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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2012

Time-Dependent Searches for Point Sources of Neutrinos with the 4O-String and 22-String Configurations of IceCube

This paper presents four searches for flaring sources of neutrinos using the IceCube neutrino telescope. For the first time, a search is performed over the entire parameter space of energy, direction, and time with sensitivity to neutrino flares lasting between 20 micro-s and a year duration from astrophysical sources. Searches that integrate over time are less sensitive to flares because they are affected by a larger background of atmospheric neutrinos and muons that can be reduced by the use of additional timing information. Flaring sources considered here, such as active galactic nuclei, soft gamma-ray repeaters, and gamma-ray bursts, are promising candidate neutrino emitters. Two searches are "untriggered" in the sense that they look for any possible flare in the entire sky and from a predefined catalog of sources from which photon flares have been recorded. The other two searches are triggered by multi-wavelength information on flares from blazars and from a soft gamma-ray repeater. One triggered search uses lightcurves from Fermi-LAT which provides continuous monitoring. A second triggered search uses information where the flux states have been measured only for short periods of time near the flares. The untriggered searches use data taken by 40 strings of IceCube between 2008 April 5 and 2009 May 20. The triggered searches also use data taken by the 22-string configuration of IceCube operating between 2007 May 31 and 2008 April 5. The results from all four searches are compatible with a fluctuation of the background.

Abbasi, R.↗
NASA NTRS2021

JWST Noise Floor. II. Systematic Error Sources in JWST NIRCam Time Series

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) holds great promise for characterizing atmospheres of transiting exoplanets, potentially providing insights into Earth-sized planets within the habitable zones of M-dwarf host stars if photon-limited performance can be achieved. Here, we discuss the systematic error sources that are expected to be present in grism time-series observations with the NIRCam instrument. We find that pointing jitter and high-gain antenna moves in addition to the detectors' subpixel crosshatch patterns will produce relatively small variations (less than 6 parts per million, ppm). The time-dependent aperture losses due to thermal instabilities in the optics can also be kept to below 2 ppm. To achieve these low noise values, it is important to employ a sufficiently large (more than 1farcs1) extraction aperture. Persistence due to charge-trapping will have a minor (less than 3 ppm) effect on the time series 20 minutes into an exposure and is expected to play a much smaller role than it does for the Hubble Space Telescope WFC3 detectors. We expect detector temperature fluctuations to contribute less than 3 ppm. In total, our estimated noise floor from known systematic error sources is only 9 ppm per visit. We urge caution, however, because unknown systematic error sources could be present in flight and will only be measurable on astrophysical sources such as quiescent stars. We find that reciprocity failure may introduce a perennial instrument offset at the 40 ppm level, so corrections may be needed when a multi-instrument multi-observatory spectrum is stitched together over wide wavelength ranges.

Everett Schlawin↗
NASA NTRS1985

Transient convection over the Amazon-Bolivia region and the dynamics of drought over Northeast Brazil

A two layer, nonlinear, equatorial beta-plane model, in p-coordinates is used to study the atmospheric response to a large scale prescribed heat source varying in time. The heat source is meant to represent a convective burst with total duration of approximately 48 hours over the Amazon/Bolivia region. The boundary conditions used are meridional velocity zero at 60 deg S, omega w = 0 at the top and zero geometric velocity at the lower boundary. Sensitivity study was done which includes initial state at rest, compared with realistic initial flow. The scale of the heat source is 1500 km in latitude and longitude and it is centered at 10 deg S. Special attention is paid to the distribution and intensity of the induced vertical motion. The model is integrated for two days and the preliminary results show agreement with the observed 200 mb flow. Of interest is the establishment of a trough and descending motion to the northeast of the heat source. A conjucture is thus made that the Amazon heat source and its fluctuations bear some relationship with the drought problem over Northeast Brazil.

Buchmann, J.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Bulk relativistic motion in gamma-ray bursts

It is shown here that any model for gamma-ray bursts in which the gamma-rays in the source are isotropic in a frame moving relativistically with respect to external observers has several advantageous traits: hard photons can escape more easily, the radiated energy per burst is reduced, and stellar back-heating is virtually eliminated. In addition, several other features of gamma-ray burst phenomenology must be reinterpreted: the burst source density, or alternatively, the recurrence time per source, is altered, and the physical interpretation of spectral features may also be substantially changed.

Krolik, Julian H.↗
NASA NTRS1991

Tunnel transit-time (TUNNETT) devices for terahertz sources

The potential and capabilities of tunnel transit-time (TUNNETT) devices for power generation in the 100-1000 GHz range are presented. The basic properties of these devices and the important material parameters which determine their properties are discussed and criteria for designing such devices are presented. It is shown from a first-order model that significant amounts of power can be obtained from these devices in the terahertz frequency range.

