3,782 research outputs found
Improved thermal force modeling for GPS satellites
Geophysical applications of the Global Positioning System (GPS) require the capability to estimate and propagate satellite orbits with high precision. An accurate model of all the forces acting on a satellite is an essential part of achieving high orbit accuracy. Methods of analyzing the perturbation due to thermal radiation and determining its effects on the long-term orbital behavior of GPS satellites are presented. The thermal imbalance force, a nongravitational orbit perturbation previously considered negligible, is the focus of this article. The earth's shadowing of a satellite in orbit causes periodic changes in the satellite's thermal environment. Simulations show that neglecting thermal imbalance in the satellite force model gives orbit error larger than ten meters over several days for eclipsing satellites. This orbit mismodeling can limit accuracy in orbit determination and in estimation of baselines used for geophysical applications
Gravitational Waves from Mergin Compact Binaries: How Accurately Can One Extract the Binary's Parameters from the Inspiral Waveform?
The most promising source of gravitational waves for the planned detectors
LIGO and VIRGO are merging compact binaries, i.e., neutron star/neutron star
(NS/NS), neutron star/black hole (NS/BH), and black hole/black-hole (BH/BH)
binaries. We investigate how accurately the distance to the source and the
masses and spins of the two bodies will be measured from the gravitational wave
signals by the three detector LIGO/VIRGO network using ``advanced detectors''
(those present a few years after initial operation). The combination of the masses of the two bodies is
measurable with an accuracy . The reduced mass is measurable
to for NS/NS and NS/BH binaries, and for BH/BH
binaries (assuming BH's). Measurements of the masses and spins are
strongly correlated; there is a combination of and the spin angular
momenta that is measured to within . We also estimate that distance
measurement accuracies will be for of the detected
signals, and for of the signals, for the LIGO/VIRGO
3-detector network.Comment: 103 pages, 20 figures, submitted to Phys Rev D, uses revtex macros,
Caltech preprint GRP-36
Thermal Bremsstrahlung photons probing the nuclear caloric curve
Hard-photon (E 30 MeV) emission from second-chance
nucleon-nucleon Bremsstrahlung collisions in intermediate energy heavy-ion
reactions is studied employing a realistic thermal model. Photon spectra and
yields measured in several nucleus-nucleus reactions are consistent with an
emission from hot nuclear systems with temperatures 4 - 7 MeV. The
corresponding caloric curve in the region of excitation energies
3{\it A} - 8{\it A} MeV shows lower values of than
those expected for a Fermi fluid.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figures. To appear in Physics Letters
HEAVY ION SECONDARY BEAMS
The possibility of producing secondary beams of radioactive nuclei is an interesting application of medium and high energy heavy ion beams. After a first attempt at CERN (1) , two experiments have been performed at GANIL, using 44 MeV/u 40Ar (2) and 65 MeV/u 180 projectiles. This paper recalls the results of the Ar experiment, and presents new data obtained with the 180 beam
Gravitational wave astronomy
The first decade of the new millenium should see the first direct detections
of gravitational waves. This will be a milestone for fundamental physics and it
will open the new observational science of gravitational wave astronomy. But
gravitational waves already play an important role in the modeling of
astrophysical systems. I review here the present state of gravitational
radiation theory in relativity and astrophysics, and I then look at the
development of detector sensitivity over the next decade, both on the ground
(such as LIGO) and in space (LISA). I review the sources of gravitational waves
that are likely to play an important role in observations by first- and
second-generation interferometers, including the astrophysical information that
will come from these observations. The review covers some 10 decades of
gravitational wave frequency, from the high-frequency normal modes of neutron
stars down to the lowest frequencies observable from space. The discussion of
sources includes recent developments regarding binary black holes, spinning
neutron stars, and the stochastic background.Comment: 29 pages, 2 figures, as submitted for special millenium issue of
Classical and Quantum Gravit
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The impact of prior platinum therapy on survival in patients with metastatic urothelial cancer receiving vinflunine
Background: A phase III trial demonstrated an overall survival advantage with the addition of vinflunine to best supportive care (BSC) in platinum-refractory advanced urothelial cancer. We subsequently examined the impact of an additional 2 years of survival follow-up and evaluated the influence of first-line platinum therapy on survival. Methods: The 357 eligible patients from the phase III study were categorised into two cohorts depending on prior cisplatin treatment: cisplatin or non-cisplatin. Survival was calculated using the KaplanâMeier method. Results: The majority had received prior cisplatin (70.3%). Survival was higher in the cisplatin group (HR: 0.76; CI 95% 0.58â0.99; P=0.04) irrespective of treatment arm. Multivariate analysis including known prognostic factors (liver involvement, haemoglobin, performance status) and prior platinum administration did not show an independent effect of cisplatin. Vinflunine reduced the risk of death by 24% in the cisplatin-group (HR: 0.76; CI 95% 0.58â0.99; P=0.04) and by 35% in non-cisplatin patients (HR: 0.65; CI 95% 0.41â1.04; P=0.07). Interpretation: Differences in prognostic factors between patients who can receive prior cisplatin and those who cannot may explain the survival differences in patients who undergo second line therapy. Prior cisplatin administration did not diminish the subsequent benefit of vinflunine over BSC
Nonlinear mode coupling in rotating stars and the r-mode instability in neutron stars
We develop the formalism required to study the nonlinear interaction of modes
in rotating Newtonian stars in the weakly nonlinear regime. The formalism
simplifies and extends previous treatments. At linear order, we elucidate and
extend slightly a formalism due to Schutz, show how to decompose a general
motion of a rotating star into a sum over modes, and obtain uncoupled equations
of motion for the mode amplitudes under the influence of an external force.
