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At least 55 records · Page 3

Investigation of Spectral Lag and Epeak as Joint Luminosity Indicators in GRBs

Models for gamma-ray bursts which invoke jetted, colliding shells would appear to have at least two determinants for luminosity, e.g., observer viewing angle and Lorentz factor, or possibly shell mass. The latter two internal physical parameters may vary from pulse to pulse within a burst, and such variation might be reflected in evolution of observables such as spectral lag and peak in the spectral energy distribution. We analyze bright BATSE bursts using the 16-channel medium energy resolution (MER) data, with time resolutions of 16 and 64 ms, measuring spectral lags and peak energies for significant pulse structures within a burst, identified using a Bayesian block algorithm. We then explore correlations between the measured parameters and total flux for the individual pulse structures.

White, Nicholas E.↗

A VLSI Processor Design of Real-Time Data Compression for High-Resolution Imaging Radar

For the high-resolution imaging radar systems, real-time data compression of raw imaging data is required to accomplish the science requirements and satisfy the given communication and storage constraints. The Block Adaptive Quantizer (BAQ) algorithm and its associated VLSI processor design have been developed to provide a real-time data compressor for high-resolution imaging radar systems.

data compression VLSI processor design imaging rad↗

A Method for Obtaining High Time and Spatial Resolution Convective Cloud Top Data for the TTL

A method for obtaining high time and spatial resolution convective cloud top data for the TTL Leonhard Pfister, Eric Jensen, Rei Ueyama, Eliot Atlas, and Maria Navarro Convective systems in the tropics have a maximum in the cloud top altitude distribution of about 13.5 km. However, there is a significant tail to this distribution -- a few percent reach the cold point tropopause (CPT) at 16.5 km, and there has been clear evidence of convective mass deposited as high as 19 km in the tropics. The region between 13.5 km and the cold point tropopause is transitional, between the free tropical troposphere where convective mixing dominates, and the stratosphere where slow upward ascent dominates. In this region (the Tropical Tropopause Layer), convective injection, slow ascent, and mixing from midlatitudes all have similar time scales. So, even though only a few percent of convective systems reach the CPT, convection is important. Space Based Lidar and cloud radar measurements have yielded information about long term average statistical distributions of cloud altitude as a function of location. However, we also need time-dependent cloud top altitude and cloud top potential temperature information, primarily to understand the water vapor and TTL cloud distributions. This is because the effect of convection depends on the local temperature, and on the subsequent temperature history. Time dependent cloud top information is also needed to understand short-lived tracers because cross-isentropic flow is time and space dependent. This paper presents a method of obtaining time and space dependent convective cloud top theta (and altitude) information using 3-hourly geostationary brightness temperature data, coupled with global 3 -hourly rainfall estimates and temperature analyses. We explore different mixing algorithms to obtain the most reasonable agreement with near-simultaneous observations by cloudsat and calipso. Observations of short-lived tracers from ATTREX, coupled with short-term trajectories are used to test the method's accuracy. An important caveat is the ambiguity of evaluating convective cloud top altitudes under from combined cloudsat and calipso measurements.

cold point tropopause (CPT)↗

A reexamination of rotational and tangential discontinuities in the solar wind

An analysis is made of interplanetary tangential and rotational solar wind discontinuities (TD and RD) and comparisons are made between the features of RDs and TDs. An ISEE 3 field and positive ion data set from 1978 includes high time resolution magnetometer data and is used for the comparisons, as are data from a positive ion analyzer. The field magnitude of RDs remains constant as the field rotates, while that of a TD passes through a local minimum. First and second adiabatic invariants for protons and He abundances are usually also conserved for RDs but not for TDs. The velocity change for an RD across a discontinuity is smaller than that predicted by MHD theory. Finally, plasma conditions at a discontinuity more closely resemble RDs than TDs.

Neugebauer, M.↗

Anomalous Flows at Dayside High-Latitude Magnetopause as Observed by Interball Tail Probe

We analyze magnetopause crossings at high latitudes dayside magnetopause as observed by Interball Tail probe. High time resolution plasma data show strong short-time flows near magnetopause that strongly deviate from surrounding magnetosheath flow. Several quasi- periodic velocity variations are observed at times. Plasma parameters, such as number density, temperature and bulk velocity-of these flows are close to magnetosheath values. These anomalous flows are observed almost at every magnetopause crossing in this region. The ion velocity distributions in these regions indicate the presence of open field lines. Observed properties of these flows suggest their association with reconnection at high latitudes.

