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This paper describes a numerical calculation which follows the evolution of an initial photon and particle spectrum in an expanding, relativistic wind or jet, describes in particular the quasi-equilibrium distribution found for initial optical depths above 100 or so, and points out that this calculation may be relevant for the situation in luminous, compact nuclear sources.
This paper examines radiation transfer in the droplet sheet of a liquid droplet radiator including non-isotropic scattering by the droplets. Non-isotropic scattering becomes significant for small droplets (diameter less than 0.1 mm) and for low emissivity liquids. For droplets with an emittance of 0.1 and for a droplet sheet optical depth or 5, the radiated power varies by about 12 percent, depending on whether scattering is predominantly forward or backward. An experimental measurement of the power emitted by a cylindrical cloud of heated droplets of silicone fluid is also reported. The measured cloud emissivity correlates, within experimental error, with the analytical model.
Nitric acid and hydrochloric acid vapors may condense in the winter polar stratospheres. Nitric acid clouds, unlike water ice clouds, would form at the temperatures at which polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs) are observed and would have optical depths of the magnitude observed suggesting that HNO3 is a dominant component of PSCs. ClO, N2O5 and ClNO3 may react on cloud particle surfaces yielding additional HNO3, HCl, and HOCL. In the vicinity of PSCs these reactions could deplete the stratosphere of photochemically active NO(x) species. The sedimentation of PSCs may remove these materials from the stratosphere. The loss of vapor phase NO(x) might allow halogen-based chemistry to create the ozone hole.
A method of modeling the solar chromosphere is developed, based on submillimeter continuum observations of the solar limb. Submillimeter radiation from the solar limb emanates from the chromosphere in local thermodynamic equilibrium, making it an important chromospheric diagnostic. Also, the use of high-resolution limb profiles allows for atmospheric modeling independent of gravitational hydrostatic equilibrium. The chromospheric model is constructed to match high-resolution solar limb profiles at 30, 50, 100, and 200 microns, determined by an occultation of the solar limb observed from the Kuiper Airborne Observatory during the total solar eclipse of July 31, 1981. This matching is achieved by 'stretching' the solar model atmosphere of Vernazza, Avrett, and Loesser (1981) vertically out of hydrostatic equilibrium, while maintainingn its vertical temperature-optical depth profile.
Three oscillatory features in the Voyager 1 radio occultation map of Saturn's rings have been identified as the 5:3, 7:4, and 4:2 spiral bending waves excited by the satellite Mimas. The observations are presented and the wave properties are investigated. It is found that the Mimas 7:4 wave is consistent with the linear theory of bending waves, while the Mimas 5:3 wave may not be. A detailed analysis of the Mimas 4:2 bending wave was not possible due to the large optical depth in the region in which it propagates.
A quantitative model for the IR emission from the bulge of the Galaxy is constructed using a sequence of models for circumstellar dust shells around late-type stars. The luminosity function for asymptotic giant branch stars and the distribution function for the dust-shell optical depth are derived. The total bolometric luminosity of the bulge population is 170 million solar luminosities and the total mass loss rate is 0.0083 solar mass/yr. The 12 microns and most of the 25 microns flux from the inner part of M31 can be understood as emission from a bulge population similar to that in the Galaxy. A simple model for the IR emission from late-type stars in the disk of the Galaxy is also given.
The first astronomical detection of CH in the far-infrared has been made. A ground state of rotational transition was observed in absorption against the far-infrared continuum peak of Sgr B2. The lines are resolved at a velocity resolution of 62 km/s, have a line width of roughly 250 km/s, and a line center optical depth of about 0.29. The inferred total column density of CH in the ground state along the line of sight is roughly 1.6 x 10 to the 15th/sq cm. Comparison of the far-infrared profiles to the 3 GHz emission lines confirms that the ground-state Lambda-doublet levels are inverted and gives an accurate estimate of the excitation temperature. The excitation temperature of the 3264 MHz line varies from cloud to cloud along the line of sight, the levels being most inverted in the Sgr B2 molecular cloud. The large intensity of the 3264 MHz line in this cloud relative to other clouds along the line of sight may thus be primarily an excitation effect.
