17,136 research outputs found
Monitored background radiometer
The infrared (IR) testing of the Olympus thermal model has provided a capability to perform cost effective thermal balance testing of satellites and satellite components. A high-accuracy monitored background radiometer was developed for the measurement of absorbed radiation heat flux encountered during IR thermal vacuum testing of spacecraft. The design, development, and calibration of this radiometer is described
Diffuse gamma-ray emission from galactic pulsars
Millisecond Pulsars are second most abundant source population discovered by
the Fermi-LAT. They might contribute non-negligibly to the diffuse emission
measured at high latitudes by Fermi-LAT, the IDGRB. Gamma-ray sources also
contribute to the anisotropy of the IDGRB measured on small scales by
Fermi-LAT. We aim to assess the contribution of the unresolved counterpart of
the detected MSPs population to the IDGRB and the maximal fraction of the
measured anisotropy produced by this source class. We model the MSPs spatial
distribution in the Galaxy and the gamma-ray emission parameters by considering
radio and gamma-ray observational constraints. By simulating a large number of
MSPs populations, we compute the average diffuse emission and the anisotropy
1-sigma upper limit. The emission from unresolved MSPs at 2 GeV, where the peak
of the spectrum is located, is at most 0.9% of the measured IDGRB above 10
degrees in latitude. The 1-sigma upper limit on the angular power for
unresolved MSP sources turns out to be about a factor of 60 smaller than
Fermi-LAT measurements above 30 degrees. Our results indicate that this
galactic source class represents a negligible contributor to the high-latitude
gamma-ray sky and confirm that most of the intensity and geometrical properties
of the measured diffuse emission are imputable to other extragalactic source
classes. Nevertheless, given the MSP distribution, we expect them to contribute
significantly to the gamma-ray diffuse emission at low latitudes. Since, along
the galactic disk, the population of young Pulsars overcomes in number the one
of MSPs, we compute the gamma-ray emission from the whole population of
unresolved Pulsars in two low-latitude regions: the inner Galaxy and the
galactic center.Comment: 19 pages, 26 figures. It matches the published version, minor changes
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Evaluation of the infrared test method for the olympus thermal balance tests
The performance of the infrared (IR) rig used for the thermal balance testing of the Olympus S/C thermal model is discussed. Included in this evaluation are the rig effects themselves, the IRFLUX computer code used to predict the radiation inputs, the Monitored Background Radiometers (MBR's) developed to measure the absorbed radiation flux intensity, the Uniform Temperature Reference (UTR) based temperature measurement system and the data acquisition system. A preliminary set of verification tests were performed on a 1 m x 1 m zone to assess the performance of the IR lamps, calrods, MBR's and aluminized baffles. The results were used, in part, to obtain some empirical data required for the IRFLUX code. This data included lamp and calrod characteristics, the absorptance function for various surface types, and the baffle reflectivities
The origins of Causality Violations in Force Free Simulations of Black Hole Magnetospheres
Recent simulations of force-free, degenerate (ffde) black hole magnetospheres
indicate that the fast mode radiated from (or near) the event horizon can
modify the global potential difference in the poloidal direction orthogonal to
the magnetic field, V, in a black hole magnetosphere. There is a fundamental
contradiction in a wave that alters V coming from near the horizon. The
background fields in ffde satisfy the ``ingoing wave condition'' near the
horizon (that arises from the requirement that all matter is ingoing at the
event horizon), yet outgoing waves are radiated from this region in the
simulation. Studying the properties of the waves in the simulations are useful
tools to this end. It is shown that regularity of the stress-energy tensor in a
freely falling frame requires that the outgoing (as viewed globally) waves near
the event horizon are redshifted away and are ineffectual at changing V. It is
also concluded that waves in massless MHD (ffde) are extremely inaccurate
depictions of waves in a tenuous MHD plasma, near the event horizon, as a
consequence black hole gravity. Any analysis based on ffde near the event
horizon is seriously flawed.Comment: 9 pages to appear in ApJ Letter
Interpretation of AMS-02 electrons and positrons data
We perform a combined analysis of the recent AMS-02 data on electrons,
positrons, electrons plus positrons and positron fraction, in a self-consistent
framework where we realize a theoretical modeling of all the astrophysical
components that can contribute to the observed fluxes in the whole energy
range. The primary electron contribution is modeled through the sum of an
average flux from distant sources and the fluxes from the local supernova
remnants in the Green catalog. The secondary electron and positron fluxes
originate from interactions on the interstellar medium of primary cosmic rays,
for which we derive a novel determination by using AMS-02 proton and helium
data. Primary positrons and electrons from pulsar wind nebulae in the ATNF
catalog are included and studied in terms of their most significant (while
loosely known) properties and under different assumptions (average contribution
from the whole catalog, single dominant pulsar, a few dominant pulsars). We
obtain a remarkable agreement between our various modeling and the AMS-02 data
for all types of analysis, demonstrating that the whole AMS-02 leptonic data
admit a self-consistent interpretation in terms of astrophysical contributions.Comment: 33 pages, 26 figures and 4 tables, v2: accepted for publication in
JCAP, minor changes relative to v
Criteria for Bayesian model choice with application to variable selection
In objective Bayesian model selection, no single criterion has emerged as
dominant in defining objective prior distributions. Indeed, many criteria have
been separately proposed and utilized to propose differing prior choices. We
first formalize the most general and compelling of the various criteria that
have been suggested, together with a new criterion. We then illustrate the
potential of these criteria in determining objective model selection priors by
considering their application to the problem of variable selection in normal
linear models. This results in a new model selection objective prior with a
number of compelling properties.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/12-AOS1013 the Annals of
Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aos/) by the Institute of Mathematical
Statistics (http://www.imstat.org
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