23,447 research outputs found
Scintillation Caustics in Planetary Occultation Light Curves
We revisit the GSC5249-01240 light curve obtained during its occultation by
Saturn's North polar region. In addition to refractive scintillations, the
power spectrum of intensity fluctuations shows an enhancement of power between
refractive and diffractive regimes. We identify this excess power as due to
high amplitude spikes in the light curve and suggest that these spikes are due
to caustics associated with ray crossing situations. The flux variation in
individual spikes follows the expected caustic behavior, including diffraction
fringes which we have observed for the first time in a planetary occultation
light curve. The presence of caustics in scintillation light curves require an
inner scale cut off to the power spectrum of underlying density fluctuations
associated with turbulence. Another possibility is the presence of gravity
waves in the atmosphere. While occultation light curves previously showed the
existence of refractive scintillations, a combination of small projected
stellar size and a low relative velocity during the event have allowed us to
identify caustics in this occultation. This has led us to re-examine previous
data sets, in which we have also found likely examples of caustics.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures; ApJL submitte
Poverty and inequality in Britain: 2006
This Commentary provides an update on trends in poverty and inequality in Great Britain, based on the latest official government statistics. It uses the same approach to measuring incomes and poverty in Great Britain as the government employs in its Households Below Average Income (HBAI) publication
Excess mortality during heat waves in Ireland
Ireland is not known for having extreme high temperatures, with values above 30C uncommon. Ireland has significant excess winter mortality compared to summer. The objective of this study is to estimate the impact of nation-wide heat waves on the total, cardiovascular and respiratory relationship, for the period 1981â2003, to determine if there are any periods of excess summer mortality
Helical Magnetorotational Instability in Magnetized Taylor-Couette Flow
Hollerbach and Rudiger have reported a new type of magnetorotational
instability (MRI) in magnetized Taylor-Couette flow in the presence of combined
axial and azimuthal magnetic fields. The salient advantage of this "helical''
MRI (HMRI) is that marginal instability occurs at arbitrarily low magnetic
Reynolds and Lundquist numbers, suggesting that HMRI might be easier to realize
than standard MRI (axial field only). We confirm their results, calculate HMRI
growth rates, and show that in the resistive limit, HMRI is a weakly
destabilized inertial oscillation propagating in a unique direction along the
axis. But we report other features of HMRI that make it less attractive for
experiments and for resistive astrophysical disks. Growth rates are small and
require large axial currents. More fundamentally, instability of highly
resistive flow is peculiar to infinitely long or periodic cylinders: finite
cylinders with insulating endcaps are shown to be stable in this limit. Also,
keplerian rotation profiles are stable in the resistive limit regardless of
axial boundary conditions. Nevertheless, the addition of toroidal field lowers
thresholds for instability even in finite cylinders.Comment: 16 pages, 2 figures, 1 table, submitted to PR
Storm severity detection (RF)
Measurement of lightning location data which occur together with continental thunderstorms and hurricanes was examined, and a second phase linear interferometer was deployed. Electrical emission originating from tropical storms in the Gulf of Mexico were monitored. The time span between hurricane ALLEN (10 August 1980) and hurricane ALICIA (18 August 1983) represents the longest period that the United States has gone without hurricane landfall. Both systems were active and data were acquired during the landfall period of hurricane ALICIA
Microarcsecond Radio Imaging using Earth Orbit Synthesis
The observed interstellar scintillation pattern of an intra-day variable
radio source is influenced by its source structure. If the velocity of the
interstellar medium responsible for the scattering is comparable to the
earth's, the vector sum of these allows an observer to probe the scintillation
pattern of a source in two dimensions and, in turn, to probe two-dimensional
source structure on scales comparable to the angular scale of the scintillation
pattern, typically as for weak scattering. We review the theory on
the extraction of an ``image'' from the scintillation properties of a source,
and show how earth's orbital motion changes a source's observed scintillation
properties during the course of a year. The imaging process, which we call
Earth Orbit Synthesis, requires measurements of the statistical properties of
the scintillations at epochs spread throughout the course of a year.Comment: ApJ in press. 25 pages, 7 fig
Radiobiological studies with monoenergetic neutrons
The Radiological Research Accelerator Facility (RARAF) has the capability of
producing essentially monoenergetic neutron beams, ranging in energy from 16.4 MeV
down to 220 keV. In addition, two lower energy neutron beams are available which
consist of a wide spectrum of energies and are described as the 110 keV and 60 keV
spectra. Seedlings of Vicia faba have been used to measure the oxygen enhancement
ratio (OER) and the relative biological effectiveness (RBE) of each of these neutron
beams. The OER decreases as the neutron energy is reduced between 15.4 MeV and
220 keV, but does not appear to decrease further for lower energy neutrons. RBE increases
as the neutron energy is reduced from 15.4 AleV to 440 keV; the curve then
goes through a maximum at around 350 keV, and for lower energies the RBE falls again
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