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At least 595 records · Page 33

HARM3D+NUC: A New Method for Simulating the Post-merger Phase of Binary Neutron Star Mergers with GRMHD, Tabulated EOS, and Neutrino Leakage

The first binary neutron star merger has already been detected in gravitational waves. The signal was accompanied by an electromagnetic counterpart including a kilonova component powered by the decay of radioactive nuclei, as well as a short γ-ray burst. In order to understand the radioactively powered signal, it is necessary to simulate the outflows and their nucleosynthesis from the post-merger disk. Simulating the disk and predicting the composition of the outflows requires general relativistic magnetohydrodynamical (GRMHD) simulations that include a realistic, finite-temperature equation of state (EOS) and self-consistently calculating the impact of neutrinos. In this work, we detail the implementation of a finite-temperature EOS and the treatment of neutrinos in the GRMHD code HARM3D+NUC, based on HARM3D. We include formal tests of both the finite-temperature EOS and the neutrino-leakage scheme. We further test the code by showing that, given conditions similar to those of published remnant disks following neutron star mergers, it reproduces both recombination of free nucleons to a neutron-rich composition and excitation of a thermal wind.

Ariadna Murguia-Berthier↗

EMC Test Challenges for NASAs James Webb Space Telescope

This presentation describes the electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) tests performed on the Integrated Science Instrument Module (ISIM), the science payload of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) in August 2015. By its very nature of being an integrated payload, it could be treated as neither a unit level test nor an integrated spacecraft observatory test. Non-standard test criteria are described along with non-standard test methods that had to be developed in order to evaluate them. Results are presented to demonstrate that all test criteria were met in less than the time allocated.

Electromagnetics↗

EMC Test Challenges for NASA's James Webb Space Telescope

This presentation describes the electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) tests performed on the Integrated Science Instrument Module (ISIM), the science payload of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) in August 2015. By its very nature of being an integrated payload, it could be treated as neither a unit level test nor an integrated spacecraft observatory test. Non-standard test criteria are described along with non-standard test methods that had to be developed in order to evaluate them. Results are presented to demonstrate that all test criteria were met in less than the time allocated.

Electromagnetic Interference (EMI)↗

Finite difference time domain analysis of chirped dielectric gratings

The finite difference time domain (FDTD) method for solving Maxwell's time-dependent curl equations is accurate, computationally efficient, and straight-forward to implement. Since both time and space derivatives are employed, the propagation of an electromagnetic wave can be treated as an initial-value problem. Second-order central-difference approximations are applied to the space and time derivatives of the electric and magnetic fields providing a discretization of the fields in a volume of space, for a period of time. The solution to this system of equations is stepped through time, thus, simulating the propagation of the incident wave. If the simulation is continued until a steady-state is reached, an appropriate far-field transformation can be applied to the time-domain scattered fields to obtain reflected and transmitted powers. From this information diffraction efficiencies can also be determined. In analyzing the chirped structure, a mesh is applied only to the area immediately around the grating. The size of the mesh is then proportional to the electric size of the grating. Doing this, however, imposes an artificial boundary around the area of interest. An absorbing boundary condition must be applied along the artificial boundary so that the outgoing waves are absorbed as if the boundary were absent. Many such boundary conditions have been developed that give near-perfect absorption. In this analysis, the Mur absorbing boundary conditions are employed. Several grating structures were analyzed using the FDTD method.

Hochmuth, Diane H.↗

Signal-to-noise ratio for acoustic detection in the deep ocean

A simple method is presented for studying the thermoacoustic wave generated by a heat pulse. The signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) is then calculated for a typical hadronic-electromagnetic cascade in the deep ocean where low frequencies are masked by surface noise. It is found that a maximum useful range of about 16 km is found for typical conditions at 5 km depth. It is shown that in order to obtain useful signals with S/N greater than 100 at distances of 1 to 16 km, the cascade energy must be 10 to the 16th to 10 to the 18th eV. Finally, attention is given to further refinements of the theory of acoustic detection which remain to be investigated.

Bowen, T.↗

A finite element-boundary integral formulation for scattering by three-dimensional cavity-backed apertures

A numerical technique is proposed for the electromagnetic characterization of the scattering by a three-dimensional cavity-backed aperture in an infinite ground plane. The technique combines the finite element and boundary integral methods to formulate a system of equations for the solution of the aperture fields and those inside the cavity. Specifically, the finite element method is employed to formulate the fields in the cavity region and the boundary integral approach is used in conjunction with the equivalence principle to represent the fields above the ground plane. Unlike traditional approaches, the proposed technique does not require knowledge of the cavity's Green's function and is, therefore, applicable to arbitrary shape depressions and material fillings. Furthermore, the proposed formulation leads to a system having a partly full and partly sparse as well as symmetric and banded matrix which can be solved efficiently using special algorithms.

