Gas-liquid phase transitions and critical point in hot white dwarf matter

We consider the gas-liquid first-order phase transitions and prove the existence of the critical point in white dwarf matter. The latent heat released in the liquefaction processes can be used in the interpretation of the spreading of the white dwarf sequence in H-R diagram. Some thermodynamic quantities, e.g., the saturation pressure, the latent heat, etc., are calculated along the gas-liquid coexistence curve, and their behaviour near critical point are studied.     

Evolution of central stars of planetary nebulae towards the crystallizing white dwarf stage

The evolution of the central stars of planetary nebulae, interpreted as hot white dwarfs with liquefying cores, towards the cold white dwarf stage is discussed and theoretical (non-computational) evolutionary tracks are built for such central stars as they cool towards the crystallizing region. The conclusions seem to hint a picture in which crystalline white dwarfs can be looked at as final stages of the central stars of planetary nebulae.     

Adaptations of araphid pennate diatoms to a planktonic existence

Pennate diatoms are monophyletic. Their principal cell wall elements, called valves, are shaped like a ship's hull. Within the pennates, the araphids are paraphyletic; they possess rimoportulae and pore fields located at the valve apices. The pore fields exude mucilage pads with which cells attach to one another to form chains. Many taxa use the pads also for attachment to substrata. Only a few genera are truly planktonic. The main question addressed in this study is whether the planktonic lifestyle is ancestral or derived. Phylogenies inferred from nuclear SSU rDNA gene sequences of diatoms indicated that the attached lifestyle is ancestral among the araphids, whereas a typically planktonic lifestyle seems to have developed at least three times and possibly four times independently. Acquisition of a planktonic lifestyle from benthic ancestry was accompanied by a reduction in the silicification of cell-wall elements, but changes in morphological characters shared by all four clades were not detected. The reason why only three or four araphid pennate clades have adopted a planktonic lifestyle may be related to constraints associated to their sexual reproduction mode. Partner cells of opposite mating type align with one another and produce isogametes. These gametes lack flagella; they move to one another in an amoeboid fashion, which functions well on surfaces, but seems a liability in a turbulent water column. The planktonic lineages must have overcome this constraint, e.g. by sinking to the bottom, or aggregating, to perform sexual reproduction. Members of the four araphid pennate lineages are now common constituents of the plankton, suggesting that they are ecologically successful.     

Advanced Geostructural Survey Methods Applied to Rock Mass Characterization

The location and orientation of rock discontinuities, which are traditionally obtained from geological surveys with obvious drawbacks (safety, rock face accessibility, etc.), may also be derived from a detailed and accurate photogrammetric or laser scanning survey. Selecting from the point cloud determined on the rock face a set of points distributed on a particular discontinuity, location, dip, and dip direction can be computed from the least-squares estimate of the plane interpolating the set of points. Likewise, the normal vector to the surface may be computed from an interpolation or approximation of the surface by appropriate functions. To become a real alternative (both in terms of productivity as well as accuracy) to a traditional survey, interactive or automated software tools are necessary, to allow the efficient selection of the point sets on the discontinuities or the interpretation of the normal vector pattern. After introducing the two best technologies available today for data acquisition and their performance, the paper presents an approach, based on the random sample consensus (RANSAC) procedure, to the segmentation of the point cloud into subsets, each made of points measured on a discontinuity plane of the rock face. For each subset, the plane’s equations coefficients are first determined by robust estimation and then refined by least-squares estimation after outlier removal. The segmentation algorithm has been implemented in RockScan, a software tool developed to facilitate the interaction with the point cloud in the identification of the discontinuities; rather than using the three-dimensional (3D) data, selection of regions of interest is performed on oriented images of the rock face. Finally, application of RockScan to four different test sites is discussed and results presented. The sites differ in size (from tens to hundreds of meters), rock surface characteristics, and the technology used to produce the point cloud (in three cases photogrammetry, in the fourth laser scanning), giving the opportunity to test the methodology in different contexts. In the first and in the fourth site an extensive traditional survey has been performed, providing reference data to validate the RockScan results.     

Simulations using terrestrial geological analogues to assess interpretability of potential geological features of the Hermean surface restituted by the STereo imaging Camera of the SIMBIOSYS package (BepiColombo mission)

The BepiColombo space mission is one of the European Space Agency's cornerstone projects; it is planned for launch in 2013 to study the planet Mercury. One of the imaging instruments of BepiColombo is a STereo Camera (STC), whose main scientific objective is the global stereo mapping of the entire surface of Mercury. STC will permit the generation of a Digital Terrain Model (DTM) of Mercury's surface, improving the interpretation of morphological features at different scales and clarifying the stratigraphic relationships between different geological units.To evaluate the effectiveness of the STC-derived DTM for geological purposes, a series of simulations has been performed to find out to what extent the errors expected in the DTM may prevent the correct classification and interpretation of geological features. To meet this objective, Earth analogues (a crater, a lava cone and an endogenous dome) of likely components of the Hermean surface, small enough to be near the detection limit of the STC, were selected and a photorealistic three-dimensional (3D) model of each feature was generated using Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) stereo images. Stereoscopic pairs of synthetic images of each feature were then generated from the 3D model at different locations along the BepiColombo orbit. For each stereo pair, the corresponding Hermean DTM was computed using image correlation and compared to the reference data to assess the loss of detail and interpretability. Results show that interpretation and quantitative analysis of simple craters morphologies and small volcanic features should be possible all along the periherm orbit arc. At the apoherm only the larger features can be unequivocally distinguished, but they will be reconstructed to a poor approximation.     

