Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “epoch”

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.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 145 records · Page 8

Improved constraints on hematite refractive index for estimating climatic effects of dust aerosols

Abstract Uncertainty in desert dust composition poses a big challenge to understanding Earth’s climate across different epochs. Of particular concern is hematite, an iron-oxide mineral dominating the solar absorption by dust particles, for which current estimates of absorption capacity vary by over two orders of magnitude. Here, we show that laboratory measurements of dust composition, absorption, and scattering provide valuable constraints on the absorption potential of hematite, substantially narrowing its range of plausible values. The success of this constraint is supported by results from an atmospheric transport model compared with station-based measurements. Additionally, we identify substantial bias in simulating hematite abundance in dust aerosols with current soil mineralogy descriptions, underscoring the necessity for improved data sources. Encouragingly, the next-generation imaging spectroscopy remote sensing data hold promise for capturing the spatial variability of hematite. These insights have implications for enhancing dust modeling, thus contributing to efforts in climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Environmental Sciences & Ecology↗

Subsurface fluvial sediments beneath InSight on Mars from geophysical constraints

Subsurface structure investigation on Mars is crucial for understanding its geological evolution and past hydrological conditions. Elysium Planitia (EP), located near the hypothesized ancient ocean shorelines, could contain clues for past water activity and paleoclimate. Here we present better-constrained subsurface models beneath InSight extending to ~800 m depth, obtained from joint inversion of seismic and seismoacoustic coupling data, and use the well-resolved subsurface structure to explore the lithological profile through rock physics models. The derived subsurface lithology agrees well with local geological context and exhibits a shallow 60-m-thick low-rigidity layer consistent with hydrated sedimentary materials. Despite possible contributions of aeolian and volcanic deposits, we favor the interpretation that the low-rigidity layer originated from fluvial activity in EP during the Hesperian or Hesperian-to-Amazonian epoch, as supported by adjacent paleo-shoreline morphology observations. These results hint at a period of warmer paleoclimate at low latitudes, possibly during high-obliquity phases of Mars’ rotational axis.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

Terrestrial atmospheric ion implantation occurred in the nearside lunar regolith during the history of Earth’s dynamo

Light volatile elements in lunar regolith are thought to be a mixture of the solar wind and Earth’s atmosphere, the latter sourced in the absence of geomagnetic field. However, the extent to which both the current and primitive geodynamo influence the transport of terres trial ions still remains unclear, and this uncertainty is further complicated by the enigmatic composition and poorly constrained location of the Eoarchean exosphere. Here we use 3-D MHD numerical simulations with contemporary magnetized and Archean unmagnetized atmospheres to investigate how Earth’s intrinsic magnetic field affects this transfer, aiming to constrain how and when the lunar isotopic signature provides a record of Earth’s pale-oatmosphere. We find that atmospheric transfer is efficient only when the Moon is within Earth’s magnetotail. The non-solar contribution to the lunar soil is best explained by implantation during the long history of the geodynamo with present-day solar wind conditions, rather than any short, putatively unmagnetized epoch of early Archean Earth. This further suggests the history of the terrestrial atmosphere, spanning billions of years, could be preserved in buried lunar soils. Our results indicate that the elemental abundances of Apollo samples are very sensitive to Earth’s hydrodynamic exobase altitude, which, at the time of ion implantation, was never smaller than 190 km.

Atmospheric dynamics↗

Peritectic phase transition of benzene and acetonitrile into a cocrystal relevant to Titan, Saturn's moon

Benzene and acetonitrile are two of the most commonly used solvents found in almost every chemical laboratory. Titan is one other place in the solar system that has large amounts of these compounds. On Titan, organic molecules are produced in the atmosphere and carried to the surface where they can mineralize. In this work, we report the phase diagram of mixtures of acetonitrile and benzene, and provide an account of the structure and composition of the phases. To mimic the environment on Titan more accurately, we tested the stability of the structure under liquid ethane. The results provide new insights into the structure and stability of potential extraterrestrial minerals. In light of Dragonfly, NASA's upcoming mission to Titan, revisiting the fundamental chemistry of the smallest molecules with modern methods and techniques can have significant contributions to this epochal mission and can open new research directions in chemistry.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