Haddad, G. I.↗
NASA NTRS2020

A Systematic Review of Local to Regional Yield Forecasting Approaches and Frequently Used Data Resources

Forecasting crop yields, or providing an expectation of ex-ante harvest amounts, is highly relevant to the whole agricultural production chain. Farmers can adapt their management, traders or insurers their pricing schemes, suppliers their stocks, logistic companies their routes, national authorities their food balance sheets to guide import or export and, finally, international aid organizations can mobilize reliefs. Evidence has grown in the literature that such forecasts with a meaningful lead time are possible on various geographic scales and for a broad range of crops. Here, we present a systematic review of the methods applied in end-of-season yield forecasting and three frequently used data sources: weather data, satellite data and crop masks. Our literature database comprises 362 studies (2004–2019) which were evaluated regarding methods, crops, regions, data sources, lead time and performance. Moreover, we present 24 sources of real-time and predictive weather data, 21 sources of remote sensing data and 16 crop masks. Yield forecasting in our literature sample has been performed for 44 crops in 71 countries, also including many non-staple crops, but with an apparent bias in regions and crops. Forecasting performance depends on various factors, including crop, region, method, lead time to harvest and input diversity. Our systematic review supports a broader application of locally successful approaches at larger scales by providing a comprehensive, accessible compendium of necessary information for yield forecasting. We discuss improvement potentials with respect to methodological approaches and available data sources. We additionally suggest standardization procedures for future forecasting studies and encourage studying additional crops and geographic regions. Implications of forecasts for different target groups on different scales and the adaptation towards climate change are also discussed.

Seasonal crop yield forecasting↗
NASA NTRS2016

The Trick Simulation Toolkit: A NASA/Open source Framework for Running Time Based Physics Models

This paper describes the design and use at of the Trick Simulation Toolkit, a simulation development environment for creating high fidelity training and engineering simulations at the NASA Johnson Space Center and many other NASA facilities. It describes Trick's design goals and how the development environment attempts to achieve those goals. It describes how Trick is used in some of the many training and engineering simulations at NASA. Finally it describes the Trick NASA/Open source project on Github.

Penn, John M.↗
NASA NTRS1975

Controllable high voltage source having fast settling time

A high voltage dc stepping power supply for sampling a utilization device such as an electrostatic analyzer has a relatively fast settling time for voltage steps. The supply includes a waveform generator for deriving a low voltage staircase waveform that feeds a relatively long response time power supply, deriving a high output voltage generally equal to a predetermined multiple of the input voltage. In the power supply, an ac voltage modulated by the staircase waveform is applied to a step-up transformer and then to a voltage multiplier stack to form a high voltage, relatively poor replica of the input waveform at an intermediate output terminal. A constant dc source, applied to the input of the power supply, biases the voltage at the intermediate output terminal to be in excess of the predetermined multiple of the input voltage.

Doong, H.↗
NASA NTRS2012

Nature's Autonomous Oscillators

Nonlinearity is required to produce autonomous oscillations without external time dependent source, and an example is the pendulum clock. The escapement mechanism of the clock imparts an impulse for each swing direction, which keeps the pendulum oscillating at the resonance frequency. Among nature's observed autonomous oscillators, examples are the quasi-biennial oscillation and bimonthly oscillation of the Earth atmosphere, and the 22-year solar oscillation. The oscillations have been simulated in numerical models without external time dependent source, and in Section 2 we summarize the results. Specifically, we shall discuss the nonlinearities that are involved in generating the oscillations, and the processes that produce the periodicities. In biology, insects have flight muscles, which function autonomously with wing frequencies that far exceed the animals' neural capacity; Stretch-activation of muscle contraction is the mechanism that produces the high frequency oscillation of insect flight, discussed in Section 3. The same mechanism is also invoked to explain the functioning of the cardiac muscle. In Section 4, we present a tutorial review of the cardio-vascular system, heart anatomy, and muscle cell physiology, leading up to Starling's Law of the Heart, which supports our notion that the human heart is also a nonlinear oscillator. In Section 5, we offer a broad perspective of the tenuous links between the fluid dynamical oscillators and the human heart physiology.