Jin, Jian-Ming↗

A finite-element-boundary integral formulation for scattering by three-dimensional cavity-backed apertures

A numerical technique is proposed for the electromagnetic characterization of the scattering by a three-dimensional cavity-backed aperture in an infinite ground plane. The technique combines the finite element and boundary integral methods to formulate a system of equations for the solution of the aperture fields and those inside the cavity. Specifically, the finite element method is used to formulate the fields in the cavity region and the boundary integral approach is used in conjunction with the equivalence principle to represent the fields above the ground plane. Unlike traditional approaches, the proposed technique does not require a knowledge of the cavity's Green's function and is, therefore, applicable to arbitrary shape depressions and material fillings. Furthermore, the proposed formulation leads to a system having a partly full and partly sparse as well as symmetric and banded matrix which can be solved efficiently using special algorithms.

Jin, Jian-Ming↗

Gigaflop (billion floating point operations per second) performance for computational electromagnetics

Accurate and rapid evaluation of radar signature for alternative aircraft/store configurations would be of substantial benefit in the evolution of integrated designs that meet radar cross-section (RCS) requirements across the threat spectrum. Finite-volume time domain methods offer the possibility of modeling the whole aircraft, including penetrable regions and stores, at longer wavelengths on today's gigaflop supercomputers and at typical airborne radar wavelengths on the teraflop computers of tomorrow. A structured-grid finite-volume time domain computational fluid dynamics (CFD)-based RCS code has been developed at the Rockwell Science Center, and this code incorporates modeling techniques for general radar absorbing materials and structures. Using this work as a base, the goal of the CFD-based CEM effort is to define, implement and evaluate various code development issues suitable for rapid prototype signature prediction.

Shankar, V.↗

Time-Dependent Traveling Wave Tube Model for Intersymbol Interference Investigations

For the first time, a computational model has been used to provide a direct description of the effects of the traveling wave tube (TWT) on modulated digital signals. The TWT model comprehensively takes into account the effects of frequency dependent AM/AM and AM/PM conversion, gain and phase ripple; drive-induced oscillations; harmonic generation; intermodulation products; and backward waves. Thus, signal integrity can be investigated in the presence of these sources of potential distortion as a function of the physical geometry of the high power amplifier and the operational digital signal. This method promises superior predictive fidelity compared to methods using TWT models based on swept-amplitude and/or swept-frequency data. The fully three-dimensional (3D), time-dependent, TWT interaction model using the electromagnetic code MAFIA is presented. This model is used to investigate assumptions made in TWT black-box models used in communication system level simulations. In addition, digital signal performance, including intersymbol interference (ISI), is compared using direct data input into the MAFIA model and using the system level analysis tool, SPW.

Kory, Carol L.↗

MEMS-Based Force-Detected Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (FDNMR) Spectrometer

Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy allows assignment of molecular structure by acquiring the energy spectrum of nuclear spins in a molecule, and by interpreting the symmetry and positions of resonance lines in the spectrum. As such, NMR has become one of the most versatile and ubiquitous spectroscopic methods. Despite these tremendous successes, NMR experiments suffer from inherent low sensitivity due to the relatively low energy of photons in the radio frequency (rt) region of the electromagnetic spectrum. Here, we describe a high-resolution spectroscopy in samples with diameters in the micron range and below. We have reported design and fabrication of force-detected nuclear magnetic resonance (FDNMR).

force detected nuclear magnetic resonance (FDNMR)↗

Validation of Atmosphere/Ionosphere Signals Associated with Major Earthquakes by Multi-Instrument Space-Borne and Ground Observations

