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At least 181 records · Page 10

The effects of an ion-thruster exhaust plume on S-band carrier transmission

The study reported here was undertaken (1) to develop models of the effects of an ion-thruster exhaust plume on S-band signals, and (2) to measure the effects. The results show that an S-band signal passing through an ion-thruster plume is reduced in amplitude and advanced in phase. The mathematical models gave reasonable estimates of the average signal attenuation and phase shift. Negligible fluctuations in the signal amplitude and phase were measured during steady-state thruster operation. However, large jumps in phase occurred when changes were made in the thruster operating state. This study confirms that the thruster plume can have a significant effect on S-band communication link performance; hence the plume effects must be considered in S-band link calculations when electric thrusters are used for spacecraft propulsion.

Ackerknecht, W. E.↗

Coronado Ecological Conservation: Assessing Vegetation Change Due to Border Wall Construction and Shifting Social Trails

Species monitoring is essential for mitigating the impacts of plant invasion, such as radical changes in an area’s ecosystem, degraded soil health, increased wildfire severity, landslides, and increased flooding. For this project, NASA DEVELOP partnered with the National Park Service (NPS) to investigate invasive species in disturbed lands: specifically, areas affected by off-trail travel and U.S.-Mexico border construction activities. The team assessed how construction has impacted the distribution of Lehmann’s lovegrass and Russian thistle invasives throughout Coronado National Memorial, AZ from 1986-2022. Using data from Landsat 5 and 8, Sentinel-2, NAIP, and PlanetScope, the team computed NDVI, NDMI, MSAVI2, EVI, and Tasseled Cap Wetness, Brightness, and Greenness transformations as vegetation health indicators to input into various machine learning algorithms. To minimize noise, the team conducted Principal Component Analysis on vegetation indices and spectral bands before running k-means clustering and random forest classification algorithms. Between all datasets, the team found that the median area fully overtaken by invasive plants was 5.37% of the park’s total area in 2022. The NPS will use end products to help increase restoration efforts in disturbed areas with high concentrations of invasive plants, and this project can serve as a jumping off point for future invasive species monitoring. The NPS’s collection of ground data for 2022-2023, in conjunction with future data collection, will notably improve the accuracy of classification models, leading to more precise monitoring of invasive species spread over time.

Coronado National Memorial↗

[Results of Simulation Studies]

Lattice Monte Carlo and off-lattice molecular dynamics simulations of h(sub 1)t(sub 4) and h(sub 4)t(sub l) (head/tail) amphiphile solutions have been performed as a function of surfactant concentration and temperature. The lattice and off-lattice systems exhibit quite different self-assembly behavior at equivalent thermodynamic conditions. We found that in the weakly aggregating regime (no preferred-size micelles), all models yield similar micelle size distributions at the same average aggregation number, albeit at different thermodynamic conditions (temperatures). In the strongly aggregating regime, this mapping between models (through temperature adjustment) fails, and the models exhibit qualitatively different micellization behavior. Incipient micellization in a model self-associating telechelic polymer solution results in a network with a transient elastic response that decays by a two-step relaxation: the first is due to a heterogeneous jump-diffusion process involving entrapment of end-groups within well-defined clusters and this is followed by rapid diffusion to neighboring clusters and a decay (terminal relaxation) due to cluster disintegration. The viscoelastic response of the solution manifests characteristics of a glass transition and entangled polymer network.

Source record↗

Staircase ion signature in the polar cusp - A case study

On 15 October, 1981 Dynamics Explorer 2 crossed the polar cusp at 1015 MLT and observed three distinct ion populations as it was moving poleward. These three populations had peak-flux energy around 2.7 keV, 850 eV, and 360 eV. At the time of observation, the IMF was southward. The first step coincided with a rotation of the flow from westward to poleward and then eastward. The second and third steps showed a flow directed principally poleward. Furthermore, the magnetic and electric perturbations in the first step are well fitted by an elongated flux tube footprint model. These results suggest that three consecutive Flux Transfer Events (FTEs) have injected solar wind plasma into the ionosphere forming the polar cusp. The individual FTE signatures can only be identified by the jumps in the precipitation pattern. The newest reconnected FTE footprint was crossed near the edge of the event while the two oldest ones were crossed around the event center. The small latitudinal size of these FTE footprints (40 km) and their short recurrence rate (3, 6 min) is consistent with an intermittent reconnection taking place at the subsolar point on a short time scale.