Mayr, H. G.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Numerical Behaviour of a Smooth Local Correlation-based Transition Model in a Newton-Krylov Flow Solver

The numerical behaviour of transport-equation-based transition models, including both iterative and grid convergence, is influenced by the source terms. Transition models contain source terms that are large and highly nonlinear, and can be destabilizing in a strong implicit solver. Linearization strategies with varying levels of coupling are evaluated in conjunction with a source-term time step restriction to determine best-practices for solving the SA-sLM2015smooth local correlation-based transition model in an implicit Newton-Krylov flow solver. Achieving deep iterative convergence facilitates a detailed investigation of the grid convergence of these free-transition simulations, which are evaluated relative to fully-turbulent simulations performed using the Spalart-Allmaras turbulence model. Simulations of the NLF0416 general aviation airfoil, VA-2 supercritical airfoil, and NASA CRM-NLF wing-body geometry are performed over a range of grid levels. The results demonstrate that both a fully-coupled linearization strategy and a source-term time step restriction improve nonlinear convergence as the complexity of the free-transition simulations increases. In general, additional grid resolution is required for free-transition simulations relative to fully-turbulent simulations in order to achieve a similar level of accuracy, with the grid convergence of free-transition simulations sensitive to the streamwise grid spacings in the transition regions.

AATT↗
NASA NTRS1971

Density and fluence dependence of lithium cell damage and recovery characteristics

Experimental results on lithium-containing solar cells point toward the lithium donor density gradient dN sub L/dw as being the crucial parameter in the prediction of cell behavior after irradiation by electrons. Recovery measurements on a large number of oxygen-rich and oxygen-lean lithium cells have confirmed that cell recovery speed is directly proportional to the value of the lithium gradient for electron fluences. Gradient measurements have also been correlated with lithium diffusion schedules. Results have shown that long diffusion times (25 h) with a paint-on source result in large cell-to-cell variations in gradient, probably due to a loss of the lithium source with time.

Faith, T. J.↗
NASA NTRS1977

Solar wind nitrogen - Mechanisms for isotopic evolution

Isotope systematics of nitrogen implanted in the lunar regolith indicate that the N-15/N-14 ratio at the source of the nitrogen has increased substantially with time. This source is most plausibly identified as the solar wind reservoir. However, rigorous testing of possible mechanisms for isotopic evolution of the solar convective zone shows that they all fail, by large factors, to explain the observed effect. Evolutionary processes on the lunar surface may be similarly eliminated, leaving the lunar nitrogen isotope anomaly currently unexplained.

Kerridge, J. F.↗
NASA NTRS1985

The neutral wind 'flywheel' as a source of quiet-time, polar-cap currents

The neutral wind pattern over the summer polar cap can be driven by plasma convection to resemble the convection pattern. For a north-south component of the interplanetary magnetic field Bz directed southward, the wind speeds in the conducting E-region can become approximately 25 percent of the electric field drift speeds. If convection ceases, this neutral wind distribution can drive a significant polar cap current system for approximately 6 hours. The currents are reversed from those driven by the electric fields for southward Bz, and the Hall and field-aligned components of the current system resemble those observed during periods of northward Bz. The current magnitudes are similar to those observed during periods of small, northward Bz; however, observations indicate that electric fields often contribute to the currents as much as, or more than, the neutral winds.

Lyons, L. R.↗
NASA NTRS1985

The polar ionosphere as a source of the storm time ring current

The transport of ions from the polar ionosphere to the inner magnetosphere during storm time conditions has been computed using a Monte Carlo diffusion code. The effect of the electrostatic turbulence assumed to be present during the substorm expansion phase was simulated by a process that accelerated the ions stochastically perpendicular to the magnetic field with a diffusion coefficient proportional to the rate of energization of the ions by the induced electric field. This diffusion process was continued as the ions were convected from the plasma sheet boundary layer to the double-spiral injection boundary. Inward of the injection boundary the ions were convected adiabatically. By using as input an O(+) flux of 2.8 x 10 to the 8th per sq cm per s (w greater than 10 eV) and an H(+) flux of 5.5 x 10 to the 8th per sq cm per s (w greater than .63 eV) the computed distribution functions of the ions in the ring current were found to be in good agreement, over a wide range in L (4-8), with measurements made with the ISEE 1 satellite during a storm. This O(+) flux and a large part of the H(+) flux appear to be consistent with the DE-1 and DE-2 satellite measurements of the polar ionospheric outflow during disturbed times.

