The D-CIXS X-ray mapping spectrometer on SMART-1

The D-CIXS Compact X-ray Spectrometer will provide high quality spectroscopic mapping of the Moon, the primary science target of the ESA SMART-1 mission. D-CIXS consists of a high throughput spectrometer, which will perform spatially localised X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy. It will also carry a solar monitor, to provide the direct calibration needed to produce a global map of absolute lunar elemental abundances, the first time this has been done. Thus it will achieve ground breaking science within a resource envelope far smaller than previously thought possible for this type of instrument, by exploiting two new technologies, swept charge devices and micro-structure collimators. The new technology does not require cold running, with its associated overheads to the spacecraft. At the same time it will demonstrate a radically novel approach to building a type of instrument essential for the BepiColombo mission and potential future planetary science targets.     

LRS Bianchi Type V bulk viscous fluid string dust cosmological model in general relativity

An LRS Bianchi Type V bulk viscous fluid dust distribution string cosmological model in General Relativity is investigated. It has been shown that if coefficient of bulk viscosity (ζ) is proportional to the expansion (θ) in the model then string cosmological model for Bianchi Type V space-time is possible. In absence of bulk viscosity(ζ) i.e. when ζ → 0 then there is no string cosmological model for Bianchi Type V space-time. The physical and geometrical aspects are also discussed. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

An empirical model of the daily evolution of the coronal index

Global changes of the solar activity can be expressed by the coronal index that is based upon the total irradiance of the coronal 530.3 nm green line from observations at five stations. Daily mean values of the coronal index of solar activity and other well-correlated solar indices are analyzed for the period 1966–1998 covering over three solar cycles. The significant correlation of this index with the sunspot number and the solar flare index have led to an analytical expression which can reproduce the coronal index of solar activity as a function of these parameters. This expression explains well the existence of the two maxima during the solar cycles taking into account the evolution of the magnetic field that can be expressed by some sinusoidal terms during solar maxima and minima. The accuracy between observed and calculated values of the coronal index on a daily basis reaches the value of 71%. It is concluded that the representative character of the coronal index is preserved even when using daily data and can therefore allow us to study long-term, intermediate and short-term variations for the Sun as a star, in association with different periodical solar–terrestrial phenomena useful for space weather studies.     

Microtextures and crystal chemistry in P21/c pigeonites

Summary ?A single-crystal X-ray investigation was performed on crystals of P2₁/c natural pigeonite with varying Ca and Fe^* ( = Fe²⁺ + Mn²⁺) contents, in order to verify the effect of microtextural disorder on structure refinements and to constrain the crystal chemistry of pigeonite. Antiphase domains and exsolution lamellae affect differently the refinement results. In a crystal free of exsolution the structure obtained after refinement with all reflections is an average of that of the antiphase domains and of their boundaries, whereas in an exsolved crystal it represents only the structure of the prevailing pigeonite lamellae. The refinement using only h + k odd reflections seems to give the structure of the Ca-free pigeonite characteristic of the antiphase domains rather than that of Ca-rich domain walls. The ratio of the scale factors in refinements with all reflections and with only h + k odd reflections allows the ratios of the exsolved augite and pigeonite phases to be estimated. The crystal chemistry of the investigated samples follows the trends outlined by data on Ca-free and Fe-free synthetic samples. In particular, it is shown that Ca and Fe^* substitution for Mg induce similar changes in the average structure, i.e. both induce an expansion in the M1 polyhedron and decrease the difference between the M2–O3 distances. Received October 18, 2001; revised version accepted February 15, 2002     

Probing the nuclear activity with supermassive black holes

We report three new or updated techniques for probing the parameters of active galaxies based on the masses of their central black holes M_BH). First, we derived a near-IR analog of the bulge luminosity versus M_BH relationship. The low scatter makes it a promising new tool to study the black hole demographics. Next, we present relations between M_BH and the10 μm and 2-10 keV nuclear luminosity. They may help to study the M_BH evolution over wide redshift ranges. Finally, we measured M_BH in quasars from z ∼ 3.4 to z ∼ 0.3 to search directly for M_BH growth. Surprisingly, we found no evidence for growth implying that the majority of quasar host galaxies have undergone their last major merger at z ≥ 3. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Plane Symmetric Domain Wall in Lyra Geometry

In this paper general solutions are found for domain walls in Lyra geometry in the plane symmetric spacetime metric given by Taub. Expressions for the energy density and pressure of domain walls are derived in both cases of uniform and time varying displacement field β. It is also shown that the results obtained by Rahaman et al [IJMPD, 10, 735 (2001)] are particular case of our solutions. Finally, the geodesic equations and acceleration of the test particle are discussed. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.