Laboratory simulations of comet surfaces

The geometric albedos of frozen mixtures consisting of colloidal silica and carbon black mixed with water have been measured over the wavelength range of 400 to 800 nm to compare with recent observations of Comet Halley. Data were obtained as a function of sample temperature, scattering angle, and wavelength as the frozen samples warmed to 0 C in vacuum. Scattering from water ice, flat black paint, and Kodak white reflectance paint were also measured. Lab simulations show that the change in albedo of the samples show that sublimation of the water from the sample surface can have a major effect on the albedo of a particle/ice sample in the visible. Such processing may have a marked effect on the visible albedo of comet surfaces as well

Did Earth-approaching asteroids 3551, 3908, or 4055 produce meteorites?

Orbital integrations show that Amor asteroid 3908 could have ejected one out of four plausible groups of meteorite producing fireballs during a collision in the asteroid belt. It was suggested by others that such a collision may also have split asteroids 3551 and 3908. A member of this group of fireballs is listed as one of the better possibilities for recovery

Fractional diffusion emulates a human mobility network during a simulated disease outbreak

From footpaths to flight routes, human mobility networks facilitate the spread of communicable diseases. Control and elimination efforts depend on characterizing these networks in terms of connections and flux rates of individuals between contact nodes. In some cases, transport can be parameterized with gravity-type models or approximated by a diffusive random walk. As a alternative, we have isolated intranational commercial air traffic as a case study for the utility of non-diffusive, heavy-tailed transport models. We implemented new stochastic simulations of a prototypical influenza-like infection, focusing on the dense, highly-connected United States air travel network. We show that mobility on this network can be described mainly by a power law, in agreement with previous studies. Remarkably, we find that the global evolution of an outbreak on this network is accurately reproduced by a two-parameter space-fractional diffusion equation, such that those parameters are determined by the air travel network.Comment: 26 pages, 4 figure

Scattering by ensembles of small particles experiment, theory and application

A hypothetical self consistent picture of evolution of prestellar intertellar dust through a comet phase leads to predictions about the composition of the circum-solar dust cloud. Scattering properties of thus resulting conglomerates with a bird's-nest type of structure are investigated using a micro-wave analogue technique. Approximate theoretical methods of general interest are developed which compared favorably with the experimental results. The principal features of scattering of visible radiation by zodiacal light particles are reasonably reproduced. A component which is suggestive of (ALPHA)-meteoroids is also predicted

Collisional and dynamic evolution of dust from the asteroid belt

The size and spatial distribution of collisional debris from main belt asteroids is modeled over a 10 million year period. The model dust and meteoroid particles spiral toward the Sun under the action of Poynting-Robertson drag and grind down as they collide with a static background of field particles

Asymptotic stability, concentration, and oscillation in harmonic map heat-flow, Landau-Lifshitz, and Schroedinger maps on R^2

We consider the Landau-Lifshitz equations of ferromagnetism (including the harmonic map heat-flow and Schroedinger flow as special cases) for degree m equivariant maps from R^2 to S^2. If m \geq 3, we prove that near-minimal energy solutions converge to a harmonic map as t goes to infinity (asymptotic stability), extending previous work down to degree m = 3. Due to slow spatial decay of the harmonic map components, a new approach is needed for m=3, involving (among other tools) a "normal form" for the parameter dynamics, and the 2D radial double-endpoint Strichartz estimate for Schroedinger operators with sufficiently repulsive potentials (which may be of some independent interest). When m=2 this asymptotic stability may fail: in the case of heat-flow with a further symmetry restriction, we show that more exotic asymptotics are possible, including infinite-time concentration (blow-up), and even "eternal oscillation".Comment: 34 page

Spectra generated by a confined softcore Coulomb potential

Analytic and approximate solutions for the energy eigenvalues generated by a confined softcore Coulomb potentials of the form a/(r+\beta) in d>1 dimensions are constructed. The confinement is effected by linear and harmonic-oscillator potential terms, and also through `hard confinement' by means of an impenetrable spherical box. A byproduct of this work is the construction of polynomial solutions for a number of linear differential equations with polynomial coefficients, along with the necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of such solutions. Very accurate approximate solutions for the general problem with arbitrary potential parameters are found by use of the asymptotic iteration method.Comment: 17 pages, 2 figure

The origin and evolution of the zodiacal dust cloud

We have now analyzed a substantial fraction of the IRAS observations of the zodiacal cloud, particularly in the 25 micron waveband. We have developed a gravitational perturbation theory that incorporates the effects of Poynting-Robertson light drag (Gomes and Dermott, 1992). We have also developed a numerical model, the SIMUL mode, that reproduces the exact viewing geometry of the IRAS telescope and calculates the distribution of thermal flux produced by any particular distribution of dust particle orbits (Dermott and Nicholson, 1989). With these tools, and using a distribution of orbits based on those of asteroidal particles with 3.4 micron radii whose orbits decay due to Poynting-Robertson light drag and are perturbed by the planets, we have been able to: (1) account for the inclination and node of the background zodiacal cloud observed by IRAS in the 25 micron waveband; (2) relate the distribution of orbits in the Hirayama asteroid families to the observed shapes of the IRAS solar system dustbands; and (3) show that there is observational evidence in the IRAS data for the transport of asteroidal particles from the main belt to the Earth by Poynting-Robertson light drag

Quantum Zeno subspaces

The quantum Zeno effect is recast in terms of an adiabatic theorem when the measurement is described as the dynamical coupling to another quantum system that plays the role of apparatus. A few significant examples are proposed and their practical relevance discussed. We also focus on decoherence-free subspaces.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure, to be published in Phys. Rev. Let