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

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

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

Chiral symmetry, strangeness and resonances

We review the important role played by the chiral SU(3) symmetry in predicting the properties of antikaons and hyperon resonances in cold nuclear matter. Objects of crucial importance are the meson-baryon scattering amplitudes obtained within the chiral coupled-channel effective field theory. The formation of baryon resonances as implied by chiral coupled-channel dynamics is discussed. Results for antikaon and hyperon-resonance spectral functions are presented for isospin symmetric and asymmetric matter.Comment: invited talk presented by M.F.M.L. at the 18th Nishinomiya Yukawa Memorial Symposium, 21 pages, 12 figure