116,785 research outputs found
Snowpack ground truth Donner Pass site, Soda Springs, California
Ground truth data taken near Soda Springs, California, on January 18, 1977, in support of the NASA Airborne Instrumentation Research Program are presented. Ground truth data taken in support of this mission were as follows: (1) snow depths were taken every 400 feet; (2) snow densities were taken every 1,200 feet; (3) two snowpits were dug, and limited density, vertical layer classifications, and soil observations were taken; and (4) temperatures of the upper 6 inches of the snowpack were taken at one location
A study of some reactor shielding problems for spacecraft applications
Programs to calculate single-scattered neutron and gamma fluxes from reactor-powered spacecraft radiators and sample calculations from unshielded SNAP-
Saturation of atomic transitions using sub-wavelength diameter tapered optical fibers in rubidium vapor
We experimentally investigate ultralow-power saturation of the rubidium D2
transitions using a tapered optical fiber (TOF) suspended in a warm Rb vapor. A
direct comparison of power-dependent absorption measurements for the TOF system
with those obtained in a standard free-space vapor cell system highlights the
differences in saturation behavior for the two systems. The effects of
hyperfine pumping in the TOF system are found to be minimized due to the short
atomic transit times through the highly confined evanescent optical mode guided
by the TOF. The TOF system data is well-fit by a relatively simple empirical
absorption model that indicates nanoWatt-level saturation powers.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figure
Flux Expulsion - Field Evolution in Neutron Stars
Models for the evolution of magnetic fields of neutron stars are constructed,
assuming the field is embedded in the proton superconducting core of the star.
The rate of expulsion of the magnetic flux out of the core, or equivalently the
velocity of outward motion of flux-carrying proton-vortices is determined from
a solution of the Magnus equation of motion for these vortices. A force due to
the pinning interaction between the proton-vortices and the neutron-superfluid
vortices is also taken into account in addition to the other more conventional
forces acting on the proton-vortices. Alternative models for the field
evolution are considered based on the different possibilities discussed for the
effective values of the various forces. The coupled spin and magnetic evolution
of single pulsars as well as those processed in low-mass binary systems are
computed, for each of the models. The predicted lifetimes of active pulsars,
field strengths of the very old neutron stars, and distribution of the magnetic
fields versus orbital periods in low-mass binary pulsars are used to test the
adopted field decay models. Contrary to the earlier claims, the buoyancy is
argued to be the dominant driving cause of the flux expulsion, for the single
as well as the binary neutron stars. However, the pinning is also found to play
a crucial role which is necessary to account for the observed low field binary
and millisecond pulsars.Comment: 23 pages, + 7 figures, accepted for publication in Ap
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