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NASA NTRS1991

Collisional excitation and radiative properties of N II - The strong intercombination (1D - 3P0) transition at 748 A

Laboratory measurements of EUV emission from electron-excited N2 have been obtained at medium resolution, providing N II EUV emission cross section measurements and allowing the confirmation of recent calculations by Fawcett (1987) indicating the presence of a strong intercombination line in N II at 748.37 A. The most recently available data are used to predict the basic collisional and radiative properties of N II, the plasma diagnostic properties are briefly explored, and radiative cooling coefficients are given. Some basic properties of electron-excited N II and N2 are examined in the EUV in order to diagnose emission spectra of the earth and Titan. The N II emissions in the earth dayglow, particularly at 916 A, are much brighter than current estimates of source rates. The N II 1085 A line in the dayglow contains a significant component from dissociative photoionization excitation. The N II 1085 A, 916 A, and 670 A lines in the Titan dayglow spectrum appear to be compatible with direct electron excitation of N2.

Tripp, T. M.↗

NASA NTRS1991

Simulation of three-dimensional liquid sloshing flows using a strongly implicit calculation procedure

A coupled strongly implicit solution strategy for unsteady three-dimensional free surface flows has been developed based on an artificial compressibility formulation for the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations. A pseudotime term has been used in the continuity equation to permit time accurate calculations to be achieved. The scheme appears capable of tracking the free surface reasonably accurately inside a partially-filled spherical container undergoing a general rotating motion characteristic of that experienced by a spin-stabilized satellite. Five different free surface calculations have been presented. Some of the results exhibit an interesting Reynolds number dependent oscillatory behavior which is believed to be physical although no experimental results appears to be available for verification to date.

Chen, K.-H.↗

NASA NTRS1991

Transient particle acceleration in strongly magnetized neutron stars

Although several reasonable physical processes have been proposed to account for the initial energy release in transient events on strongly magnetized neutron stars, and although the manifestation of this activity as a burst of X- or gamma-radiation evidently results from the Compton upscattering of soft photons by relativistic electrons, a self-consistent picture for the particle acceleration itself is lacking. Here, a detailed model is developed in which sheared Alfven waves generated by the energized stellar crust (e.g., due to a starquake) accelerate the changes to large Lorentz factors. For canonical stellar parameters and a burst energy of about 10 to the 37th ergs, the maximum attainable Lorentz factor is gamma(max) 50m, where m (of about 2-3/cm) characterizes the shear of the magnetic perturbation. This value of gamma(max) is consistent with the particle energy required to produce the most energetic gamma-rays (of about 10-100 MeV) observed in gamma-ray bursts.

Melia, Fulvio↗

NASA NTRS1991

Monte Carlo analysis of dissociation and recombination behind strong shock waves in nitrogen

Computations are presented for the relaxation zone behind strong, 1D shock waves in nitrogen. The analysis is performed with the direct simulation Monte Carlo method (DSMC). The DSMC code is vectorized for efficient use on a supercomputer. The code simulates translational, rotational and vibrational energy exchange and dissociative and recombinative chemical reactions. A model is proposed for the treatment of three body-recombination collisions in the DSMC technique which usually simulates binary collision events. The model improves previous models because it can be employed with a large range of chemical-rate data, does not introduce into the flow field troublesome pairs of atoms which may recombine upon further collision (pseudoparticles) and is compatible with the vectorized code. The computational results are compared with existing experimental data. It is shown that the derivation of chemical-rate coefficients must account for the degree of vibrational nonequilibrium in the flow. A nonequilibrium-chemistry model is employed together with equilibrium-rate data to compute the flow in several different nitrogen shock waves.

