A quantum chemical study on the formation of ethanimine (CH<Subscript>3</Subscript>CHNH) in the interstellar ice

Ethanimine (CH₃CHNH) is an important prebiotic molecule since it is a precursor of amino acid \(\alpha \)-alanine in Strecker synthesis. Two isomers (E and Z) of ethanimine were detected in the molecular cloud Sagittarius B2 north during GBT-PRIMOS survey. A possible radical-molecule reaction pathway has been proposed for the formation of ethanimine in the interstellar medium (ISM) from some previously detected interstellar molecules like methylene (both triplet CH₂ (³B₁) and singlet CH₂ (¹A₁)) and methyenimine (CH₂NH). The mechanism has been studied in the gas phase and in water ice with the help of density functional theory at B2PLYPD/6-311++G (2d, p) level of theory. It is observed that E-ethanimine forms efficiently in gas phase but ice reactions are favorable only in the hot core of molecular clouds. Same is true for the formation of Z-ethanimine which forms only at the surface of water cluster as the height of entrance barrier for formation of Z-ethanimine is similar to that of E-ethanimine. Isomerization from E to Z form is also studied and found to be forbidden due to large entrance barrier. Out of the two reaction system CH₂ (³B₁) + CH₂NH and CH₂ (¹A₁) + CH₂NH, later is more favorable then the former one due to the small entrance barrier. Still, much of the detected abundance of ethanimine comes from the reaction of CH₂ (³B₁) with CH₂NH as since CH₂ (¹A₁) has very low abundance compared to the CH₂ (³B₁) in ISM. The proposed pathway seems to be a promising candidate for the ethanimine formation in ISM.     

A two-fluid modeling of kinetic Alfvén wave turbulence

We present an analytical model to explore the magnetic field turbulent spectrum by coupled high-frequency kinetic Alfvén wave (KAW) and slow mode of Alfvén wave (AW). The spectrum is computed as a realization of energy cascades from larger to smaller scales for a specific case of solar wind plasma at 1 AU. A two-fluid technique is implemented for the derivation of model equations leading two wave modes. These coupled, nonlinear equations are solved numerically. The nonlinearity in the system arises due to nonlinear ponderomotive force, which is believed to be responsible for the wave localization and magnetic islands formation. The numerical results show that the magnetic islands grow with time and attain a quasi-steady state after the modulation instability is saturated. The magnetic field spectrum and associated spectral indices are computed near the time of saturation of instability. The simulated spectrum in dispersion region follows a power-law with an index of ?2.5. The steeper spectrum could be attributed as energy transfer from larger to smaller scales and helps to study turbulence in solar wind. The magnetic field spectrum and spectral index show a good agreement with the observation of solar wind turbulent spectra.     

Mathematical modelling of ionospheric TEC from Turkish permanent GNSS Network (TPGN) observables during 2009–2017 and predictability of NeQuick and Kriging models

The present study examines the ionospheric Total Electron Content (TEC) variations in the lower mid-latitude Turkish region from the Turkish permanent GNSS network (TPGN) and International GNSS Services (IGS) observations during the years 2009 to 2017. The corresponding vertical TEC (VTEC) predicted by Kriging and NeQuick-2 models are evaluated to realize their efficacy over the country. We studied the diurnal, seasonal and spatial pattern of VTEC variation and tried to estimate by a new mathematical model using the long term of 9 years VTEC data. The diurnal variation of VTEC demonstrates a normal trend with its gradual enhancement from dawn to attain a peak around 09:00–14.00 UT and reaching the minimum level after 22.00 UT. The seasonal behavior of VTEC indicates a strong semi-annual variation of VTEC with maxima in September equinox followed by March equinox and minima in June solstice followed by December solstice. Also, the spatial variation in VTEC depicts a meaningful longitudinal/latitudinal pattern altering with seasons. It decreases longitudinally from the west to the east during March equinox and June solstice increases with latitude. The comparative analysis among the GNSS-VTEC, Kriging, NeQuick and the proposed mathematical model are evaluated with the help one way ANOVA test. The analysis shows that the null hypothesis of the models during storm and quiet days are accepted and suggesting that all models are statistically significantly equivalent from each other. We believe the outcomes from this study would complement towards a relatively better understanding of the lower mid-latitude VTEC variation over the Turkish region and analogous latitudes over the globe.     

Systematic analysis of low/hard state RXTE spectra of GX 339–4 to constrain the geometry of the system

One of the popular models for the low/hard state of black hole binaries is that the standard accretion disk is truncated and the hot inner region produces, via Comptonization, hard X-ray flux.This is supported by the value of the high energy photon index, which is often found to be small,～ 1.7( 2), implying that the hot medium is starved of seed photons. On the other hand, the suggestive presence of a broad relativistic Fe line during the hard state would suggest that the accretion disk is not truncated but extends all the way to the innermost stable circular orbit. In such a case, it is a puzzle why the hot medium would remain photon starved. The broad Fe line should be accompanied by a broad smeared reflection hump at ～ 30 ke V and it may be that this additional component makes the spectrum hard and the intrinsic photon index is larger, i.e. 2. This would mean that the medium is not photon deficient, reconciling the presence of a broad Fe line in the observed hard state. To test this hypothesis,we have analyzed the RXTE observations of GX 339–4 from the four outbursts during 2002–2011 and identify observations when the system was in the hard state and showed a broad Fe line. We have then attempted to fit these observations with models, which include smeared reflection, to understand whether the intrinsic photon index can indeed be large. We find that, while for some observations the inclusion of reflection does increase the photon index, there are hard state observations with a broad Fe line that have photon indices less than 2.     