Escoubet, C. P.↗

Modeling of Non-Spherical Droplet Dynamics

A two-dimensional time-dependent computer code based on the modified Arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian (ALE) technique, has been developed to simulate non-spherical droplet dynamics and evaporation under convective flows at real rocket combustion chamber conditions. The equations of mass, momentum, energy and species are simultaneously solved for both liquid and gas phases with an accurate dynamic interface tracking. The jump boundary conditions across the deforming droplet surface are obtained by applying the integral forms of conservation of mass, momentum, and energy. At each time step, the interface geometry and flow properties at the droplet surface are implicitly solved by satisfying the interface boundary conditions. A Lagrangian technique was developed to track the arbitrarily moving interface between the liquid droplet and the external gas. An elliptic grid generator is adopted to dynamically reconstruct grids both inside and outside the droplet surface. This code has been used to study droplet oscillation, droplet deformation/breakup, nonspherical droplet evaporation in both low and high pressure convective flows. This presentation briefly describes the numerical algorithm for modeling of the nonspherical droplet dynamics and demonstrates the representative simulation results of nonspherical droplet evaporation at low and high pressure convective flows. Potential applications of this code to rocket combustor design and performance predictions are discussed.

Deng, Zheng-Tao↗

GTD analysis of airborne antennas radiating in the presence of lossy dielectric layers

The patterns of monopole or aperture antennas mounted on a perfectly conducting convex surface radiating in the presence of a dielectric or metal plate are computed. The geometrical theory of diffraction is used to analyze the radiating system and extended here to include diffraction by flat dielectric slabs. Modified edge diffraction coefficients valid for wedges whose walls are lossy or lossless thin dielectric or perfectly conducting plates are developed. The width of the dielectric plates cannot exceed a quarter of a wavelength in free space, and the interior angle of the wedge is assumed to be close to 0 deg or 180 deg. Systematic methods for computing the individual components of the total high frequency field are discussed. The accuracy of the solutions is demonstrated by comparisons with measured results, where a 2 lambda by 4 lambda prolate spheroid is used as the convex surface. A jump or kink appears in the calculated pattern when higher order terms that are important are not included in the final solution. The most immediate application of the results presented here is in the modelling of structures such as aircraft which are composed of nonmetallic parts that play a significant role in the pattern.

Rojas-Teran, R. G.↗

Corequake and shock heating model of the 5 March 1979 gamma ray burst

Ramatry, et al. proposed a model to account for the 5 March 1979 gamma ray burst in terms of a neutron star corequake and subsequent shock heating of the neutron star atmosphere. This model is extended by examining the overall energetics and characteristics of these shocks, taking into account the e(+)-e(-) pair production behind the shock. The effects of a dipole magnetic field in the shock jump conditions are also examined and it is concluded that the uneven heating produced by such a field can account for the temperature difference between pole and equator implied by the pulsating phase of the burst. The overall energetics and distribution of energy between e(+)-(-) pairs and photons appears to be in agreement with observations if this event is at a distance of 55 kpc as implied by its association with the Large Magellanic Cloud.

Ellison, D. C.↗

Corequake and shock heating model of the 5 March 1979 gamma ray burst

Ramatry, et al. proposed a model to account for the 5 March 1979 gamma ray burst in terms of a neutron star corequake and subsequent shock heating of the neutron star atmosphere. This model is extended by examining the overall energetics and characteristics of these shocks, taking into account the e(+)-e(-) pair production behind the shock. The effects of a dipole magnetic field in the shock jump conditions are also examined and it is concluded that the uneven heating produced by such a field can account for the temperature difference between pole and equator implied by the pulsating phase of the burst. The overall energetics and distribution of energy between e(+)-e(-) pairs and photons appear to be in agreement with observations if this event is at a distance of 55 kpc as implied by its association with the Large Magellanic Cloud. Previously announced in STAR as N83-31568

Ellison, D. C.↗

Vortex creep and the internal temperature of neutron stars Timing noise in pulsars