Vaisberg, O. L.↗

High time resolution characteristics of intermediate ion distributions upstream of the earth's bow shock

High time resolution particle data upstream of the bow shock during time intervals that have been identified as having intermediate ion distributions often show high amplitude oscillations in the ion fluxes of energy 2 and 6 keV. These ion oscillations, observed with the particle instruments of the University of California, Berkeley, on the ISEE 1 and 2 spacecraft, are at the same frequency (about 0.04 Hz) as the magnetic field oscillations. Typically, the 6-keV ion flux increases then the 2-keV flux increases followed by a decrease in the 2-keV flux and then the 6-keV flux decreases. This process repeats many times. Although there is no entirely satisfactory explanation, the presence of these ion flux oscillations suggests that distributions often are misidentified as intermediate ion distributions.

Potter, D. W.↗

Magnetic pulsations at the quasi-parallel shock

The plasma and field properties of large-amplitude magnetic field pulsatins upstream from the quasi-parallel region of the earth's bow shock are examined in high time resolution using data from ISEE 1 and 2. The relative timing of the magnetic field profiles observed at the two spacecraft shows that some of the pulsations are convecting antisunward across the spacecraft while others are brief out/in motions of bow shock across the spacecraft. Pulsations with both timing signatures are the site of slowing and heating of the solar wind plasma. The ions tend to be only weakly heated in the convecting pulsations, while within the out/in pulsations the ion heating can be quite substantial but variable. This variation occurs not only from pulsation to pulsation but also from point to point within a given pulsation. In general, the hottest distributions within the out/in pulsations tend to occur in regions of lower density and field strength. Magnetic pulsations bear a number of similarities to previously identified hot diamagnetic cavity events as well as to more durable crossings of the quasi-parallel shock itself. These various phenomena may be different manifestations of the same basic physical processes, in particular the coupling of coherently reflected ions to the solar wind beam.

Thomsen, M. F.↗

Semi-Supervised Eigenbasis Novelty Detection

Recent discoveries in high-time-resolution radio astronomy data have focused attention on a new class of events. Fast transients are rare pulses of radio frequency energy lasting from microseconds to seconds that might be produced by a variety of exotic astrophysical phenomena. For example, X-ray bursts, neutron stars, and active galactic nuclei are all possible sources of short-duration, transient radio signals. It is difficult to anticipate where such signals might appear, and they are most commonly discovered through analysis of high-time- resolution data that had been collected for other purposes. Transients are often faint and difficult to detect, so improved detection algorithms can directly benefit the science yield of all such commensal monitoring. A new detection algorithm learns a low-dimensional linear manifold for describing the normal data. High reconstruction error indicates a novel signal that does not match the patterns of normal data. One unsupervised portion of the manifold model adapts its representation in response to recent data. A second supervised portion of the model is made of a basis trained in advance using labeled examples of RFI; this prevents false positives due to these events. For a linear model, an orthonormalization operation is used to combine these bases prior to the anomaly detection decision. Another novel aspect of the approach lies in combining basis vectors learned in an unsupervised, online fashion from the data stream with supervised basis vectors learned in advance from known examples of false alarms. Adaptive, data-driven detection is achieved that is also informed by existing domain knowledge about signals that may be statistically anomalous, but are not interesting and should therefore be ignored. The method was evaluated using data from the Parkes Multibeam Survey. This data set was originally collected to search for pulsars, which are astronomical sources that emit radio pulses at regular periods. However, several non-pulsar anomalies have recently been discovered in this dataset, making it a compelling test case. By explicitly filtering known false alarm patterns, the approach yields significantly better performance than current transient detection methods.

Wagstaff, Kiri L.↗

Measurements of plasma flow at the dawn magnetopause by Voyager 1

Measurements are presented showing strong tailward flow of ions along the dawn magnetopause as the Voyager 1 spacecraft crossed the earth's magnetosphere boundary following launch on September 5, 1977. With one exception all of the observed flows occur outside the magnetopause. The particle flux measurements at energies of at least about 30 keV, together with the observed magnetic-field signatures of the boundary crossing, are consistent with a minimum tailward ion energy flow of about (2-7) x 10 to the 17th erg/s at the time of observation. High-time-resolution particle data indicate that the ion flow can vary on a time scale of about 400 ms. These results, together with recent results from several other spacecraft, show conclusively that a source of energetic particles exists sunward of the dawn-dusk meridian

