56,353 research outputs found
Recovery of atmospheric refractivity profiles from simulated satellite-to-satellite tracking data
Techniques for recovering atmospheric refractivity profiles from simulated satellite-to-satellite tracking data are documented. Examples are given using the geometric configuration of the ATS-6/NIMBUS-6 Tracking Experiment. The underlying refractivity model for the lower atmosphere has the spherically symmetric form N = exp P(s) where P(s) is a polynomial in the normalized height s. For the simulation used, the Herglotz-Wiechert technique recovered values which were 0.4% and 40% different from the input values at the surface and at a height of 33 kilometers, respectively. Using the same input data, the model fitting technique recovered refractivity values 0.05% and 1% different from the input values at the surface and at a height of 50 kilometers, respectively. It is also shown that if ionospheric and water vapor effects can be properly modelled or effectively removed from the data, pressure and temperature distributions can be obtained
Relativistic Effects in Extrasolar Planetary Systems
This paper considers general relativistic (GR) effects in currently observed
extrasolar planetary systems. Although GR corrections are small, they can
compete with secular interactions in these systems and thereby play an
important role. Specifically, some of the observed multiple planet systems are
close to secular resonance, where the dynamics is extremely sensitive to GR
corrections, and these systems can be used as laboratories to test general
relativity. For the three-planet solar system Upsilon Andromedae, secular
interaction theory implies an 80% probability of finding the system with its
observed orbital elements if GR is correct, compared with only a 2% probability
in the absence of GR. In the future, tighter constraints can be obtained with
increased temporal coverage.Comment: Accepted for publication in International Journal of Modern Physics
D; this paper received ``Honorable Mention'' in the 2006 Essay Competition of
the Gravity Research Foundation; 9 pages including 1 figur
Intensity mapping cross-correlations II: HI halo models including shot noise
HI intensity mapping data traces the large-scale structure matter
distribution using the integrated emission of neutral hydrogen gas (HI). The
cross-correlation of the intensity maps with optical galaxy surveys can
mitigate foreground and systematic effects, but has been shown to significantly
depend on galaxy evolution parameters of the HI and the optical sample.
Previously, we have shown that the shot noise of the cross-correlation scales
with the HI content of the optical samples, such that the shot noise estimation
infers the average HI masses of these samples. In this article, we present an
adaptive framework for the cross-correlation of HI intensity maps with galaxy
samples using our implementation of the halo model formalism (Murray et al
2018, in prep) which utilises the halo occupation distribution of galaxies to
predict their power spectra. We compare two HI population models, tracing the
spatial halo and the galaxy distribution respectively, and present their auto-
and cross-power spectra with an associated galaxy sample. We find that the
choice of the HI model and the distribution of the HI within the galaxy sample
have minor significance for the shape of the auto- and cross-correlations, but
highly impact the measured shot noise amplitude of the estimators, a finding we
confirm with simulations. We demonstrate parameter estimation of the HI halo
occupation models and advocate this framework for the interpretation of future
experimental data, with the prospect of determining the HI masses of optical
galaxy samples via the cross-correlation shot noise.Comment: 15 pages, 8 figures, 3 tables. Comments welcom
The Impact of Early Positive Results on a Mathematics and Science Partnership: The Experience of the Institute for Chemistry Literacy Through Computational Science
After one year of implementation, the Institute for Chemistry Literacy through Computational Science, an NSF Mathematics and Science Partnership Institute Project led by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s Department of Chemistry, College of Medicine, and National Center for Supercomputing Applications, experienced statistically significant gains in chemistry content knowledge among students of the rural high school teachers participating in its intensive, year-round professional development course, compared to a control group. The project utilizes a two-cohort, delayed-treatment, random control trial, quasi-experimental research design with the second cohort entering treatment one year following the first. The three-year treatment includes intensive two-week summer institutes, occasional school year workshops and year-round, on-line collaborative lesson development, resource sharing, and expert support. The means of student pre-test scores for Cohort I (η=963) and Cohort II (η=862) teachers were not significantly different. The mean gain (difference between pre-test and post-test scores) after seven months in the classroom for Cohort I was 9.8 percentage points, compared to 6.7 percentage points for Cohort II. This statistically significant difference (p\u3c.001) represented an effect size of .25 standard deviation units, and indicated unusually early confirmation of treatment effects. When post-tests were compared, Cohort I students scored significantly higher than Cohort II and supported the gain score differences. The impact of these results on treatment and research plans is discussed. concentrating on the effect of lessening rural teachers’ isolation and increasing access to tools to facilitate learning
Thermal instabilities in protogalactic clouds
The means by which a protogalaxy can fragment to form the first generation of stars and globular clusters remains an important problem in astrophysics. Gravitational instabilities grow on timescales too long to drive fragmentation before the background density grows by many orders of magnitude (see Murray and Lin 1989a, and references therein). Thermal instability provides a much more likely mechanism. After its initial collapse, a protogalactic cloud is expected to be shock heated to its virial temperature approx. 10(exp 6) K. Cooling by H and He+ below 10(exp 6) K has a negative slope, so that the cloud is subject to strong thermal instabilities. Density enhancements may then grow rapidly, fragmenting the protogalaxy as it cools to lower temperatures. The role of dynamical effects upon the growth of perturbations is considered here. The method used is similar to that used in Murray and Lin (1989a; see also the Erratum to appear September 15), which examined the growth of thermal instabilities with a one-dimensional Lagrangian hydrodynamics code, written for spherical symmetry. Perturbed regions therefore take the form of shells. The dynamical variables are integrated explicitly, while the temperature, ionization fraction, and molecular fraction are integrated implicitly, and account is taken for non-equilibrium values of these quantities
The NASA Astrophysics Data System: Architecture
The powerful discovery capabilities available in the ADS bibliographic
services are possible thanks to the design of a flexible search and retrieval
system based on a relational database model. Bibliographic records are stored
as a corpus of structured documents containing fielded data and metadata, while
discipline-specific knowledge is segregated in a set of files independent of
the bibliographic data itself.