Vortex creep theory is used to construct model noise power spectra for three physically distinct types of events which might give rise to pulsar timing noise. These are 'pure' events, in which vortex unpinning is the source of the initial frequency jump; 'mixed' events, in which the initial frequency jump is produced by some physical process other than vortex unpinning but leads to the unpinning of some vortices; and 'external' events, in which the initial frequency jumps responsible for noise do not involve any vortex unpinning. For the first two types of events, it is found that relaxation processes in the region responsible for the noise will give rise to structure in the observed power spectra, while for external events, the resulting noise spectra will not be influenced by vortex creep. The theoretical results are compared with observed power spectra for 25 pulsars. The absence of structure in the observed power spectra of the Crab and Vela pulsars within the range of time scales which characterize their postglitch behavior indicates that the pinning regions which play a role in postglitch behavior do not experience the small unpinning events leading to timing noise.

Alpar, M. Ali↗

The energetic ion signature of an O-type neutral line in the geomagnetic tail

An energetic ion signature is presented which has the potential for remote sensing of an O-type neutral line embedded in a current sheet. A source plasma with a tailward flowing Kappa distribution yields a strongly non-Kappa distribution after interacting with the neutral line: sharp jumps, or ridges, occur in the velocity space distribution function f(nu-perpendicular, nu-parallel) associated with both increases and decreases in f. The jumps occur when orbits are reversed in the x-direction: a reversal causing initially earthward particles (low probability in the source distribution) to be observed results in a decrease in f, while a reversal causing initially tailward particles to be observed produces an increase in f. The reversals, and hence the jumps, occur at approximately constant values of perpendicular velocity in both the positive nu parallel and negative nu parallel half planes. The results were obtained using single particle simulations in a fixed magnetic field model.

Martin, R. F., Jr.↗

First ultraviolet spectropolarimetry of Be stars from the Wisconsin Ultraviolet Photo-Polarimeter Experiment

The first UV spectropolarimetric observations of Be stars are presented. They were obtained with the Wisconsin Ultraviolet Photo-Polarimeter Experiment (WUPPE) aboard the Astro-1 mission. WUPPE data on the Be stars Zeta Tau and Pi Aqr, along with near-simultaneous optical data obtained at the Pine Bluff Observatory (PBO). Combined WUPPE and PBO data give polarization as a function of wavelength across a very broad spectral region, from 1400 to 7600 A. Existing Be star models predicted increasing polarization toward shorter wavelengths in the UV, but this is not supported by the WUPPE observations. Instead, the observations show a constant or slightly declining continuum polarization shortward of the Balmer jump, and broad UV polarization dips around 1700 and 1900 A, which may be a result of Fe-line-attenuation effects on the polarized flux. Supporting evidence for this conclusion comes from the optical data, in which decreases in polarization across Fe II lines in Zeta Tau were discovered.

Bjorkman, K. S.↗

Effect of joint damping and joint nonlinearity on the dynamics of space structures

Analyses of the effect of linear joint characteristics on the vibrations of a free-free, three-joint beam model show that increasing joint damping increases resonant frequencies and increases modal damping but only to the point where the joint gets 'locked up' by damping. This behavior is different from that predicted by modeling joint damping as proportional damping. Nonlinear analyses of the three-joint model with cubic springs at the joints show all the classical single DOF nonlinear response behavior at each resonance of the multiple DOF system: nondoubling of response for a doubling of forcing amplitude, multiple solutions, jump behavior, and resonant frequency shifts. These properties can be concisely quantified by characteristic backbone curves, which show the locus of resonant peaks for increasing forcing amplitude.

Bowden, Mary↗

Jitter in SS 433-A clue to the collimation mechanism

The blue and red shift jitter observed in SS 433 is examined with a view to determining its sources. The jitter is characterized by a Delta-z rms amplitude of 0.01, corresponding to a 3000 km/sec Doppler velocity, which is larger than either the width or the error of measurement of the shifted lines. In addition, the amplitude of the jumps is not strongly dependent on the phase in the 164-day cycle, and the amplitudes of the jitter in the redshifted and blueshifted branches are comparable. It is shown that these features set strong constraints on models proposed for SS 433 by Sarazin et al. (1980), Katz (1980), and Van den Heuvel et al. (1980).