Lanzerotti, L. J.↗

Precise terrestrial time: A means for improved ballistic missile guidance analysis

An approach developed to improve the ground instrumentation time tagging accuracy and adapted to support the Minuteman ICBM program is desired. The Timing Insertion Unit (TIU) technique produces a telemetry data time tagging resolution of one tenth of a microsecond, with a relative intersite accuracy after corrections and velocity data (range, azimuth, elevation and range rate) also used in missile guidance system analysis can be correlated to within ten microseconds of the telemetry guidance data. This requires precise timing synchronization between the metric and telemetry instrumentation sites. The timing synchronization can be achieved by using the radar automatic phasing system time correlation methods. Other time correlation techniques such as Television (TV) Line-10 and the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GEOS) terrestial timing receivers are also considered.

Ehrsam, E. E.↗

Air Quality Science and Regulatory Efforts Require Geostationary Satellite Measurements

Air quality scientists and regulatory agencies would benefit from the high spatial and temporal resolution trace gas and aerosol data that could be provided by instruments on a geostationary platform. More detailed time-resolved data from a geostationary platform could be used in tracking regional transport and in evaluating mesoscale air quality model performance in terms of photochemical evolution throughout the day. The diurnal cycle of photochemical pollutants is currently missing from the data provided by the current generation of atmospheric chemistry satellites which provide only one measurement per day. Often peak surface ozone mixing ratios are reached much earlier in the day during major regional pollution episodes than during local episodes due to downward mixing of ozone that had been transported above the boundary layer overnight. The regional air quality models often do not simulate this downward mixing well enough and underestimate surface ozone in regional episodes. Having high time-resolution geostationary data will make it possible to determine the magnitude of this lower-and mid-tropospheric transport that contributes to peak eight-hour average ozone and 24-hour average PM2.5 concentrations. We will show ozone and PM(sub 2.5) episodes from the CMAQ model and suggest ways in which geostationary satellite data would improve air quality forecasting. Current regulatory modeling is typically being performed at 12 km horizontal resolution. State and regional air quality regulators in regions with complex topography and/or land-sea breezes are anxious to move to 4-km or finer resolution simulations. Geostationary data at these or finer resolutions will be useful in evaluating such models.

Pickering, Kenneth E.↗

Spherical Harmonic Analysis of Particle Velocity Distribution Function: Comparison of Moments and Anisotropies using Cluster Data

This paper presents a spherical harmonic analysis of the plasma velocity distribution function using high-angular, energy, and time resolution Cluster data obtained from the PEACE spectrometer instrument to demonstrate how this analysis models the particle distribution function and its moments and anisotropies. The results show that spherical harmonic analysis produced a robust physical representation model of the velocity distribution function, resolving the main features of the measured distributions. From the spherical harmonic analysis, a minimum set of nine spectral coefficients was obtained from which the moment (up to the heat flux), anisotropy, and asymmetry calculations of the velocity distribution function were obtained. The spherical harmonic method provides a potentially effective "compression" technique that can be easily carried out onboard a spacecraft to determine the moments and anisotropies of the particle velocity distribution function for any species. These calculations were implemented using three different approaches, namely, the standard traditional integration, the spherical harmonic (SPH) spectral coefficients integration, and the singular value decomposition (SVD) on the spherical harmonic methods. A comparison among the various methods shows that both SPH and SVD approaches provide remarkable agreement with the standard moment integration method.

Gurgiolo, Chris↗

Summer Arctic ice concentrations and characteristics from SAR and SSM/I data

The extent and concentration of the Summer minima provide indirect information about the long term ability of the perennial portion of the ice pack to survive the Arctic atmosphere and ocean system. Both active and passive microwave data were used with some success for monitoring the ice cover during the Summer, but they both suffer from similar problems caused by the presence of meltponding, surface wetness, flooding, and freeze/thaw cycles associated with periodic changes in surface air temperatures. A comparative analysis of ice conditions in the Arctic region using coregistered ERS-1 SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) and SSM/I (Special Sensor Microwave/Imager) data was made. The analysis benefits from complementary information from the two systems, the good spatial resolution of SAR data, and the good time resolution of and global coverage by SSM/I data. The results show that in many areas ice concentrations derived from SAR data are significantly different (usually higher) than those derived from passive microwave data. Additional insights about surface conditions can be inferred depending on the nature of the discrepancies.

