144 research outputs found
A Low Noise, Microprocessor-Controlled, Internally Digitizing Rotating-Vane Electric Field Mill for Airborne Platforms
This paper reports on a new generation of aircraft-based rotating-vane style electric field mills designed and built at NASA's Marshall Spaceflight Center. The mills have individual microprocessors that digitize the electric field signal at the mill and respond to commands from the data system computer. The mills are very sensitive (1 V/m per bit), have a wide dynamic range (115 dB), and are very low noise (+/-1 LSB). Mounted on an aircraft, these mills can measure fields from +/-1 V/m to +/-500 kV/m. Once-per-second commanding from the data collection computer to each mill allows for precise timing and synchronization. The mills can also be commanded to execute a self-calibration in flight, which is done periodically to monitor the status and health of each mill
Local structure study of In_xGa_(1-x)As semiconductor alloys using High Energy Synchrotron X-ray Diffraction
Nearest and higher neighbor distances as well as bond length distributions
(static and thermal) of the In_xGa_(1-x)As (0<x<1) semiconductor alloys have
been obtained from high real-space resolution atomic pair distribution
functions (PDFs). Using this structural information, we modeled the local
atomic displacements in In_xGa_(1-x)As alloys. From a supercell model based on
the Kirkwood potential, we obtained 3-D As and (In,Ga) ensemble averaged
probability distributions. This clearly shows that As atom displacements are
highly directional and can be represented as a combination of and
displacements. Examination of the Kirkwood model indicates that the standard
deviation (sigma) of the static disorder on the (In,Ga) sublattice is around
60% of the value on the As sublattice and the (In,Ga) atomic displacements are
much more isotropic than those on the As sublattice. The single crystal diffuse
scattering calculated from the Kirkwood model shows that atomic displacements
are most strongly correlated along directions.Comment: 10 pages, 12 figure
Exchange Effects in the Invar Hardening: as a test case
An increase of the critical resolved shear stress of Invar alloys (Invar
hardening) with a lowering temperature is explained. The effect is caused by a
growth of the exchange interaction between dangling -electron states of
dislocation cores and paramagnetic obstacles (e.g., Ni atoms in FeNi alloys)
which occurs below the Curie temperature. The spins of the two electrons align
along the magnetization due to the exchange interaction with the surrounding
atoms of the ferromagnetic. The exchange interaction between the dislocations
and obstacles is enhanced in Invars due to a strong growth of the magnetic
moments of atoms under the action of elastic strains near the dislocation
cores. Parameters characterizing the exchange interaction are determined for
the case of the FeNi Invar. The influence of the internal
magnetic field on the dislocation detachment from the obstacles is taken into
account. The obtained temperature dependence of the critical resolved shear
stress in the FeNi Invar agrees well with the available
experimental data. Experiments facilitating a further check of the theoretical
model are suggested.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figure
Polarization constraints on the X-ray corona in Seyfert Galaxies: MCG-05-23-16
We report on the first observation of a radio-quiet Active Galactic Nucleus
(AGN) using polarized X-rays: the Seyfert 1.9 galaxy MCG-05-23-16. This source
was pointed with the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) starting on May
14, 2022 for a net observing time of 486 ks, simultaneously with XMM-Newton (58
ks) and NuSTAR (83 ks). A polarization degree smaller than (at the
99% c.l.) is derived in the 2-8 keV energy range, where emission is dominated
by the primary component ascribed to the hot corona. The broad-band spectrum,
inferred from a simultaneous fit to the IXPE, NuSTAR, and XMM-Newton data, is
well reproduced by a power law with photon index and a
high-energy cutoff keV. A comparison with Monte Carlo
simulations shows that a lamp-post and a conical geometry of the corona are
consistent with the observed upper limit, a slab geometry is allowed only if
the inclination angle of the system is less than 50.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, 1 table. Submitted to MNRAS Letter
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