115 research outputs found
Survival of Organic Materials in Hypervelocity Impacts of Ice on Sand, Ice, and Water in the Laboratory
The survival of organic molecules in shock impact events has been investigated in the laboratory. A frozen mixture of anthracene and stearic acid, solvated in dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO), was fired in a two-stage light gas gun at speeds of ?2 and ?4?km s?1 at targets that included water ice, water, and sand. This involved shock pressures in the range of 2–12 GPa. It was found that the projectile materials were present in elevated quantities in the targets after impact and in some cases in the crater ejecta as well. For DMSO impacting water at 1.9?km s?1 and 45° incidence, we quantify the surviving fraction after impact as 0.44±0.05. This demonstrates successful transfer of organic compounds from projectile to target in high-speed impacts. The range of impact speeds used covers that involved in impacts of terrestrial meteorites on the Moon, as well as impacts in the outer Solar System on icy bodies such as Pluto. The results provide laboratory evidence that suggests that exogenous delivery of complex organic molecules from icy impactors is a viable source of such material on target bodies
On the deflection of asteroids with mirrors
This paper presents an analysis of an asteroid deflection method based on multiple solar concentrators. A model of the deflection through the sublimation of the surface material of an asteroid is presented, with simulation results showing the achievable orbital deflection with, and without, accounting for the effects of mirror contamination due to the ejected debris plume. A second model with simulation results is presented analyzing an enhancement of the Yarkovsky effect, which provides a significant deflection even when the surface temperature is not high enough to sublimate. Finally the dynamical model of solar concentrators in the proximity of an irregular celestial body are discussed, together with a Lyapunov-based controller to maintain the spacecraft concentrators at a required distance from the asteroid
A Motivating Exploration on Lunar Craters and Low-Energy Dynamics in the Earth -- Moon System
It is known that most of the craters on the surface of the Moon were created
by the collision of minor bodies of the Solar System. Main Belt Asteroids,
which can approach the terrestrial planets as a consequence of different types
of resonance, are actually the main responsible for this phenomenon. Our aim is
to investigate the impact distributions on the lunar surface that low-energy
dynamics can provide. As a first approximation, we exploit the hyberbolic
invariant manifolds associated with the central invariant manifold around the
equilibrium point L_2 of the Earth - Moon system within the framework of the
Circular Restricted Three - Body Problem. Taking transit trajectories at
several energy levels, we look for orbits intersecting the surface of the Moon
and we attempt to define a relationship between longitude and latitude of
arrival and lunar craters density. Then, we add the gravitational effect of the
Sun by considering the Bicircular Restricted Four - Body Problem. As further
exploration, we assume an uniform density of impact on the lunar surface,
looking for the regions in the Earth - Moon neighbourhood these colliding
trajectories have to come from. It turns out that low-energy ejecta originated
from high-energy impacts are also responsible of the phenomenon we are
considering.Comment: The paper is being published in Celestial Mechanics and Dynamical
Astronomy, vol. 107 (2010
Spin in relativistic quantum theory
We discuss the role of spin in Poincar\'e invariant formulations of quantum
mechanics.Comment: 54 page
Electroproduction of Charmonia off Nuclei
In a recent publication we have calculated elastic charmonium production in
ep collisions employing realistic charmonia wave functions and dipole cross
sections and have found good agreement with the data in a wide range of s and
Q^2. Using the ingredients from those calculations we calculate exclusive
electroproduction of charmonia off nuclei. Here new effects become important,
(i) color filtering of the c-cbar pair on its trajectory through nuclear
matter, (ii) dependence on the finite lifetime of the c-cbar fluctuation
(coherence length) and (iii) gluon shadowing in a nucleus compared to the one
in a nucleon. Total coherent and incoherent cross sections for C, Cu and Pb as
functions of s and Q^2 are presented together with some differential cross
sections. The results can be tested with future electron-nucleus colliders or
in peripheral collisions of ultrarelativistic heavy ions.Comment: 21 pages of Latex including 14 figures; few misprints are fixe
Axial vector form factor of nucleons in a light-cone diquark model
The nucleon axial vector form factor is investigated in a light-cone quark
spectator diquark model, in which Melosh rotations are applied to both the
quark and vector diquark. It is found that this model gives a very good
description of available experimental data and the results have very little
dependence on the parameters of the model. The relation between the nucleon
axial constant and the anomalous magnetic moment of nucleons is also discussed.Comment: 8 pages, Revtex4, 1 figure, version to be published in Phys. Rev.