SUGAR: An improved empirical model of Type Ia supernovae based on spectral features

Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) are widely used to measure the expansion of the Universe. Improving distance measurements of SNe Ia is one technique to better constrain the acceleration of expansion and determine its physical nature. This document develops a new SNe Ia spectral energy distribution (SED) model, called the SUpernova Generator And Reconstructor (SUGAR), which improves the spectral description of SNe Ia, and consequently could improve the distance measurements. This model was constructed from SNe Ia spectral properties and spectrophotometric data from the Nearby Supernova Factory collaboration. In a first step, a principal component analysis-like method was used on spectral features measured at maximum light, which allowed us to extract the intrinsic properties of SNe Ia. Next, the intrinsic properties were used to extract the average extinction curve. Third, an interpolation using Gaussian processes facilitated using data taken at different epochs during the lifetime of an SN Ia and then projecting the data on a fixed time grid. Finally, the three steps were combined to build the SED model as a function of time and wavelength. This is the SUGAR model. Results. The main advancement in SUGAR is the addition of two additional parameters to characterize SNe Ia variability. The first is tied to the properties of SNe Ia ejecta velocity and the second correlates with their calcium lines. The addition of these parameters, as well as the high quality of the Nearby Supernova Factory data, makes SUGAR an accurate and efficient model for describing the spectra of normal SNe Ia as they brighten and fade. The performance of this model makes it an excellent SED model for experiments like the Zwicky Transient Facility, the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, or the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

The Chandra view of the relation between X-ray and UV emission in quasars

Here, we present a study of the relation between X-rays and ultraviolet emission in quasars for a sample of broad-line, radio-quiet objects obtained from the cross-match of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey DR14 with the latest Chandra Source Catalog 2.0 (2332 quasars) and the Chandra COSMOS Legacy survey (273 quasars). The non-linear relation between the ultraviolet (at 2500 Å, L UV ) and the X-ray (at 2 keV, L X ) emission in quasars has been proved to be characterised by a smaller intrinsic dispersion than the observed one, as long as a homogeneous selection, aimed at preventing the inclusion of contaminants in the sample, is fulfilled. By leveraging on the low background of Chandra, we performed a complete spectral analysis of all the data available for the SDSS-CSC2.0 quasar sample (i.e. 3430 X-ray observations), with the main goal of reducing the uncertainties on the source properties (e.g. flux, spectral slope). We analysed whether any evolution of the L X – L UV relation exists by dividing the sample in narrow redshift intervals across the redshift range spanned by our sample, z ≃ 0.5–4. We find that the slope of the relation does not evolve with redshift and it is consistent with the literature value of 0.6 over the explored redshift range, implying that the mechanism underlying the coupling of the accretion disc and hot corona is the same at the different cosmic epochs. We also find that the dispersion decreases when examining the highest redshifts, where only pointed observations are available. These results further confirm that quasars are ‘standardisable candles’, that is we can reliably measure cosmological distances at high redshifts where very few cosmological probes are available.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Stellar populations with MEGARA: The inner regions of NGC 7025

