751 research outputs found
Coronagraphic Low Order Wavefront Sensor: Principle and Application to a Phase-Induced Amplitude Coronagraph
High contrast coronagraphic imaging of the immediate surrounding of stars
requires exquisite control of low-order wavefront aberrations, such as tip-tilt
(pointing) and focus. We propose an accurate, efficient and easy to implement
technique to measure such aberrations in coronagraphs which use a focal plane
mask to block starlight. The Coronagraphic Low Order Wavefront Sensor (CLOWFS)
produces a defocused image of a reflective focal plane ring to measure low
order aberrations. Even for small levels of wavefront aberration, the proposed
scheme produces large intensity signals which can be easily measured, and
therefore does not require highly accurate calibration of either the detector
or optical elements. The CLOWFS achieves nearly optimal sensitivity and is
immune from non-common path errors. This technique is especially well suited
for high performance low inner working angle (IWA) coronagraphs. On
phase-induced amplitude apodization (PIAA) type coronagraphs, it can
unambiguously recover aberrations which originate from either side of the beam
shaping introduced by the PIAA optics. We show that the proposed CLOWFS can
measure sub-milliarcsecond telescope pointing errors several orders of
magnitude faster than would be possible in the coronagraphic science focal
plane alone, and can also accurately calibrate residual coronagraphic leaks due
to residual low order aberrations. We have demonstrated 1e-3 lambda/D pointing
stability in a laboratory demonstration of the CLOWFS on a PIAA type
coronagraph
Collisional Grooming Models of the Kuiper Belt Dust Cloud
We modeled the 3-D structure of the Kuiper Belt dust cloud at four different
dust production rates, incorporating both planet-dust interactions and
grain-grain collisions using the collisional grooming algorithm. Simulated
images of a model with a face-on optical depth of ~10^-4 primarily show an
azimuthally-symmetric ring at 40-47 AU in submillimeter and infrared
wavelengths; this ring is associated with the cold classical Kuiper Belt. For
models with lower optical depths (10^-6 and 10^-7), synthetic infrared images
show that the ring widens and a gap opens in the ring at the location of of
Neptune; this feature is caused by trapping of dust grains in Neptune's mean
motion resonances. At low optical depths, a secondary ring also appears
associated with the hole cleared in the center of the disk by Saturn. Our
simulations, which incorporate 25 different grain sizes, illustrate that
grain-grain collisions are important in sculpting today's Kuiper Belt dust, and
probably other aspects of the Solar System dust complex; collisions erase all
signs of azimuthal asymmetry from the submillimeter image of the disk at every
dust level we considered. The model images switch from being dominated by
resonantly-trapped small grains ("transport dominated") to being dominated by
the birth ring ("collision dominated") when the optical depth reaches a
critical value of tau ~ v/c, where v is the local Keplerian speed.Comment: 31 pages, including 9 figure
The interplay between radiation pressure and the photoelectric instability in optically thin disks of gas and dust
Previous theoretical works have shown that in optically thin disks, dust
grains are photoelectrically stripped of electrons by starlight, heating nearby
gas and possibly creating a dust clumping instability, the photoelectric
instability (PeI), that significantly alters global disk structure. In the
current work, we use the Pencil Code to perform the first numerical models of
the PeI that include stellar radiation pressure on dust grains in order to
explore the parameter regime in which the instability operates. In models with
gas surface densities greater than ,
we see a variety of dust structures, including sharp concentric rings and
non-axisymmetric arcs and clumps that represent dust surface density
enhancements of factors of depending on the run parameters. The
gas distributions show various structures as well, including clumps and arcs
formed from spiral arms. In models with lower gas surface densities, vortices
and smooth spiral arms form in the gas distribution, but the dust is too weakly
coupled to the gas to be significantly perturbed. In one high gas surface
density model, we include a large, low-order gas viscosity, and, in agreement
with previous radiation pressure-free models, find that it observably smooths
the structures that form in the gas and dust, suggesting that resolved images
of a given disk may be useful for deriving constraints on the effective
viscosity of its gas. Broadly, our models show that radiation pressure does not
preclude the formation of complex structure from the PeI, but the qualitative
manifestation of the PeI depends strongly on the parameters of the system. The
PeI may provide an explanation for unusual disk morphologies such as the moving
blobs of the AU Mic disk, the asymmetric dust distribution of the 49 Ceti disk,
and the rings and arcs found in the disk around HD 141569A.Comment: 13 pages, 13 figures; submitted to Ap
Long-Term Dynamics and the Orbital Inclinations of the Classical Kuiper Belt Objects
We numerically integrated the orbits of 1458 particles in the region of the
classical Kuiper Belt (41 AU < a < 47 AU) to explore the role of dynamical
instabilities in sculpting the inclination distribution of the classical Kuiper
Belt Objects (KBOs). We find that the selective removal of low-inclination
objects by overlapping secular resonances (nu_17 and nu_18) acts to raise the
mean inclination of the surviving population of particles over 4 billion years
of interactions with Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, though these
long-term dynamical effects do not themselves appear to explain the discovery
of KBOs with inclinations near 30 degrees. Our integrations also imply that
after 3 billion years of interaction with the massive planets, high inclination
KBOs more efficiently supply Neptune-encountering objects, the likely
progenitors of short-period comets, Centaurs, and scattered KBOs. The secular
resonances at low inclinations may indirectly cause this effect by weeding out
objects unprotected by mean motion resonances during the first 3 billion years.Comment: 23 pages, including 10 figures. Accepted for publication in A
Apocenter glow in eccentric debris disks: implications for Fomalhaut and epsilon Eridani
Debris disks often take the form of eccentric rings with azimuthal
asymmetries in surface brightness. Such disks are often described as showing
"pericenter glow", an enhancement of the disk brightness in regions nearest the
central star. At long wavelengths, however, the disk apocenters should appear
brighter than their pericenters: in the long wavelength limit, we find the
apocenter/pericenter flux ratio scales as 1+e for disk eccentricity e. We
produce new models of this "apocenter glow" to explore its causes and
wavelength dependence and study its potential as a probe of dust grain
properties. Based on our models, we argue that several far-infrared and
(sub)millimeter images of the Fomalhaut and epsilon Eridani debris rings
obtained with Herschel, JCMT, SHARC II, ALMA, and ATCA should be reinterpreted
as suggestions or examples of apocenter glow. This reinterpretation yields new
constraints on the disks' dust grain properties and size distributions.Comment: 20 pages, 7 figures; accepted to Ap
A Search for Resonant Structures in the Zodiacal Cloud with COBE DIRBE: The Mars Wake and Jupiter's Trojan Clouds
We searched the COBE DIRBE Sky and Zodi Atlas for a wake of dust trailing
Mars and for Trojan dust near Jupiter's L5 Lagrange point. We compare the DIRBE
images to a model Mars wake based on the empirical model of the Earth's wake as
seen by the DIRBE and place a 3-sigma upper limit on the fractional overdensity
of particles in the Mars wake of 18% of the fractional overdensity trailing the
Earth. We place a 3-sigma upper limit on the effective emitting area of large
(10-100 micron diameter) particles trapped at Jupiter's L5 Lagrange point of 6
x 10^17 cm^2, assuming that these large dust grains are distributed in space
like the Trojan asteroids. We would have detected the Mars wake if the surface
area of dust in the wake scaled simply as the mass of the planet times the
Poynting-Robertson time scale.Comment: Sixteen pages, and figures 1, 2, 3a, 3b, 4, 5, 6, and 7. Accepted for
publication in Icaru
- …