Source bearing estimation in the Arctic Ocean using ice-mounted geophones

This paper investigates the use of geophones mounted on the surface of Arctic sea ice for estimating the bearing to acoustic sources in the water column. The approach is based on measuring ice seismic waves for which the direction of particle motion is oriented radially outward from the source. However, the analysis is complicated by the fact that sea ice supports several types of seismic waves, producing complex particle motion that includes significant nonradial components. To suppress seismic waves with transverse particle motion, seismic polarization filters are applied in conjunction with a straightforward rotational analysis (computation of particle-motion power as a function of angle). The polarization filters require three-dimensional (3D) measurements of particle motion, and apply theoretical phase relationships between vertical and horizontal components for the various waves types. In addition, the 180 degrees ambiguity inherent in the rotational analysis can be resolved with 3D measurements by considering particle motion in the vertical-radial plane. Arctic field trials were carried out involving two components. First, a hammer source was used to selectively excite the various ice seismic waves to investigate their propagation properties and relative importance in bearing estimation. Second, impulsive acoustic sources were deployed in the water column at a variety of bearings and ranges from 200-1000 m. For frequencies up to 250 Hz, source bearings are typically estimated to within an average absolute error of approximately 100.     

Particle filter-based relative rolling estimation algorithm for non-cooperative infrared spacecraft

The issue of feature point mismatching among infrared image sequence would bring big challenge to estimating the relative motion of non-cooperative spacecraft for it couldn’t provide the prior knowledge about its geometric structure and motion pattern. The paper introduces particle filter to precisely match the feature points within a desired region predicted by a kinetic equation, and presents a least square estimation-based algorithm to measure the relative rolling motion of non-cooperative spacecraft. The state transition equation and the measurement update equation of non-cooperative spacecraft are represented by establishing its kinetic equations, and then the relative pose measurement is converted to the maximum posteriori probability estimation via assuming the uncertainties about geometric structure and motion pattern as random and time-varying variables. These uncertainties would be interpreted and even solved through continuously measuring the image feature points of the rotating non-cooperative infrared spacecraft. Subsequently, the feature point is matched within a predicted region among sequence infrared image using particle filter algorithm to overcome the position estimation noise caused by the uncertainties of geometric structure and motion pattern. Finally, the position parameters including rotation motion are estimated by means of solving the minimum error of feature point mismatching using least square estimate theory. Both simulated and real infrared image sequences are induced in the experiment to evaluate the performance of the relative rolling estimation, and the experimental data show that the rolling motion estimated by the proposed algorithm is more robust to the feature extraction noise and various rotation speed. Meanwhile, the relative rolling estimation error would increase dramatically with distance and rotation speed increasing.     

Self-calibration of multi-camera networks without feature correspondence between different cameras

An automatic calibration approach for multi-camera networks is proposed to calibrate the intrinsic parameters of each camera and the extrinsic parameters between different cameras. Firstly, the moving objects are tracking, and the feature points are detected and calculated by a matching method from image sequences. And then we estimate the intrinsic parameters of each camera respectively by a self-calibration method from the motion of feature points, while estimating the rotation and translation of each camera with respect to the object. Thirdly, we estimate the extrinsic parameters between different cameras from the rotation and the motion of each camera with respect to the object. Our method only needs to track the motion of objects in each camera without the correspondence between different cameras. It avoids the difficulty of the correspondence between different cameras in real networks. Experiments with simulated data and real images are carried out to verify the theoretical correctness and numerical robustness.     

Rigid and differential plasma crystal rotation induced by magnetic fields

Observations show that plasma crystals, suspended in the sheath of a radio-frequency discharge, rotate under the influence of a vertical magnetic field. Depending on the discharge conditions, two different cases are observed: a rigid-body rotation (all the particles move with a constant angular velocity) and sheared rotation (the angular velocity of particles has a radial distribution). When the discharge voltage is increased sufficiently, the particles may even reverse their direction of motion. A simple analytical model is used to explain qualitatively the mechanism of the observed particle motion and its dependence on the confining potential and discharge conditions. The model takes into account electrostatic, ion drag, neutral drag, and effective interparticle interaction forces. For the special case of rigid-body rotation, the confining potential is reconstructed. Using data for the radial dependence of particle rotation velocity, the shear stresses are estimated. The critical shear stress at which shear-induced melting occurs is used to roughly estimate the shear elastic modulus of the plasma crystal. The latter is also used to estimate the viscosity contribution due to elasticity in the plasma liquid. Further development is suggested in order to quantitatively implement these ideas.     

