scholarly journals Problems of Menotactic Orientation According to the Polarized Light of the Sky

1975 ◽  
Vol 30 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 88-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kuno Kirschfeld ◽  
M. Lindauer ◽  
H. Martin

Abstract It is shown that the knowledge of the E-vector direction of the linearly polarized light at any point of the sky alone is insufficient for the determination of the position of the sun. If the E-vector direction of a second point is not known the knowledge of at least one other parameter is necessary. This parameter might be the height of the sun over the horizon. With the knowledge of the height the infinite number of solutions for the sun’s position becomes reduced to two, or in special cases to one. These cases are derived.

A description is given of an optical method for the determination of the thickness of the helium II film. Linearly polarized light is reflected from a stainless steel mirror, the upper part of which is coated with a layer of barium stearate one molecule thick and the lower part with a similar layer three molecules thick. The reflected light passes through a mica compensating plate and a nicol prism. Adjustment of the mica plate and nicol gives equality of illumination on the ‘1’ and ‘3’ areas. If now a film of helium II covers the mirror the nicol must be rotated to restore equality of illumination. The rotation is a measure of the thickness of the helium film, the relation between the two quantities being calculated in terms of the angle of incidence and the optical constants of liquid helium, barium stearate and stainless steel. The observed thickness at any given height above the liquid helium was found to be nearly independent of the temperature between 1⋅1 and 2⋅18° K but then decreased rapidly to zero at the λ -point. In the formula d = k / h 1/ z for the thickness d at height h cm. for any given temperature, the value of z varies from 3⋅5 at 1⋅1° K to 2⋅5 at 2⋅1° K. The thickness at 1 cm. and 1⋅5° K is provisionally given as 1⋅9 x 10 -6 cm.


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 239-258 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans Grob ◽  
Claudia Emde ◽  
Matthias Wiegner ◽  
Meinhard Seefeldner ◽  
Linda Forster ◽  
...  

Abstract. Recently, polarimetry has been used to enhance classical photometry to infer aerosol optical properties, as polarized radiation contains additional information about the particles. Therefore, we have equipped the Sun–sky automatic radiometer (SSARA) with polarizer filters to measure linearly polarized light at 501.5 nm. We describe an improved radiometric and polarimetric calibration method, which allows us to simultaneously determine the linear polarizers' diattenuation and relative orientation with high accuracy (0.002 and 0.1∘, respectively). Furthermore, we employed a new calibration method for the alt-azimuthal mount capable of correcting the instrument's pointing to within 32 arcmin. So far, this is limited by the accuracy of the Sun tracker. Both these methods are applicable to other Sun and sky radiometers, such as the Cimel CE318-DP instruments used in the AErosol RObotic NETwork (AERONET). During the A-LIFE (Absorbing aerosol layers in a changing climate: aging, LIFEtime and dynamics) field campaign in April 2017, SSARA collected 22 d of data. Here, we present two case studies. The first demonstrates the performance of an aerosol retrieval from SSARA observations under partially cloudy conditions. In the other case, a high aerosol load due to a Saharan dust layer was present during otherwise clear-sky conditions.


1957 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 342-364
Author(s):  
RICHARD BAINBRIDGE ◽  
TALBOT H. WATERMAN

1. Quantitative experiments are described, designed to test the hypothesis that underwater polarized light is used for orientation by aquatic animals as that of the blue sky is by terrestrial arthropods. 2. Studied in the laboratory the littoral mysid, mysidium gracile, was found capable of orientation relative to the e vector in a vertical beam of linearly polarized light. 3. Statistically significant preference was shown by this animal for aligning its longitudinal axis at right angles to the plane of polarization. 4. A secondary slight preference was shown for swimming parallel with the plane and the degree of random orientation was often high (4% mean). 5. The littoral prawn, Palaemon northropi, when released in quiet water far enough from the bottom and the shore to prevent visual contact, was found to swim on relatively straight horizontal courses for appreciable distances in forty-one out of sixty-one tests. 6. The mean length of these runs was 24.5 m., the maximum 119 m. ; swimming velocities up to about 1 km./hr. were measured. 7. The sun's position seems to be the only directional clue not controlled in these tests, and the general direction of the runs is significantly correlated with the direction of the sun, being at right anglea to it. 8. It is thus concluded that this animar can use the sun, either directly or through the polarization pattern, as a celestial compass.


1966 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 93-97
Author(s):  
Richard Woolley

It is now possible to determine proper motions of high-velocity objects in such a way as to obtain with some accuracy the velocity vector relevant to the Sun. If a potential field of the Galaxy is assumed, one can compute an actual orbit. A determination of the velocity of the globular clusterωCentauri has recently been completed at Greenwich, and it is found that the orbit is strongly retrograde in the Galaxy. Similar calculations may be made, though with less certainty, in the case of RR Lyrae variable stars.


2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (S330) ◽  
pp. 148-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edouard J. Bernard

AbstractWe took advantage of the Gaia DR1 to combine TGAS parallaxes with Tycho-2 and APASS photometry to calculate the star formation history (SFH) of the solar neighbourhood within 250 pc using the colour-magnitude diagram fitting technique. We present the determination of the completeness within this volume, and compare the resulting SFH with that calculated from the Hipparcos catalogue within 80 pc of the Sun. We also show how this technique will be applied out to ~5 kpc thanks to the next Gaia data releases, which will allow us to quantify the SFH of the thin disc, thick disc and halo in situ, rather than extrapolating based on the stars from these components that are today in the solar neighbourhood.


2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jørgen Christensen-Dalsgaard

AbstractThe Sun provides a critical benchmark for the general study of stellar structure and evolution. Also, knowledge about the internal properties of the Sun is important for the understanding of solar atmospheric phenomena, including the solar magnetic cycle. Here I provide a brief overview of the theory of stellar structure and evolution, including the physical processes and parameters that are involved. This is followed by a discussion of solar evolution, extending from the birth to the latest stages. As a background for the interpretation of observations related to the solar interior I provide a rather extensive analysis of the sensitivity of solar models to the assumptions underlying their calculation. I then discuss the detailed information about the solar interior that has become available through helioseismic investigations and the detection of solar neutrinos, with further constraints provided by the observed abundances of the lightest elements. Revisions in the determination of the solar surface abundances have led to increased discrepancies, discussed in some detail, between the observational inferences and solar models. I finally briefly address the relation of the Sun to other similar stars and the prospects for asteroseismic investigations of stellar structure and evolution.


Nanomaterials ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 1718
Author(s):  
Qian Kong ◽  
Manna Gu ◽  
Xiangyu Zeng ◽  
Rui Sun ◽  
Yuqin Zhang ◽  
...  

Manipulation of multichannel vector beams (VBs) with metasurfaces is an important topic and holds potential applications in information technology. In this paper, we propose a novel metasurface for the generation of dual VBs, which is composed of orthogonal slit pairs arranged on multiple groups of combined semicircular rings (CSRs). A group of CSRs include a right-shifted set and a left-shifted set of semicircular rings, and each set of semicircular rings has two halves of circles with different radii, sharing the same shifted center. Under the illumination of linearly polarized light, the two shifted sets of semicircular rings generate the two VBs at the shifted center positions on the observation plane. The slit units of each set are designed with independent rotation order and initial orientation angle. By adjusting the linear polarization of illumination, both two VBs with their orders and polarization states are independently controlled simultaneously. The principle and design are demonstrated by the finite-difference time domain (FDTD) simulation. The work is of significance for miniatured devices of VB generators and for related applications.


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