astronomy and astrophysics

Long-term capture orbits for low-energy space missions

This research aims at ascertaining the existence and characteristics of natural long-term capture orbits around a celestial body of potential interest. The problem is investigated in the dynamical framework of the three-dimensional circular restricted three-body problem. Previous numerical work on two-dimensional trajectories provided numerical evidence of Conley’s theorem, proving that long-term capture orbits are topologically located near trajectories asymptotic to periodic libration point orbits. This work intends to extend the previous investigations to three-dimensional paths.

The short wavelength instrument for the polarization explorer balloon-borne experiment: Polarization modulation issues

In this paper we investigate the impact of using a polarization modulator in The Short Wavelength Instrument for the Polarization Explorer (SWIPE) of the large scale polarization explorer (LSPE). The experiment is optimized to measure the linear polarization of the cosmic microwave background at large angular scales during a circumpolar long-duration stratospheric balloon mission, and uses multimode bolometers cooled to.3 K. The 330 detectors cover three bands at 140, 220, and 240 GHz.

Study of rare nuclear processes with CUORE

TeO2bolometers have been used for many years to search for neutrinoless double beta decay in130Te. CUORE, a tonne-scale TeO2detector array, recently published the most sensitive limit on the half-life, > 1.5 × 1025yr, which corresponds to an upper bound of 140-400 meV on the effective Majorana mass of the neutrino. While it makes CUORE a world-leading experiment looking for neutrinoless double beta decay, it is not the only study that CUORE will contribute to in the field of nuclear and particle physics.

Two-dimensional filter bank design for velocity estimation in forward scatter radar configuration

The focus of this paper is on the estimation of the velocity of moving targets with a Forward Scatter Radar system. To this aim a two-dimensional filter bank is proposed with the generic filter impulse response depending on the target electrical size and on the target trajectory that are a priori unknown.

Advanced imaging for down-looking contactless GPR systems

This paper investigates the performance of an advanced imaging procedure for ground penetrating radar (GPR) operating in contactless configuration, i.e., when data are collected at variable distances from the air-soil interface. A data processing procedure is presented, based on an advanced implementation of a microwave tomographic approach. This improved version, recently proposed by the authors, is able of accounting for the near-field distribution generated by a directional transmitting antenna.

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