A unified model description of mobile and localized adsorption: I. MFA with nonadditive lateral interactions — an application to disordered adsorbed monolayer on a structureless substrate

A simple model is used to treat mobile adsorption on a structureless substrate. The influence of temperature on the state of motion of adsorbed particles is described by means of an interpolation formula used earlier in the theory of hindered rotation, whereas the influence of the nearest-neighbour potential with varying degree of coverage is accounted for in terms of a “free area”, available for individual particle motion, for which a simple analytical expression, based on an harmonic oscillator approximation, is obtained. An irregularity in the long range order of the adsorbed monolayer is introduced in terms of “varying distances”, resp. of varying energy bonds between the particles in dependence of the number of nearest neighbours actually present in the first coordination sphere of each particle (nonadditivity of the bonds).     

Enhanced vertical inhomogeneity in turbulent rotating convection

In this Letter we report experimental evidence that rotation enhances vertical inhomogeneity in turbulent convection, in spite of the increased columnar flow ordering under rotation. Measurements using stereoscopic particle image velocimetry have been carried out on turbulent rotating convection in water. At constant Rayleigh number Ra=1.11 x 10(9) several rotation rates have been used, so that the Rossby number takes values from Ro=infinity (no rotation) to 0.09 (strong rotation). The three-component velocity data, obtained at two vertical positions, are used to investigate the anisotropy of the flow through the invariants of the Reynolds-stress anisotropy tensor and the Lumley triangle, as well as to correlate the vertical velocity and vorticity. In the center plane rotation causes the turbulence to be "rodlike," while closer to the top plate a trend toward isotropy is observed.     

Brownian motion at short time scales

Brownian motion has played important roles in many different fields of science since its origin was first explained by Albert Einstein in 1905. Einstein's theory of Brownian motion, however, is only applicable at long time scales. At short time scales, Brownian motion of a suspended particle is not completely random, due to the inertia of the particle and the surrounding fluid. Moreover, the thermal force exerted on a particle suspended in a liquid is not a white noise, but is colored. Recent experimental developments in optical trapping and detection have made this new regime of Brownian motion accessible. This review summarizes related theories and recent experiments on Brownian motion at short time scales, with a focus on the measurement of the instantaneous velocity of a Brownian particle in a gas and the observation of the transition from ballistic to diffusive Brownian motion in a liquid.     

The dissipation of restricted rotation

The decay of a classical hindered rotor over the whole domain of motion from almost free overall rotation to harmonic vibration in a well is examined. The decay is described by a modification of a projection operator formalism involving the separation of dynamical and lattice time scales, and depends on a canonical transformation into a hindered rotating frame that rotates and oscillates in accord with the unperturbed equation of motion of two coaxial dipoles.     

Microwave scattering properties of sand particles: Application to the simulation of microwave radiances over sandstorms

The single-scattering properties of sand/dust particles assumed to be ellipsoids are computed from the discrete dipole approximation (DDA) method at microwave frequencies 6.9-89.0 GHz in comparison with the corresponding Lorenz-Mie solutions. It is found that the single-scattering properties of sand particles are strongly sensitive to the shapes of the particles. The bulk scattering properties of sandstorms composed of spherical or nonspherical particles are investigated by averaging the single-scattering properties of these particles over log-normal particle size distributions. Furthermore, a vector radiative transfer model is used to simulate microwave radiances. The microwave brightness temperatures in the vertical polarization model are essentially not sensitive to sand particle habit, whereas microwave brightness temperature polarization differences are influenced by particle habit. It is shown that microwave brightness temperatures and brightness temperature polarization differences may be useful for estimating the effective particle sizes and mass loading of sandstorms.     

Remote Temperature Determination from Maximum Intensity line in Molecular Emission Fundamental Band

A remote sensing method for estimating the temperature of hot gas is described. The method is based on the relation between the rotational quantum number J' corresponding spectral line of maximum intensity in the fine structure of rotation — vibration emission band of diatomic molecules and the temperature T. The advantages of the method are very easy, rapid and accurate. In this paper the condition using the method is discussed.     

Fokker–Planck Theory of Nonequilibrium Systems Governed by Hierarchical Dynamics

Dynamics of complex systems is often hierarchically organized on different time scales. To understand the physics of such hierarchy, here Brownian motion of a particle moving through a fluctuating medium with slowly varying temperature is studied as an analytically tractable example, and a kinetic theory is formulated for describing the states of the particle. What is peculiar here is that the (inverse) temperature is treated as a dynamical variable. Dynamical hierarchy is introduced in conformity with the adiabatic scheme. Then, a new analytical method is developed to show how the Fokker–Planck equation admits as a stationary solution the Maxwellian distribution modulated by the temperature fluctuations, the distribution of which turns out to be determined by the drift term. A careful comment is also made on so-called superstatistics.     