Einstein MPC observations of the 5.2-h binary 4U 2129 + 47 are analyzed, and a type 1 X-ray burst with rise time 6.5 + or 1.5 s, peak 2-10-keV flux about 1 nerg/sq cm s, and peak color temperature 2.8 + 0.9 or - 0.7 keV is detected in data for 22:01:03 UT on December 15, 1978. It is inferred that the compact component of the binary is a neutron star, and anomalies in the burst (e.g., peak luminosity 500 times lower than the Eddington limit) are interpreted in terms of the accretion-disk-corona (ADC) model of McClintock et al. (1982). Assuming that the burst itself is normal, an ADC with temperature about 10 to the 8th K, radius 4 x 10 to the 10th cm, and electron-scattering optical depth about 2.5 is predicted, making this object the first neutron star with a mass (0.6 + or - 0.2 solar mass according to Horne et al., 1986) well below the Chandrasekhar limit.
Far-IR and molecular observations of M43 and its neutral environment are presented. Dust particles mixed with plasma, atoms, and molecules of the observed region are found to produce the measured far-IR emissions. M43 and its neutral environment have a simple morphology, consisting primarily of a relatively dust-free H II region and its centrally located exciting star lying next to the dense concentration of neutral material known as the Orion Ridge. The exciting star, NU Ori, is an important source of excitation of the dust associated with M43. Dust mixed with gas lying along or outside the near circular boundary of M43 is important for the energy balance of the M43 region. The amount of far-IR reradiation observed from the central 1 arcmin of M43 is equivalent to only about one percent of the NU Ori luminosity. a fraction implying a small value for the normalized absorption optical depth. This may partly explain why extinction by dust appears to have little effect on the excitation of the M43 plasma.
Jupiter's diffuse ring system is upon reexamination of Voyager images noted to be composed of a relatively bright narrow ring and an inner toroidal halo as well as the 'gossamer' exterior ring, while the previously suspected inner disk is missing. Several narrow, bright features are visible in the main ring, and are suggested to be related in some way to Adrastea and Metis. The smallest ring particles and the dark, rough, red largest bodies both have total optical depths of 1-6 x 10 to the -6th. After arising at the bright ring's inner boundary, the halo rapidly expands inward to a 20,000-km thickness, and disappears at a radius of 90,000 km halfway between the main ring and the planet's cloudtops.
The Klemola et al. (1981) object KME 15 has been observed by the Mount Stromlo 1.9-m telescope during its occultation by the Uranian rings on May 1, 1982. In addition to deriving accurate midtimes for rings 6, 5, 4, alpha, beta, eta, gamma, delta, and epsilon, on the basis of model fits to the immersion and emersion ring profiles, normal optical depths and equivalent widths are obtained for all save ring 6. The numerical inversion of immersion and emersion atmosphere occultation values has yielded vertical temperature profiles that exhibit mean temperatures in the vicinity of 130 K and a local maximum near the 8-microbar pressure level.
The relation between cusp events and gamma-rays bursts is investigated. The optical depth of the universe to X-rays and gamma-rays of various energies is calculated and discussed. The cosmological evolution of cosmic strings is examined, and the energetics and time-scales related to the cusp phenomena are estimated. It is noted that it is possible to have energy bursts with a duration of a few seconds or less from cusps at z = 1000; the maximum amount of energy associated with such an event is limited to 10 to the 7th ergs/sq cm.
