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A scanning electron microscope study of a fine-grained, pin, Ca-rich inclusion from the Allende meteorite has revealed strong evidence for direct condensation of its constituent minerals from a vapor. This observation extends to the alkali-bearing phases in addition to the Ca-, Al-silicates and suggests that the feldspathoids as well as the refractory silicates are solar nebular condensates.
Laboratory measurements of widths and shifts of the Ca II H and K lines have been made under conditions simulating those in the atmospheres of metallic-line white dwarfs, namely, densities of 10 to the 21st power helium atoms per cu cm and temperatures of 4500 to 6000 K. There are significant differences in the shifts and damping constants of the two fine-structure components. The impact theory is evidently applicable to the Ca II/He system under these conditions, and the observed damping constants are fortuitously close to the predictions of conventional Lindholm-Foley/van der Waals theory. The widths and shifts have also been analyzed in terms of Lennard-Jones potential theory.
Homogeneous plane-parallel model atmospheres for solar flares have been constructed to approximately simulate observations of flares. The wings of the Ca II lines have been used to derive flare upper photosphere models, which indicate temperature increases of about 100 K over the temperature distribution in the pre-existing facula at a height of 300 km. In the case of flares covering sunspots the temperature rise seems to occur much higher in the atmosphere. We find that with increasing flare importance the heights of the upper chromosphere and transition region occur lower in the solar atmosphere, accounting for the factor of 60-600 increase in pressure in these regions relative to the quiet sun. The Ca II line profiles agree with observations only by assuming a macrovelocity distribution that increases with height. Also, the chromospheric parts of flares appear to be highly inhomogeneous. We show that shock and particle heated flare models do not agree with the observations and propose a thermal response model for flares. In particular, it appears that heating in the photosphere is an essential aspect of flares.
The presence of Pb(++), Co(++), Cu(++), and Cd(++), each of which possesses a certain luminescence-triggering activity of aequorin, potentially interferes with the specificity of the aequorin luminescence response to Ca(++). Interference by the above cations can be eliminated, without influencing the sensitivity of the luminescence of aequorin to Ca(++), by adding 1 mM of sodium diethyldithiocarbamate.
The complete linearization method is applied to the formation of strong lines in the solar atmosphere. Transitions in Na(I), Mg(I), Ca(I), Mg(II), and Ca(II) are computed with a standard atmosphere and microturbulent velocity model. The computed profiles are compared to observations at disk center.
Results are presented on the direct observations of the circumstellar shell around alpha-Ori, along with new observations of the Ca II infrared triplet lines which provide lower limits for the Ca(+) shell radii for alpha-Ori and alpha-Sco (Antares). The 8542-A line in alpha-Ori does not show a circumstellar absorption core, and the shell radius limit is estimated to be at least 31 times stellar radius. A 108-mA circumstellar core is observed in the 8542-A line in Antares for which a shell radius equal to 4.0 times stellar radius is suggested. The discovery of circumstellar emission through resonance line scattering will provide valuable additional information on the physical conditions in the shell.
A method is presented for treating radiative transfer in resonance lines, allowing for the full angle and frequency dependence of redistribution in the scattering process, as seen in the laboratory frame. The case of an equivalent-two-level-atom source function is considered; the problem to be treated is then linear in the radiation field. We apply this method to the Ca II lines in the solar atmosphere, using a redistribution function which takes into account a mixture of coherence in the atom's frame, with Doppler redistribution in the laboratory frame (for atoms which have not suffered an elastic collision), and of complete redistribution in the laboratory frame (for atoms that are collisionally perturbed during the emission process). Both the angle-averaged approximation and the full angle-dependent solution were obtained, and were compared to assess, differentially, the effects of angular redistribution upon the computed line profile and its center-to-limb behavior. For the Ca II line in a homogeneous solar chromosphere the angle-dependent effects are found to be negligible, indicating that one may use angle-averaged redistribution functions when studying partial redistribution effects in line profiles.