Katz, J. I.↗

Broad line region clouds and the absorbing material in NGC 4151

A discussion is presented of the constraints imposed by X-ray, UV and optical observations on the absorbing material in the Seyfert 1.5 galaxy NGC 4151, comparing said observations with both photoionization model predictions of broad line region clouds and models of the narrow line region gas. The weakness of both semiforbidden C III 1909 and the broad component of H-alpha relative to C IV 1549, in conjunction with the absence of an absorption Balmer jump, indicate a broad line region ionization parameter that is greater in NGC 4151 than in QSO clouds by a factor of 30. The present calculations suggest that narrow line region clouds have a composition similar to extragalactic giant H II regions, with the H line spectrum showing that dust is mixed with narrow line region gas. It is hypothesized that broad line region clouds are likely to be in a radiatively driven wind, and it is shown that such clouds are opaque to radio emission.

Ferland, G. J.↗

Stability mechanical considerations, and AC loss in HTSC monoliths, coils, and wires

For monolithic high-T(sub c) superconductors (HTSC's) calculations are presented of: (1) the initial flux jump field, H(sub fj), in melt-processed YBCO based on a field and temperature dependent J(sub c), and (2) the radial and circumferential stresses in solid and hollow cylinders containing trapped magnetic flux. For model multi filamentary (MF) HTSC/Ag strands calculations are presented of: (1) the limiting filament diameters for adiabatic and dynamic stability, and (2) the hysteretic and eddy current components of AC loss. Again for MF HTSC/Ag composite strands the need for filamentary subdivision and twisting is discussed.

Sumption, M. D.↗

Hubble Space Telescope Eclipse Observations of the Nova Like Cataclysmic Variable UX Ursae Majoris

We present and analyze Hubble Space Telescope observations of the eclipsing nova-like cataclysmic variable UX UMa obtained with the Faint Object Spectrograph. Two eclipses each were observed with the G160L grating (covering the ultraviolet waveband) in 1994 August and with the PRISM (covering the near-ultraviolet to near-infrared) in November of the same year. The system was about 50% brighter in November than in August, which, if due to a change in the accretion rate, indicates a fairly substantial increase in Mass accretion by about 50%. The eclipse light curves are qualitatively consistent with the gradual occultation of an accretion disk with a radially decreasing temperature distribution. The light curves also exhibit asymmetries about mideclipse that are likely due to a bright spot at the disk edge. Bright-spot spectra have been constructed by differencing the mean spectra observed at pre- and posteclipse orbital phases. These difference spectra contain ultraviolet absorption lines and show the Balmer jump in emission. This suggests that part of the bright spot may be optically thin in the continuum and vertically extended enough to veil the inner disk and/or the outflow from UX UMa in some spectral lines. Model disk spectra constructed as ensembles of stellar atmospheres provide poor descriptions of the observed posteclipse spectra, despite the fact that UX UMa's light should be dominated by the disk at this time. Suitably scaled single temperature model stellar atmospheres with T(sub eff) approximately equals 12,500-14,500 K actually provide a better match to both the ultraviolet and optical posteclipse spectra. Evidently, great care must be taken in attempts to derive accretion rates from comparisons of disk models to observations. One way to reconcile disk models with the observed posteclipse spectra is to postulate the presence of a significant amount of optically thin material in the system. Such an optically thin component might be associated with the transition region ("chromosphere") between the disk photosphere and the fast wind from the system whose presence has been suggested by Knigge and Drew. In any event, the wind/ chromosphere is likely to be the region in which many, if not most, of the UV lines are formed. This is clear from the plethora of emission lines that appear in the mideclipse spectra, some of which appear as absorption features in spectra taken at out-of-eclipse orbital phases.