The latest catastrophic earthquake in Japan (March 2011) has renewed interest in the important question of the existence of pre-earthquake anomalous signals related to strong earthquakes. Recent studies have shown that there were precursory atmospheric/ionospheric signals observed in space associated with major earthquakes. The critical question, still widely debated in the scientific community, is whether such ionospheric/atmospheric signals systematically precede large earthquakes. To address this problem we have started to investigate anomalous ionospheric / atmospheric signals occurring prior to large earthquakes. We are studying the Earth's atmospheric electromagnetic environment by developing a multisensor model for monitoring the signals related to active tectonic faulting and earthquake processes. The integrated satellite and terrestrial framework (ISTF) is our method for validation and is based on a joint analysis of several physical and environmental parameters (thermal infrared radiation, electron concentration in the ionosphere, lineament analysis, radon/ion activities, air temperature and seismicity) that were found to be associated with earthquakes. A physical link between these parameters and earthquake processes has been provided by the recent version of Lithosphere-Atmosphere-Ionosphere Coupling (LAIC) model. Our experimental measurements have supported the new theoretical estimates of LAIC hypothesis for an increase in the surface latent heat flux, integrated variability of outgoing long wave radiation (OLR) and anomalous variations of the total electron content (TEC) registered over the epicenters. Some of the major earthquakes are accompanied by an intensification of gas migration to the surface, thermodynamic and hydrodynamic processes of transformation of latent heat into thermal energy and with vertical transport of charged aerosols in the lower atmosphere. These processes lead to the generation of external electric currents in specific regions of the atmosphere and the modifications, by dc electric fields, in the ionosphere-atmosphere electric circuit. We retrospectively analyzed temporal and spatial variations of four different physical parameters (gas/radon counting rate, lineaments change, long-wave radiation transitions and ionospheric electron density/plasma variations) characterizing the state of the lithosphere/atmosphere coupling several days before the onset of the earthquakes. Validation processes consist in two phases: A. Case studies for seven recent major earthquakes: Japan (M9.0, 2011), China (M7.9, 2008), Italy (M6.3, 2009), Samoa (M7, 2009), Haiti (M7.0, 2010) and, Chile (M8.8, 2010) and B. A continuous retrospective analysis was preformed over two different regions with high seismicity- Taiwan and Japan for 2003-2009. Satellite, ground surface, and troposphere data were obtained from Terra/ASTER, Aqua/AIRS, POES and ionospheric variations from DEMETER and COSMIC-I data. Radon and GPS/TEC were obtaining from monitoring sites in Taiwan, Japan and Italy and from global ionosphere maps (GIM) respectively. Our analysis of ground and satellite data during the occurrence of 7 global earthquakes has shown the presence of anomalies in the atmosphere. Our results for Tohoku M9.0 earthquake show that on March 7th, 2011 (4 days before the main shock and 1 day before the M7.2 foreshock of March 8, 2011) a rapid increase of emitted infrared radiation was observed by the satellite data and an anomaly was developed near the epicenter. The GPS/TEC data indicate an increase and variation in electron density reaching a maximum value on March 8. From March 3 to 11 a large increase in electron concentration was recorded at all four Japanese ground-based ionosondes, which returned to normal after the main earthquake. Similar approach for analyzing atmospheric and ionospheric parameters has been applied for China (M7.9, 2008), Italy (M6.3, 2009), Samoa (M7, 2009), Haiti (M7.0, 2010) and Chile (M8.8, 2010) eahquakes. Results have revealed the presence of related variations of these parameters implying their connection with the earthquake process. The second phase (B) of this validation included 102 major earthquakes (M>5.9) in Taiwan and Japan. We have found anomalous behavior before all of these events with no false negatives. False alarm ratio for false positives is less then 10% and has been calculated for the same month of the earthquake occurrence for the entire period of analysis (2003-2009). The commonalities for detecting atmospheric/ionospheric anomalies are: i.) Regularly appearance over regions of maximum stress (i.e., along plate boundaries); ii.) Anomaly existence over land and sea; and iii) association with M>5.9 earthquakes not deeper than 100km. Due to their long duration over the same region these anomalies are not consistent with a meteorological origin. Our initial results from the ISTF validation of multi-instrument space-borne and ground observations show a systematic appearance of atmospheric anomalies near the epicentral area, one to seven (average) days prior to the largest earthquakes, and suggest that it could be explained by a coupling process between the observed physical parameters and the pre-earthquake preparation processes.

Ouzounov, Dimitar↗

Unconventional Imaging with Contained Granular Media

Typically, the cost of a space-borne imaging system is driven by the size and mass of the primary aperture. The solution that we propose uses a method to construct an imaging system in space in which the nonlinear optical properties of a cloud of micron-sized particles, shaped into a specific surface by electromagnetic means, and allows one to form a very large and lightweight aperture of an optical system, hence reducing overall mass and cost. Recent work at JPL has investigated the feasibility of a granular imaging system, concluding that such a system could be built and controlled in orbit. We conducted experiments and simulation of the optical response of a granular lens. In all cases, the optical response, measured by the Modulation Transfer Function, of hexagonal reflectors was closely comparable to that of a conventional spherical mirror. We conducted some further analyses by evaluating the sensitivity to fill factor and grain shape, and found a marked sensitivity to fill factor but no sensitivity to grain shape. We have also found that at fill factors as low as 30%, the reflection from a granular lens is still excellent. Furthermore, we replaced the monolithic primary mirror in an existing integrated model of an optical system (WFIRST Coronagraph) with a granular lens, and found that the granular lens that can be useful for exoplanet detection provides excellent contrast levels. We will present our testbed and simulation results in this paper.

