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At least 1,207 records · Page 67

Construction and performance of a high-temperature-superconductor composite bolometer

A high-Tc superconducting bolometer has been constructed using a YBa2Cu3O(x) thin-film meander line 20 microns wide and 76,000 microns long, deposited on a SrTiO3 substrate. Radiation is absorbed by a thin film of Bi with well-characterized absorption properties deposited on a Si substrate in contact with the SrTiO3. At 1.8 Hz the measured bolometer response to a 500-K blackbody is 5.2 V/W (820 V/W extrapolated to dc). The impact of apparent nonohmic behavior at the transition is discussed, as are ways of reducing the observed 1/f noise. The response time is 32 s and is dominated by the heat capacity of the SrTiO3 substrate.

Brasunas, J. C.↗

Direct measurement of the composition and spectra of cosmic rays above 1 TeV/amu from JACEE

Direct measurements on cosmic ray protons through iron above about 1 TeV/amu have been performed in a series of balloon-borne experiments with emulsion chambers. The measured energy spectra of protons and helium are power laws with exponents of 2.77 + or - 0.09 and 2.72 + or - 0.11 in the energy range 5 to 500 TeV and 2 to 50 TeV/amu, respectively. The proton spectrum shows no evidence of the steepening near 2 TeV which was reported by other experiments. Helium has a slightly higher intensity compared to extrapolations from lower energy measurements. The heavier elements, carbon to sulfur, show a small tendency for intensity enhancement in the relative abundance obove 10 TeV/amu.

Parnell, T. A.↗

Potential SPOT-1 R/B-Cosmos 1680 R/B collision

Detailed NORAD data have revealed updated orbital elements for the Ariane third-stage rocket body that underwent breakup on November 13, 1986, as well as for the Cosmos 1680 rocket body. Applying the maximum expected error due to the extrapolation of orbital elements to the date of the possible collision between the two bodies shows the smallest possible distance between bodies to have been 380 km, thereby precluding collision.

Henize, Karl G.↗

Search for soft X-ray emission from SN 1987A with a CCD X-ray imaging spectrometer

The results of soft X-ray observations of SN 1987A over the energy band 0.65-2.0 keV are reported. The upper limits on the soft X-ray flux are inconsistent with an extrapolation of the spectrum measured by the Ginga Satellite to the energy band and require a turnover in the X-ray spectrum between 2 and 4 keV. If this turnover is due to absorption by intervening material, a neutral column density associated with the supernova of at least 2.8 x 10 to the 21st/sq cm is required. The background rate for the Texas Instruments 800 x 800 pixel CCD, measured between 150 and 285 km altitude, was 1.1 counts/sq cm s. The background spectrum has a broad peak at 350 electrons, corresponding to charge deposited in the detector by minimally ionizing particles.

Burrows, D. N.↗

Optical veiling, disk accretion, and the evolution of T Tauri stars

High-resolution spectra of 31 K7-M1 T Tauri stars (TTs) in the Taurus-Auriga molecular cloud demonstrate that most of these objects exhibit substantial excess emission at 5200 A. Extrapolations of these data consistent with low-resolution spectrophotometry indicate that the extra emission is comparable to the stellar luminosity in many cases. If this continuum emission arises in the boundary layers of accreting disks, more than about 30 percent of all TTs may be accreting material at a rate which is sufficiently rapid to alter their evolution from standard Hayashi tracks. It is estimated that roughly 10 percent of the final stellar mass is accreted in the TT phase. This amount of material is comparable to the minimum gravitationally unstable disk mass estimated by Larson and it is speculated that the TT phase represents the final stages of disk accretion driven by gravitational instabilities.

Hartmann, Lee W.↗

The origin of the far-infrared luminosity from spiral galaxies

The relationship between the far-infrared and H-alpha luminosity has been investigated for a sample of 124 spiral galaxies. After correcting the H-alpha luminosities for an average 1 mag of extinction and extrapolating the IRAS 40-120 micron luminosity to 1000 microns, it is found that the mean ratio of H-alpha to far-infrared luminosity is comparable to that expected from H II regions powered by stars with masses larger than 6 solar masses. This result constitutes strong evidence in support of the view that high-mass O and B stars are responsible for both the H-alpha and far-infrared emission in spiral galaxies of high, billion solar luminosities or greater, far-infrared luminosity.