Superdiffusion and viscoelastic vortex flows in a two-dimensional complex plasma

Viscoelastic vortical fluid motion in a strongly coupled particle system has been observed experimentally. Optical tracking of particle motion in a complex plasma monolayer reveals high grain mobility and large scale vortex flows coexistent with partial preservation of the global hexagonal lattice structure. The transport of particles is superdiffusive and ascribed to Lévy statistics on short time scales and to memory effects on the longer scales influenced by cooperative motion. At these longer time scales, the transport is governed by vortex flows covering a wide spectrum of temporal and spatial scales.     

Visualization techniques in plasma numerical simulations

Numerical simulations of plasma processes usually yield a huge amount of raw numerical data. Information about electric and magnetic fields and particle positions and velocities can be typically obtained. There are two major ways of elaborating these data. First of them is calledplasma diagnostics. We can calculate average values, variances, correlations of variables, etc. These results may be directly comparable with experiments and serve as the typical quantitative output of plasma simulations. The second possibility is theplasma visualization. The results are qualitative only, but serve as vivid display of phenomena in the plasma followed-up. An experience with visualizing electric and magnetic fields via Line Integral Convolution method is described in the first part of the paper. The LIC method serves for visualization of vector fields in two dimensional section of the three dimensional plasma. The field values can be known only in grid points of three-dimensional grid. The second part of the paper is devoted to the visualization techniques of the charged particle motion. The colour tint can be used for particle’s temperature representation. The motion can be visualized by a trace fading away with the distance from the particle. In this manner the impressive animations of the particle motion can be achieved.     

Diffusion in a Weakly Random Hamiltonian Flow

We consider the motion of a particle governed by a weakly random Hamiltonian flow. We identify temporal and spatial scales on which the particle trajectory converges to a spatial Brownian motion. The main technical issue in the proof is to obtain error estimates for the convergence of the solution of the stochastic acceleration problem to a momentum diffusion. We also apply our results to the system of random geometric acoustics equations and show that the energy density of the acoustic waves undergoes a spatial diffusion.     

Path integral approach to quantum diffusion in metals

A general formalism for a quantum particle moving in an environment based on the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics is presented. The environment can be the valence electron gas of a metal or the phonons of the host in which the particle moves, or both. The advantage of this approach is that it gives a direct space-time picture of the motion. Integrating out the coordinates of the environment an effective action for the particle is obtained. It consist of two parts. An adiabatic term, that is local in time (and as such describable as a potential), describing the influence of the fully relaxed environment on the particle, and a term that accounts for the dynamical part of the response of the environment due to the motion of the particle. As an example I have considered a particle moving in a tight binding band with an electron gas environment. Three energy scales play a role here. They are the bare hopping amplitude, the temperature and the inverse tunneling time (i.e. the time it takes the particle to tunnel from one site to the next). Note that the Fermi energy drops out of the problem. I find, as did Kondo in his recent theory, a decreasing diffusion constant as a function of temperature.     

On the possibility of detecting asymmetric magnetization reversal processes in exchange bias systems by low temperature nuclear orientation

Low temperature nuclear orientation has been used for the first time to investigate the magnetization reversal processes in an exchange bias system (Co/Au/CoO), with the advantage of observing both the Co and Au layers at the same time. By monitoring the counting-rate ratio of two γ-ray detectors, the measurements may be used to distinguish between reversal processes dominated by domain wall motion as opposed to rotation of the magnetization.     

Intrinsic limits on dimension calculations

The combined influences of boundary effects at large scales and nonzero nearest neighbor separations at small scales are used to compute intrinsic limits on the minimum size of a data set required for calculation of scaling exponents. A lower bound on the number of points required for a reliable estimation of the correlation exponent is given in terms of the dimension of the object and the desired accuracy. A method of estimating the correlation integral computed from a finite sample of a white noise signal is given.     

Classical particle dynamics in quantum space

It is suggested that if space-time is quantized at small distances, then even at the classical level particle motion in space is complicated and described by a nonlinear equation. In the quantum space the Lagrangian function or energy of the particle consists of two parts: the usual kinetic terms, and a rotation term determined by the square of the inner angular momentum-a torsion torque caused by the quantum nature of space. Rotational energy and rotational motion of the particle disappear in the limitl0, wherel the value of the fundamental length. In the free particle case, in addition to the rectilinear motion, the particle undergoes a rotation given by the inner angular momentum. Different possible types of particle motion are discussed. Thus, the scheme may shed light on the appearance of rotating or twisting, stochastic, and turbulent types of motion in classical physics and, perhaps, on the notion of spin in quantum physics within the framework of the quantum character of space-time at small distances.