Space Station Engineering Design Issues

Space Station Freedom topics addressed include: general design issues; issues related to utilization and operations; issues related to systems requirements and design; and management issues relevant to design

Experimental characterization of photoemission from plasmonic nanogroove arrays

Metal photocathodes are an important source of high-brightness electron beams, ubiquitous in the operation of both large-scale accelerators and table-top microscopes. When the surface of a metal is nano-engineered with patterns on the order of the optical wavelength, it can lead to the excitation and confinement of surface plasmon polariton waves which drive nonlinear photoemission. In this work, we aim to evaluate gold plasmonic nanogrooves as a concept for producing bright electron beams for accelerators via nonlinear photoemission. We do this by first comparing their optical properties to numerical calculations from first principles to confirm our ability to fabricate these nanoscale structures. Their nonlinear photoemission yield is found by measuring emitted photocurrent as the intensity of their driving laser is varied. Finally, the mean transverse energy of this electron source is found using the solenoid scan technique. Our data demonstrate the ability of these cathodes to provide a tenfold enhancement in the efficiency of photoemission over flat metals driven with a linear process. We find that these cathodes are robust and capable of reaching sustained average currents over 100 nA at optical intensities larger than 2 GW/cm$^2$ with no degradation of performance. The emittance of the generated beam is found to be highly asymmetric, a fact we can explain with calculations involving the also asymmetric roughness of the patterned surface. These results demonstrate the use of nano-engineered surfaces as enhanced photocathodes, providing a robust, air-stable source of high average current electron beams with great potential for industrial and scientific applications.Comment: 9 pages, 9 figure

A Preliminary Comparison of Pilots\u27 Weather Minimums and Actual Decision-Making

Adverse weather conditions remain a leading contributing factor in general aviation accidents. In compromising situations, such as severe weather, pilots continue to make decisions, which endanger themselves, passengers, and the aircraft. Although technology and training have lowered the risks associated with poor decision making by aviators, they are often still faced with scenarios requiring split second judgments. A countermeasure to these risks is the use of personal weather minimums by pilots. The purpose of this study was to examine pilot’s decision-making and performance, while flying an instrument approach, under extreme conditions of low visibility and ceiling as based on their stated personal minimums. A sample of 35 flight students with instrument ratings was recruited from a large university flight program located in the southeastern part of the United States. Participants were asked a series of pre-test questions, including their personal weather minimums, and then flew an ILS instrument approach on an Elite-1000 flight simulator at the subject university. The findings indicate approximately eighty percent of participants, on average, descended nearly two-hundred feet below their stated personal minimums before aborting the approach. Furthermore, forty percent of them also flew twenty-five feet below the federal requirement (200 feet above ground level) before aborting the approach. These results are pertinent to advance our understanding of the many different variables affecting pilot’s decision making. Understanding these outcomes will progress our initiatives to ensure safer air travel, while improving pilot’s competence and their passenger’s confidence

A Radial Velocity Survey of the Cygnus OB2 Association

We conducted a radial velocity survey of the Cygnus OB2 Association over a 6 year (1999 - 2005) time interval to search for massive close binaries. During this time we obtained 1139 spectra on 146 OB stars to measure mean systemic radial velocities and radial velocity variations. We spectroscopically identify 73 new OB stars for the first time, the majority of which are likely to be Association members. Spectroscopic evidence is also presented for a B3Iae classification and temperature class variation (B3 - B8) on the order of 1 year for Cygnus OB2 No. 12. Calculations of the intial mass function with the current spectroscopic sample yield Gamma = -2.2 +/- 0.1. Of the 120 stars with the most reliable data, 36 are probable and 9 are possible single-lined spectroscopic binaries. We also identify 3 new and 8 candidate double-lined spectroscopic binaries. These data imply a lower limit on the massive binary fraction of 30% - 42%. The calculated velocity dispersion for Cygnus OB2 is 2.44 +/- km/s, which is typical of open clusters. No runaway OB stars were found.Comment: 56 pages, 23 figures, 5 tables, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journa

Atmospheric Neutrinos Can Make Beauty Strange

The large observed mixing angle in atmospheric neutrinos, coupled with Grand Unification, motivates the search for a large mixing between right-handed strange and bottom squarks. Such mixing does not appear in the standard CKM phenomenology, but may induce significant b to s transitions through gluino diagrams. Working in the mass eigenbasis, we show quantitatively that an order one effect on CP violation in B_d to phi+K_S is possible due to a large mixing between right-handed b and s squarks, while still satisfying constraints from b to s + gamma. We also include the effect of right- and left-handed bottom squark mixing proportional to m_b*mu*tan(beta). For small mu*tan(beta) there may also be a large effect in B_s mixing correlated with a large effect in B_d to phi+K_S, typically mixing effects are greater than 100 ps^{-1}, an unambiguous signal of new physics at Tevatron Run II.Comment: 32 pages, LaTeX. Corrected a factor of two mistake in the code; the possible impact on B -> phi K_s became larger. Figures and discussion updated, a reference adde

Needle & knot : binder boilerplate tied up

To lighten the burden of programming language mechanization, many approaches have been developed that tackle the substantial boilerplate which arises from variable binders. Unfortunately, the existing approaches are limited in scope. They typically do not support complex binding forms (such as multi-binders) that arise in more advanced languages, or they do not tackle the boilerplate due to mentioning variables and binders in relations. As a consequence, the human mechanizer is still unnecessarily burdened with binder boilerplate and discouraged from taking on richer languages. This paper presents Knot, a new approach that substantially extends the support for binder boilerplate. Knot is a highly expressive language for natural and concise specification of syntax with binders. Its meta-theory constructively guarantees the coverage of a considerable amount of binder boilerplate for well-formed specifications, including that for well-scoping of terms and context lookups. Knot also comes with a code generator, Needle, that specializes the generic boilerplate for convenient embedding in COQ and provides a tactic library for automatically discharging proof obligations that frequently come up in proofs of weakening and substitution lemmas of type-systems. Our evaluation shows, that Needle & Knot significantly reduce the size of language mechanizations (by 40% in our case study). Moreover, as far as we know, Knot enables the most concise mechanization of the POPLmark Challenge (1a + 2a) and is two-thirds the size of the next smallest. Finally, Knot allows us to mechanize for instance dependentlytyped languages, which is notoriously challenging because of dependent contexts and mutually-recursive sorts with variables