Cladis, J. B.↗
NASA NTRS2010

James Webb Space Telescope Studies of Dark Energy

The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) has contributed significantly to studies of dark energy. It was used to find the first evidence of deceleration at z=1.8 (Riess et al. 2001) through the serendipitous discovery of a type 1a supernova (SN1a) in the Hubble Deep Field. The discovery of deceleration at z greater than 1 was confirmation that the apparent acceleration at low redshift (Riess et al. 1998; Perlmutter et al. 1999) was due to dark energy rather than observational or astrophysical effects such as systematic errors, evolution in the SN1a population or intergalactic dust. The GOODS project and associated follow-up discovered 21 SN1a, expanding on this result (Riess et al. 2007). HST has also been used to constrain cosmological parameters and dark energy through weak lensing measurements in the COSMOS survey (Massey et al 2007; Schrabback et al 2009) and strong gravitational lensing with measured time delays (Suyu et al 2010). Constraints on dark energy are often parameterized as the equation of state, w = P/p. For the cosmological constant model, w = -1 at all times; other models predict a change with time, sometimes parameterized generally as w(a) or approximated as w(sub 0)+(1-a)w(sub a), where a = (1+z)(sup -1) is the scale factor of the universe relative to its current scale. Dark energy can be constrained through several measurements. Standard candles, such as SN1a, provide a direct measurement of the luminosity distance as a function of redshift, which can be converted to H(z), the change in the Hubble constant with redshift. An analysis of weak lensing in a galaxy field can be used to derive the angular-diameter distance from the weak-lensing equation and to measure the power spectrum of dark-matter halos, which constrains the growth of structure in the Universe. Baryonic acoustic oscillations (BAO), imprinted on the distribution of matter at recombination, provide a standard rod for measuring the cosmological geometry. Strong gravitational lensing of a time-variable source gives the angular diameter distance through measured time delays of multiple images. Finally, the growth of structure can also be constrained by measuring the mass of the largest galaxy clusters over cosmic time. HST has contributed to the study of dark energy through SN1a and gravitational lensing, as discussed above. HST has also helped to characterize galaxy clusters and the HST-measured constraints on the current Hubble constant H(sub 0) are relevant to the interpretation of dark energy measurements (Riess et al 2009a). HST has not been used to constrain BAO as the large number of galaxy redshifts required, of order 100 million, is poorly matched to HST's capabilities. As the successor to HST, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST; Gardner et al 2006) will continue and extend HST's dark energy work in several ways.

Gardner, Jonathan P.↗
NASA NTRS1987

Piloted simulator study of allowable time delay in pitch flight control system of a transport airplane with negative static stability

A piloted simulation study was conducted to determine the permissible time delay in the flight control system of a 10-percent statically unstable transport airplane during cruise flight conditions. The math model used for the simulation was a derivative Lockheed L-1011 wide-body jet transport. Data were collected and analyzed from a total of 137 cruising flights in both calm- and turbulent-air conditions. Results of this piloted simulation study verify previous findings that show present military specifications for allowable control-system time delay may be too stringent when applied to transport-size airplanes. Also, the degree of handling-qualities degradation due to time delay is shown to be strongly dependent on the source of the time delay in an advanced flight control system. Maximum allowable time delay for each source of time delay in the control system, in addition to a less stringent overall maximum level of time delay, should be considered for large aircraft. Preliminary results also suggest that adverse effects of control-system time delay may be at least partially offset by variations in control gearing. It is recommended that the data base include different airplane baselines, control systems, and piloting tasks with many pilots participating, so that a reasonable set of limits for control-system time delay can be established to replace the military specification limits currently being used.

Grantham, William D.↗
NASA NTRS2004

The Contribution of Dynamic Interannual Variability to Ozone Trends

At middle latitudes the total column ozone and the lower stratospheric ozone mixing ratio exhibit natural variability. Models and statistical analyses of observations such as SAGE ozone profiles and TOMS column measurements show that seasonal cycle, solar cycle, and interannual dynamical variability and dynamical phenomena such as the quasi- biennial oscillation all contribute to ozone variability. These must be accounted for when deriving ozone trends. Systematic or random changes in the atmospheric circulation may also contribute to ozone trends. It is presently unclear how much of the ozone trend derived from observations is due to changes in the chemical composition of the stratosphere and how much is due to changes in the atmospheric circulation. We are attempting to resolve this issue by comparing a twenty-five year simulation of ozone with fixed source gas boundary conditions with an identical simulation with time dependent source gas boundary conditions. Both simulations are driven with output from a general circulation model that produces realistic interannual variability in dynamical forcing. The model trend in ozone due to changes in composition is determined from the difference in these simulations. We compare these trends with trends determined from observations and model output using the same analysis techniques. Initial results emphasize the complications to attribution of observed ozone trends to dynamical and photochemical effects that are due to interrelationships between trends in transport, temperature, and photochemical effects. It may not be possible to describe the ozone trend as a superposition of dynamical and photochemical contributions.

Douglass, Anne↗
NASA NTRS1975

An analysis of spacecraft data time tagging errors

An indepth examination of the timing and telemetry in just one spacecraft points out the genesis of various types of timing errors and serves as a guide in the design of future timing/telemetry systems. The principal sources of timing errors are examined carefully and are described in detail. Estimates of these errors are also made and presented. It is found that the timing errors within the telemetry system are larger than the total timing errors resulting from all other sources.

Fang, A. C.↗