This paper aims to determine the capabilities of the MEGARA spectrograph at the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC), which is an optical integral-field unit, for studying stellar populations. We also aim to exploit its combination of high spectral (R ~ 6000, 12 000 and 20 000) and spatial (0.62") resolution within its 12".5 × 11"​​.3 field of view. We do this by analysing the commissioning data of the nearby S0a galaxy NGC 7025. We establish a systematic method through which we can determine the properties of the stellar populations in the observations made with MEGARA, more specifically, within the MEGADES legacy project. For this paper in particular, we determine the properties of the stellar populations of NGC 7025. We used MEGARA observations of galaxy NGC 7025 that were taken during the commissioning phase of the instrument. We applied different approaches to estimate the properties of the stellar populations with the highest possible certainty. In addition to the specific study of NGC 7025 and in the context of the MEGADES survey, we have carried out a number of tests to determine the expected errors (including potential biases) in these star formation history (SFH) derivations as a function of these parameters, namely spectral setup, signal-to-noise ratio, σ, and the SFH itself. All the studies we conduct (both full spectral fitting and absorption line indices) of the stellar populations of NGC 7025 indicate that the stars that form its bulge have supersolar metallicity and considerably old ages (~10 Gyr) in general. Using three different combinations of MEGARA spectral setups, we determined that the bulge of NGC 7025 has smild negative mass-weighted age gradient. For the more detailed SFH, our results indicate that in addition to a rather constant star formation at early epochs, a peak in the formation history of the stars in the bulge is also found 3.5–4.5 Gyr ago. This partly explains the mass-weighted age gradients we measured. The scenario presented in NGC 7025 is that of an isolated galaxy under secular evolution that about 3.5–4.5 Gyr ago likely experienced a minor merger (mass ratio 1/10) that induced an increase in star formation and also perturbed the morphology of its outer disc. In addition to these specific results for NGC 7025, we report different lessons learned for the ongoing exploitation of the MEGADES survey with the GTC, such as the need to obtain combined observations in the LR-B + LR-V setups and a signal-to-noise ratio of at least 20 per Å.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Polarization and variability of compact sources measured in Planck time-ordered data

This paper introduces a new Planck Catalog of Polarized and Variable Compact Sources (PCCS-PV) comprising 153 sources, the majority of which are extragalactic. The data include both the total flux density and linear polarization measured by Planck with frequency coverage from 30 to 353 GHz, and temporal spacing ranging from days to years. We classify most sources as beamed, extragalactic radio sources; the catalog also includes several radio galaxies, Seyfert galaxies, and Galactic and Magellanic Cloud sources, including H II regions and planetary nebulae. An advanced extraction method applied directly to the multifrequency Planck time-ordered data, rather than the mission sky maps, was developed to allow an assessment of the variability of polarized sources. Our analysis of the time-ordered data from the Planck mission, tod2flux, allowed us to catalog the time-varying emission and polarization properties for these sources at the full range of polarized frequencies employed by Planck, 30-353 GHz. PCCS-PV provides the time-and frequency-dependent, polarized flux densities for all 153 sources. To illustrate some potential applications of the PCCS-PV, we conducted preliminary comparisons of our measurements of selected sources with published data from other astronomical instruments. In summary, we find general agreement between the Planck and the Institut de Radioastronomie Millimétrique (IRAM) polarization measurements as well as with the Metsähovi 37 GHz values at closely similar epochs. Here, these combined measurements also show the value of PCCS-PV results and the PCCS2 catalog for filling in missing spectral (or temporal) coverage and helping to define the spectral energy distributions of extragalactic sources. In turn, these results provide useful clues as to the physical properties of the sources.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Radial velocity variability and the evolution of hot subdwarf stars

Hot subdwarf stars represent a late and peculiar stage in the evolution of low-mass stars, since they are likely formed by close binary interactions. In this work, we perform a radial velocity (RV) variability study of a sample of 646 hot subdwarfs with multi-epoch radial velocities based on spectra from Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fibre Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST). The atmospheric parameters and RVs were taken from the literature. For stars with archival spectra but without literature values, we determined the parameters by fitting model atmospheres. In addition, we redetermined the atmospheric parameters and RVs for all the He-enriched sdO/Bs. This broad sample allowed us to study RV-variability as a function of the location in theT eff - log g- and T eff - log n (He)/n (H) diagrams in a statistically significant way. We used the fraction of RV-variable stars and the distribution of the maximum RV variations ΔRV max as diagnostics. Both indicators turned out to be quite inhomogeneous across the studied parameter ranges. A striking feature is the completely dissimilar behaviour of He-poor and He-rich hot subdwarfs. While the former have a high fraction of close binaries, almost no significant RV variations could be detected for the latter. This has led us to the conclusion that there is likely no evolutionary connection between these subtypes. On the other hand, intermediate He-rich- and extreme He-rich sdOB/Os are more likely to be related. Furthermore, we conclude that the vast majority of this population is formed via one or several binary merger channels. Hot subdwarfs with temperatures cooler than ~24 000 K tend to show fewer and smaller RV-variations. These objects might constitute a new subpopulation of binaries with longer periods and late-type or compact companions. The RV-variability properties of the extreme horizontal branch (EHB) and corresponding post-EHB populations of the He-poor hot subdwarfs match and confirm the predicted evolutionary connection between them. Stars found below the canonical EHB at somewhat higher surface gravities show large RV variations and a high RV variability fraction. These properties are consistent with most of them being low-mass EHB stars or progenitors of low-mass helium white dwarfs in close binaries.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

