0000000000423291
AUTHOR
Y.j. Choi
A new method for the identification of archaeological soils by their spectral signatures in the vis-NIR region
Abstract This paper introduces a statistical method to identify spectral signatures of buried archaeological remains and distinguish them from spectra of the background soil in the visible to near infrared region. The proposed method is based on the Principal Component Analysis (PCA). The difference between an archaeological spectrum and non-archaeological soil spectra is quantified by a so-called R value. R values larger than 1 indicate that the spectrum represents an archaeological material. The method is successfully applied to samples from five study sites in Italy and Hungary with special conditions. The reflection spectra are taken in a time-efficient way with a field spectrometer. Th…
A next generation Ultra-Fast Flash Observatory (UFFO-100) for IR/optical observations of the rise phase of gamma-ray bursts
The Swift Gamma-ray Burst (GRB) observatory responds to GRB triggers with optical observations in ~ 100 s, but cannot respond faster than ~ 60 s. While some ground-based telescopes respond quickly, the number of sub-60 s detections remains small. In mid- to late-2013, the Ultra-Fast Flash Observatory-Pathfinder is to be launched on the Lomonosov spacecraft to investigate early optical GRB emission. This pathfinder mission is necessarily limited in sensitivity and event rate; here we discuss a next generation rapid-response space observatory. We list science topics motivating our instruments, those that require rapid optical-IR GRB response, including: A survey of GRB rise shapes/times, meas…