Boyd, I. D.↗

NASA NTRS1992

Two-photon annihilation of thermal pairs in strong magnetic fields

The annihilation spectrum of pairs with 1-D thermal distributions in the presence of a strong magnetic field is calculated. Numerical analysis of the spectrum are performed for mildly relativistic temperatures and for different angles of emission with respect to field lines. Teragauss magnetic fields are assumed so that conditions are typical of gamma ray burst and pulsar environments. The spectra at each viewing angle reveal asymmetric line profiles that are signatures of the magnetic broadening and red shifting of the line: these asymmetries are more prominent for small viewing angles. Thermal Doppler broadening tends to dominate in the right wing of the line and obscures the magnetic broadening more at high temperatures and smaller viewing angles. This angular dependence of the line asymmetry may prove a valuable diagnostic tool. For low temperatures and magnetic field strengths, useful analytic expressions are presented for the line width, and also for the annihilation spectrum at zero viewing angle. The results presented find application in gamma ray burst and pulsar models, and may prove very helpful in deducing field strengths and temperatures of the emission regions of these objects from line observations made by Compton GRO and future missions.

Baring, Matthew G.↗

NASA NTRS1991

Dynamical behavior of strong magnetic fields in the solar convection zone

Magnetic buoyancy is thought to play an important role in the dynamical behavior of the sun's magnetic field in the convection zone. Magnetic buoyancy is commonly thought to cause inescapable rapid loss of toroidal flux from much of the convection zone, thereby suppressing effective operation of a solar dynamo. This paper reexamines the detailed character of magnetic buoyancy, especially as it is influenced by the magnetic field's effect on heat transport and temperature gradients in the convection zone. It is suggested that suppression of convective heat transport across strong magnetic flux tubes can alter the temperature within the tubes and can subdue, or even reverse, the effect of magnetic buoyancy.

Vainshtein, S.↗

NASA NTRS1991

Cold equation of state in a strong magnetic field - Effects of inverse beta-decay

The influence of a high magnetic field (B is greater than 10 exp 12 G) on the degenerate matter equation of state appropriate to a neutron star is studied. The regime dominated by relativistic electrons up to the neutron drip density is highlighted. The equilibrium matter composition and equation of state, allowing for inverse beta-decay. Two different equilibrium models are determined: an ideal neutron-proton-electron (npe) gas and the more realistic model of Baym, Pethick, and Sutherland (1971) consisting of a Coulomb lattice of heavy nuclei embedded in an electron gas. For a sufficiently high field strength, the magnetic field has an appreciable effect, changing the adiabatic index of the matter and the nuclear transition densities. The influence of a strong field on some simple nonequilibrium processes, including beta-decay and inverse beta-decay (electron capture) is also considered. The effects produced by the magnetic field are mainly due to the changes in the transverse electron quantum orbits and the allowed electron phase space induced by the field.

Lai, Dong↗

NASA NTRS1992

Model of the formation of the low-latitude boundary layer for strongly northward interplanetary magnetic field

A model for the formation of the low-boundary layer in which a magnetosheath flux tube reconnects in the north and south beyond the cusp when the IMF is strongly northward is presented. For northward IMF the geomagnetic field captures solar wind flux tubes through intermittent reconnection at the cusp region. These newly captured flux tubes shorten and sink into the magnetosphere while the flux tubes reorient themselves as they become assimilated into the magnetosphere. There is no significant acceleration for the particles within the flux tubes. In the magnetosphere the interchange instability disperses the flux tube azimuthally along the magnetopause to form a boundary layer. Subsequent reconnection forms sublayers of the boundary layer and different sublayers represent different ages after reconnection. The interchange instability is stable radially, which keeps sharp boundaries between sublayers and between the boundary layer and magnetosphere.

Song, P.↗

NASA NTRS1992

On the stability of strong double layers

For a strong, stationary double layer to be maintained, the electron flux Phi(e) and the ion flux Phi(i) must satisfy the Langmuir condition Phi(e)/Phi(i) = sq rt m(i)/m(e). However, this condition alone does not determine whether or not the double layer will remain in stable equilibrium at a given position. A new stability condition is obtained, and the results of several laboratory double layer experiments are examined using this condition.

Song, Bin↗

NASA NTRS1992

Formation of very strongly magnetized neutron stars - Implications for gamma-ray bursts

It is proposed that the main observational signature of magnetars, high-field neutron stars, is gamma-ray bursts powered by their vast reservoirs of magnetic energy. If they acquire large recoils, most magnetars are unbound from the Galaxy or reside in an extended, weakly bound Galactic corona. There is evidence that the soft gamma repeaters are young magnetars. It is argued that a convective dynamo can also generate a very strong dipole field after the merger of a neutron star binary, but only if the merged star survives for as long as about 10-100 ms. Several mechanisms which could impart a large recoil to these stars at birth, sufficient to escape from the Galactic disk, are discussed.

