On-orbit radiometric calibration of SWIR bands of TANSO-FTS onboard GOSAT

The Greenhouse gases Observing SATellite (GOSAT) was launched on 23 January 2009 to monitor global distributions of carbon dioxide and methane. The Thermal And Near-infrared Sensor for carbon Observation-Fourier Transform Spectrometer (TANSO-FTS) onboard GOSAT measures the short-wavelength infrared (SWIR) spectra. Radiometric accuracy directly influences the accuracy of the retrieved greenhouse gas concentrations. From a 2.5-yr retrieval analysis of GOSAT data, we found that the minimum of the mean-squared value of the residuals (the difference between observed and fitted spectra) and the radiance adjustment factor (one of the ancillary parameters to be retrieved with the gas concentrations for adjusting the radiance level between the bands) changed with time, possibly due to inaccurate degradation correction. In this study, the radiometric degradation of TANSO-FTS was evaluated from the on-orbit solar calibration data and modeled as a function of time and wavenumber for each spectral band. The radiometric degradation of TANSO-FTS Band 1 (centered at 0.76 μm) after the launch was found to be about 4 to 6%, varying with wavenumber, whereas the other two bands (Band 2: 1.6 μm and Band 3: 2.0 μm) showed about 1% degradation and small wavenumber dependency. When we applied the new degradation model in the retrieval analysis, the above-mentioned issues disappeared

Estimation of Spin-Spin Interaction by Weak Measurement Scheme

Precisely knowing an interaction Hamiltonian is crucial to realize quantum information tasks, especially to experimentally demonstrate a quantum computer and a quantum memory. We propose a scheme to experimentally evaluate the spin-spin interaction for a two-qubit system by the weak measurement technique initiated by Yakir Aharonov and his colleagues. Furthermore, we numerically confirm our proposed scheme in a specific system of a nitrogen vacancy center in diamond. This means that the weak measurement can also be taken as a concrete example of the quantum process tomography.Comment: 4 pages, 1 table, 2 figures, to appear in Europhysics Letter

Fast multipole networks

Two prerequisites for robotic multiagent systems are mobility and communication. Fast multipole networks (FMNs) enable both ends within a unified framework. FMNs can be organized very efficiently in a distributed way from local information and are ideally suited for motion planning using artificial potentials. We compare FMNs to conventional communication topologies, and find that FMNs offer competitive communication performance (including higher network efficiency per edge at marginal energy cost) in addition to advantages for mobility

Clusters in Low-Concentrated Al-Mg Alloy

The state above the solubility temperature of GP zones of Al-3mass % Mg alloy, which has a tendency for precipitation and preprecipitation at low temperature, was studied by resistivity measurement. Homogenization treatment at high temperature reduced Mg atoms in the surface layer. After quenching from 623K, the specimen was annealed sequentially at various temperatures above the GP zone solvus. The stationary resistivity obtained in annealing at a temperature was the same irrespective of the starting state and increased with decreasing annealing temperature. No precipitation was observed in the annealing. The results are not in favor of the segregation of Mg atoms to the dislocation loops but of the short range clustering

Status of ECR ion sources at JAERI

At the Takasaki site of Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute, four ECR ion sources were purchased or developed so far. This paper will report their performance, modification and status. The outlines for each source are as follows; 1. OCTOPUS purchased from IBA s.a. has been in use with a cyclotron since 1990. The gas feed system was modified to change gas species within 10 minutes to avoid impurity ions in the cocktail beam acceleration technique of the cyclotron. 2. ECR-18 with 18-GHz microwave has a solenoid coil between a pair of mirror coils to change mirror ratio in a wide range. A bump between mirror peaks in the original axial field distribution was removed by halving the solenoid length. The performance in generating high charge state ions was significantly improved as a result. 3. HYPERNANOGAN was purchased from PANTECHNIK s.a. and installed in the cyclotron system this year. Test operation was successfully made with generation of Ar, Pb and Ta ions. 4. MINI ECR is a full permanent magnet source with 10 GHz microwave. As a result of modifications for vacuum and the application of a bias probe, 40 microA of Ar4+ beam was obtained, for example. Using this source, a new technique was developed to vaporize very refractory materials into plasma by fluorinating them with SF6 plasma. The source is in use for a 400 kV ion implantor since last year

Chiral Phase Transitions in QCD at Finite Temperature: Hard-Thermal-Loop Resummed Dyson-Schwinger Equation in the Real Time Formalism

Chiral phase transition in thermal QCD is studied by using the Dyson-Schwinger (DS) equation in the real time hard thermal loop approximation. Our results on the critical temperature and the critical coupling are significantly different from those in the preceding analyses in the ladder DS equation, showing the importance of properly taking into account the essential thermal effects, namely the Landau damping and the unstable nature of thermal quasiparticles.Comment: 4 pages including 2 figures (ps file), to appear in the proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Physics and Astrophysics of Quark-Gluon Plasma (ICPAQGP-2001), 26-30 November 2001, Jaipur, Indi

Ovarian cancer has frequent loss of heterozygosity at chromosome 12p12.3-13.1 (region of TEL and Kip1 loci) and chromosome 12q23-ter: evidence for two new tumour-suppressor genes.

Identification of the key genetic alterations leading to ovarian cancer is in its infancy. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based analysis of loss of heterozygosity (LOH) is a powerful method for detecting regions of altered tumour-suppressor genes. Focusing on chromosome 12, we examined 23 ovarian cancer samples for LOH using 31 highly polymorphic microsatellite markers and found the chromosomal localization of two putative tumour-suppressor genes. Two commonly deleted regions were 12p12.3-13.1 in 6/23 (26%) and 12q23-ter in 7/23 (30%) samples. LOH on chromosome 12 was more common in late-stage ovarian carcinomas. The region of LOH at 12p12.3-13.1 includes the genes that code for the ETS-family transcriptional factor, known as TEL, and the cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor, known as p27Kip1. Mutational analysis of both TEL and p27Kip1 using single-strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP) showed no abnormalities, suggesting that the altered gene in this region is neither of these genes. Taken together, our data suggest that new tumour-suppressor genes in the region of chromosomes 12p12.3-13.1 and 12q23-ter may be involved in the development of ovarian cancer