The 63-micron line due to thermospheric atomic oxygen O(P-3), using a far-infrared spectrometer on a balloon platform at 37 km altitude over Palestine, TX, on June 20, 1983. From measurements of the equivalent width of this line at two elevation angles, a weak angular dependence is found: the equivalent width increases by a factor of 1.5 + or - 0.3 as the angle decreases from +30 deg to +1 deg. Since the optical depth of the O(P-3) line is large, the measured line intensity cannot be directly converted to a column abundance. Instead, the measurements are interpreted in terms of radiative transfer through a 16-layer atmosphere extending to 200 km. A model atmosphere for summer at 30 deg N, with an exospheric temperature of 1300 K, including an assumed daytime atomic oxygen abundance profile constructed from recent chemical and dynamical models and a water vapor abundance profile constructed from recent experimental and model results is used. For this assumed O(P-3) vertical profile shape a multiplicative scaling factor of 0.8, with an altitude-dependent uncertainty is determined. In the best-determined layer the uncertainty in the multiplier is + or - 0.2 at 119 km. The model-dependent peak atomic oxygen density is 3.6 (+ or - 1.9) x 10 to the 11th/cu cm at an altitude of about 101 km.
Spectra of Uranus' S3(0) and S3(1) H2 quadrupole lines, obtained during the 1978-1980 apparitions, are analyzed, and are found to require the presence of a deep cloud. Modifications of the Baines and Bergstralh (1986) standard model, including an additional haze layer above the 16-km-am H2 level which contains strongly absorbing particles, are needed to fit the observations. For a Rayleigh phase function, such a haze (uniformly mixed with the gas above this level) would have an absorption optical depth of 0.16 and a single scattering particle albedo of 0.30. This modification would imply a fraction of normal H2 equal to 0.25 + or - 0.10, in agreement with the Baines and Bergstralh standard model.
Models of gravitational microlensing at small and large optical depth are presented, with a special emphasis on the time delays between microimages. The time distribution of microimage arrival times is random when the microobjects responsible for the lensing are randomly distributed. If the microobjects are clustered in space, then microimages are clustered in time. In some models there are many pairs of microimages with a very small time separation. It is proposed that the recently discovered recurrent soft gamma-ray burster GB 790107, for which more than 50 bursts were detected, is a single event multiply imaged due to gravitational microlensing by an ensemble of nonrandomly distributed microobjects, perhaps a rich cluster of galaxies. Some observational tests of this hypothesis are proposed. If correct, the hypothesis requires the burster to be at a cosmological distance, perhaps farther away than the most distant quasars.
Infrared excesses are empirically derived for a sample of bright Be stars based on IRAS data and previously published near-infrared photometry. The excesses are compared with published H-alpha luminosities and are found to be correlated. The data are compared with the theoretically expected relation between the sum of free-free and free-bound continua and the H-alpha recombination-line intensity from a common envelope. The inclusion of temperature and optical-depth effects is necessary to produce agreement between observations and theory. No significant correlation is detected between L(IR)/L(H-alpha) ratios and rotational velocities.
A comparison between Voyager 2 UV spectrometer data for stellar occultations of the Uranian ring system obtained at 0.11 microns and 2.2-micron earth-based occultation data reveals the anticipated factor-of-two reduction in observed optical depths relative to those observed from earth. This is due to Voyager's proximity to the rings, which allows light diffracted out of the direct beam by ring particles to be replaced by light diffracted into the direct beam light from other particles, and further permits the placing of firm lower limits on typical particle sizes of 0.3 and 1 cm for the epsilon and delta rings, respectively. As a function of true anomaly, the epsilon ring profile is noted to remain very similar in shape and essentially constant in equivalent depth, even very near periapse.
The cloud liquid water feedback in climate models consists of the increase (decrease) in optical depth of clouds resulting from higher (lower) liquid water contents that might accompany tropospheric warming (cooling). The change in cloud liquid water with temperature is shown to depend on the rate of change of the slope of the moist adiabat with respect to temperature, and it is a strong function of temperature. The value of this rate of change in the tropics is about half that in mid and high latitudes and is much less than the value obtained by assuming that liquid water scales with the saturation mixing ratio.