Comiso, Joey C.↗

Tropospheric-stratospheric exchange, part 1.1A

Much of the observational evidence of large scale tropospheric-stratospheric exchange has been obtained by radiosonde and satellite radiane data. So far mesosphere-stratosphere-troposphere (MST) radars have made mininal contributions, in part due to their recent use as a meteorological tool, intermittent operation at some facilities and sparse geographic distribution. However, as more MST facilities come on-line in more locations, the good time and height resolution data throughtout the troposphere and much of the stratosphere obtainable by MST radars will enhance the detail of stratospheric and tropospheric circulations and interactions. On smaller scales MST radars have already been used to examine convective forcing from the troposphere into the stratosphere and subsequent launching of gravity waves (LARSEN et al., 1982). Observations of persistent turbulent layers in the stratosphere over Arecibo, attributable to inertial oscillations, appear to propagate away from a source region near the tropopause (SATO and WOODMAN, 1982). MST radars offer the availability of high resolution wind data in height and time needed to observe interactions between the troposphere and stratosphere. The lack of geographic coverage (e.g., equatorial regions) and insufficient data bases at many MST facilities presently inhibit studies of large-scale interactions. At present MST radars can be used to examine smaller scale interactions.

Cornish, C. R.↗

Compressional ULF waves in the outer magnetosphere. 2: A case study of Pc 5 type wave activity

In previously published work (Zhu and Kivelson, 1991) the spatial distribution of compressional magnetic pulsations of period 2 - 20 min in the outer magnetosphere was described. In this companion paper, we study some specific compressional events within our data set, seeking to determine the structure of the waves and identifying the wave generation mechanism. We use both the magnetic field and three-dimensional plasma data observed by the International Sun-Earth Explorer (ISEE) 1 and/or 2 spacecraft to characterize eight compressional ultra low frequency (ULF) wave events with frequencies below 8 mHz in the outer magnetosphere. High time resolution plasma data for the event of July 24, 1978, made possible a detailed analysis of the waves. Wave properties specific to the event of July 24, 1978, can be summarized as follows: (1) Partial plasma pressures in the different energy ranges responded to the magnetic field pressure differently. In the low-energy range they oscillated in phase with the magnetic pressure, while oscillations in higher-energy ranges were out-of-phase; (2) Perpendicular wavelengths for the event were determined to be 60,000 and 30,000 km in the radial and azimuthal directions, respectively. Wave properties common to all events can be summarized as follows: (1) Compressional Pc 5 wave activity is correlated with Beta, the ratio of the plasma pressure to the magnetic pressure; the absolute magnitude of the plasma pressure plays a minor role for the wave activity; (2) The magnetic equator is a node of the compressional perturbation of the magnetic field; (3) The criterion for the mirror mode instability is often satisfied near the equator in the outer magnetosphere when the compressional waves are present. We believe these waves are generated by internal magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) instabilities.

Zhu, Xiaoming↗

The energetics of chromospheric evaporation in solar flares

The Solar Maximum Mission (SMM) spacecraft has provided high time resolution observational data regarding the soft X-ray emission from solar-flare plasma during 1980. The present investigation is concerned with the characteristics of a soft X-ray flare and the energetics of the impulsive phase on the basis of the data collected with the aid of two of the instruments on board the SMM, taking into account the Hard X-ray Burst Spectrometer (HXRBS) and the Bent Crystal Spectrometer (BCS). Attention is given to an analysis of soft X-ray flare spectra, the relative motion of the soft X-ray sources, the phenomenology of the soft X-ray flare, energy and mass transport during the impulsive phase, and energy deposition in the chromosphere during evaporation.

Antonucci, E.↗

A payload to evaluate photodiodes for the detection of soft and hard x rays in a space environment using a Get Away Special

We propose to use the Get Away Special (GAS) facility to evaluate P-intrinsic-N (PIN) detectors and avalanche photodiodes (APD's) for the detection of both solar and nonsolar soft and hard x rays. We would like to fly both types of silicon detectors for the direct detection of the x ray photons in the energy range from 1 to 30 keV with an energy resolution of about 1 keV. We would also like to use both types of photodiodes viewing CsI(Tl) scintillators to extend the energy range up to 1 MeV with -6 percent resolution at 660 keV. Solar flares would be detected with this instrumentation during periods of solar pointing providing high energy resolution spectra with high time resolution. Similar data would be obtained in the scanning mode on nonsolar transient and steady x ray sources with the same instrumentation. A commandable door over the detectors would be required to allow measurements to be made as low as 1 keV.

Desai, Upendra D.↗