868 research outputs found

    GALEX Observations of CS and OH Emission in Comet 9P/Tempel 1 During Deep Impact

    Full text link
    GALEX observations of comet 9P/Tempel 1 using the near ultraviolet (NUV) objective grism were made before, during and after the Deep Impact event that occurred on 2005 July 4 at 05:52:03 UT when a 370 kg NASA spacecraft was maneuvered into the path of the comet. The NUV channel provides usable spectral information in a bandpass covering 2000 - 3400 A with a point source spectral resolving power of approximately 100. The primary spectral features in this range include solar continuum scattered from cometary dust and emissions from OH and CS molecular bands centered near 3085 and 2575 A, respectively. In particular, we report the only cometary CS emission detected during this event. The observations allow the evolution of these spectral features to be tracked over the period of the encounter. In general, the NUV emissions observed from Tempel 1 are much fainter than those that have been observed by GALEX from other comets. However, it is possible to derive production rates for the parent molecules of the species detected by GALEX in Tempel 1 and to determine the number of these molecules liberated by the impact. The derived quiescent production rates are Q(H2O) = 6.4e27 molecules/s and Q(CS2) = 6.7e24 molecules/s, while the impact produced an additional 1.6e32 H2O molecules and 1.3e29 CS2 molecules, a similar ratio as in quiescent outgassing.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journa

    A polarity reversal in the large-scale magnetic field of the rapidly rotating Sun HD 190771

    Full text link
    Aims. We investigate the long-term evolution of the large-scale photospheric magnetic field geometry of the solar-type star HD 190771. With fundamental parameters very close to those of the Sun except for a shorter rotation period of 8.8 d, HD 190771 provides us with a first insight into the specific impact of the rotation rate in the dynamo generation of magnetic fields in 1 MM_\odot stars. Methods. We use circularly polarized, high-resolution spectra obtained with the NARVAL spectropolarimeter (Observatoire du Pic du Midi, France) and compute cross-correlation line profiles with high signal-to-noise ratio to detect polarized Zeeman signatures. From three phase-resolved data sets collected during the summers of 2007, 2008, and 2009, we model the large-scale photospheric magnetic field of the star by means of Zeeman-Doppler imaging and follow its temporal evolution. Results. The comparison of the magnetic maps shows that a polarity reversal of the axisymmetric component of the large-scale magnetic field occurred between 2007 and 2008, this evolution being observed in both the poloidal and toroidal magnetic components. Between 2008 and 2009, another type of global evolution occured, characterized by a sharp decrease of the fraction of magnetic energy stored in the toroidal component. These changes were not accompanied by significant evolution in the total photospheric magnetic energy. Using our spectra to perform radial velocity measurements, we also detect a very low-mass stellar companion to HD 190771.Comment: Accepted by Astronomy and Astrophysics (Letter to the Editor

    Dynamics of light propagation in spatiotemporal dielectric structures

    Full text link
    Propagation, transmission and reflection properties of linearly polarized plane waves and arbitrarily short electromagnetic pulses in one-dimensional dispersionless dielectric media possessing an arbitrary space-time dependence of the refractive index are studied by using a two-component, highly symmetric version of Maxwell's equations. The use of any slow varying amplitude approximation is avoided. Transfer matrices of sharp nonstationary interfaces are calculated explicitly, together with the amplitudes of all secondary waves produced in the scattering. Time-varying multilayer structures and spatiotemporal lenses in various configurations are investigated analytically and numerically in a unified approach. Several new effects are reported, such as pulse compression, broadening and spectral manipulation of pulses by a spatiotemporal lens, and the closure of the forbidden frequency gaps with the subsequent opening of wavenumber bandgaps in a generalized Bragg reflector

    Electronic and Optical Materials and Applications

    Get PDF
    Contains research objectives and reports on five research projects.Joint Services Electronics Program (Contract DAAG29-78-C-0020)United States Air Force (Contract F19628-79-C-0047

    Microwave and Quantum Magnetics

    Get PDF
    Contains research objectives and reports on five research projects.Joint Services Electronics Program (Contract DAAG29-83-K-0003)National Institutes of Health (Grant 1 P01 CA3 1303-01

    Microwave and Quantum Magnetics

    Get PDF
    Contains research objectives and reports on five research projects.Joint Services Electronics Program (Contract DAAG29-83-K-0003)National Institutes of Health (Grant 1 P01 CA3 1303-01

    GALEX FUV Observations of Comet C/2004 Q2 (Machholz): The Ionization Lifetime of Carbon

    Full text link
    We present a measurement of the lifetime of ground state atomic carbon, C(^3P), against ionization processes in interplanetary space and compare it to the lifetime expected from the dominant physical processes likely to occur in this medium. Our measurement is based on analysis of a far ultraviolet (FUV) image of comet C/2004 Q2 (Machholz) recorded by the Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) on 2005 March 1. The bright CI 1561 A and 1657 A multiplets dominate the GALEX FUV band. We used the image to create high S/N radial profiles that extended beyond one million km from the comet nucleus. Our measurements yielded a total carbon lifetime of 7.1 -- 9.6 x 10^5 s (scaled to 1 AU). Which compares favorably to calculations assuming solar photoionization, solar wind proton change exchange and solar wind electron impact ionization are the dominant processes occurring in this medium and that comet Machholz was embedded in the slow solar wind. The shape of the CI profiles inside 3x10^5 km suggests that either the CO lifetime is shorter than previously thought and/or a shorter-lived carbon-bearing parent molecule, such as CH_4 is providing the majority of the carbon in this region of the coma of comet Machholz.Comment: 26 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journa
    corecore