Search for antihelium: Progress with BESS

In this paper, we report searches for antihelium in cosmic rays using two recently flown magnetic rigidity spectrometers. BESS-TeV had extended rigidity with an MDR of 1.4 TV and had a flight duration of one day. BESS-Polar was optimized for collecting power. It was flown for 8.5 days and had an MDR of 240 GV. The former flight allows us to explore a previously unexplored rigidity band and the latter flight yields a factor of three improvement in the overall BESS limit. No antihelium candidate was found in the rigidity ranges of 1–500 GV, and 0.6–20 GV, among 7 × 10⁴ events taken with BESS-TeV, and 8 × 10⁶ events taken with BESS-Polar, respectively.     

Cosmic ray H/H ratio measured from BESS in 2000 during solar maximum

The Balloon-borne Experiment with a Superconducting Spectrometer (BESS) was flown from Lynn Lake, Manitoba, Canada in August, 2000, during the maximum solar modulation period, with an average residual atmospheric overburden of 4.3 g/cm². Precise spectral measurements of cosmic ray hydrogen isotopes from 0.178 GeV/n to 1.334 GeV/n were made during the 28.7 h of flight. This paper presents the measured energy spectra and their ratio, ²H/¹H. The results are also compared with previous measurements and theoretical predictions.     

Dynamic particle accumulation structure (PAS) in half-zone liquid bridge – Reconstruction of particle motion by 3-D PTV

Three-dimensional (3-D) velocity field reconstruction of oscillatory thermocapillary convections in a half-zone liquid bridge with a radius of O (1 mm) was carried out by applying 3-D particle tracking velocimetry (PTV). Simultaneous observation of the particles suspended in the bridge by two CCD cameras was carried out by placing a small cubic beam splitter above a transparent top rod. The reconstruction of the 3-D trajectories and the velocity fields of the particles in the several types of oscillatory-flow regimes were conducted successfully for sufficiently long period without losing particle tracking. With this application the present authors conducted a series of experiments focusing upon the collapse and re-formation process of the PAS by mechanically disturbing fully developed PAS.     

Search for primordial antiparticles with BESS

The Balloon-borne Experiment with a Superconducting Spectrometer (BESS) has been carried out to search for primordial antiparticles in cosmic rays. In ten flights from 1993 to 2004, it measured the cosmic-ray antiproton spectrum in the energy range 0.1–4.2 GeV at various solar activity conditions. It also searched for antideuterons and antihelium nuclei, and it made precise measurement of cosmic-ray particle spectra. The BESS program has been extended to long duration balloon (LDB) flights in Antarctica (BESS-Polar) with the goal of achieving unprecedented sensitivity in the search for primordial antiparticles. This report describes recent results from BESS and progress of the BESS-Polar program.     

Development status of the high-speed reentry system-DASH

Despite huge amount of data collected by the previous interplanetary spacecraft and probes, the origin and evolution of the solar system still remains unveiled due to limited information they brought back. Thus, the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS) of Japan has been given a commitment to pave the way to an asteroid sample return mission: the MUSES-C project. A key to success is considered the reentry with hyperbolic velocity, which has not ever been demonstrated as yet. With this as background, a demonstrator of atmospheric reentry system, DASH, has been designed to demonstrate the high-speed reentry technology as a GTO piggyback mission. The capsule, identical to that of the sample return mission, can experience the targeted level of thermal environment even from the GTO by tracing a specially designed reentry trajectory. After the purpose of the mission was outlined at the last IAF symposium, the final fitting tests have been conducted in the ISAS Sagamihara Campus involving the flight model hardware. Furthermore, a series of rehearsals for recovery have been already executed. The paper describes the current mission status of the project.     