The miniJPAS survey: A search for extreme emission-line galaxies

Context. Galaxies with extreme emission lines (EELGs) may play a key role in the evolution of the Universe, as well as in our understanding of the star formation process itself. For this reason an accurate determination of their spatial density and fundamental properties in different epochs of the Universe will constitute a unique perspective towards a comprehensive picture of the interplay between star formation and mass assembly in galaxies. In addition to this, EELGs are also interesting in order to explain the reionization of the Universe, since their interstellar medium (ISM) could be leaking ionizing photons, and thus they could be low z, analogous of extreme galaxies at high z . Aims. This paper presents a method to obtain a census of EELGs over a large area of the sky by detecting galaxies with rest-frame equivalent widths ≥300 Å in the emission lines [O II]λλ3727,3729Å, [O III]λ5007Å, and Hα. For this, we aim to use the J-PAS survey, which will image an area of ≈8000 deg 2 with 56 narrow band filters in the optical. As a pilot study, we present a methodology designed to select EELGs on the miniJPAS images, which use the same filter dataset as J-PAS, and thus will be exportable to this larger survey. Methods. We make use of the miniJPAS survey data, conceived as a proof of concept of J-PAS, and covering an area of ≈1 deg 2 . Objects were detected in the r SDSS images and selected by imposing a condition on the flux in a given narrow-band J-PAS filter with respect to the contiguous ones, which is analogous to requiring an observed equivalent width larger than 300 Å in a certain emission line within the filter bandwidth. The selected sources were then classified as galaxies or quasi-stellar objects (QSOs) after a comparison of their miniJPAS fluxes with those of a spectral database of objects known to present strong emission lines. This comparison also provided a redshift for each source, which turned out to be consistent with the spectroscopic redshifts when available (|Δz/(1 + z spec )| ≤ 0.01). Results. The selected candidates were found to show a compact appearance in the optical images, some of them even being classified as point-like sources according to their stellarity index. After discarding sources classified as QSOs, a total of 17 sources turned out to exhibit EW 0 ≥ 300 Å in at least one emission line, thus constituting our final list of EELGs. Our counts are fairly consistent with those of other samples of EELGs in the literature, although there are some differences, which were expected due to biases resulting from different selection criteria.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

X-ray emission from a rapidly accreting narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxy at z = 6.56

