593 research outputs found

    Possible ring material around centaur (2060) Chiron

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    We propose that several short duration events observed in past stellar occultations by Chiron were produced by rings material. From a reanalysis of the stellar occultation data in the literature we determined two possible orientations of the pole of Chiron's rings, with ecliptic coordinates l=(352+/-10) deg, b=(37+/-10) deg or l=(144+/-10) deg, b=(24+/-10) deg . The mean radius of the rings is (324 +/- 10) km. One can use the rotational lightcurve amplitude of Chiron at different epochs to distinguish between the two solutions for the pole. Both imply lower lightcurve amplitude in 2013 than in 1988, when the rotational lightcurve was first determined. We derived Chiron's rotational lightcurve in 2013 from observations at the 1.23-m CAHA telescope and indeed its amplitude is smaller than in 1988. We also present a rotational lightcurve in 2000 from images taken at CASLEO 2.15-m telescope that is consistent with our predictions. Out of the two poles the l=(144+/-10) deg, b=(24+/-10) deg solution provides a better match to a compilation of rotational lightcurve amplitudes from the literature and those presented here. We also show that using this preferred pole, Chiron's long term brightness variations are compatible with a simple model that incorporates the changing brightness of the rings as the tilt angle with respect to the Earth changes with time. Also, the variability of the water ice band in Chiron's spectra in the literature can be explained to a large degree by an icy ring system whose tilt angle changes with time and whose composition includes water ice, analogously to the case of Chariklo. We present several possible formation scenarios for the rings from qualitative points of view and speculate on the reasons why rings might be common in centaurs. We speculate on whether the known bimodal color distribution of centaurs could be due to presence of rings and lack of them

    Probing H2 autoionizing states with femto and attosecond laser pulses.

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    ABSTRACT: We show the relevance that molecular autoionizing states display in some recent experiments related to the symmetry-breaking in molecular-frame photoelectron angular distributions in H2 when exposed to intense xuv femtosecond laser pulses, and others related to the electron (proton) localization when subject to attosecond pump-probe laser schemes. Our theoretical method solves the time-dependent Schr¨odinger equation with an spectral method that expands the wave function in terms of H2 correlated stationary vibronic states including all electronic and vibrational degrees of motion. Time-resolved asymmetric electron angular distributions are obtained at specific proton kinetic energies due to the delayed autoionization from H2 doubly excited states, which induces interferences between gerade (1s(sigma)g) and ungerade (2p(sigma)u) ionization channels. We also study photoionization of H2 exposed to a xuv attosecond pump pulse plus a time-delayed IR femtosecond probe pulse. Fast alternating asymmetries in the proton ejection (electron localization) are obtained as a function of the time delay between the pump and the probe pulses. Finally, we deal with the process of (xuv) two-photon double ionization of H2 under the assumption of having both sequential and non-sequential absorption processes

    Design of an electronic voting system using A blockchain network

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    Design of a scalable electronic voting system, which, based on a generic model designed for this application called voting cell, guarantees the integrity of the information through the use of a private network Blockchain. For the validation of the system, the implementation of a cell was carried out, for which fifty voters and three voting options were enabled. The stored data was intentionally modified to corroborate the error correction method used by the block chain networks and thus ensure the integrity of the voting system results

    HST PanCET program: A Cloudy Atmosphere for the promising JWST target WASP-101b

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    We present results from the first observations of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Panchromatic Comparative Exoplanet Treasury (PanCET) program for WASP-101b, a highly inflated hot Jupiter and one of the community targets proposed for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Early Release Science (ERS) program. From a single HST Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) observation, we find that the near-infrared transmission spectrum of WASP-101b contains no significant H2_2O absorption features and we rule out a clear atmosphere at 13{\sigma}. Therefore, WASP-101b is not an optimum target for a JWST ERS program aimed at observing strong molecular transmission features. We compare WASP-101b to the well studied and nearly identical hot Jupiter WASP-31b. These twin planets show similar temperature-pressure profiles and atmospheric features in the near-infrared. We suggest exoplanets in the same parameter space as WASP-101b and WASP-31b will also exhibit cloudy transmission spectral features. For future HST exoplanet studies, our analysis also suggests that a lower count limit needs to be exceeded per pixel on the detector in order to avoid unwanted instrumental systematics.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, 1 table, Accepted to ApJ
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