7,715 research outputs found
Apollo experience report the command and service module milestone review process
The sequence of the command and service module milestone review process is given, and the Customer Acceptance Readiness Review and Flight Readiness Review plans are presented. Contents of the System Summary Acceptance Documents for the two formal spacecraft reviews are detailed, and supplemental data required for presentation to the review boards are listed. Typical forms, correspondence, supporting documentation, and minutes of a board meeting are included
Slice Stretching Effects for Maximal Slicing of a Schwarzschild Black Hole
Slice stretching effects such as slice sucking and slice wrapping arise when
foliating the extended Schwarzschild spacetime with maximal slices. For
arbitrary spatial coordinates these effects can be quantified in the context of
boundary conditions where the lapse arises as a linear combination of odd and
even lapse. Favorable boundary conditions are then derived which make the
overall slice stretching occur late in numerical simulations. Allowing the
lapse to become negative, this requirement leads to lapse functions which
approach at late times the odd lapse corresponding to the static Schwarzschild
metric. Demanding in addition that a numerically favorable lapse remains
non-negative, as result the average of odd and even lapse is obtained. At late
times the lapse with zero gradient at the puncture arising for the puncture
evolution is precisely of this form. Finally, analytic arguments are given on
how slice stretching effects can be avoided. Here the excision technique and
the working mechanism of the shift function are studied in detail.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figures, revised version including a study on how slice
stretching can be avoided by using excision and/or shift
Local and global properties of conformally flat initial data for black hole collisions
We study physical properties of conformal initial value data for single and
binary black hole configurations obtained using conformal-imaging and
conformal-puncture methods. We investigate how the total mass M_tot of a
dataset with two black holes depends on the configuration of linear or angular
momentum and separation of the holes. The asymptotic behavior of M_tot with
increasing separation allows us to make conclusions about an unphysical
``junk'' gravitation field introduced in the solutions by the conformal
approaches. We also calculate the spatial distribution of scalar invariants of
the Riemann tensor which determine the gravitational tidal forces. For single
black hole configurations, these are compared to known analytical solutions.
Spatial distribution of the invariants allows us to make certain conclusions
about the local distribution of the additional field in the numerical datasets
High-Redshift Superclustering of QSO Absorption Line Systems on 100 Mpc Scales
We have analyzed the clustering of C IV absorption line systems in an
extensive new catalog of heavy element QSO absorbers. The catalog permits
exploration of clustering over a large range in both scale (from about 1 to
over 300 Mpc) and redshift (z from 1.2 to 4.5). We find significant evidence
(5.0 sigma) that C IV absorbers are clustered on comoving scales of 100 Mpc and
less --- similar to the size of voids and walls found in galaxy redshift
surveys of the local universe --- with a mean correlation function over these scales. We find, on these scales, that the mean
correlation function at low (z=1.7), medium (z=2.4), and high redshift (z=3.0)
is , , and , respectively.
Thus, the superclustering is present even at high redshift; furthermore, it
does not appear that the superclustering scale, in comoving coordinates, has
changed significantly since then. We find 7 QSOs with rich groups of absorbers
(potential superclusters) that account for a significant portion of the
clustering signal, with 2 at redshift . We find that the
superclustering is just as evident if we take instead of 0.5;
however, the inferred scale of clustering is then 240 Mpc , which is larger
than the largest scales of clustering known at present. This discrepancy may be
indicative of a larger value of , and hence . The evolution of
the correlation function on 50 Mpc scales is consistent with that expected in
cosmologies with density parameter ranging from 0.1 to 1.
Finally, we find no evidence for clustering on scales greater than 100 Mpc
() or 240 Mpc ().Comment: 16 LaTeX pages with 3 encapsulated Postscript figures included, uses
AASTeX (v. 4.0) available at ftp://ftp.aas.org/pubs/ , to appear in The
Astrophysical Journal Letter
Binary black-hole evolutions of excision and puncture data
We present a new numerical code developed for the evolution of binary
black-hole spacetimes using different initial data and evolution techniques.
The code is demonstrated to produce state-of-the-art simulations of orbiting
and inspiralling black-hole binaries with convergent waveforms. We also present
the first detailed study of the dependence of gravitational waveforms resulting
from three-dimensional evolutions of different types of initial data. For this
purpose we compare the waveforms generated by head-on collisions of superposed
Kerr-Schild, Misner and Brill-Lindquist data over a wide range of initial
separations.Comment: 21 pages, 13 figures, final version accepted for publication in PR
The Economic Impact of the Nevada Clean Indoor Air Act in Clark County, Nevada – Preliminary Findings
Objective. The primary purpose of this exploratory study was to quantitatively evaluate the economic impact of the Nevada Clean Indoor Air Act (NCIAA) on businesses in Clark County.
Methods. The goal of this research was to assess economic indicators over a ten year period utilizing measurable data points, including restaurant and drinking establishment employment rates, taxable sales, openings and closings, as well as slot gaming revenues. This ten year time period consisted of a seven year span prior to the enactment of the NCIAA, and three years post enactment. Researchers conceived this study as a means to independently evaluate and address the potential economic impact of a smoke-free law in a region dependent upon tourism and gaming.
Results. Economic indicators did in fact decrease after the NCIAA was enforced but most of the declining trends began prior to the passage of the smoke-free act and are consistent with downward trends in other, non-NCIAA affected segments of our economy.
Conclusion. The overall findings of this study are consistent with similar non-tobacco industry supported economic studies showing little or no statistically significant downward economic trends after passage of smoke-free legislation
Towards a Singularity-Proof Scheme in Numerical Relativity
Progress in numerical relativity has been hindered for 30 years because of
the difficulties of avoiding spacetime singularities in numerical evolution. We
propose a scheme which excises a region inside an apparent horizon containing
the singularity. Two major ingredients of the scheme are the use of a
horizon-locking coordinate and a finite differencing which respects the causal
structure of the spacetime. Encouraging results of the scheme in the spherical
collapse case are given.Comment: 9 page
Stuffed Black Holes
Initial data corresponding to spacetimes containing black holes are
considered in the time symmetric case. The solutions are obtained by matching
across the apparent horizon different, conformally flat, spatial metrics. The
exterior metric is the vacuum solution obtained by the well known conformal
imaging method. The interior metric for every black hole is regular everywhere
and corresponds to a positive energy density. The resulting matched solutions
cover then the whole initial (Cauchy) hypersurface, without any singularity,
and can be useful for numerical applications. The simpler cases of one black
hole (Schwarzschild data) or two identical black holes (Misner data) are
explicitly solved. A procedure for extending this construction to the multiple
black hole case is also given, and it is shown to work for all time symmetric
vacuum solutions obtained by the conformal imaging method. The numerical
evolution of one such 'stuffed' black hole is compared with that of a pure
vacuum or 'plain' black hole in the spherically symmetric case.Comment: 12 pages, Latex, 4 postscript figures, corrected some typos, new
section about physical interpretatio
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