Magnesium-air batteries

Magnesium-air batteries with anodic solutions having pH range of 6 to

CO observations of the expanding envelope of IRC plus 10216

High-sensitivity emission profiles were observed for the transition of C12O16 and C13O16 towards IRC + or - 10216. It appears that the spherically symmetric uniform mass-outflow model proposed by Morris is necessary to describe the line profiles. The outflow appears to be slightly accelerated, having a velocity of 15 km/sec at the edges of the CO cloud, compared with 12 km/sec for the more centrally confined molecules

Toward Making the Constraint Hypersurface an Attractor in Free Evolution

There is an abundance of empirical evidence in the numerical relativity literature that the form in which the Einstein evolution equations are written plays a significant role in the lifetime of numerical simulations. This paper attempts to present a consistent framework for modifying any system of evolution equations by adding terms that push the evolution toward the constraint hypersurface. The method is, in principle, applicable to any system of partial differential equations which can be divided into evolution equations and constraints, although it is only demonstrated here through an application to the Maxwell equations.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, 1 table. Uses REVTeX

Circumstellar shells and mass loss rates: Clues to the evolution of S stars

It is the purpose of this paper to rediscuss the circumstellar properties of S stars and to put these properties in perspective with our current understanding of the evolutionary status of S stars, in particular the intrinsic/extrinsic dichotomy. Accordingly, an extensive data set probing the circumstellar environment of S stars (IRAS flux densities, maser emission, CO rotational lines) has been collected and critically evaluated. This data set combines new observations (9 stars have been observed in the CO J=2-1 line and 3 in the CO J=3-2 line, with four new detections) with existing material (all CO and maser observations of S stars published in the literature). The IRAS flux densities of S stars have been re-evaluated by co-adding the individual scans, in order to better handle the intrinsic variability of these stars in the IRAS bands, and possible contamination by Galactic cirrus. Mass loss rates or upper limits have been derived for all S stars observed in the CO rotational lines, and range from < 2 10^{-8} Msun y^{-1} for extrinsic S stars to 10^{-5} Msun y^{-1}. These mass-loss rates correlate well with the K - [12] color index, which probes the dust loss rate, provided that the mass loss rate be larger than 10^{-8} Msun~y^{-1}. Small mass-loss rates are found for extrinsic S stars, consistent with their not being so evolved (RGB or Early-AGB) as the Tc-rich S stars. This result does not support the claim often made in relation with symbiotic stars that binarity strongly enhances the mass-loss rate.Comment: Astronomy & Astrophysics Suppl., 40 pages, 22 figures, 6 tables (LaTeX). Also available at: http://astro.ulb.ac.be/Htm/ps.ht

The Close Binary Fraction of Dwarf M Stars

We describe a search for close spectroscopic dwarf M star binaries using data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey to address the question of the rate of occurrence of multiplicity in M dwarfs. We use a template-fitting technique to measure radial velocities from 145,888 individual spectra obtained for a magnitude-limited sample of 39,543 M dwarfs. Typically, the three or four spectra observed for each star are separated in time by less than four hours, but for ~17% of the stars, the individual observations span more than two days. In these cases we are sensitive to large-amplitude radial velocity variations on timescales comparable to the separation between the observations. We use a control sample of objects having observations taken within a four-hour period to make an empirical estimate of the underlying radial velocity error distribution and simulate our detection efficiency for a wide range of binary star systems. We find the frequency of binaries among the dwarf M stars with a < 0.4 AU to be 3%-4%. Comparison with other samples of binary stars demonstrates that the close binary fraction, like the total binary fraction, is an increasing function of primary mass

Active clearance control system for a turbomachine

An axial compressor is provided with a cooling air manifold surrounding a portion of the shroud, and means for bleeding air from the compressor to the manifold for selectively flowing it in a modulating manner axially along the outer side of the stator/shroud to cool and shrink it during steady state operating conditions so as to obtain minimum shroud/rotor clearance conditions. Provision is also made to selectively divert the flow of cooling air from the manifold during transient periods of operation so as to alter the thermal growth or shrink rate of the stator/shroud and result in adequate clearance with the compressor rotor