Duncan, Robert C.↗

NASA NTRS1991

HEAO 3 observations of strong variable 0.5-3 MeV emission from the Taurus region

Preliminary results are reported of observations of strong (greater than 10 sigma) variable MeV emission from the Taurus region, possibly the Crab nebula, in 1980 by the HEAO 3 Gamma-Ray Spectroscopy experiment. The about 50-day time-averaged spectrum of the Crab shows a new component, which consists of a hard spectral 'knee' in the 0.4-1 MeV range, followed by a higher energy component extending to greater than 3 MeV, superposed on the canonical Crab power law spectrum with a spectral index of 2.2. This new spectral component was not observed four months earlier in the fall of 1979, when the spectrum was consistent with a single power law with the index of 2.2, the same as that observed in 1980. There is no indication that the gamma-ray emission was pulsed.

Ling, James C.↗

NASA NTRS1992

Strong Langmuir turbulence at Jupiter?

Langmuir wave packets with short scale lengths less than an approximately equal to 100 lambda e have been observed in Jupiter's foreshock. Theoretical constraints on the electric fields and scale sizes of collapsing wave packets are summarized, extended and placed in a form suitable for easy comparison with Voyager and Ulysses data. The published data are reviewed and possible instrumental underestimation of fields discussed. New upper limits for the fields of the published wave packets are estimated. Wave packets formed at the nucleation scale from the observed large-scale fields cannot collapse because they are disrupted before collapse occurs. The published wave packets are quantitatively inconsistent with strong turbulence collapse. Strict constraints exist for more intense wave packets to be able to collapse: E greater than or approximately equals to 1-8 mV/m for scales less than or approximately equal to 100 lambda e. Means for testing these conclusions using Voyager and Ulysses data are suggested.

Cairns, Iver H.↗

NASA NTRS1990

Scattering from randomly oriented scatterers with strong permittivity fluctuations

Strong permittivity fluctuation theory is used to solve the problem of scattering from a medium composed of completely randomly oriented scatterers under a low frequency limit. Gaussian statistics are not assumed for the renormalized scattering sources. Numerical results on effective permittivity are illustrated for oblate and prolate spheroidal scatterers and compared with the results for spherical scatterers. The results are consistent with discrete scatterer theory. The effective permittivity of a random medium embedded with nonspherical scatterers shows a higher imaginary part than the spherical scatterer case with equal correlation volume. Under the distorted Born approximation, the polarimetric covariance matrix for the backscattered electric field is calculated for half-space randomly oriented scatterers. The nonspherical geometry of the scatterers shows significant effects on the cross-polarized backscattering returns, and the correlation coefficient between HH and VV returns. The polarimetric backscattering coefficients can provide useful information in distinguishing the geometry of scatterers.

Yueh, S. H.↗

NASA NTRS1993

Strong, Ductile Rotor For Cryogenic Flowmeters

Improved magnetic flowmeter rotor resists cracking at cryogenic temperatures, yet provides adequate signal to magnetic pickup outside flowmeter housing. Consists mostly of stainless-steel alloy 347, which is ductile and strong at low temperatures. Small bead of stainless-steel alloy 410 welded in groove around circumference of round bar of stainless-steel alloy 347; then rotor machined from bar. Tips of rotor blades contain small amounts of magnetic alloy, and passage of tips detected.

