Search results for "Cosmology"

Equations of State for White Dwarfs

2009

This thesis is about deriving a few equations of state for white dwarfs below the regime of neutron drip. White dwarfs - also called degenerate dwarfs, composed mostly of electron-degenerate matter - are luminous and the color of the light they are emitting is white, hence their name. Because of the relatively enormous density, the gravitational potential of a white dwarf causes a collapse. White dwarfs are classified as compact objects, meaning that their life begins when a star dies, and are therefore considered as one possibility of a final stage of stellar evolution since they are considered static over the lifetime of the Universe. Star death is a point where the most of its nuclear fu…

VISTA Milky Way Public Survey

2009

We propose a public IR variability survey, named \Vista Variables in the Vía Láctea" (V V V ), of the Milky Way bulge and an adjacent section of the mid-plane where star formation activity is high. This would take 1920 hours, covering ~ 109 point sources within an area of 520 sq deg, including 33 known globular clusters and ~ 350 open clusters. The final products will be a deep IR atlas in 5 passbands and a catalogue of ~ 106 variable point sources. These will produce a 3-D map of the surveyed region (unlike single-epoch surveys that only give 2-D maps) using well-understood primary distance indicators such as RR Lyrae stars. It will yield important information on the ages of the population…

2018

Abstract. Detailed measurements of radiation, atmospheric and aerosol properties were carried out in summer 2013 during the Aerosol Direct Radiative Impact on the regional climate in the MEDiterranean region (ADRIMED) campaign in the framework of the Chemistry-Aerosol Mediterranean Experiment (ChArMEx) experiment. This study focusses on the characterization of infrared (IR) optical properties and direct radiative effects of mineral dust, based on three vertical profiles of atmospheric and aerosol properties and IR broadband and narrowband radiation from airborne measurements, made in conjunction with radiosonde and ground-based observations at Lampedusa, in the central Mediterranean. Satell…

Adjusted Normalized Emissivity Method for surface temperature and emissivity retrieval from optical and thermal infrared remote sensing data

2003

[1] A methodology for the retrieval of surface temperatures and emissivities combining visible, near infrared and thermal infrared remote sensing data was applied to Digital Airborne Imaging Spectrometer (DAIS) data and validated with coincident ground measurements acquired in a multiyear experiment held in an agricultural site in Barrax, Spain. The Adjusted Normalized Emissivity Method (ANEM) is based on the use of visible and near infrared data to estimate the vegetation cover and model the maximum emissivity according to the Vegetation Cover Method. The pixel-dependent maximum emissivity is used as the initial guess of the Normalized Emissivity Method to obtain the surface temperature an…

Approaches to relativistic positioning around Earth and error estimations

2016

In the context of relativistic positioning, the coordinates of a given user may be calculated by using suitable information broadcast by a 4-tuple of satellites. Our 4-tuples belong to the Galileo constellation. Recently, we estimated the positioning errors due to uncertainties in the satellite world lines (U-errors). A distribution of U-errors was obtained, at various times, in a set of points covering a large region surrounding Earth. Here, the positioning errors associated to the simplifying assumption that photons move in Minkowski space-time (S-errors) are estimated and compared with the U-errors. Both errors have been calculated for the same points and times to make comparisons possib…

Comparing irradiance fields derived from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer airborne simulator cirrus cloud retrievals with solar spectral…

2007

[1] During the Cirrus Regional Study of Tropical Anvils and Cirrus Layers–Florida Area Cirrus Experiment, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) airborne simulator (MAS) and the solar spectral flux radiometer (SSFR) operated on the same aircraft, the NASA ER-2. While MAS provided two-dimensional horizontal fields of cloud optical thickness and effective ice particle radius, the SSFR measured spectral irradiance in the visible to near-infrared wavelength range (0.3–1.7 μm). The MAS retrievals, along with vertical profiles from a combined radar/lidar system on board the same aircraft were used to construct three-dimensional cloud fields, which were input into Monte Carlo ra…

Effects of ice crystal habit on thermal infrared radiative properties and forcing of cirrus

2007

[1] The impact of assumed ice crystal morphology on thermal infrared (IR) radiative properties of subtropical cirrus is quantified. In particular, the crystal-shape-dependent profiles of downwelling and upwelling thermal IR (broadband and spectral) irradiances and the radiative forcing of cirrus (at the top and bottom of the atmosphere) are investigated. For this purpose, airborne measurements of ice crystal size distribution (in terms of ice crystal maximum dimension) from the CRYSTAL-FACE campaign and a recently published library of thermal IR optical properties of nonspherical ice crystal habits are implemented into radiative transfer simulations. Two cirrus cases are studied in detail: …

Blue Flashes as Counterparts to Narrow Bipolar Events: the Optical Signal of Shallow In-Cloud Discharges

2021

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Regional Saharan dust modelling during the SAMUM 2006 campaign

2011

The regional dust model system LM-MUSCAT-DES was developed in the framework of the SAMUM project. Using the unique comprehensive data set of near-source dust properties during the 2006 SAMUM field campaign, the performance of the model system is evaluated for two time periods in May and June 2006. Dust optical thicknesses, number size distributions and the position of the maximum dust extinction in the vertical profiles agree well with the observations. However, the spatio-temporal evolution of the dust plumes is not always reproduced due to inaccuracies in the dust source placement by the model. While simulated winds and dust distributions are well matched for dust events caused by dry syn…

A Precise Photometric Ratio via Laser Excitation of the Sodium Layer II: Two-photon Excitation Using Lasers Detuned from 589.16 nm and 819.71 nm Reso…

2020

This article is the second in a pair of articles on the topic of the generation of a two-color artificial star (which we term a "laser photometric ratio star," or LPRS) of de-excitation light from neutral sodium atoms in the mesosphere, for use in precision telescopic measurements in astronomy and atmospheric physics, and more specifically for the calibration of measurements of dark energy using type Ia supernovae. The two techniques respectively described in both this and the previous article would each generate an LPRS with a precisely 1:1 ratio of yellow (589/590 nm) photons to near-infrared (819/820 nm) photons produced in the mesosphere. Both techniques would provide novel mechanisms f…