21,302 research outputs found
Feedback local optimality principle applied to rocket vertical landing VTVL
Vertical landing is becoming popular in the last fifteen years, a technology known under the acronym VTVL, Vertical Takeoff and Vertical Landing [1,2]. The interest in such landing technology is dictated by possible cost reductions [3,4], that impose spaceship’s recycling. The rockets are not generally de- signed to perform landing operations, rather their design is aimed at takeoff operations, guaranteeing a very high forward acceleration to gain the velocity needed to escape the gravitational force. In this paper a new control method based on Feedback Local Optimality Principle, named FLOP is applied to the rocket landing problem. The FLOP belongs to a special class of optimal controllers, developed by the mechatronic and vehicle dynamics lab of Sapienza, named Variational Feedback Controllers - VFC, that are part of an ongoing research and are recently applied in different field: nonlinear system [5], marine and terrestrial autonomous vehicles [6,7,8], multi agents interactions and vibration control [9, 10]. The paper is devoted to show the robustness of the nonlinear controlled system, comparing the performances with the LQR, one of the most acknowledged methods in optimal control
Dynamical Self-assembly during Colloidal Droplet Evaporation Studied by in situ Small Angle X-ray Scattering
The nucleation and growth kinetics of highly ordered nanocrystal
superlattices during the evaporation of nanocrystal colloidal droplets was
elucidated by in situ time resolved small-angle x-ray scattering. We
demonstrated for the first time that evaporation kinetics can affect the
dimensionality of the superlattices. The formation of two-dimensional
nanocrystal superlattices at the liquid-air interface of the droplet has an
exponential growth kinetics that originates from interface "crushing".Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Dust-grain processing in circumbinary discs around evolved binaries. The RV Tauri spectral twins RU Cen and AC Her
Context: We study the structure and evolution of circumstellar discs around
evolved binaries and their impact on the evolution of the central system. Aims:
To study in detail the binary nature of RUCen and ACHer, as well as the
structure and mineralogy of the circumstellar environment. Methods: We combine
multi-wavelength observations with a 2D radiative transfer study. Our radial
velocity program studies the central stars, while our Spitzer spectra and
broad-band SEDs are used to constrain mineralogy, grain sizes and physical
structure of the circumstellar environment. Results: We determine the orbital
elements of RUCen showing that the orbit is highly eccentric with a rather long
period of 1500 days. The infrared spectra of both objects are very similar and
the spectral dust features are dominated by Mg-rich crystalline silicates. The
small peak-to-continuum ratios are interpreted as being due to large grains.
Our model contains two components with a cold midplain dominated by large
grains, and the near- and mid-IR which is dominated by the emission of smaller
silicates. The infrared excess is well modelled assuming a hydrostatic passive
irradiated disc. The profile-fitting of the dust resonances shows that the
grains must be very irregular. Conclusions: These two prototypical RVTauri
pulsators with circumstellar dust are binaries where the dust is trapped in a
stable disc. The mineralogy and grain sizes show that the dust is highly
processed, both in crystallinity and grain size. The cool crystals show that
either radial mixing is very efficient and/or that the thermal history at grain
formation has been very different from that in outflows. The physical processes
governing the structure of these discs are similar to those observed in
protoplanetary discs around young stellar objects.Comment: 11 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication by A&
The lunar phases of dust grains orbiting Fomalhaut
Optical images of the nearby star Fomalhaut show a ring of dust orbiting the
central star. This dust is in many respects expected to be similar to the
zodiacal dust in the solar system. The ring displays a clear brightness
asymmetry, attributed to asymmetric scattering of the central starlight by the
circumstellar dust grains. Recent measurements show that the bright side of the
Fomalhaut ring is oriented away from us. This implies that the grains in this
system scatter most of the light in the backward direction, in sharp contrast
to the forward-scattering nature of the grains in the solar system. In this
letter, we show that grains considerably larger than those dominating the solar
system zodiacal dust cloud provide a natural explanation for the apparent
backward scattering behavior. In fact, we see the phases of the dust grains in
the same way as we can observe the phases of the Moon and other large solar
system bodies. We outline how the theory of the scattering behavior of
planetesimals can be used to explain the Fomalhaut dust properties. This
indicates that the Fomalhaut dust ring is dominated by very large grains. The
material orbiting Fomalhaut, which is at the transition between dust and
planetesimals, can, with respect to their optical behavior, best be described
as micro-asteroids.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&
Spectroscopic diagnostic for the mineralogy of large dust grains
We examine the thermal infrared spectra of large dust grains of different
chemical composition and mineralogy. Strong resonances in the optical
properties result in detectable spectral structure even when the grain is much
larger than the wavelength at which it radiates. We apply this to the thermal
infrared spectra of compact amorphous and crystalline silicates. The weak
resonances of amorphous silicates at 9.7 and 18 micron virtually disappear for
grains larger than about 10 micron. In contrast, the strong resonances of
crystalline silicates produce emission dips in the infrared spectra of large
grains; these emission dips are shifted in wavelength compared to the emission
peaks commonly seen in small crystalline silicate grains. We discuss the effect
of a fluffy or compact grain structure on the infrared emission spectra of
large grains, and apply our theory to the dust shell surrounding Vega.Comment: Submitted to A&A Letter
The composition and size distribution of the dust in the coma of comet Hale-Bopp
We discuss the composition and size distribution of the dust in the coma of
comet Hale-Bopp. We do this by fitting simultaneously the infrared emission
spectrum measured by the infrared space observatory (ISO) and the measured
degree of linear polarization of scattered light at various phase angles and 12
different wavelengths. The effects of particle shape on the modeled optical
properties of the dust grains are taken into account. We constrain our fit by
forcing the abundances of the major rock forming chemical elements to be solar.
