328 research outputs found
A Sensitivity Study of the Enceladus Torus
We have developed a homogeneous model of physical chemistry to investigate
the neutral-dominated, water-based Enceladus torus. Electrons are treated as
the summation of two isotropic Maxwellian distributionsa thermal component
and a hot component. The effects of electron impact, electron recombination,
charge exchange, and photochemistry are included. The mass source is neutral
HO, and a rigidly-corotating magnetosphere introduces energy via pickup of
freshly-ionized neutrals. A small fraction of energy is also input by Coulomb
collisions with a small population ( 1%) of supra-thermal electrons. Mass
and energy are lost due to radial diffusion, escaping fast neutrals produced by
charge exchange and recombination, and a small amount of radiative cooling. We
explore a constrained parameter space spanned by water source rate, ion radial
diffusion, hot-electron temperature, and hot-electron density. The key findings
are: (1) radial transport must take longer than 12 days; (2) water is input at
a rate of 100--180 kg s; (3) hot electrons have energies between 100 and
250 eV; (4) neutrals dominate ions by a ratio of 40:1 and continue to dominate
even when thermal electrons have temperatures as high as 5 eV; (5)
hot electrons do not exceed 1% of the total electron population within the
torus; (6) if hot electrons alone drive the observed longitudinal variation in
thermal electron density, then they also drive a significant variation in ion
composition.Comment: 9 pages text, 3 tables, 9 figure
Cassini UVIS Observations of the Io Plasma Torus. IV. Modeling Temporal and Azimuthal Variability
In this fourth paper in a series, we present a model of the remarkable
temporal and azimuthal variability of the Io plasma torus observed during the
Cassini encounter with Jupiter. Over a period of three months, the Cassini
Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph (UVIS) observed a dramatic variation in the
average torus composition. Superimposed on this long-term variation, is a
10.07-hour periodicity caused by an azimuthal variation in plasma composition
subcorotating relative to System III longitude. Quite surprisingly, the
amplitude of the azimuthal variation appears to be modulated at the beat
frequency between the System III period and the observed 10.07-hour period.
Previously, we have successfully modeled the months-long compositional change
by supposing a factor of three increase in the amount of material supplied to
Io's extended neutral clouds. Here, we extend our torus chemistry model to
include an azimuthal dimension. We postulate the existence of two azimuthal
variations in the number of super-thermal electrons in the torus: a primary
variation that subcorotates with a period of 10.07 hours and a secondary
variation that remains fixed in System III longitude. Using these two hot
electron variations, our model can reproduce the observed temporal and
azimuthal variations observed by Cassini UVIS.Comment: Revised 24 August 2007 Accepted by Icarus, 50 pages, 2 Tables, 8
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Caching concept for mobile engineering apps
Mobile apps in the engineering domain, have to deal with data coming from Product Data Management (PDM)-Systems. This data contains details about the products that are very large. Geometry data like 2D or 3D Computer Aided Design (CAD) representations are included. To get the data, the apps use wireless mediums like WiFi or mobile data networks (LTE, 3G, etc.). Transferring large size data over these mediums take a lot of time and can be aborted through intermittent connectivity. Also the energy consumption increases through the long-lasting transfers. In this master thesis a concept is created that overcomes these problems. A cache on the client is used that stores the relevant data for a fast access. As the disk space on mobile devices is limited, the data that is cached has to be chosen well. Only the data that is currently needed should be stored in the cache and provided to the app. To reduce the waiting times these data should be there before it is explicitly requested. To make this possible the concept of this thesis provides preemptive caching (hoarding). Thereby, the data is cached that will probably be needed next. To decide what data is needed, context is used. The information coming from the environment of the client is used, to derive situations. With the help of these situations the data is determined that gets cached. Besides this context-aware strategy, a traditional way of caching where all requested data gets cached is used in the concept. Furthermore, this thesis addresses the caching mechanism in its entirety. It determines a policy for the replacement of not needed data to free space. Also a strategy for invalidating obsolete data in the cache is determined. Finally, a prototypical implementation of the concept within an existing mobile engineering app is presented. With the help of this prototype the concept is evaluated
Cassini UVIS Observations of the Io Plasma Torus. III. Observations of Temporal and Azimuthal Variability
In this third paper in a series presenting observations by the Cassini
Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrometer (UVIS) of the Io plasma torus, we show
remarkable, though subtle, spatio-temporal variations in torus properties. The
Io torus is found to exhibit significant, near-sinusoidal variations in ion
composition as a function of azimuthal position. The azimuthal variation in
composition is such that the mixing ratio of S II is strongly correlated with
the mixing ratio of S III and the equatorial electron density and strongly
anti-correlated with the mixing ratios of both S IV and O II and the equatorial
electron temperature. Surprisingly, the azimuthal variation in ion composition
is observed to have a period of 10.07 hours--1.5% longer than the System III
rotation period of Jupiter, yet 1.3% shorter than the System IV period defined
by Brown (1995). Although the amplitude of the azimuthal variation of S III and
O II remained in the range of 2-5%, the amplitude of the S II and S IV
compositional variation ranged between 5-25% during the UVIS observations.
Furthermore, the amplitude of the azimuthal variations of S II and S IV appears
to be modulated by its location in System III longitude, such that when the
region of maximum S II mixing ratio (minimum S IV mixing ratio) is aligned with
a System III longitude of ~200 +/- 15 degrees, the amplitude is a factor of ~4
greater than when the variation is anti-aligned. This behavior can explain
numerous, often apparently contradictory, observations of variations in the
properties of the Io plasma torus with the System III and System IV coordinate
systems.Comment: 35 pages including 12 figures and 2 table
First Constraints on Rings in the Pluto System
Simple theoretical calculations have suggested that small body impacts onto
Pluto's newly discovered small satellites, Nix and Hydra, are capable of
generating time-variable rings or dust sheets in the Pluto system. Using
HST/ACS data obtained on 2006 February 15 and 2006 March 2, we find no
observational evidence for such a ring system and present the first constraints
on the present-day I/F and optical depth of a putative ring system. At the
1500-km radial resolution of our search, we place a 3-sigma upper limit on the
azimuthally-averaged normal I/F of ring particles of 5.1x10^-7 at a distance of
42,000 km from the Pluto-Charon barycenter, the minimum distance for a
dynamically stable ring (Stern et al., 1994; Nagy et al., 2006); 4.4x10^-7 at
the orbit of Nix; and 2.5x10^-7 at the orbit of Hydra. For an assumed ring
particle albedo of 0.04 (0.38), these I/F limits translate into 3-sigma upper
limits on the normal optical depth of macroscopic ring particles of 1.3x10^-5
(1.4x10^-6), 1.1x10^-5 (1.2x10^-6), 6.4x10^-6 (6.7x10^-7), respectively. Were
the New Horizons spacecraft to fly through a ring system with optical depth of
1.3x10^-5, it would collide with a significant number of potentially damaging
ring particles. We therefore recommend that unless tighter constraints can be
obtained, New Horizons cross the putative ring plane within 42,000 km of the
Pluto-Charon barycenter, where rings are dynamically unstable. We derive a
crude estimate of the lifetime of putative ring paritcles of 900 years.Comment: 14 pages, including 3 figures and 2 table
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