989 research outputs found
Possible Contribution to Electron and Positron Fluxes from Pulsars and their Nebulae
The AMS-02 experiment confirms the excess of positrons in cosmic rays (CRs)
for energy above 10 GeV with respect to the secondary production of positrons
in the interstellar medium. This is interpreted as evidence of the existence of
a primary source of these particles. Possible candidates are dark matter or
astrophysical sources. In this work we discuss the possible contribution due to
pulsars and their nebulae. Our key assumption is that the primary spectrum of
electrons and positrons at the source is the same of the well known photon
spectrum observed from gamma-rays telescopes. Using a diffusion model in the
Galaxy we propagate the source spectra up to the Solar System. We compare our
results with the recent experiments and with the LIS modelComment: To appear in the Proceedings of the 14th ICATPP Conference, Villa
Olmo 23-27 September 201
Pulsar Wind Nebulae as a source of the observed electron and positron excess at high energy: the case of Vela-X
We investigate, in terms of production from pulsars and their nebulae, the
cosmic ray positron and electron fluxes above GeV, observed by the
AMS-02 experiment up to 1 TeV. We concentrate on the Vela-X case. Starting from
the gamma-ray photon spectrum of the source, generated via synchrotron and
inverse Compton processes, we estimated the electron and positron injection
spectra. Several features are fixed from observations of Vela-X and unknown
parameters are borrowed from the Crab nebula. The particle spectra produced in
the pulsar wind nebula are then propagated up to the Solar System, using a
diffusion model. Differently from previous works, the omnidirectional intensity
excess for electrons and positrons is obtained as a difference between the
AMS-02 data and the corresponding local interstellar spectrum. An equal amount
of electron and positron excess is observed and we interpreted this excess
(above 100 GeV in the AMS-02 data) as a supply coming from Vela-X. The
particle contribution is consistent with models predicting the gamma-ray
emission at the source. The input of a few more young pulsars is also allowed,
while below 100 GeV more aged pulsars could be the main contributors.Comment: Accepted for publication in Journal of High Energy Astrophysics
(2015
NIEL Dose Dependence for Solar Cells Irradiated with Electrons and Protons
The investigation of solar cells degradation and the prediction of its
end-of-life performance is of primary importance in the preparation of a space
mission. In the present work, we investigate the reduction of solar-cells'
maximum power resulting from irradiations with electrons and protons. Both GaAs
single junction and GaInP/GaAs/Ge triple junction solar cells were studied. The
results obtained indicate how i) the dominant radiation damaging mechanism is
due to atomic displacements, ii) the relative maximum power degradation is
almost independent of the type of incoming particle, i.e., iii) to a first
approximation, the fitted semi-empirical function expressing the decrease of
maximum power depends only on the absorbed NIEL dose, and iv) the actual
displacement threshold energy value (Ed=21 eV) accounts for annealing
treatments, mostly due to self-annealing induced effects. Thus, for a given
type of solar cell, a unique maximum power degradation curve can be determined
as a function of the absorbed NIEL dose. The latter expression allows one to
predict the performance of those solar cells in space radiation environment.Comment: To appear on the Proceedings of the 13th ICATPP Conference on
Astroparticle, Particle, Space Physics and Detectors for Physics
Applications, Villa Olmo (Como, Italy), 23--27 October, 2013, to be published
by World Scientific (Singapore
Optimal-constraint lexicons for requirements specifications
Constrained Natural Languages (CNLs) are becoming an increasingly popular way of writing technical documents such as requirements specifications. This is because CNLs aim to reduce the ambiguity inherent within natural languages, whilst maintaining their readability and expressiveness. The design of existing CNLs appears to be unfocused towards achieving specific quality outcomes, in that the majority of lexical selections have been based upon lexicographer preferences rather than an optimum trade-off between quality factors such as ambiguity, readability, expressiveness, and lexical magnitude. In this paper we introduce the concept of 'replaceability' as a way of identifying the lexical redundancy inherent within a sample of requirements. Our novel and practical approach uses Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques to enable us to make dynamic trade-offs between quality factors to optimise the resultant CNL. We also challenge the concept of a CNL being a one-dimensional static language, and demonstrate that our optimal-constraint process results in a CNL that can adapt to a changing domain while maintaining its expressiveness. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007
Nuclear and Non-Ionizing Energy-Loss for Coulomb Scattered Particles from Low Energy up to Relativistic Regime in Space Radiation Environment
In the space environment, instruments onboard of spacecrafts can be affected
by displacement damage due to radiation. The differential scattering cross
section for screened nucleus--nucleus interactions - i.e., including the
effects due to screened Coulomb nuclear fields -, nuclear stopping powers and
non-ionization energy losses are treated from about 50 keV/nucleon up to
relativistic energies.Comment: Accepted for publication in the Proceedings of the ICATPP Conference
on Cosmic Rays for Particle and Astroparticle Physics, Villa Olmo (Como,
Italy), 7--8 October, 2010, to be published by World Scientifi
Antiproton modulation in the Heliosphere and AMS-02 antiproton over proton ratio prediction
We implemented a quasi time-dependent 2D stochastic model of solar modulation
describing the transport of cosmic rays (CR) in the heliosphere. Our code can
modulate the Local Interstellar Spectrum (LIS) of a generic charged particle
(light cosmic ions and electrons), calculating the spectrum at 1AU. Several
measurements of CR antiparticles have been performed. Here we focused our
attention on the CR antiproton component and the antiproton over proton ratio.
We show that our model, using the same heliospheric parameters for both
particles, fit the observed anti-p/p ratio. We show a good agreement with
BESS-97 and PAMELA data and make a prediction for the AMS-02 experiment
Magnetospheric transmission function approach to disentangle primary from secondary cosmic ray fluxes in the penumbra region
[1] The AMS-01 observations (in June 1998, on board the space shuttle orbiter Discovery) have shown the presence of primary (PCR) and secondary (SCR) cosmic rays (most of them protons) at a low Earth orbit (about 400 km altitude). The SCRs are mostly created in interactions with the atmosphere by fast PCRs and can be trapped or become reentrant albedo particles. Some of them seem to be sufficiently energetic to populate the "penumbra region" above the local geomagnetic cutoff rigidity. A backtracking procedure of simulated protons entering the AMS-01 spectrometer has provided the fraction of allowed (and hence forbidden) trajectories of PCRs. Consequently, it has allowed the determination of the so-called transmission function (TF) which is able to describe the properties of the PCR transport from the Earth's magnetopause (i.e., the primary spectrum at 1 AU) to the atmosphere and finally the fluxes of the PCRs in the ten geomagnetic regions for AMS-01 observations. In the penumbra regions, the observed spectra of the AMS-01 geomagnetic regions have been found to be larger than those predicted for the PCRs in the penumbra region by means of the TF, i.e., some SCRs (mainly reentrant albedo protons) are also found to populate the rigidity regions above the local geomagnetic cutoff rigidity. The fraction of the secondary to overall particle flux in the penumbra region increases gradually as the geomagnetic latitude increases
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