SEARCH · Engineering Papers
Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.
Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.
The observations of galactic diffuse gamma radiation are reviewed. The connections of the gamma ray observations with galactic structure and cosmic rays are discussed. The high latitude galactic component and the low latitude emission from the galactic plane are examined. The observations in other regions of the gamma ray spectrum are discussed.
X-ray, gamma ray and neutrino observations are examined to show, in a general way, the relationship between them. Existing gamma ray measurements are summarized and some examples are used to set ranges or limits for neutrino fluxes for specific types of models. The purpose of this is to show the possibilities for separation between models and to aid in the consideration of neutrino detector designs. Attention is given to exceptional and normal galaxies, as well as to compact objects, and diffuse isotropic radiation. It is noted that the close relationship between gamma rays and neutrino production will be useful for future neutrino astronomy.
Observations of 35 MeV to several GeV diffuse gamma radiation from the galaxy are available from the SAS-2 and COS-B instruments. This paper gives a brief review of the experimental problem, a discussion of the high-latitude (local) galactic component, and a study of the more distant low-latitude emission from the galactic plane. Finally, the emerging observations in other energy ranges are mentioned.
Report presents detailed analysis of atmospheric blurring inherent in photographs or other observations of Earth from satellites or aircraft. Blurring result of scattering of radiation, which diffuses sharp image features by causing light from one part of scene to fall on image of adjacent part. In contrast with earlier approaches to atmospheric optics, one presented in report more accurate and versatile and designed for use on minicomputers.
A unique field instrument, called the PARABOLA, a collapsable support boom, which is self contained and easily transportable to remote sites to enable the acquisition of radiance data for almost the complete (4 pi) sky and ground-looking hemispheres in only 11 seconds was designed. The PARABOLA samples in 15 deg instantaneous field of view sectors in three narrow bandpass spectral channels simultaneously. Field measurement on a variety of earth surface cover types using a truck boom, a specially designed pickup truck mounting system, and a hot air balloon were studied. The PARABOLA instrument has potential for climatological and other studies which require characterization of the distribution of diffuse solar radiation within the sky hemisphere.
Line driven O-B stellar winds are unstable to perturbations of short spatial wavelength and the growth rates for such instabilities are very rapid. The nature of the nonlinear development of this instability is unknown, but might possibly be one of blobs of gas driven through ambient gas or a quasiregular train of outward moving shocks. In either case the resulting dissipation of mechanical energy might explain the observed anomalous heating n O-B stars as evidenced by their X-ray emission and high ionization state. It also might explain the observed fine structure of the absorption lines and their time variability. The driving due to the absorption of the stellar continuum flux was considered and the effects of the diffuse, scattered radiation field were neglected. It was shown that under certain special conditions the effect of scattering could reduce the instability growth rate to zero. A stability analysis that includes scattering, but that uses the more physically realistic assumption of complete redistribution instead of coherent scattering, and that includes the effects of transverse velocity gradients, which become important as the flow moves away from the stellar surface is presented. It is found that the instability is eliminated right at the base of the wind, but that as the flow moves outward the instability rate rapidly becomes equal to a substantial fraction of the calculated value, the fraction asymptotically reaching 80% at large radii. Since this still implies many e folds in a characteristic outflow time, the primary conclusion that these winds are highly unstable is unchanged.
The diffuse gamma radiation consists of the galactic and extragalactic components. The latter component is of special interest on account of its cosmological significance. Following the method recently proposed to estimate the gamma ray flux from galaxy clusters, and the detection of gamma rays from the quasars 3C273, the data base of the SAS II satellite was used to estimate the contribution from quasars to the extragalactic gamma ray flux. It is shown that quasars as a whole are significant gamma ray contributors, the average gamma ray flux per quasar in the energy range 35 MeV to 100 Mev being (1.3 + or - 0.9) x .00001 cm(-2)s(-1)sr(-1).
Numerical techniques to calculate the thermal and geometric properties of line emission from H II 'blister' regions are presented. It is assumed that the density distributions of the H II regions are a function of two dimensions, with rotational symmetry specifying the shape in three-dimensions. The thermal and ionization equilibrium equations of the problem are solved by spherical modeling, and a spherical sector approximation is used to simplify the three-dimensional treatment of diffuse ionizing radiation. The global properties of H II 'blister' regions near the edges of a molecular cloud are simulated by means of the geometry/density distribution, and the results are compared with observational data. It is shown that there is a monotonic increase of peak surface brightness from the i = 0 deg (pole-on) observational position to the i = 90 deg (edge-on) position. The enhancement of the line peak intensity from the edge-on to the pole-on positions is found to depend on the density, stratification, ionization, and electron temperature weighting. It is found that as i increases, the position of peak line brightness of the lower excitation species is displaced to the high-density side of the high excitation species.
Research activities for the following study areas are summarized: single scattering of parallel direct and axially symmetric diffuse solar radiation in vegetative canopies; the use of successive orders of scattering approximations (SOSA) for treating multiple scattering in a plant canopy; reflectance of a soybean canopy using the SOSA method; and C-band scatterometer measurements of the Konza tallgrass prairie.