Royals, W. T.↗

NASA NTRS1991

A strongly goal-directed close-range vision system for spacecraft docking

In this presentation, we will propose a strongly goal-oriented stereo vision system to establish proper docking approach motions for automated rendezvous and capture (AR&C). From an input sequence of stereo video image pairs, the system produces a current best estimate of: contact position; contact vector; contact velocity; and contact orientation. The processing demands imposed by this particular problem and its environment dictate a special case solution; such a system should necessarily be, in some sense, minimalist. By this we mean the system should construct a scene description just sufficiently rich to solve the problem at hand and should do no more processing than is absolutely necessary. In addition, the imaging resolution should be just sufficient. Extracting additional information and constructing higher level scene representations wastes energy and computational resources and injects an unnecessary degree of complexity, increasing the likelihood of malfunction. We therefore take a departure from most prior stereopsis work, including our own, and propose a system based on associative memory. The purpose of the memory is to immediately associate a set of motor commands with a set of input visual patterns in the two cameras. That is, rather than explicitly computing point correspondences and object positions in world coordinates and trying to reason forward from this information to a plan of action, we are trying to capture the essence of reflex behavior through the action of associative memory. The explicit construction of point correspondences and 3D scene descriptions, followed by online velocity and point of impact calculations, is prohibitively expensive from a computational point of view for the problem at hand. Learned patterns on the four image planes, left and right at two discrete but closely spaced instants in time, will be bused directly to infer the spacecraft reaction. This will be a continuing online process as the docking collar approaches.

Boyer, Kim L.↗

NASA NTRS1992

Pulsatile instability in rapid directional solidification - Strongly-nonlinear analysis

In the rapid directional solidification of a dilute binary alloy, analysis reveals that, in addition to the cellular mode of Mullins and Sekerka (1964), there is an oscillatory instability. For the model analyzed by Merchant and Davis (1990), the preferred wavenumber is zero; the mode is one of pulsation. Two strongly nonlinear analyses are performed that describe this pulsatile mode. In the first case, nonequilibrium effects that alter solute rejection at the interface are taken asymptotically small. A nonlinear oscillator equation governs the position of the solid-liquid interface at leading order, and amplitude and phase evolution equations are derived for the uniformly pulsating interface. The analysis provides a uniform description of both subcritical and supercritical bifurcation and the transition between the two. In the second case, nonequilibrium effects that alter solute rejection are taken asymptotically large, and a different nonlinear oscillator equation governs the location of the interface to leading order. A similar analysis allows for the derivation of an amplitude evolution equation for the uniformly pulsating interface. In this case, the bifurcation is always supercritical. The results are used to make predictions about the characteristics of solute bands that would be frozen into the solid.

Merchant, G. J.↗

NASA NTRS1992

GB 790305 as a very strongly magnetized neutron star

The March 5 1979 event was the strongest gamma-ray burst ever observed. Its location in the sky is known with an accuracy of about 10 arcsec, and it coincides with the N49 supernova remnant in the Large Magellanic Cloud. The main burst was followed by a soft tail with the periodic 8 s modulation, and 16 soft gamma events over the following few years. If the source is a magnetic neutron star with the 8 s rotation period and the age of about 10 exp 4 years as indicated by N49 then the field strength of about 5 x 10 exp 14 gauss is implied. The corresponding critical luminosity is about 10 exp 4 L(Edd), as the electron scattering opacity is suppressed by the strong magnetic field. This luminosity is consistent with the observed peak flux of the soft tail and the soft repeaters. The soft spectrum may be approximated with the photospheric emission at kT(eff) = 17 keV. The corresponding photospheric radius is about 14 km, compatible with a neutron star hypothesis. The total magnetic energy of the star is about 4 x 10 exp 46 erg, more than enough to power the March 5 event and all its repeaters.

Paczynski, Bohdan↗

NASA NTRS1993

Photoionization of the hydrogen atom in strong magnetic fields

The photoionization of the hydrogen atom in magnetic fields B about 10 exp 11 - 10 exp 13 G typical of the surface layers of neutron stars is investigated analytically and numerically. We consider the photoionization from various tightly bound and hydrogen-like states of the atom for photons with arbitrary polarizations and wave-vector directions. It is shown that the length form of the interaction matrix elements is more appropriate in the adiabatic approximation than the velocity form, at least in the most important frequency range omega much less than omega(B), where omega(B) is the electron cyclotron frequency. Use of the length form yields nonzero cross sections for photon polarizations perpendicular to the magnetic field at omega less than omega(B); these cross sections are the ones that most strongly affect the properties of the radiation escaping from an optically thick medium, e.g., from the atmosphere of a neutron star. The results of the numerical calculations are fitted by simple analytical formulas.

Potekhin, Aleksandr IU.↗