Automated pilot advisory system test and evaluation at Manassas Municipal Airport

In cooperation with the Federal Aviation Administration, NASA developed an experimental automated pilot advisory system (APAS) to provide airport and air traffic advisories at high density uncontrolled airports. The APAS concept is to utilize low cost automated systems to provide the necessary information for pilots to more safely plan and execute approach and landing at uncontrolled high density airports. The system is designed to be a natural extension of the procedural visual flight rules system used at uncontrolled airports and, as an advisory system, will enhance the "see-and-be-seen" rule and an evaluation of the APAS concept was obtained from pilots who used the system at the Manassas, Virginia airport. These evaluations and the system performance are presented

Avionics test bed development plan

The plan is for a facility for the early investigation and evaluation of new concepts for the control of large space structures, orbiter attached flex body experiments, and orbiter enhancements. This plan outlines a distributed data processing facility that will utilize the current JSC laboratory resources for the test bed development. The future studies required for implementation, the management system for project control, and the baseline system configuration are described

Utilizing ERTS imagery to detect plant diseases and nutrient deficiencies, soil types and soil moisture levels

The author has identified the following significant results. ERTS-1 imagery may be used to delineate soil associations. It does have the capacity to divide soils into groups such that their land use and management would be similar. It offers definite potential for making grass flood-plain, wetland, river shoreline, and land use change surveys. Production of volume strata and forest type from the two usable bands of ERTS-1 imagery were of questionable value. No imagery was received for evaluation during the time of year when maine dwarf mosaic virus and southern corn leaf blight were active

Thermodynamic properties of Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8 calculated from the electronic dispersion

The electronic dispersion for Bi2Sr2CaCu2O(8+d) has been determined from angle-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy (ARPES). From this dispersion we calculate the entropy and superfluid density. Even with no adjustable parameters we obtain an exceptional match with experimental data across the entire phase diagram, thus indirectly confirming both the ARPES and thermodynamic data. The van Hove singularity is crossed in the overdoped region giving a distinctive linear-in-T temperature dependence in the superfluid density there.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Physical Review Letter

BGK electron solitary waves: 1D and 3D

International audienceThis paper presents new results for 1D BGK electron solitary wave (phase-space electron hole) solutions and, based on the new results, extends the solutions to include the 3D electrical interaction (E ~ 1/r 2) of charged particles. Our approach for extending to 3D is to solve the nonlinear 3D Poisson and 1D Vlasov equations based on a key feature of 1D electron hole (EH) solutions; the positive core of an EH is screened by electrons trapped inside the potential energy trough. This feature has not been considered in previous studies. We illustrate this key feature using an analytical model and argue that the feature is independent of any specific model. We then construct azimuthally symmetric EH solutions under conditions where electrons are highly field-aligned and ions form a uniform background along the magnetic field. Our results indicate that, for a single humped electric potential, the parallel cut of the perpendicular component of the electric field (E?) is unipolar and that of the parallel component (E||) bipolar, reproducing the multi-dimensional features of the solitary waves observed by the FAST satellite. Our analytical solutions presented in this article capture the 3D electric interaction and the observed features of (E|| ) and E?. The solutions predict a dependence of the parallel width-amplitude relation on the perpendicular size of EHs. This dependence can be used in conjunction with experimental data to yield an estimate of the typical perpendicular size of observed EHs; this provides important information on the perpendicular span of the source region as well as on how much electrostatic energy is transported by the solitary waves

Extracting joint weak values with local, single-particle measurements

Weak measurement is a new technique which allows one to describe the evolution of postselected quantum systems. It appears to be useful for resolving a variety of thorny quantum paradoxes, particularly when used to study properties of pairs of particles. Unfortunately, such nonlocal or joint observables often prove difficult to measure weakly in practice (for instance, in optics -- a common testing ground for this technique -- strong photon-photon interactions would be needed). Here we derive a general, experimentally feasible, method for extracting these values from correlations between single-particle observables.Comment: 6 page

Weak Measurements with Arbitrary Pointer States

The exact conditions on valid pointer states for weak measurements are derived. It is demonstrated that weak measurements can be performed with any pointer state with vanishing probability current density. This condition is found both for weak measurements of noncommuting observables and for $c$-number observables. In addition, the interaction between pointer and object must be sufficiently weak. There is no restriction on the purity of the pointer state. For example, a thermal pointer state is fully valid.Comment: 4 page