1,777 research outputs found
Preliminary results of flight tests of vortex attenuating splines
Flight tests have been conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of a wingtip vortex attenuating device, referred to as a spline. Vortex penetrations were made with a PA-28 behind a C-54 aircraft with and without wingtip splines attached and the resultant rolling acceleration was measured and related to the roll acceleration capability of the PA-28. Tests were conducted over a range of separation distances from about 5 nautical miles (n. mi.) to less than 1 n. mi. Preliminary results indicate that, with the splines installed, there was a significant reduction in the vortex induced roll acceleration experienced by the PA-28 probe aircraft, and the distance at which the PA-28 roll control became ineffective was reduced from 2.5 n. mi. to 0.6 n. mi., or less. There was a slight increase in approach noise (approximately 4 db) with the splines installed due primarily to the higher engine power used during approach. Although splines significantly reduced the C-54 rate of climb, the rates available with four engines were acceptable for this test program. Splines did not introduce any noticeable change in the handling qualities of the C-54
Efficient solar cells by space processing
Thin films of electron beam evaporated silicon were deposited on molybdenum, tantalum, tungsten and molybdenum disilicide under ultrahigh vacuum conditions. Mass spectra from a quadrapole residual gas analyzer were used to determine the partial pressure of 13 residual gases during each processing step. Surface contamination and interdiffusion were monitored by in situ Auger electron spectrometry. The presence of phosphorus in the silicon was responsible for attaining elevated temperatures with silicide formations. Heteroepitaxial silicon growth was sensitive to the presence of oxygen during deposition, the rate and length of deposition as well as the substrate orientation
Principal forms X^2 + nY^2 representing many integers
In 1966, Shanks and Schmid investigated the asymptotic behavior of the number
of positive integers less than or equal to x which are represented by the
quadratic form X^2+nY^2. Based on some numerical computations, they observed
that the constant occurring in the main term appears to be the largest for n=2.
In this paper, we prove that in fact this constant is unbounded as n runs
through positive integers with a fixed number of prime divisors.Comment: 10 pages, title has been changed, Sections 2 and 3 are new, to appear
in Abh. Math. Sem. Univ. Hambur
Spatial Correlation Function of X-ray Selected AGN
We present a detailed description of the first direct measurement of the
spatial correlation function of X-ray selected AGN. This result is based on an
X-ray flux-limited sample of 219 AGN discovered in the contiguous 80.7 deg^2
region of the ROSAT North Ecliptic Pole (NEP) Survey. Clustering is detected at
the 4 sigma level at comoving scales in the interval r = 5-60 h^-1 Mpc. Fitting
the data with a power law of slope gamma=1.8, we find a correlation length of
r_0 = 7.4 (+1.8, -1.9) h^-1 Mpc (Omega_M=0.3, Omega_Lambda=0.7). The median
redshift of the AGN contributing to the signal is z_xi=0.22. This clustering
amplitude implies that X-ray selected AGN are spatially distributed in a manner
similar to that of optically selected AGN. Furthermore, the ROSAT NEP
determination establishes the local behavior of AGN clustering, a regime which
is poorly sampled in general. Combined with high-redshift measures from optical
studies, the ROSAT NEP results argue that the AGN correlation strength
essentially does not evolve with redshift, at least out to z~2.2. In the local
Universe, X-ray selected AGN appear to be unbiased relative to galaxies and the
inferred X-ray bias parameter is near unity, b_X~1. Hence X-ray selected AGN
closely trace the underlying mass distribution. The ROSAT NEP AGN catalog,
presented here, features complete optical identifications and spectroscopic
redshifts. The median redshift, X-ray flux, and X-ray luminosity are z=0.41,
f_X=1.1*10^-13 cgs, and L_X=9.2*10^43 h_70^-2 cgs (0.5-2.0 keV), respectively.
Unobscured, type 1 AGN are the dominant constituents (90%) of this soft X-ray
selected sample of AGN.Comment: 17 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ, a version with
high-resolution figures is available at
http://www.eso.org/~cmullis/papers/Mullis_et_al_2004b.ps.gz, a
machine-readable version of the ROSAT NEP AGN catalog is available at
http://www.eso.org/~cmullis/research/nep-catalog.htm
Quasar Clustering and the Lifetime of Quasars
Although the population of luminous quasars rises and falls over a period of
10^9 years, the typical lifetime of individual quasars is uncertain by several
orders of magnitude. We show that quasar clustering measurements can
substantially narrow the range of possible lifetimes with the assumption that
luminous quasars reside in the most massive host halos. If quasars are
long-lived, then they are rare phenomena that are highly biased with respect to
the underlying dark matter, while if they are short-lived they reside in more
typical halos that are less strongly clustered. For a given quasar lifetime, we
calculate the minimum host halo mass by matching the observed space density of
quasars, using the Press-Schechter approximation. We use the results of Mo &
White to calculate the clustering of these halos, and hence of the quasars they
contain, as a function of quasar lifetime. A lifetime of t_Q = 4 x 10^7 years,
the e-folding timescale of an Eddington luminosity black hole with accretion
efficiency eps=0.1, corresponds to a quasar correlation length r_0 ~ 10 Mpc/h
in low-density cosmological models at z=2-3; this value is consistent with
current clustering measurements, but these have large uncertainties.
High-precision clustering measurements from the 2dF and Sloan quasar surveys
will test our key assumption of a tight correlation between quasar luminosity
and host halo mass, and if this assumption holds then they should determine t_Q
to a factor of three or better. An accurate determination of the quasar
lifetime will show whether supermassive black holes acquire most of their mass
during high-luminosity accretion, and it will show whether the black holes in
the nuclei of typical nearby galaxies were once the central engines of
high-luminosity quasars.Comment: ApJ Accepted (Feb 2001). 30 pages, 8 embedded ps figures, AASTEX5.
Added discussion of quasar luminosity evolution. Also available at
http://www.ociw.edu/~martini/pubs
The Nature of the Halo Population of NGC 5128 Resolved with NICMOS on the Hubble Space Telescope
We present the first infrared color-magnitude diagram (CMD) for the halo of a
giant elliptical galaxy. The CMD for the stars in the halo of NGC 5128
(Centaurus A) was constructed from HST NICMOS observations of the WFPC2 CHIP-3
field of Soria et al. (1996) to a 50% completeness magnitude limit of
[F160W]=23.8. This field is located at a distance of 08'50" (~9 kpc) south of
the center of the galaxy. The luminosity function (LF) shows a marked
discontinuity at [F160W]=20.0. This is 1-2 mag above the tip of the red giant
branch (TRGB) expected for an old population (~12 Gyr) at the distance modulus
of NGC 5128. We propose that the majority of stars above the TRGB have
intermediate ages (~2 Gyr), in agreement with the WFPC2 observations of Soria
et al. (1996). Five stars with magnitudes brighter than the LF discontinuity
are most probably due to Galactic contamination. The weighted average of the
mean giant branch color above our 50% completeness limit is
[F110W]-[F160W]=1.22+-0.08 with a dispersion of 0.19 mag. From our
artificial-star experiments we determine that the observed spread in color is
real, suggesting a real spread in metallicity. We estimate the lower and upper
bounds of the stellar metallicity range by comparisons with observations of
Galactic star clusters and theoretical isochrones. Assuming an old population,
we find that, in the halo field of NGC 5128 we surveyed, stars have
metallicities ranging from roughly 1% of solar at the blue end of the color
spread to roughly solar at the red end, with a mean of [Fe/H]=-0.76 and a
dispersion of 0.44 dex.Comment: Accepted for publication in AJ, 23 pages of text, 13 figures, uses
aastex v5.
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