Sidick, Erkin↗

Nightside Time Domain Electromagnetic Sounding with ARTEMIS: Challenges of Isolating Induction from the Lunar Interior

Electromagnetic sounding analyses THEMIS-ARTEMIS magnetic field data to isolate and identify induced magnetic fields to determine the electrical conductivity of the lunar interior. The transfer function method uses two observations one near the Moon and one far from lunar effects. We focus on induction within the nightside wake cavity performing a visual inspection in the time domain. Large transients are naturally occurring and can excite telluric currents within conducting layers within the lunar interior according to the skin depth of the signal. Time windows within wake passes with one probe close and the other far have been identified within 10 years of ARTEMIS data. We discuss initial conclusions and challenges of isolating interior induction within the lunar plasma environment.

Moons↗

Metal Decorated Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotube/Polyimide Composites with High Dielectric Constants and Low Loss Factors

The measurement of observable electromagnetic phenomena in materials and their derived intrinsic electric material properties are of prime importance in the discovery and development of material systems for electronic and aerospace applications. Nanocomposite materials comprised of metal decorated multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) were prepared by a facile method and characterized. Metal particles such as silver, platinum and palladium with diameters ranging from less than 5 to over 50 nanometers were distributed randomly on the MWCNTs. The metal-containing MWCNTs were then melt mixed into a polymer matrix and the mixture extruded as ribbons. These extruded ribbons exhibited a moderate to high degree of MWCNT alignment as determined by HRSEM. These ribbons were then fabricated into test specimens while maintaining MWCNT alignment and subsequently characterized for electromagnetic properties at 8-12 GHz. The present study is focused on silver decorated MWCNTs dispersed in an Ultem polyimide matrix. The results of the electromagnetic characterization showed that certain sample configurations exhibited a decoupling of the permittivity and loss factor (?? and ??) indicating that these properties could be tailored within certain limits. The decoupling and independent control of these fundamental electrical material parameters offer a new class of materials with potential applications in electronics, microwave engineering and optics.

Ghose, Sayata↗

Electromagnetic plasma models for microwave plasma cavity reactors

A procedure used to design cavity applicators that efficiently produce cylindrical and disk microwave discharges is reviewed. In contrast to most microwave applicators these cavities utilize single mode excitation of the plasma. This method of excitation has the advantage of providing efficient coupling (zero reflected power) to the plasma over a wide range of discharge loading conditions while also allowing, if desired, electric feedback control of the heating process. The design procedure is generalized to any lossy dielectric. Experimental and theoretical research required to further understand microwave discharges is also discussed.

Frasch, L.↗

Overview of nuclear fragementation models and needs

It has been known for some time that adequate assessment of spacecraft requirements and concomitant estimates of astronaut radiation exposures from galactic cosmic radiation requires accurate, quantitative methods for characterizing these radiation fields as they pass through thick absorbers. The main nuclear interaction processes involved are nuclear elastic an inelastic collisions, and nuclear breakup (fragmentation) and electromagnetic dissociation (EMD). Nuclear fragmenation and EMD are important because they alter the elemental and isotopic composition of the transported radiation fields. At present, there is no suitable accurate theory for predicting nuclear fragmentation cross sections for all collision pairs and energies of interest in space radiation protection. Typical cross-section differences between theory and experiment range from about 25 percent to a factor of two. The resulting errors in transported flux, for high linear energy transfer (LET) particles, are compared to these cross-sections errors. In this overview, theoretical models of heavy ion fragmentation currently used to generate input data bases for cosmic-ray transport and shielding codes are reviewed. Their shortcomings are discussed. Further actions needed to improve their accuracy and generality are presented.

Townsend, L. W.↗

Excitation of Plasma Waves in Aurora by Electron Beams

In this paper, we study numerically the excitation of plasma waves by electron beams, in the auroral region above 2000 km of altitude. We have solved the fully kinetic dispersion relation, using numerical method and found the real frequency and the growth rate of the plasma wave modes. We have examined the instability properties of low-frequency waves such as the Electromagnetic Ion Cyclotron (EMIC) wave as well as Lower-Hybrid (LH) wave in the range of high-frequency. In all cases, the source of free energy are electron beams propagating parallel to the geomagnetic field. We present some features of the growth rate modes, when the cold plasma parameters are changed, such as background electrons and ions species (H(+) and O(+)) temperature, density or the electron beam density and/or drift velocity. These results can be used in a test-particle simulation code, to investigate the ion acceleration and their implication in the auroral acceleration processes, by wave-particle interaction.

daSilva, C. E.↗