The cooling of liquefying hot white dwarfs

The consequences of gas-liquid phase transitions in the core of hot white dwarf stars are discussed. Expressions for the latent heat and the liquefaction curveT _l =T _l (Q) are obtained. Then amodel for a hot white dwarf is introduced and the corresponding liquefaction sequences are built on the H-R diagram; relations luminosity-central temperature and effective temperature-central temperature are also given for liquefying white dwarfs.Finally the cooling curves are obtained for such stars taking into account the effect of latent heat emission.Our results seem to suggest a possible identification of the central stars of planetary nebulae as hot liquefying white dwarfs.     

A numerical study of the effects of cloud droplets on the diffusional growth of snow crystals

We studied the effect of supercooled cloud droplets on the diffusional growth rate of isolated ice plates and ice columns by approximating the shape of a plate as an oblate spheroid and a column as a prolate spheroid. This work is an extension of the pioneering work of Marshall and Palmer [Marshall, J.S. and Langleben, M.P., A theory of snow-crystal habit and growth, J. Met., 11, 104–120, 1954] who studied the influence of cloud droplets on the growth rate of spherical ice crystals. The vapour density field for oblate and prolate spheroids was obtained by solving Helmholtz's equation with the assumption that the vapour at the ice surface had the equilibrium value. As result, it was possible to calculate separately the temporal evolution of the axis length and the mass of the snow crystals.The results indicate that the presence of cloud droplets around the snow crystal can increase by around 10% of the ice growth rate relative to an environment free of cloud droplets. The magnitude of the growth enhancement is proportional to the liquid water content. The results also corroborate the importance of the shape and aspect ratio on the crystal growth. A general mass growth rate equation for diffusional growth was found, which incorporates effects of cloud droplets and crystal shape through the size and aspect ratio of the snow crystal.     

Sediments from Lake Cheko (Siberia), a possible impact crater for the 1908 Tunguska Event

Cheko, a small lake located in Siberia close to the epicentre of the 1908 Tunguska explosion, might fill a crater left by the impact of a fragment of a Cosmic Body. Sediment cores from the lake’s bottom were studied to support or reject this hypothesis. A 175‐cm long core, collected near the center of the lake, consists of an upper ～1 m thick sequence of lacustrine deposits overlaying coarser chaotic material. ²¹⁰Pb and ¹³⁷Cs indicate that the transition from lower to upper sequence occurred close to the time of the Tunguska Event. Pollen analysis reveals that remains of aquatic plants are abundant in the top post‐1908 sequence, but are absent in the lower pre‐1908 portion of the core. These results, including organic C, N and δ¹³C data, suggest that Lake Cheko formed at the time of the Tunguska Event.     

Terrestrial photogrammetry without ground control points

Terrestrial photogrammetry should be the survey technique of choice when updating large scale urban maps and GIS databases, where 3D data and attribute data are required. Its main drawback is the need for Ground Control Points (GCP) to reference the survey. To make image georeferencing easier and to provide control information, the use of a simple system, made of a photogrammetric camera fastened to a GPS antenna, is proposed. A photogrammetric block, composed by at least three images, is taken around the object with the receiver measuring in kinematic mode. Tie points are automatically extracted by Structure from Motion (SfM) algorithms or measured manually; block orientation is performed by GPS assisted Aerial Triangulation. Advantages as well as limitations of the system are discussed, with particular attention to GPS availability or ill-conditioned block configurations. The issue of system calibration (i.e. measurement of eccentricity between camera and antenna) is also addressed. Several test cases are presented, in which absolute accuracies, verified on check points independently surveyed range from 4 to 7 cm.     

A multitracer study of peat profiles from Tunguska, Siberia

Two peat columns from Tunguska (Siberia) were analysed for pollen, spores, charcoal, trace elements and γ-emitters in order to identify the fingerprints of the impact of a still unidentified cosmic body (TCB), which occurred in the summer of 1908, and the level of environmental pollution in a background area of central Siberia. Peat layers were subject to non-destructive γ-ray spectrometry to derive radiochronology by the excess ²¹⁰Pb method. The age-to-depth relationship was crosschecked by using both 1963 horizon of ¹³⁷Cs associated to maximum global fallout deposition and palynological data profiles. Vertical distributions of trace elements in the peat columns were obtained by PIXE multielemental analysis allowing determination of the levels of environmental contamination in a background region of the Siberian taiga.The association of heavy metals such as Ni, Co and Cu in the profiles suggests the connection of the area with mining and metal smelting activity in the north of the region through atmospheric circulation. As concerns global scale contamination, the inventory of the artificial radionuclide ¹³⁷Cs (4.6 kBq m^− 2) shows a value typical of remote slightly contaminated areas resulting from global scale redistribution of radioactive fallout from Cold War nuclear weapon testing. The atmospheric inventory of the natural radionuclide ²¹⁰Pb, for which a mean annual flux of 200 Bq m^− 2 yr^− 1 has been calculated, is typical of continental regions.The influence of Tunguska Cosmic Body in the peat is recognizable by a large discontinuity in the palynological profile of the peat monolith at a depth coinciding with the 1908 layer as determined by the ²¹⁰Pb technique, showing a large peak of total pollen counting attributed to the impact of the shockwave on the area in which huge tree stands were destroyed. Following the event, tree pollen concentration decreases abruptly showing the temporary inception of a mire environment with an increase of Sphagnum spore concentrations. Results of elemental analysis so far available do not show anomalies in the concentration profiles at depths coinciding with the Tunguska event layer indicating the need for pre-concentration technique enabling the detection of element associations typical of extraterrestrial materials.