clear differences between materials that can
be understood by fundamental theoretical considerations. This combination of
experiments and theory allow us to extract information about the origin and
nature of the Kondo effect in these systems and to explore the influence of
geometry and valence in the Kondo screening of atomic-sized nanostructures.Comment: 17 pages, 11 figure
Hyperatlas: A New Framework for Image Federation
Hyperatlas is an open standard intended to facilitate the large-scale
federation of image-based data. The subject of hyperatlas is the space of
sphere-to-plane projection mappings (the FITS-WCS information), and the
standard consists of coherent collections of these on which data can be
resampled and thereby federated with other image data. We hope for a
distributed effort that will produce a multi-faceted image atlas of the sky,
made by federating many different surveys at different wavelengths and
different times. We expect that hyperatlas-compliant imagery will be published
and discovered through an International Virtual Observatory Alliance (IVOA)
registry, and that grid-based services will emerge for the required resampling
and mosaicking.Comment: Published in ADASS XIII proceeding
Scaling properties in the production range of shear dominated flows
Recent developments in turbulence are focused on the effect of large scale
anisotropy on the small scale statistics of velocity increments. According to
Kolmogorov, isotropy is recovered in the large Reynolds number limit as the
scale is reduced and, in the so-called inertial range, universal features
-namely the scaling exponents of structure functions - emerge clearly. However
this picture is violated in a number of cases, typically in the high shear
region of wall bounded flows. The common opinion ascribes this effect to the
contamination of the inertial range by the larger anisotropic scales, i.e. the
residual anisotropy is assumed as a weak perturbation of an otherwise isotropic
dynamics. In this case, given the rotational invariance of the Navier-Stokes
equations, the isotropic component of the structure functions keeps the same
exponents of isotropic turbulence. This kind of reasoning fails when the
anisotropic effects are strong as in the production range of shear dominated
flows. This regime is analyzed here by means of both numerical and experimental
data for a homogeneous shear flow. A well defined scaling behavior is found to
exist, with exponents which differ substantially from those of classical
isotropic turbulence. Contrary to what predicted by the perturbation approach,
such a deep alteration concerns the isotropic sector itself. The general
validity of these results is discussed in the context of turbulence near solid
walls, where more appropriate closure models for the coarse grained
Navier-Stokes equations would be advisable.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Atlasmaker: A Grid-based Implementation of the Hyperatlas
The Atlasmaker project is using Grid technology, in combination with NVO
interoperability, to create new knowledge resources in astronomy. The product
is a multi-faceted, multi-dimensional, scientifically trusted image atlas of
the sky, made by federating many different surveys at different wavelengths,
times, resolutions, polarizations, etc. The Atlasmaker software does resampling
and mosaicking of image collections, and is well-suited to operate with the
Hyperatlas standard. Requests can be satisfied via on-demand computations or by
accessing a data cache. Computed data is stored in a distributed virtual file
system, such as the Storage Resource Broker (SRB). We expect these atlases to
be a new and powerful paradigm for knowledge extraction in astronomy, as well
as a magnificent way to build educational resources. The system is being
incorporated into the data analysis pipeline of the Palomar-Quest synoptic
survey, and is being used to generate all-sky atlases from the 2MASS, SDSS, and
DPOSS surveys for joint object detection.Comment: Published in the Proceedings of ADASS XI
Mechanical, Electrical, and Magnetic Properties of Ni Nanocontacts
The dynamic deformation upon stretching of Ni nanowires as those formed with
mechanically controllable break junctions or with a scanning tunneling
microscope is studied both experimentally and theoretically. Molecular dynamics
simulations of the breaking process are performed. In addition, and in order to
compare with experiments, we also compute the transport properties in the last
stages before failure using the first-principles implementation of Landauer's
formalism included in our transport package ALACANT.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figure
Management practices to build evidence-based decision-making capacity for chronic disease prevention in Georgia: A case study
Instrument to collect fogwater for chemical analysis
An instrument is presented which collects large samples of ambient fogwater by impaction of droplets on a screen. The collection efficiency of the instrument is determined as a function of droplet size, and it is shown that fog droplets in the range 3–100-µm diameter are efficiently collected. No significant evaporation or condensation occurs at any stage of the collection process. Field testing indicates that samples collected are representative of the ambient fogwater. The instrument may easily be automated, and is suitable for use in routine air quality monitoring programs
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