The hook method is used to measure the absolute gf values of the following lines: the first 13 members of the principal series, the ground-level transition at 2275.46 A, and the intercombination line at 6572.78 A in Ca I; the first 22 members of the principal series, the ground-level transitions at 2428.1 and 2680.08 A, and the intercombination line at 6892.6 A in Sr I; and the members from principal quantum numbers 12 to 21, inclusive, as well as the ground-level transitions at 2432.5, 2444.6, and 2454.06 A in Ba I. The results are compared with those of previous measurements, and the quantum-defect method is applied to plot the oscillator strengths of the discrete transitions in the principal series of Mg I, Ca I, and Sr I in order to obtain estimates of the photoionization cross sections at the first ionization limit. The resulting cross sections are found to be about twice as large as previous values based on vapor-pressure data.
High-resolution spectrophotometry of the variable Ca II K line in the K2 IIIp star Alpha Boo was performed with the McMath Solar Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory and an experimental SEC vidicon camera. The results are compared with Copernicus observations of the Mg II h and k lines and with earlier Ca II data. It is found that either of two states may typically occur in the Arcturus chromosphere. From comparison with the results of model calculations for expanding chromospheres, it is concluded that these correspond respectively to a 'normal' state in which the mass loss is less than one billionth of a solar mass per year and an 'abnormal' state in which the mass loss is about 8 billionths of a solar mass per year. In the latter case, the expansion velocity is around 13 km/s at optical depth unity in the K-line, which exceeds the local sound speed. It is suggested that the abnormal state represents the rise to the photosphere of a very large convective element, as hypothesized for red giants by Schwarzschild (1975).
A new method of studying thermal energy ion-neutral collision processes involving nongaseous neutral atoms is described. A long magnetic field produced by a solenoid in a vacuum chamber confines a thermal-energy plasma generated by photoionization of gas at very low pressure. As the plasma moves toward the end of the field, it is crossed by a metal atom beam. Ionic products of ion-atom reactions are trapped by the field and both the reactant and product ions move to the end of the magnetic field where they are detected by a quadrupole mass filter. The cross sections for charge transfer between NO(+) and Na, Mg, Ca, and Sr and that for rearrangement between NO(+) and Ca have been obtained. The charge-transfer reaction is found strongly dominant over the rearrangement reaction that forms metallic oxide ions.
The observed abundance variations of Ca, Fe, Si, and Ti in intermediate-velocity interstellar gas suggest that grains have been disrupted in clouds with velocities as low as 20 to 50 km/s. A simplified hydromagnetic shock model for such clouds is described; the dynamical equations for charged grains in the postshock region are derived, including the collisional drag and 'betatron-acceleration' effect of a magnetic-field gradient; and the fraction of grains destroyed in evaporative collisions with other grains is calculated. It is found that for shocks of 20 to 50 km/s in which the fractional H-ionization remains low, 3-10% of the grain material may be destroyed - sufficient to explain in part the heavy-element depletion pattern in intermediate velocity clouds and the well-known correlation of N(Ca II)/N(Na I) with cloud velocity.
Photoelectric scans of the Ca I line at 6572 A and the forbidden Ca II transition at 7323 A are studied in the K giant alpha Tau, the M supergiant alpha Ori, and the M giants beta And, alpha Cet, mu Gem, and beta Peg. The relative strengths of these lines are shown to be indicative of the ratio of the relative number densities of the neutral and ionized species in the photosphere. The analysis indicates an overionization relative to LTE in qualitative agreement with the theoretical calculations of Auman and Woodrow for the K and M giants. The M supergiant alpha Ori exhibits a large overionization relative to LTE.
The sequence of condensation of minerals from a cooling gas of solar composition has been calculated from thermodynamic data over the pressure range 0.001-0.00001 atm, assuming that complete chemical equilibrium is maintained. The results suggest that the Ca-Al-rich inclusions Allende and other carbonaceous chondrites are aggregates of the highest temperature condensates. Complete condensation of these elements is followed, 100 deg later, by the onset of the crystallization of nickel-iron, forsterite and enstatite. Transport of Ca-Al-rich refractory condensates from one part of the nebula to another before the condensation of these lower-temperature phases may have been responsible for the refractory element fractionations between the different classes of chondrites and possibly for the inferred refractory element enrichment of the Moon. The temperature gap between the condensation temperatures of nickel-iron and forsterite increases with increasing total pressure. Because pressure and temperature probably increased with decreasing heliocentric distance in the solar nebula, Mercury may have accreted from a condensate assemblage having a higher metal/silicate ratio than Venus or Earth which may, in turn, have formed from less oxidized material than Mars.