The creation and management of links to both internal and external resources
associated with each bibliography in the database is made possible by
representing them as a set of document properties and their attributes.
To improve global access to the ADS data holdings, a number of mirror sites
have been created by cloning the database contents and software on a variety of
hardware and software platforms.
The procedures used to create and manage the database and its mirrors have
been written as a set of scripts that can be run in either an interactive or
unsupervised fashion.
The ADS can be accessed at http://adswww.harvard.eduComment: 25 pages, 8 figures, 3 table
The NASA Astrophysics Data System: The Search Engine and its User Interface
The ADS Abstract and Article Services provide access to the astronomical
literature through the World Wide Web (WWW). The forms based user interface
provides access to sophisticated searching capabilities that allow our users to
find references in the fields of Astronomy, Physics/Geophysics, and
astronomical Instrumentation and Engineering. The returned information includes
links to other on-line information sources, creating an extensive astronomical
digital library. Other interfaces to the ADS databases provide direct access to
the ADS data to allow developers of other data systems to integrate our data
into their system.
The search engine is a custom-built software system that is specifically
tailored to search astronomical references. It includes an extensive synonym
list that contains discipline specific knowledge about search term
equivalences.
Search request logs show the usage pattern of the various search system
capabilities. Access logs show the world-wide distribution of ADS users.
The ADS can be accessed at http://adswww.harvard.eduComment: 23 pages, 18 figures, 11 table
The NASA Astrophysics Data System: Data Holdings
Since its inception in 1993, the ADS Abstract Service has become an
indispensable research tool for astronomers and astrophysicists worldwide. In
those seven years, much effort has been directed toward improving both the
quantity and the quality of references in the database. From the original
database of approximately 160,000 astronomy abstracts, our dataset has grown
almost tenfold to approximately 1.5 million references covering astronomy,
astrophysics, planetary sciences, physics, optics, and engineering. We collect
and standardize data from approximately 200 journals and present the resulting
information in a uniform, coherent manner. With the cooperation of journal
publishers worldwide, we have been able to place scans of full journal articles
on-line back to the first volumes of many astronomical journals, and we are
able to link to current version of articles, abstracts, and datasets for
essentially all of the current astronomy literature. The trend toward
electronic publishing in the field, the use of electronic submission of
abstracts for journal articles and conference proceedings, and the increasingly
prominent use of the World Wide Web to disseminate information have enabled the
ADS to build a database unparalleled in other disciplines.
The ADS can be accessed at http://adswww.harvard.eduComment: 24 pages, 1 figure, 6 tables, 3 appendice
Binaries and core-ring structures in self-gravitating systems
Low energy states of self-gravitating systems with finite angular momentum
are considered. A constraint is introduced to confine cores and other condensed
objects within the system boundaries by gravity alone. This excludes previously
observed astrophysically irrelevant asymmetric configurations with a single
core. We show that for an intermediate range of a short-distance cutoff and
small angular momentum, the equilibrium configuration is an asymmetric binary.
For larger angular momentum or for a smaller range of the short distance
cutoff, the equilibrium configuration consists of a central core and an
equatorial ring. The mass of the ring varies between zero for vanishing
rotation and the full system mass for the maximum angular momentum a
localized gravitationally bound system can have. The value of scales
as , where is a ratio of a short-distance cutoff range
to the system size. An example of the soft gravitational potential is
considered; the conclusions are shown to be valid for other forms of
short-distance regularization.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure
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