Outer planet studies

The tasks of this grant include observational studies of the composition, structure and variability of planetary and satellite atmospheres, and the investigation of the problems associated with the fundamental calibration of these data. These studies are essential to providing ground-truth support for observations of the solar system by NASA's missions, including the VOYAGER and GALILEO spacecraft, the Hubble Space Telescope, and the proposed CRAF-Cassini mission. Complementary spectroscopic observations of comets were added in BY88 to support NASA's cometary program goals of the CRAF-Cassini mission. A very modest laboratory effort is also maintained to provide essential data needed by these observational programs, which may be otherwise unavailable. Many accomplishments during BY88 include: (1) discovery of HDO in the spectrum of Mars and the first determination of the D/H ratio in its atmosphere; (2) completion and publication of the study of CH3D in the spectrum of Titan and a determination of the mixing ratio in its atmosphere; and, completion of observations of CH3D in the spectrum of Neptune and a preliminary analysis of the CH3D/CH4 mixing ratio in its atmosphere

Outer planet studies

The focus is on observational studies of the composition, structure, and variability of planetary, satellite, and cometary atmospheres. The techniques used include spectroscopy, spectrophotometry, and photometric imaging in the spectral region from 3000 A to 5 microns. In addition to carrying out basic research into the origin, evolution, and current state of the solar system, these studies provide ground-truth support for observations of the solar system by NASA's missions, including the Voyager and Galileo Spacecraft, the Hubble Space Telescope, and the proposed Comet Rendezvous Asteroid Flyby (CRAF)-Cassini Mission

Satisfiability of CTL* with constraints

We show that satisfiability for CTL* with equality-, order-, and modulo-constraints over Z is decidable. Previously, decidability was only known for certain fragments of CTL*, e.g., the existential and positive fragments and EF.Comment: To appear at Concur 201

Chiral SU(3) Symmetry and Strangeness

In this talk we review recent progress on the systematic evaluation of the kaon and antikaon spectral functions in dense nuclear matter based on a chiral SU(3) description of the low-energy pion-, kaon- and antikaon-nucleon scattering data.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures, invited talk given by M.F.M.L. at the SQM2001 conferenc

Kaon and antikaon properties in cold nuclear medium

We present results of a self-consistent calculation for the kaon and antikaon spectral functions in cold nuclear matter, using as input the kaon-nucleon and antikaon-nucleon scattering amplitudes of the vacuum. We investigate the effect of in-medium pion dressing on the antikaon-nucleon scattering amplitudes and antikaon spectral function. We find the influence of pion dressing to be minor on the antikaon spectral function and limited on the hyperon resonances causing only a small additional broadening. An exception is the \Sigma(1690). At nuclear saturation density an attractive mass shift of about 20 MeV and width of about 130 MeV is obtained. The kaon shows a repulsive mass increase of 36 MeV and a small width of the quasiparticle peak at saturation density.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Heavy Ion Physic

Self-consistent antikaon dynamics in isospin-asymmetric nuclear medium

We investigate properties of antikaons and hyperon resonances in isospin-asymmetric nuclear medium, using a self-consistent, covariant scheme based on vacuum antikaon-nucleon scattering amplitude.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures, uses budapest.sty (included);to be published in the Proceedings of the Budapest'2002 Workshop on Quark and Hadron Dynamics, Budapest, Hungary, 3-7 March 200