Devereux, Nicholas A.↗

An automatic editing algorithm for GPS data

An algorithm has been developed to edit automatically Global Positioning System data such that outlier deletion, cycle slip identification, and correction are independent of clock instability, selective availability, receiver-satellite kinematics, and tropospheric conditions. This algorithm, called TurboEdit, operates on undifferenced, dual frequency carrier phase data, and requires the use of P code pseudorange data and a smoothly varying ionospheric electron content. TurboEdit was tested on the large data set from the CASA Uno experiment, which contained over 2500 cycle slips.Analyst intervention was required on 1 percent of the station-satellite passes, almost all of these problems being due to difficulties in extrapolating variations in the ionospheric delay. The algorithm is presently being adapted for real time data editing in the Rogue receiver for continuous monitoring applications.

Blewitt, Geoffrey↗

The vapor pressures of supercooled NHO3/H2O solutions

A procedure utilizing the Gibbs-Duhem relation is used to extrapolate vapor pressures of supercooled HNO3 mixtures to 190 K. Values of A and B from the equation logP = A - B/T are presented for solutions between 0.20 and 0.25 mole fraction HNO3. In the stratosphere, if sufficient HNO3 vapor is present because it has not come into equilibrium with the nitric acid trihydrate, supercooled nitric acid solutions could condense at temperatures up to 1.5 + or - 0.8 K above the ice point.

Hanson, David R.↗

Loss of ozone in the Arctic vortex for the winter of 1989

Measurements of ClO (Brune et al., 1990) acquired during the Airborne Arctic Stratospheric Expedition are used to infer concentrations of reactive chlorine (ClO + 2 x Cl2O2). Observed fields of potential temperature and potential vorticity are used to extrapolate in situ data to larger regions of the vortex. Calculated values of the loss rate of O3, based on estimates of reactive chlorine and measurements of BrO (Toohey et al., 1990), suggest that the loss of O3 was abut 12 pct for levels of the atmosphere with potential temperatures between 440 and 470 K over the 39 day duration of the ER-2 flights into the polar vortex. Calculated loss rates agree with observed rates of removal of O3, although significant uncertainties exist for each.

Salawitch, Ross J.↗

On the fragmentation of asteroids and planetary satellites

A general scaling model is defined which allows the extrapolation of small-scale collisional fragmentation experiment results, and existing collisional theories are considered within its framework. Scaling based exclusively upon the specific energy, Q, of the event (the ratio of projectile kinetic energy to the mass of the target body) is shown to hold when (1) the projectile and target material properties do not depend on size or time scales, and (2) the collision is governed by kinetic energy independently of impact velocity. Because neither of these conditions should hold, serious doubt is cast on the validity of Q's use as the sole scaling parameter.

Housen, Kevin R.↗

The two-point correlation function for groups of galaxies in the Center for Astrophysics redshift survey

The large-scale distribution of groups of galaxies selected from complete slices of the CfA redshift survey extension is examined. The survey is used to reexamine the contribution of group members to the galaxy correlation function. The relationship between the correlation function for groups and those calculated for rich clusters is discussed, and the results for groups are examined as an extension of the relation between correlation function amplitude and richness. The group correlation function indicates that groups and individual galaxies are equivalent tracers of the large-scale matter distribution. The distribution of group centers is equivalent to random sampling of the galaxy distribution. The amplitude of the correlation function for groups is consistent with an extrapolation of the amplitude-richness relation for clusters. The amplitude scaled by the mean intersystem separation is also consistent with results for richer clusters.

Ramella, Massimo↗

Turbulent polar heliospheric fields

Recent observational studies of interplanetary field fluctuations and MHD simulation results are used to suggest that the turbulent evolution of the fields over the solar poles leads to a state intermediate between the large fields of the static limit and the small fields given by 'saturation' (deltaB/B = about 1). In particular, assuming the strength of the coronal hole sources of fluctuations are similar in all solar regions, the polar fluctuations in the outer heliosphere are likely to be nearly isotropic, with amplitudes somewhat smaller than those predicted by the WKB extrapolation from 1 AU in the ecliptic plane.