Habitable zone limits for dry planets

Most discussion of habitable planets has focused on Earth-like planets with globally abundant liquid water. For an "aqua planet" like Earth, the surface freezes if far from its sun, and the water vapor greenhouse effect runs away if too close. Here we show that "land planets" (desert worlds with limited surface water) have wider habitable zones than aqua planets. For planets at the inner edge of the habitable zone, a land planet has two advantages over an aqua planet: (i) the tropics can emit longwave radiation at rates above the traditional runaway limit because the air is unsaturated and (ii) the dry air creates a dry stratosphere that limits hydrogen escape. At the outer limits of the habitable zone, the land planet better resists global freezing because there is less water for clouds, snow, and ice. Here we describe a series of numerical experiments using a simple three-dimensional global climate model for Earth-sized planets. Other things (CO(2), rotation rate, surface pressure) unchanged, we found that liquid water remains stable at the poles of a low-obliquity land planet until net insolation exceeds 415 W/m(2) (170% that of modern Earth), compared to 330 W/m(2) (135%) for the aqua planet. At the outer limits, we found that a low-obliquity land planet freezes at 77%, while the aqua planet freezes at 90%. High-obliquity land and aqua planets freeze at 58% and 72%, respectively, with the poles offering the last refuge. We show that it is possible that, as the Sun brightens, an aqua planet like Earth can lose most of its hydrogen and become a land planet without first passing through a sterilizing runaway greenhouse. It is possible that Venus was a habitable land planet as recently as 1 billion years ago.     

First MAGDAS installation at Fayum in Egypt

We have installed the first MAGDAS magnetometer at Fayum in Egypt. The ambient temperature in the initial sensor house varied more than ±4 °C in one day (24 h period). This variation made the magnetic data useless. To correct this problem, (1) a new sensor house was re-constructed which reduced the diurnal variation to less than ±1 °C, and (2) the “Uozumi Temperature Correction Method” was introduced. As a result, good data is now arriving in real time at a central facility in Japan.     

Effect of physical fitness and training on physiological responses to hypogravity.

The studies on the orthostatic tolerance during the hypodynamics exposure seem to be significant in connection with the selection, training and health maintenance of astronauts. Using male human subjects of various physical fitness levels, fluctuations of their physical fitness through 2 weeks of vigorous athletic training were measured in many parameters. For some of the subjects, the effects of 6 hr thermal neutral water immersion exposure in head out supine position on the physical fitness parameters and orthostatic tolerability were compared before training with after training. The results obtained were as follows: (1) Before training, orthostatic tolerability before hypodynamics exposure increased, following the physical fitness levels; the value after the hypodynamics exposure decreased in all the cases, but no differences were observed between the physical fitness levels. (2) As a result of training an increase of the physical fitness capacity was observed. The increase of orthostatic tolerability before hypodynamics exposure was noticed except for athletes. (3) Before hypodynamics exposure the urinary excretion of noradrenaline on non-athlete subjects increased as the physicsl fitness level increased. The values were decreased by physical training, the more so the better the physical fitness. After hypodynamics exposure the same relation was observed. But for athletes the values remain more stable and the decrease by hypodynamics exposure was not so distinctive. Such decreased reaction to hypodynamic conditions seems to reveal the neuro hormonal mechanism for the detrimental adaptation of athletes to hypodynamics. These results suggest that stable athletes do not always have low orthostatic tolerability, but do not respond well to hypodynamic conditions, at least from the orthostatic point of view. The mechanism seems related to sympathetic nerve activity.     

An AO-free coronagraph experiment in vacuum with a binary-shaped pupil mask

We present our first results from laboratory experiments on a binary-shaped checkerboard mask coronagraph that was fitted inside a vacuum chamber for the development of skills to the direct observation of extra-solar planets. The aim of this work was to utilize a vacuum chamber for our coronagraph experiments in order to achieve an environment with higher thermal stability and which is free from air turbulence. We also aimed to evaluate and improve the performance of such a system consisting of a vacuum chamber with a coronagraph set inside the chamber. Both the raw contrast and the contrast after point spread function (PSF) subtraction are evaluated. We sited the vacuum chamber in a clean room, and we installed an optical fiber coupled to a visible He–Ne laser, appropriate coronagraph optics, a temperature sensor and heaters in the chamber. This provided a vacuum environment and a temperature-controlled environment with a visible light source, and was shown to improve the stability of the coronagraph. A contrast of 1.7×10^-7$1.7\times {10}^{-7}$ was achieved for the raw coronagraphic images by analyzing the areal mean of all of the observed dark regions. A contrast of 7.3×10^-9$7.3\times {10}^{-9}$ was achieved for the PSF subtraction by areal variance (1σ) of all of the observed dark regions. Speckles were a major limiting factor throughout the dark regions of both the raw images and the PSF subtracted images. The application of PSF subtraction for the Space Infrared telescope for Cosmology and Astrophysics (SPICA) and for other platforms is discussed.