High-dispersion photoelectric scans of the interstellar 3384-A line of Ti II have been obtained for 68 stars. Column densities of Ti II are derived for the various individual kinematic components in the scans. These column densities, and those integrated over all components in the respective directions, are compared with corresponding results for Na I, Ca II, K I, H I, and H2. The column densities of titanium and hydrogen show directly that the depletion of titanium from the interstellar gas is large and variable. The abundance of titanium in the gas also varies strongly relative to the Na, K, and the grains responsible for reddening. In contrast, the titanium/calcium column-density ratio is relatively constant at about 4 times its solar value. Lower depletions are found in four out of five cases of absorption in the intercloud medium and toward each of two stars at high galactic z-distances. The column densities of Ca II and Ti II are used to estimate the electron densities in individual kinematic components. These electron densities are uncorrelated with the depletions of titanium, indicating that depletion is not a simple or unique function of local density.
Model atmospheres for the late-type active-chromosphere dwarf stars 70 Oph A and Epsilon Eri are computed from high-resolution Ca II K line profiles as well as Mg II h and k line fluxes. A method is used which determines a plane-parallel homogeneous hydrostatic-equilibrium model of the upper photosphere and chromosphere which differs from theoretical models by lacking the constraint of radiative equilibrium (RE). The determinations of surface gravities, metallicities, and effective temperatures are discussed, and the computational methods, model atoms, atomic data, and observations are described. Temperature distributions for the two stars are plotted and compared with RE models for the adopted effective temperatures and gravities. The previously investigated T min/T eff vs. T eff relation is extended to Epsilon Eri and 70 Oph A, observed and computed Ca II K and Mg II h and k integrated emission fluxes are compared, and full tabulations are given for the proposed models. It is suggested that if less than half the observed Mg II flux for the two stars is lost in noise, the difference between an active-chromosphere star and a quiet-chromosphere star lies in the lower-chromospheric temperature gradient.
Equilibrium and controlled cooling rate experiments on a synthetic analog of Apollo 15 quartz normative basalt 15597 are reported. While the partitioning of the major elements Ca, Mg, and Fe between pyroxene and liquid is rate independent, the K sub D parameter for Fe/Mg, which is calculated for low-Ca pyroxene, is temperature dependent. It is suggested that chemical trends observed in lunar pyroxenes are a consequence of three rate processes. The processes are (1) rate-dependent suppression of crystallization of other phases until lower temperature alters liquid composition and, therefore, the composition of the pyroxene that crystallizes; (2) the efficiency of fractional crystallization and the extent of crystal zoning are rate dependent; and (3) the partitioning of Al2O3, TiO2, and Cr2O3 between pyroxene and liquid depends on cooling rate.
Clasts of anorthositic norite in 67955 and 77017, and several other samples, are suggested to represent material which crystallized from a silicate magma in a plutonic environment. Although no statement can be made regarding the ultimate origin of the parent melt, its composition was relatively felsic, starting within the primary field of crystallization of either plagioclase or spinel. The sequence of crystallization was: plagioclase (and/or spinel) olivine - low-Ca pyroxene - high-Ca pyroxene.
The Conquista chondrite is described and classified as an H4. The mineral composition is reported. H-group classification is based on described microscopic, electron microprobe, and bulk chemical studies. The evidence for petrologic type 4 classification includes the pronounced well-developed chondritic texture; the slight compositional variations in constituent phases; the high Ca contents of pyroxene and the presence of pigeonite; glassy to microcrystalline interstitial material rich in alkalis and SiO2; and twinned low-Ca clinopyroxene.