Energy measurements of electrons and protons in cosmic ray physics using satellite and balloon calorimeters in recent two decades

Calorimeters are used in cosmic ray studies for a variety of purposes, such as measurements of particle energy, separation of electrons and hadrons, formation of triggers (signals for activation of instruments), and so on. In this review we consider the methods of energy reconstruct of protons and electrons (for particles with energies exceeding 10 GeV) in calorimeters of various types that are used in astrophysical experiments of cosmic ray studies carried out with balloons and satellites.     

Monopolar structure of the Sun in between polar reversals and in Maunder Minimum

After a polar reversal in one hemisphere the Sun has two polar caps of the same sign, leaving it in a kind of monopolar state. It may take months before a polar reversal occurs in the other hemisphere. The situation may have been extreme in the Maunder Minimum where the northern hemisphere most probably did not have polar reversals during several cycles, while the southern hemisphere may have had some. This may affect the interplanetary field and thus the cosmic rays reaching the Earth. Using the relation between the Wolf number and the speed of the global magnetic field regions the yearly mean Wolf number has to exceed 40 in order to have polar reversals, hence per hemisphere we expect that it must exceed 20. This may be used to give a definition of a deep minimum.     

Model of effective heat conduction in polymer composite porous materials

A model and a technique for calculating polymer composite materials with an ellipsoid-shaped filler that take into account the influence of system porosity, particle anisodiametry and a boundary layer on the effective heat conduction are proposed. The results of calculations made by numerical methods are in a good agreement with the well-known statistic and Odolevskii, Maxwell, and Dul’nev matrix models.     

Special features of accelerated aerosol coagulation under subharmonic resonance in an open tube

The results of experimental studies of nonlinear aerosol oscillations in an open tube for a frequency equal to half the fundamental one are presented. The results can be used in designing aircraft engines.     

International scientific optical network for space debris research

A joint team of researchers under the auspices of the Center for Space Debris Information Collection, Processing and Analysis of the Russian Academy of Sciences collaborates with 15 observatories around the world to perform observations of space debris. For this purpose, 14 telescopes were equipped with charge-coupled device (CCD) cameras, Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers, CCD frame processing and ephemeris computation software, with the support of the European and Russian grants. Many of the observation campaigns were carried out in collaboration with the Astronomical Institute of the University of Bern (AIUB) team operating at the Zimmerwald observatory and conducting research for the European Space Agency (ESA), using the Tenerife/Teide telescope for searching and tracking of unknown objects in the geostationary region (GEO). More than 130,000 measurements of space objects along a GEO arc of 340.9°, collected and processed at Space Debris Data Base in the Ballistic Center of the Keldysh Institute of Applied Mathematics (KIAM) in 2005–2006, allowed us to find 288 GEO objects that are absent in the public orbital databases and to determine their orbital elements. Methods of discovering and tracking small space debris fragments at high orbits were developed and tested. About 40 of 150 detected unknown objects of magnitudes 15–20.5 were tracked during many months. A series of dedicated 22-cm telescopes with large field of view for GEO survey tasks is in process of construction. 7 60-cm telescopes will be modernized in 2007.     

Investigation of turbulence influence on the particle resistance in a two-phase flow

The results of studying the resistance of a regular spherical particle lattice by means of the ANSYS/FLOTRAN software are presented; the lattice is streamlined by a turbulent incompressible flow at different values of the Re number and turbulence parameters. It is shown that the interference of neighboring particles and their resistance coefficients is unsymmetrical. A phenomenon of a significant influence of local turbulence parameters (scale and intensity) on the single particle resistance is described.     

Dynamics of a gyrostat satellite with the vector of gyrostatic moment in the principal plane of inertia

Dynamics of a gyrostat satellite moving along a circular orbit in a central Newtonian field of force is investigated. In a particular case, when the gyrostatic moment vector lies in one of the satellite’s principal central planes of inertia, all positions of equilibrium are determined, and the conditions of their existence are analyzed. Also determined are bifurcation values of dimensionless parameters, at which the number of equilibrium positions changes. As a result of analysis of the generalized energy integral, for each equilibrium orientation the sufficient conditions of stability are derived. Evolution of the regions where the sufficient conditions of stability are valid is investigated under variation of the system’s dimensionless parameters.     

High energy radiation from the direction of the galactic black hole Sgr A

X-ray observations indicate that the Galactic black hole Sgr A^∗ is inactive now, however, we suggest that Sgr A^∗ can become active when a captured star is tidally disrupted and matter is accreted into the black hole. Consequently the Galactic black hole could be a powerful source of relativistic protons with a characteristic energy ∼10⁵² erg per capture. The diffuse GeV and TeV γ-rays emitted in the direction of the Galactic Center (GC) are the direct consequences of p–p collisions of such relativistic protons ejected by very recent capture events occurred ?10⁵ yr ago. On the other hand, the extended electron-positron annihilation line emission observed from GC is a phenomenon related to a large population of thermalized positrons, which are produced, cooled down and accumulated through hundreds of past capture events during a period of ∼10⁷ yr. In addition to explaining GeV, TeV and 511 keV annihilation emissions we also estimate the photon flux of several MeV resulting from in-flight annihilation process.