Halo orbit of regularized circular restricted three-body problem with radiation pressure and oblateness

In this paper, computation of the halo orbit for the KS-regularized photogravitational circular restricted three-body problem is carried out. This work extends the idea of Srivastava et al. (Astrophys. Space Sci. 362: 49, 2017) which only concentrated on the (i) regularization of the 3D-governing equations of motion, and (ii) validation of the modeling for small out-of-plane amplitude (\(A_z =110000\) km) assuming the third-order analytical approximation as an initial guess with and without differential correction. This motivated us to compute the halo orbits for the large out-of-plane amplitudes and to study their stability analysis for the regularized motion. The stability indices are described as a function of out-of-plane amplitude, mass reduction factor and oblateness coefficient. Three different Sun–planet systems: the Sun–Earth, Sun–Mars and the Sun–Jupiter are chosen in this study. Stable halo orbits do not exist around the \(L_{1}\) point, however, around the \(L_{2}\) point stable halo orbits are found for the considered systems.     

In-orbit Performance of UVIT and First Results

The performance of the ultraviolet telescope (UVIT) on-board AstroSat is reported. The performance in orbit is also compared with estimates made from the calibrations done on the ground. The sensitivity is found to be within \(\sim \)15% of the estimates, and the spatial resolution in the NUV is found to exceed significantly the design value of \(1.8^{\prime \prime }\) and it is marginally better in the FUV. Images obtained from UVIT are presented to illustrate the details revealed by the high spatial resolution. The potential of multi-band observations in the ultraviolet with high spatial resolution is illustrated by some results.     

Mapping distortion of detectors in UVIT onboard AstroSat observatory

Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (UVIT) is one of the payloads onboard AstroSat, India’s first multi-wavelength Astronomy mission. UVIT is primarily designed to make high resolution images in wide field, in three wavelength channels simultaneously: FUV (130–180 nm), NUV (200–300 nm) and VIS (320–550 nm). The intensified imagers used in UVIT suffer from distortions, and a correction is necessary for these to achieve good astrometry. In this article we describe the methodology and calculations used to estimate the distortions in ground calibrations.     

Scanning sky monitor (SSM) onboard AstroSat

Scanning Sky Monitor (SSM) onboard AstroSat is an Xray sky monitor in the soft X-ray band designed with a large field of view to detect and locate transient X-ray sources and alert the astronomical community about interesting phenomena in the X-ray sky. SSM comprises position sensitive proportional counters with 1D coded mask for imaging. There are three detector units mounted on a platform capable of rotation which helps covering about 50% of the sky in one full rotation. This paper discusses the elaborate details of the instrument and few immediate results from the instrument after launch.     

Classical Orbital Paramagnetism in Non-equilibrium Steady State

We report the results of our numerical simulation of classical-dissipative dynamics of a charged particle subjected to a non-Markovian stochastic forcing. We find that the system develops a steady-state orbital magnetic moment in the presence of a static magnetic field. Very significantly, the sign of the orbital magnetic moment turns out to be paramagnetic for our choice of parameters, varied over a wide range. This is shown specifically for the case of classical dynamics driven by a Kubo–Anderson type non-Markovian noise. Natural spatial boundary condition was imposed through (1) a soft (harmonic) confining potential, and (2) a hard potential, approximating a reflecting wall. There was no noticeable qualitative difference. What appears to be crucial to the orbital magnetic effect noticed here is the non-Markovian property of the driving noise chosen. Experimental realization of this effect on the laboratory scale, and its possible implications are briefly discussed. We would like to emphasize that the above steady-state classical orbital paramagnetic moment complements, rather than contradicts the Bohr–van Leeuwen (BvL) theorem on the absence of classical orbital diamagnetism in thermodynamic equilibrium.     

Sheet flow hydrodynamics over a non-uniform sand bed channel

The current study experimentally investigates the flow characteristics and temporal variations in the sheet flow profile of a non-uniform sand bed channel. Experiments were done to explore turbulent structures in the presence of a sheet flow layer with and without seepage. The turbulent events, such as stream wise velocity, Reynolds shear stresses, and turbulence intensities were found to be increasing and vertical velocity was found decreasing with a sheet layer. The presence of a sheet layer also effects the turbulent energy production and energy dissipation. All the turbulence parameters with and without a sheet layer have also been influenced by the presence of downward seepage. The rate of sheet flow movement is increased with seepage, owing to increased turbulence with seepage. The current study used wavelet analysis on temporally lagged spatial bed elevation profiles obtained from a set of laboratory experiments and synchronized the wavelet coefficients with bed elevation fluctuation at different spatial scales. A spatial cross correlation analysis at multiple scales, based on the wavelet coefficients, has been done on these bed elevation datasets to observe the effect of downward seepage on the dynamic behavior of sheet flow at different length scales. It is found that seepage increases average bed celerity and also increases the celerity of sheet flow of similar length scales. This increase in the celerity has been hypothesized as the increase of sheet flow movement as well as the increase in turbulent parameters with seepage, which destabilizes the bed particles resulting in a disruption in the continuous propagation pattern of the sheet flow. The increase of sheet flow celerity with seepage is confirmed from the saturation level of the wavelet power spectra of the bed elevation series. The presence of seepage also affects the non-uniformity of collective sheet material.