2,840 research outputs found
X-ray Spectral Diagnostics of Gamma-Ray Burst Environments
Recently, the detection of discrete features in the X-ray afterglow spectra
of GRB970508 and GRB970828 was reported. The most natural interpretation of
these features is that they are redshifted Fe K emission complexes. The
identification of the line emission mechanism has drastic implications for the
inferred mass of radiating material, end hence the nature of the burst site.
X-ray spectroscopy provides a direct observational constraint on these
properties of gamma-ray bursters. We briefly discuss how these constraints
arise, in the context of an application to the spectrum of GRB970508.Comment: 11 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ Letter
Gravitational Wave Memory of Gamma-Ray Burst Jets
Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) are now considered as relativistic jets. We analyze
the gravitational waves from the acceleration stage of the GRB jets. We show
that (i) the point mass approximation is not appropriate if the opening
half-angle of the jet is larger than the inverse of the Lorentz factor of the
jet, (ii) the gravitational waveform has many step function like jumps, and
(iii) the practical DECIGO and BBO may detect such an event if the GRBs occur
in Local group of galaxy. We found that the light curve of GRBs and the
gravitational waveform are anti-correlated so that the detection of the
gravitational wave is indispensable to determine the structure of GRB jets.Comment: Revtex4, 10 pages, 6 figures, Fig.2 and Fig.3 replaced, minor changes
to text in Sec.I and Sec.V, typos corrected, some reference added, Version to
be published in PR
GPS radio occultation with CHAMP and SAC-C: global monitoring of thermal tropopause parameters
In this study the global lapse-rate tropopause (LRT) pressure, temperature, potential temperature, and sharpness are discussed based on Global Positioning System (GPS) radio occultations (RO) from the German CHAMP (CHAllenging Minisatellite Payload) and the U.S.-Argentinian SAC-C (Satelite de Aplicaciones Cientificas-C) satellite missions. Results with respect to seasonal variations are compared with operational radiosonde data and ECMWF (European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecast) operational analyses. Results on the tropical quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) are updated from an earlier study. CHAMP RO data are available continuously since May 2001 with on average 150 high resolution temperature profiles per day. SAC-C data are available for several periods in 2001 and 2002. In this study temperature data from CHAMP for the period May 2001-December 2004 and SAC-C data from August 2001-October 2001 and March 2002-November 2002 were used, respectively. The bias between GPS RO temperature profiles and radiosonde data was found to be less than 1.5K between 300 and 10hPa with a standard deviation of 2-3K. Between 200-20hPa the bias is even less than 0.5K (2K standard deviation). The mean deviations based on 167699 comparisons between CHAMP/SAC-C and ECMWF LRT parameters are (-2.1±37.1)hPa for pressure and (0.1±4.2)K for temperature. Comparisons of LRT pressure and temperature between CHAMP and nearby radiosondes (13230) resulted in (5.8±19.8)hPa and (-0.1±3.3)K, respectively. The comparisons between CHAMP/SAC-C and ECMWF show on average the largest differences in the vicinity of the jet streams with up to 700m in LRT altitude and 3K in LRT temperature, respectively. The CHAMP mission generates the first long-term RO data set. Other satellite missions will follow (GRACE, COSMIC, MetOp, TerraSAR-X, EQUARS) generating together some thousand temperature profiles daily
GPS radio occultation with CHAMP: monitoring of climate change parameters
International audienceThe Global Positioning System (GPS) radio occultation (RO) technique offers a valuable new data source for global and continuous monitoring of the Earth's atmosphere. Refractivity, temperature and water vapor profiles with high accuracy and vertical resolution can be derived from this method. The GPS RO technique requires no calibration, is not affected by clouds, aerosols or precipitation, and the occultations are almost uniformly distributed over the globe. In this paper the potential of GPS RO for monitoring of the temperature is demonstrated exemplarily for the tropical upper troposphere and lower stratosphere (UTLS) region using GPS RO data from the German CHAMP (CHAllenging Minisatellite Payload) satellite mission. In addition, results of a 1DVAR retrieval scheme to derive tropospheric water vapor profiles using ECMWF data as background will be discussed. CHAMP RO data are available since 2001 with up to 200 high resolution temperature profiles per day. The temperature bias between CHAMP temperature profiles and radiosonde data as well as ECMWF analyses is less than 0.5 K between 300?30 hPa. The CHAMP RO experiment generates the first long-term RO data set. Other satellite missions will follow (GRACE, TerraSAR-X, COSMIC, METOP) generating some thousand profiles of atmospheric parameters daily
Global monitoring of tropospheric water vapor with GPS radio occultation aboard CHAMP
The paper deals with application of GPS radio occultation (RO) measurements
aboard CHAMP for the retrieval of tropospheric water vapor profiles. The GPS RO
technique provides a powerful tool for atmospheric sounding which requires no
calibration, is not affected by clouds, aerosols or precipitation, and provides
an almost uniform global coverage. We briefly overview data processing and
retrieval of vertical refractivity, temperature and water vapor profiles from
GPS RO observations. CHAMP RO data are available since 2001 with up to 200 high
resolution atmospheric profiles per day. Global validation of CHAMP water vapor
profiles with radiosonde data reveals a bias of about 0.2 g/kg and a standard
deviation of less than 1 g/kg specific humidity in the lower troposphere. We
demonstrate potentials of CHAMP RO retrievals for monitoring the mean
tropospheric water vapor distribution on a global scale.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure
Soft x-ray magnetic circular dichroism study on Gd-doped EuO thin films
We report on the growth and characterization of ferromagnetic Gd-doped EuO
thin films. We prepared samples with Gd concentrations up to 11% by means of
molecular beam epitaxy under distillation conditions, which allows a very
precise control of the doping concentration and oxygen stoichiometry. Using
soft x-ray magnetic circular dichroism at the Eu and Gd M4,5 edges, we found
that the Curie temperature ranged from 69 K for pure stoichiometric EuO to
about 170 K for the film with the optimal Gd doping of around 4%. We also show
that the Gd magnetic moment couples ferromagnetically to that of Eu.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
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