The wind-disk interaction model in type I cosmic X-ray bursts is here examined in the case where the accretion disk surrounding the neutron star is geometrically thick. The funnel structure along the rotation axis of such a system may collimate the radiatively driven wind following a thermonuclear flash in the star's surface layers, and could thereby enhance the radiative flux (diffusive plus advective) along the beam direction. It is shown that for plausible conditions, this mechanism can account for the super-Eddington fluxes observed in some bursts. The overall time scale for variability, the color temperature, and the spectral shape in this picture are consistent with the observed properties of type I X-ray bursts.
This note discusses the consequences of the interaction of radiatively driven mass loss with magnetic fields in upper-main-sequence helium-peculiar stars. The field constrains mass loss to occur in narrow cones above the magnetic poles. These jets can explain the observed behavior of UV resonance lines in the helium-peculiar stars, especially the sn and helium-rich stars. Suppression of mass outflow at the magnetic equator produces a region in which radiatively driven diffusive mass transport can levitate helium in the hottest stars, producing helium enrichment of the atmosphere. In the cooler stars, the surface becomes progressively more helium poor.
Observations of the 511 keV annihilation line from the vicinity of the Galactic center from October to February for 1980/1981, 1981/1982, 1982/1983, 1984/1985, and 1985/1986 are presented. The measurements were made with the gamma-ray spectrometer on the SMM. The design of the instrument and some of its properties used in the analysis are described, and the methods used for accumulating, fitting, and analyzing the data are outlined. It is shown how the Galactic 511 keV line was separated from the intense and variable background observed in orbit. The SMM observations are compared with previous measurements of annihilation radiation from the Galactic center region, and the astrophysical implications are discussed. It is argued that most of the measurements made to date suggest the presence of an extended Galactic source of annihilation radiation.
Examination of high time resolution frequency-time spectrograms of radio emission measured near the Voyager 1 and 2 encounters with Jupiter reveals occasional striation patterns within the normally diffuse hectometric radiation. The patterns are characterized by distinctive banded structures of enhanced intensity meandering in frequency over time scales of minutes to tens of minutes. This banded form of striated spectral activity (SSA) has an occurrence probability of the order of 5 percent during the three weeks before and after Jupiter encounters. Plots of single 6-s frequency sweeps often exhibit a slow rise in intensity followed by a sharp drop-off in each band as frequency decreases. Banded SSA is often preceded or followed by chaotic SSA in which banding of the emission becomes discontinuous or unrecognizable, although the intensity modulation is still evident. Although SSA normally occurs in the frequency range of roughly 0.2-1.0 MHz, similar but longer-lasting patterns have been found occasionally in decametric emission above 10 MHz. Analogous modulation has also been observed in the Saturnian radio emission, suggesting that SSA may be a common feature intrinsic to the radio emission at both planets.
Laser action was achieved in a large-scale pulsed system and meaningful experiments were carried out in the axial flow facility to understand the physics of solar-pumped lasers. Studies of the variation of laser mixture composition were done for mixtures of CO2 and N2O additions. Theoretical analysis and modeling of the system were also performed based on a model including radiative pumping, diffusion and wall deactivation, and vibrational energy transfer between two optically active species. Qualitative agreement between predictions in the parameter variation and the experimental results were obtained with CO and N2O mixtures. Several experimental studies were performed to quantify the properties of carbon monoxide as absorber and storage of energy in the blackbody pumped system.
The anisotropy of the diffuse background radiation has been measured with a 10-deg FWHM beam in a broad spectral band from 0.6 to 4.0 mm. A dipole anisotropy is detected with magnitude consistent with previous measurements; the present data may, however, be contaminated by atmospheric emission. Upper limits are set to fluctuations at higher-order multipoles. The most stringent limit is at l = 4, where a 95-percent confidence-level limit of less than 0.00025 is set. The observed level of isotropy sharply constrains the possibility of local astronomical origin for the submillimeter excess.
Although the Grand Unified Theories of elementary particle dynamics have to some extent reduced the aesthetic attraction of matter-antimatter symmetry in the Universe, the idea is still not ruled out. Although first introduced by Alfven (1965), most of the theoretical development related to gamma-ray astronomy was carried out by Stecker, who has proposed (Stecker, Morgan, and Bredekamp, 1971) matter-antimatter annihilation extending back to large redshifts as a possible explanation of the apparently extragalactic diffuse gamma radiation. Other candidate explanations were also proposed, such as superposition of extragalactic discrete sources. Clearly, the existence of significant amounts of antimatter in the universe would be of great cosmological importance; its detection, however, is not simple. Since the photon is its own antiparticle, it carries no signature identifying whether it originated in a matter or an antimatter process; even aggregates of photons (spectra) are expected to be identical from matter and antimatter processes. The only likely indicator of the presence of concentrations of antimatter is evidence of its annihilation with normal matter, assuming there is some region of contact or overlap. The EGRET (Energetic Gamma-Ray Experimental Telescope) on the Gamma Ray Observatory, with a substantial increase in sensitivity compared with earlier high energy gamma ray telescopes, may be able to address this issue. The feasibility of using EGRET in such a search for antimatter annihilation in the Universe is considered.
A study is described of data obtained from the Imaging Proportional Counter (IPC) x ray detector aboard the HEAO-2 satellite (Einstein Observatory). The research project involved a search for absorption of diffuse low energy x ray background emission by galactic dark nebulae. The commonly accepted picture that the bulk of the C band emission originates locally, closer that a few hundred parsec, and the bulk of the M band emission originates farther away than a few hundred parsec, was tested. The idea was to look for evidence of absorption of the diffuse background radiation by nearby interstellar clouds.