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.
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Evolution of 9 solar masses stellar model of population I initial composition from main sequence through core helium burning
Streaming and spatial gradient equations of cosmic ray particles in interplanetary medium model, discussing Fokker-Planck equation and heliocentric field modulation
Effective temperature for late type stars with or without water vapor opacity calculated for several masses, determining convective energy transport efficiency
Solar system origin model successfully predicts relative terrestrial abundances of noble gases by taking into account ambipolar diffusion
The use of Gaussian processes (GPs) as models for astronomical time series data sets has recently become almost ubiquitous, given their ease of use and flexibility. In particular, GPs excel at marginalization over the stellar signal when the variability due to starspots is treated as a nuisance, as in exoplanet transit modeling. However, these effective models are less useful in cases where the starspot signal is of primary interest, since it is not obvious how the parameters of the GP relate to physical parameters like the spot size, contrast, and latitudinal distribution. Instead, it is common practice to explicitly model the effect of individual starspots on the light curve and attempt to infer their properties via optimization or posterior inference. Unfortunately, this process is ill-posed and often computationally intractable when applied to stars with more than a few spots and/or to ensembles of many stars. Here we derive a closed-form expression for a GP that describes the light curve of a rotating, evolving stellar surface conditioned on a given distribution of starspot sizes, contrasts, and latitudes. We demonstrate that this model is correctly calibrated, allowing one to robustly infer physical parameters of interest from one or more light curves, including the typical spot radii and latitudes. Our GP has far-ranging implications for understanding the variability and magnetic activity of stars from light curves and radial velocity measurements, as well as for modeling correlated noise in exoplanet searches. Our implementation is efficient, user-friendly, and open-source, available in the package starry-process.
Theoretical model for quasars characterizes them as galactic flares, based on study of high energy phenomena associated with solar flares
Stellar atmosphere models that assume interior energy sources, thermodynamic and mechanical equilibrium, and absorption of radiant energy only in continuous spectrum
Models of reflection nebulae light for single scattering, pure or modified by internal nebular extinction, on spherical grains imitating dielectric or metallic particles
Interplanetary dust model ensemble derived for analysis of zodiacal light observations
The Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) has yielded a large and uniform sample of high quality data for various infrared sources. To interpret the IRAS observations, complementary theoretical studies have been undertaken which often involve modeling in detail the scattering, absorption, and emission of photons by dust grains. In the past decade, significant progress has been made at Rensselaer in the development of radiation transport models for infrared sources. Models with increasing degree of physical realism have been constructed. We review recent progress made in the modeling of infrared sources. Directions for future research in this area are briefly discussed.
Splash bridges are created from the direct collision of two gas-rich disk galaxies. These direct collisions can eject gas masses on the order of 10 10 M ⊙ stripped from the stellar disks of each galaxy. The Taffy Galaxy system (UGC 1294/5) is a prototypical example of a splash bridge system. CO observations of the Taffy revealed that its splash bridge contains a mass of H 2 equal to the Milky Way's H 2 mass. However, the little visible star formation occurring within the bridge highlights the need for models of direct gas-rich disk collisions. The Arp 194 system displays what may be another splash bridge resulting from the collision between two disk galaxies. The region between the two stellar disks contains bright clumps of active star formation. We aim to better understand the conditions for star formation in splash bridges by employing a Jeans criterion to determine where gravitational instabilities occur in the shocked and cooling gas of gas-rich disk collisions. The splash bridge results are obtained from our previous work using a sticky particle code and post-processed. We find that the inclination between the gas disks and the collision velocity with which the gas collides strongly affects the fraction of gas that will become gravitationally unstable. Low inclinations between gas disks produce starbursts whereas high inclinations result in steady-rate star formation. The offset of the gas disks at impact will determine how many gas elements directly collide but does not strongly affect the resulting star formation.
Abstract A large fraction of Type Ia supernova (SN Ia) observations over the next decade will be in the near-infrared (NIR), at wavelengths beyond the reach of the current standard light-curve model for SN Ia cosmology, SALT3 (∼2800–8700 Å central filter wavelength). To harness this new SN Ia sample and reduce future light-curve standardization systematic uncertainties, we train SALT3 at NIR wavelengths (SALT3-NIR) up to 2 μ m with the open-source model-training software SALTshaker , which can easily accommodate future observations. Using simulated data, we show that the training process constrains the NIR model to ∼2%–3% across the phase range (−20 to 50 days). We find that Hubble residual (HR) scatter is smaller using the NIR alone or optical+NIR compared to optical alone, by up to ∼30% depending on filter choice (95% confidence). There is significant correlation between NIR light-curve stretch measurements and luminosity, with stretch and color corrections often improving HR scatter by up to ∼20%. For SN Ia observations expected from the Roman Space Telescope, SALT3-NIR increases the amount of usable data in the SALT framework by ∼20% at redshift z ≲ 0.4 and by ∼50% at z ≲ 0.15. The SALT3-NIR model is part of the open-source SNCosmo and SNANA SN Ia cosmology packages.
Limiting stellar surface analysis for nonsynchronous rotation of close binary stars
Theoretical, observational, and laboratory work on planetary environments
X-ray emission from old novae noting possibility that hot coronas may arise from vibration
Auroral and polar magnetic substorms related to magnetic field lines reconnection in magnetosphere tail
A description is presented of an experimental measurement system for the study of the stray radiation performance of a 50-cm aperture astronomical telescope model. The model incorporates a very high performance baffle system. To simulate the space environment of the actual orbiting telescope, the telescope model was placed in a vacuum chamber. The stray radiation source for the experiment was a ruby laser system. A photomultiplier tube was used for the detector. A minicomputer system was used to control the experiment and to gather and process the data. A computer program was used to model the telescope baffle system. Experimentally and analytically determined stray radiation attenuation data are compared.
Correlations are obtained for numerical calculation of flux F sub v and polarized radiation intensity of a cloud of arbitrary geometry, consisting of ultrarelativistic electrons that dissipate in a radial magnetic field of the nucleus at a random angle to the observer. It is possible that some of the variable extragalactic objects that were previously described by the Shklovskiy model are young formations in the examined model. Radio astronomical observations would permit a determination of their distance, age, and lifetime.