Nonperturbative Description of Deep Inelastic Structure Functions in Light-Front QCD
We explore the deep inelastic structure functions of hadrons
nonperturbatively in an inverse power expansion of the light-front energy of
the probe in the framework of light-front QCD. We arrive at the general
expressions for various structure functions as the Fourier transform of matrix
elements of different components of bilocal vector and axial vector currents on
the light-front in a straightforward manner. The complexities of the structure
functions are mainly carried by the multi-parton wave functions of the hadrons,
while, the bilocal currents have a dynamically dependent yet simple structure
on the light-front in this description. We also present a novel analysis of the
power corrections based on light-front power counting which resolves some
ambiguities of the conventional twist analysis in deep inelastic processes.
Further, the factorization theorem and the scale evolution of the structure
functions are presented in this formalism by using old-fashioned light-front
time-ordered perturbation theory with multi-parton wave functions.
Nonperturbative QCD dynamics underlying the structure functions can be explored
in the same framework. Once the nonperturbative multi-parton wave functions are
known from low-energy light-front QCD, a complete description of deep inelastic
structure functions can be realized.Comment: Revtex, 30 pages and no figur
Dynamical Chiral Symmetry Breaking on the Light Front.II. The Nambu--Jona-Lasinio Model
An investigation of dynamical chiral symmetry breaking on the light front is
made in the Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model with one flavor and N colors. Analysis of
the model suffers from extraordinary complexity due to the existence of a
"fermionic constraint," i.e., a constraint equation for the bad spinor
component. However, to solve this constraint is of special importance. In
classical theory, we can exactly solve it and then explicitly check the
property of ``light-front chiral transformation.'' In quantum theory, we
introduce a bilocal formulation to solve the fermionic constraint by the 1/N
expansion. Systematic 1/N expansion of the fermion bilocal operator is realized
by the boson expansion method. The leading (bilocal) fermionic constraint
becomes a gap equation for a chiral condensate and thus if we choose a
nontrivial solution of the gap equation, we are in the broken phase. As a
result of the nonzero chiral condensate, we find unusual chiral transformation
of fields and nonvanishing of the light-front chiral charge. A leading order
eigenvalue equation for a single bosonic state is equivalent to a leading order
fermion-antifermion bound-state equation. We analytically solve it for scalar
and pseudoscalar mesons and obtain their light-cone wavefunctions and masses.
All of the results are entirely consistent with those of our previous analysis
on the chiral Yukawa model.Comment: 23 pages, REVTEX, the version to be published in Phys.Rev.D; Some
clarifications in discussion of the LC wavefunctions adde
The Proton Spin and the Wigner Rotation
It is shown that in both the gluonic and strange sea explanations of the
Ellis-Jaffe sum rule violation discovered by the European Muon Collaboration
(EMC), the spin of the proton, when viewed in in its rest reference frame,
could by fully provided by quarks and antiquarks within a simple quark model
picture, taken into account the relativistic effect from the Wigner rotation.Comment: 13 latex page
Panspermia, Past and Present: Astrophysical and Biophysical Conditions for the Dissemination of Life in Space
Astronomically, there are viable mechanisms for distributing organic material
throughout the Milky Way. Biologically, the destructive effects of ultraviolet
light and cosmic rays means that the majority of organisms arrive broken and
dead on a new world. The likelihood of conventional forms of panspermia must
therefore be considered low. However, the information content of dam-aged
biological molecules might serve to seed new life (necropanspermia).Comment: Accepted for publication in Space Science Review
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