Nonlinear effects are added perturbatively via three-mode couplings. We
describe a new, efficient way to compute the coupling coefficients, to zeroth
order in the stellar rotation rate, using spin-weighted spherical harmonics.
We apply this formalism to derive some properties of the coupling
coefficients relevant to the nonlinear interactions of unstable r-modes in
neutron stars, postponing numerical integrations of the coupled equations of
motion to a later paper. From an astrophysical viewpoint, the most interesting
result of this paper is that many couplings of r-modes to other rotational
modes (modes with zero frequencies in the non-rotating limit) are small: either
they vanish altogether because of various selection rules, or they vanish to
lowest order in the angular velocity. In zero-buoyancy stars, the coupling of
three r-modes is forbidden entirely and the coupling of two r-modes to one
hybrid rotational mode vanishes to zeroth order in rotation frequency. In
incompressible stars, the coupling of any three rotational modes vanishes to
zeroth order in rotation frequency.Comment: 62 pages, no figures. Corrected error in computation of coupling
coefficients, added new selection rule and an appendix on energy and angular
momentum of mode
Thermal bremsstrahlung probing the thermodynamical state of multifragmenting systems
Inclusive and exclusive hard-photon (E 30 MeV) production in five
different heavy-ion reactions (Ar+Au, Ag, Ni,
C at 60{\it A} MeV and Xe+Sn at 50{\it A} MeV) has been
studied coupling the TAPS photon spectrometer with several charged-particle
multidetectors covering more than 80% of 4. The measured spectra, slope
parameters and source velocities as well as their target-dependence, confirm
the existence of thermal bremsstrahlung emission from secondary nucleon-nucleon
collisions that accounts for roughly 20% of the total hard-photon yield. The
thermal slopes are a direct measure of the temperature of the excited nuclear
systems produced during the reaction.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, Proceedings CRIS 2000, 3rd Catania Relativistic
Ion Studies, "Phase Transitions in Strong Interactions: Status and
Perspectives", Acicastello, Italy, May 22-26, 2000 (to be published in Nuc.
Phys. A
Addressing the spin question in gravitational-wave searches: Waveform templates for inspiralling compact binaries with nonprecessing spins
This paper presents a post-Newtonian (PN) template family of gravitational
waveforms from inspiralling compact binaries with non-precessing spins, where
the spin effects are described by a single "reduced-spin" parameter. This
template family, which reparametrizes all the spin-dependent PN terms in terms
of the leading-order (1.5PN) spin-orbit coupling term \emph{in an approximate
way}, has very high overlaps (fitting factor > 0.99) with non-precessing
binaries with arbitrary mass ratios and spins. We also show that this template
family is "effectual" for the detection of a significant fraction of generic
spinning binaries in the comparable-mass regime (m_2/m_1 <~ 10), providing an
attractive and feasible way of searching for gravitational waves (GWs) from
spinning low-mass binaries. We also show that the secular (non-oscillatory)
spin-dependent effects in the phase evolution (which are taken into account by
the non-precessing templates) are more important than the oscillatory effects
of precession in the comparable-mass (m_1 ~= m_2) regime. Hence the
effectualness of non-spinning templates is particularly poor in this case, as
compared to non-precessing-spin templates. For the case of binary neutron stars
observable by Advanced LIGO, even moderate spins (L . S/m^2 ~= 0.015 - 0.1)
will cause considerable mismatches (~ 3% - 25%) with non-spinning templates.
This is contrary to the expectation that neutron-star spins may not be relevant
for GW detection.Comment: 16 pages, 11 figures, More material added, Some changes to clarify
the presentatio
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