The space density of X-ray-luminous, blindly selected active galactic nuclei (AGN) traces the population of rapidly accreting super-massive black holes through cosmic time. It is encoded in the X-ray luminosity function, whose bright end remains poorly constrained in the first billion years after the Big Bang as X-ray surveys have thus far lacked the required cosmological volume. With the eROSITA Final Equatorial-Depth Survey (eFEDS), the largest contiguous and homogeneous X-ray survey to date, X-ray AGN population studies can now be extended to new regions of the luminosity–redshift space (L 2 - 10 keV > 10 45 erg s -1 and z > 6). The current study aims at identifying luminous quasars at z > 5.7 among X-ray-selected sources in the eFEDS field in order to place a lower limit on black hole accretion well into the epoch of re-ionisation. A secondary goal is the characterisation of the physical properties of these extreme coronal emitters at high redshifts. Cross-matching eFEDS catalogue sources to optical counterparts from the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys, we confirm the low significance detection with eROSITA of a previously known, optically faint z = 6.56 quasar from the Subaru High-z Exploration of Low-luminosity Quasars (SHELLQs) survey. We obtained a pointed follow-up observation of the source with the Chandra X-ray telescope in order to confirm the low-significance eROSITA detection. Using new near-infrared spectroscopy, we derived the physical properties of the super-massive black hole. Finally, we used this detection to infer a lower limit on the black hole accretion density rate at z > 6. The Chandra observation confirms the eFEDS source as the most distant blind X-ray detection to date. The derived X-ray luminosity is high with respect to the rest-frame optical emission of the quasar. With a narrow MgII line, low derived black hole mass, and high Eddington ratio, as well as its steep photon index, the source shows properties that are similar to local narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxies, which are thought to be powered by young super-massive black holes. In combination with a previous high-redshift quasar detection in the field, we show that quasars with L 2 - 10 keV > 10 45 erg s -1 dominate accretion onto super-massive black holes at z ~ 6.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Delving into the depths of NGC 3783 with XRISM V. Broad-band modelling of ionized outflows

The Seyfert 1 galaxy NGC 3783 hosts a multi-phase warm absorber (WA) that has been extensively studied in the X-ray band. High-resolution spectra from 2000−2001 revealed a complex outflow with multiple ionization and velocity components. Two decades later, new XMM-Newton and XRISM observations allow us to investigate the long-term evolution of these outflows. We performed joint spectral modelling of the XMM-Newton /RGS and XRISM/Resolve time-averaged spectra using the pion photoionization code within SPEX. We derived the ionization parameter, column density, turbulent velocity, and outflow velocity for each absorption component, and investigated their thermal stability and absorption measure distribution (AMD) to characterize the physical and dynamical properties of the WA in NGC 3783 in 2024. We compared these results with the 2000−2001 epoch to assess long-term variability, stability, and possible changes in the absorber population. We identify eight WA components spanning log ξ = 1.08 − 3.38 and outflow velocities of 480−1230 km s −1 . The ranges of column densities and turbulent velocities remain broadly consistent with the WAs from 2000−2001, but the earlier data contained more low-ionization, high-velocity components. The total column density of all the outflows in 2024 is 1.5 times larger than in 2000−2001, which means that it has been replenished by fresh material. The dominant unresolved transition array (UTA) absorber (component B3) has increased its column density by a factor of three while maintaining a similar ionization parameter. The WAs in NGC 3783 have undergone significant structural and dynamical evolution over the past 24 years.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Enhanced electron acceleration by high-intensity lasers in extended (confined) preplasma in cone targets

Here we report on experimental results from a high-intensity laser interaction with cone targets that increase the number (×3) and temperature (×3) of the measured hot electrons over a traditional planar target. This increase is caused by a substantial increase in the plasma density within the cone target geometry, which was induced by 17 ± 9 mJ prepulse that arrived 1.5 ns prior to the main high intensity (>10 19 W/cm 2 ). Three-dimensional hydrodynamic simulations are conducted using hydra which show that the cone targets create substantially longer and denser plasma than planar targets due to the geometric confinement of the expanding plasma. The density within the cone is a several hundred-micron plasma “shelf” with a density of approximately 10 20 n e /cc. The HYDRA simulated plasma densities are used as the initial conditions for two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations using EPOCH. These simulations show that the main acceleration mechanism is direct-laser-acceleration, with close agreement between experimentally measured and simulated electron temperatures. Further analysis is conducted to investigate the acceleration of the electrons within the long plasma generated within a compound parabolic concentrator by the prepulse.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Faraday effect in collisional magnetized plasmas