Knigge, Christian↗

Numerical Modeling of Liquid-Vapor Phase Change

We implemented a two- and three-dimensional finite difference/front tracking technique to solve liquid-vapor phase change problems. The mathematical and the numerical features of the method were explained in great detail in our previous reports, Briefly, we used a single formula representation which incorporated jump conditions into the governing equations. The interfacial terms were distributed as singular terms using delta functions so that the governing equations would be the same as conventional conservation equations away from the interface and in the vicinity of the interface they would provide correct jump conditions. We used a fixed staggered grid to discretize these equations and an unstructured grid to explicitly track the front. While in two dimensions the front was simply a connection of small line segments, in three dimensions it was represented by a connection of small triangular elements. The equations were written in conservative forms and during the course of computations we used regriding to control the size of the elements of the unstructured grid. Moreover, we implemented a coalescence in two dimensions which allowed the merging of different fronts or two segments of the same front when they were sufficiently close. We used our code to study thermocapillary migration of bubbles, burst of bubbles at a free surface, buoyancy-driven interactions of bubbles, evaporation of drops, rapid evaporation of an interface, planar solidification of an undercooled melt, dendritic solidification, and a host of other problems cited in the reference.

Esmaeeli, Asghar↗

Cloud Adjustments From Large-Scale Smoke–Circulation Interactions Strongly Modulate the Southeastern Atlantic Stratocumulus-to-Cumulus Transition

Smoke from southern Africa blankets the southeastern Atlantic Ocean from June to October, producing strong and competing aerosol radiative effects. Smoke effects on the transition between overcast stratocumulus and scattered cumulus clouds are investigated along a Lagrangian (air-mass-following) trajectory in regional climate and large eddy simulation models. Results are compared with observations from three recent field campaigns that took place in August 2017: ObseRvations of Aerosols above CLouds and their intEractionS (ORACLES), CLouds and Aerosol Radiative Impacts and Forcing: Year 2017 (CLARIFY), and Layered Atlantic Smoke Interactions with Clouds (LASIC). The case study is set up around the joint ORACLES–CLARIFY flight that took place near Ascension Island on 18 August 2017. Smoke sampled upstream on an ORACLES flight on 15 August 2017 likely entrained into the marine boundary layer later sampled during the joint flight. The case is first simulated with the WRF-CAM5 regional climate model in three distinct setups: (1) FireOn, in which smoke emissions and any resulting smoke–cloud–radiation interactions are included; (2) FireOff, in which no smoke emissions are included; (3) RadOff, in which smoke emissions and their microphysical effects are included but aerosol does not interact directly with radiation. Over the course of the Lagrangian trajectory, differences in free tropospheric thermodynamic properties between FireOn and FireOff are nearly identical to those between FireOn and RadOff, showing that aerosol–radiation interactions are primarily responsible for the free tropospheric effects. These effects are non-intuitive: in addition to the expected heating within the core of the smoke plume, there is also a “banding” effect of cooler temperature (∼1–2 K) and greatly enhanced moisture (>2 g kg−1) at the plume top. This banding effect is caused by a vertical displacement of the former continental boundary layer in the free troposphere in the FireOn simulation resulting from anomalous diabatic heating due to smoke absorption of sunlight that manifests primarily as a few hundred meters per day reduction in large-scale subsidence over the ocean. A large eddy simulation (LES) is then forced with free tropospheric fields taken from the outputs for the WRF-CAM5 FireOn and FireOff runs. Cases are run by selectively perturbing one variable (e.g., aerosol number concentration, temperature, moisture, vertical velocity) at a time to better understand the contributions from different indirect (microphysical), “large-scale” semi-direct (above-cloud thermodynamic and subsidence changes), and “local” semi-direct (below-cloud smoke absorption) effects. Despite a more than 5-fold increase in cloud droplet number concentration when including smoke aerosol concentrations, minimal differences in cloud fraction evolution are simulated by the LES when comparing the base case with a perturbed aerosol case with identical thermodynamic and dynamic forcings. A factor of 2 decrease in background free tropospheric aerosol concentrations from the FireOff simulation shifts the cloud evolution from a classical entrainment-driven “deepening–warming” transition to trade cumulus to a precipitation-driven “drizzle-depletion” transition to open cells, however. The thermodynamic and dynamic changes caused by the WRF-simulated large-scale adjustments to smoke diabatic heating strongly influence cloud evolution in terms of both the rate of deepening (especially for changes in the inversion temperature jump and in subsidence) and in cloud fraction on the final day of the simulation (especially for the moisture “banding” effect). Such large-scale semi-direct effects would not have been possible to simulate using a small-domain LES model alone.

southeast Atlantic Ocean↗