Roberts, D. A.↗

Observations of the flank of earth's bow shock to -110 R(E) by ISEE 3/ICE

The ISEE 3/ICE spacecraft made over 100 crossings of earth's bow shock between x(SEC) = -20 and -110 R(E) most of them further away than -60 R(E) while resetting its course for comet Giacobini-Zinner. The parameters of the crossings are tabulated and some of their magnetic, plasma wave, and spectral profiles at low magnetosonic Mach numbers are displayed. Loci of crossings are compared with the extrapolation of a model of earlier statistical success, showing that the model remains useful in the far flank.

Greenstadt, E. W.↗

Solar wind speed and coronal flux-tube expansion

The hypothesis that the solar wind speed at 1 AU and the rate of magnetic flux-tube expansion in the corona are inversely correlated is shown to be consistent with observations extending over the last 22 years. This empirical relationship allows the daily wind speeds at earth to be predicted from a current-free extrapolation of the observed photospheric field into the corona. The narrow boundaries of high-speed wind streams are attributed to steep gradients in the flux-tube expansion rates at the edges of coronal holes. When a heliospheric current sheet is included in the model, it is found that the flux tubes near the hole axis, although diverging more slowly than those near the hole boundary in the corona, have undergone the greatest net expansion at 1 AU, an effect consistent with the low densities within high-speed streams.

Wang, Y.-M.↗

Boundary-layer heat and moisture budgets from FIFE

Aircraft stacks were flown upwind and downwind of the First International Satellite Land Surface Climatology Project Field Experiment site in Kansas to measure the heat and moisture budgets of the boundary layer under fairly clear skies for four daytime periods. The terms in the conservation equation are evaluated. The vertical flux divergence and advection do not account for the difference between surface and low-level aircraft flux estimates. Budget estimates of the surface fluxes using the aircraft data agree well with surface flux measurements, but extrapolation of the aircraft fluxes gives surface fluxes that are too low.

Desjardins, R. L.↗

Transition regime droplet growth and evaporation - An integrodifferential variational approach

A variational principle based on the integrodifferential form of the Boltzmann equation, which allows very general forms of the collision integral and of the boundary operator, has been used to compute the mass flux to a spherical particle. For simplicity the problem has been restricted to the one-speed, constant cross-section approximation, the black sphere problem of neutron transport theory. Using the Hilbert expansion of the solution far from the sphere as a trial function leads to a rational expression in the inverse Knudsen number for the extrapolation distance, which is simply related to the number flux to the sphere. A five-term expansion gives results that are no more than 6 percent in error when compared to an accurate numerical solution. The technique can be applied to other forms of the collision model and other boundary conditions.

Cipolla, J. W., Jr.↗

Multitasking a three-dimensional Navier-Stokes algorithm on the Cray-2

A three-dimensional computational aerodynamics algorithm has been multitasked for efficient parallel execution on the Cray-2. It provides a means for examining the multitasking performance of a complete CFD application code. An embedded zonal multigrid scheme is used to solve the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations for an internal flow model problem. The explicit nature of each component of the method allows a spatial partitioning of the computational domain to achieve a well-balanced task load for MIMD computers with vector-processing capability. Experiments have been conducted with both two- and three-dimensional multitasked cases. The best speedup attained by an individual task group was 3.54 on four processors of the Cray-2, while the entire solver yielded a speedup of 2.67 on four processors for the three-dimensional case. The multiprocessing efficiency of various types of computational tasks is examined, performance on two Cray-2s with different memory access speeds is compared, and extrapolation to larger problems is discussed.

Swisshelm, Julie M.↗

A brief survey of radiation effects on polymer dielectrics

Future space power needs are extrapolated to be at least three to four orders of magnitude more than is currently available. This long-term reliable power will be required on missions such as the Space Station, Pathfinder, Space Plane, and high-powered satellites, and for defense. Electrical insulation and dielectrics are the key electrical materials needed to support these power systems, where a single-point system failure could prove catastrophic or even fatal for the whole mission. Therefore, the impact of radiation, an environmental stress, on the properties and performance of insulation and dielectrics must be understood. The influence of radiation on polymer dielectrics, the insulating materials most commonly used for power transmission and storage, is reviewed. The effects of the type of radiation, dose, rate, and total exposure on the key electrical, mechanical, and physical properties of polymer dielectrics are described and explained.

Laghari, Javaid R.↗