Faraday rotation is a valuable diagnostic tool for investigating laboratory and astrophysical plasmas, but it has almost exclusively been treated in the collisionless limit (despite the non-negligible role of Coulomb collisions in many laboratory plasmas). Here, we show that Faraday rotation can occur in collisional plasmas and that the usual effect is curiously altered by collisions. Namely, an initially linearly polarized light wave—propagating parallel to a uniform magnetic field—becomes elliptically polarized in the collisional plasma, and collisional absorption of the wave also occurs. Moreover, the ellipticity and rotation angle are quantifiably sensitive to the fidelity of the collisional transport coefficients. As we will demonstrate with particle-in-cell EPOCH simulations, these effects offer a stringent diagnostic tool for benchmarking multi-scale plasma simulation codes.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Endothermic physiology of extinct megatooth sharks

The evolution of the extinct megatooth shark, Otodus megalodon , and its close phylogenetic relatives remains enigmatic. A central question persists regarding the thermophysiological origins of these large predatory sharks through geologic time, including whether O. megalodon was ectothermic or endothermic (including regional endothermy), and whether its thermophysiology could help to explain the iconic shark’s gigantism and eventual demise during the Pliocene. To address these uncertainties, we present unique geochemical evidence for thermoregulation in O. megalodon from both clumped isotope paleothermometry and phosphate oxygen isotopes. Our results show that O. megalodon had an overall warmer body temperature compared with its ambient environment and other coexisting shark species, providing quantitative and experimental support for recent biophysical modeling studies that suggest endothermy was one of the key drivers for gigantism in O. megalodon and other lamniform sharks. The gigantic body size with high metabolic costs of having high body temperatures may have contributed to the vulnerability of Otodus species to extinction when compared to other sympatric sharks that survived the Pliocene epoch.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

Large N-ightmare dark matter

A dark QCD sector is a relatively minimal extension of the Standard Model (SM) that admits Dark Matter (DM) candidates, but requires no portal to the visible sector beyond gravitational interactions: a "nightmare scenario" for DM detection. Here, we consider a secluded dark sector containing a single flavor of light, vector-like dark quark gauged under (N). In the large-N limit, this single-flavor theory becomes highly predictive, generating two DM candidates whose masses and dynamics are described by few parameters: a light quark-antiquark bound state, the dark analog of the η' meson, and a heavy bound state of N quarks, the dark analog of the Δ ++ baryon. We show that the latter may freeze-in with an abundance independent of the confinement scale, forming DM-like relics for N ≲ 10, while the former may generate DM via cannibalization and freeze-out. We study the interplay of this two-component DM system, and determine the characteristic ranges of the confinement scale, dark-visible sector temperature ratio, and N that admit non-excluded DM, once effects of self-interaction constraints and bounds on effective degrees of freedom at the BBN and CMB epochs are included.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Exploring the early Universe with Gaia and Theia

It has recently been pointed out that Gaia is capable of detecting a stochastic gravitational wave background in the sensitivity band between the frequency of pulsar timing arrays and LISA. Here, we argue that Gaia and Theia have great potential for early universe cosmology, since such a frequency range is ideal for probing phase transitions in asymmetric dark matter, SIMP and the cosmological QCD transition. Furthermore, there is the potential for detecting primordial black holes in the solar mass range produced during such an early universe transition and distinguish them from those expected from the QCD epoch. Finally, we discuss the potential for Gaia and Theia to probe topological defects and the ability of Gaia to potentially shed light on the recent NANOGrav results.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Cannibalism's lingering imprint on the matter power spectrum

The early universe may have contained internally thermalized dark sectors that were decoupled from the Standard Model. In such scenarios, the relic dark thermal bath, composed of the lightest particle in the dark sector, can give rise to an epoch of early matter domination prior to Big Bang Nucleosynthesis, which has a potentially observable impact on the smallest dark matter structures. This lightest dark particle can easily and generically have number-changing self-interactions that give rise to “cannibal” behavior. We consider cosmologies where an initially sub-dominant cannibal species comes to temporarily drive the expansion of the universe, and we provide a simple map between the particle properties of the cannibal species and the key features of the enhanced dark matter perturbation growth in such cosmologies. Finally, we further demonstrate that cannibal self-interactions can determine the small-scale cutoff in the matter power spectrum even when the cannibal self-interactions freeze out prior to cannibal domination.

cosmological perturbation theory↗