The infrared spectrum at long wavelengths reveals that large grains are needed
in order to fit the spectral slope. The size and shape distribution we employ
allows us to estimate the sizes of the crystalline silicates. The ratios of the
strength of various forsterite features show that the crystalline silicate
grains in Hale-Bopp must be submicron sized. We exclude the presence of large
crystalline silicate grains in the coma. Because of this lack of large
crystalline grains combined with the fact that we do need large amorphous
grains to fit the emission spectrum at long wavelengths, we need only
approximately 4% of crystalline silicates by mass. After correcting for
possible hidden crystalline material included in large amorphous grains, our
best estimate of the total mass fraction of crystalline material is
approximately 7.5%, significantly lower than deduced in previous studies in
which the typical derived crystallinity is 20-30%. The implications of this on
the possible origin and evolution of the comet are discussed. The crystallinity
we observe in Hale-Bopp is consistent with the production of crystalline
silicates in the inner solar system by thermal annealing and subsequent radial
mixing to the comet forming region.Comment: Accepted for publication in Icaru
SU(2) gluon propagator on a coarse anisotropic lattice
We calculated the SU(2) gluon propagator in Landau gauge on an anisotropic
coarse lattice with the improved action. The standard and the improved scheme
are used to fix the gauge in this work. Even on the coarse lattice the lattice
gluon propagator can be well described by a function of the continuous
momentum. The effect of the improved gauge fixing scheme is found not to be
apparent. Based on the Marenzoni's model, the mass scale and the anomalous
dimension are extracted and can be reasonably extrapolated to the continuum
limit with the values and . We also extract the
physical anisotropy from the gluon propagator due to the explicit
dependence of the gluon propagator.Comment: LaTeX, 14 pages including 4 ps figure
The color dependent morphology of the post-AGB star HD161796
Context. Many protoplanetary nebulae show strong asymmetries in their
surrounding shell, pointing to asymmetries during the mass loss phase.
Questions concerning the origin and the onset of deviations from spherical
symmetry are important for our understanding of the evolution of these objects.
Here we focus on the circumstellar shell of the post-AGB star HD 161796. Aims.
We aim at detecting signatures of an aspherical outflow, as well as to derive
the properties of it. Methods. We use the imaging polarimeter ExPo (the extreme
polarimeter), a visitor instrument at the William Herschel Telescope, to
accurately image the dust shell surrounding HD 161796 in various wavelength
filters. Imaging polarimetry allows us to separate the faint, polarized, light
from circumstellar material from the bright, unpolarized, light from the
central star. Results. The shell around HD 161796 is highly aspherical. A clear
signature of an equatorial density enhancement can be seen. This structure is
optically thick at short wavelengths and changes its appearance to optically
thin at longer wavelengths. In the classification of the two different
appearances of planetary nebulae from HST images it changes from being
classified as DUPLEX at short wavelengths to SOLE at longer wavelengths. This
strengthens the interpretation that these two appearances are manifestations of
the same physical structure. Furthermore, we find that the central star is
hotter than often assumed and the relatively high observed reddening is due to
circumstellar rather than interstellar extinction.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&
The problematically short superwind of OH/IR stars - Probing the outflow with the 69 {\mu}m spectral band of forsterite
Spectra of OH/IR stars show prominent spectral bands of crystalline olivine
(MgFeSiO). To learn more about the timescale of the
outflows of OH/IR stars, we study the spectral band of crystalline olivine at
69 {\mu}m. The 69 {\mu}m band is of interest because its width and peak
wavelength position are sensitive to the grain temperature and to the exact
composition of the crystalline olivine. With Herschel/PACS, we observed the 69
{\mu}m band in the outflow of 14 OH/IR stars. By comparing the crystalline
olivine features of our sample with those of model spectra, we determined the
size of the outflow and its crystalline olivine abundance.
The temperature indicated by the observed 69 {\mu}m bands can only be
reproduced by models with a geometrically compact superwind
( 2500 AU = 1400 R).This means that the superwind
started less than 1200 years ago (assuming an outflow velocity of 10 km/s). The
small amount of mass lost in one superwind and the high progenitor mass of the
OH/IR stars introduce a mass loss and thus evolutionary problem for these
objects, which has not yet been understood.Comment: Accepted by A&
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