No Arabic abstract
Planetary radar observations offer the potential for probing the properties of characteristics of solid bodies throughout the inner solar system and at least as far as the orbit of Saturn. In addition to the direct scientific value, precise orbital determinations can be obtained from planetary radar observations, which are in turn valuable for mission planning or spacecraft navigation and planetary defense. The next-generation Very Large Array would not have to be equipped with a transmitter to be an important asset in the worlds planetary radar infrastructure. Bistatic radar, in which one antenna transmits (e.g., Arecibo or Goldstone) and another receives, are used commonly today, with the Green Bank Telescope (GBT) serving as a receiver. The improved sensitivity of the ngVLA relative to the GBT would improve the signal-to-noise ratios on many targets and increase the accessible volume specifically for asteroids. Goldstone-ngVLA bistatic observations would have the potential of rivaling the sensitivity of Arecibo, but with much wider sky access.
We report results of Canberra-ATCA Doppler-only continuous wave (CW) radar observations of near-Earth asteroid (163899) 2003 SD220 at a receiving frequency of 7159 MHz (4.19 cm) on 2018 December 20, 21, and 22 during its close approach within 0.019 au (7.4 lunar distances). Echo power spectra provide evidence that the shape is significantly elongated, asymmetric, and has at least one relatively large concavity. An average spectrum per track yields an OC (opposite sense of circular polarisation) radar cross section of 0.39, 0.27, and 0.25 km$^{2}$, respectively, with an uncertainty of 35 %. Variations by roughly a factor of two in the limb-to-limb bandwidth over the three days indicate rotation of an elongated object. We obtain a circular polarization ratio of 0.21 $pm$ 0.07 that is consistent with, but somewhat lower than, the average among other S-class near-Earth asteroids observed by radar.
Joint communication and sensing allows the utilization of common spectral resources for communication and localization, reducing the cost of deployment. By using fifth generation (5G) New Radio (NR) (i.e., the 3rd Generation Partnership Project Radio Access Network for 5G) reference signals, conventionally used for communication, this paper shows sub-meter precision localization is possible at millimeter wave frequencies. We derive the geometric dilution of precision of a bistatic radar configuration, a theoretical metric that characterizes how the target location estimation error varies as a function of the bistatic geometry and measurement errors. We develop a 5G NR compliant software test bench to characterize the measurement errors when estimating the time difference of arrival and angle of arrival with 5G NR waveforms. The test bench is further utilized to demonstrate the accuracy of target localization and velocity estimation in several indoor and outdoor bistatic and multistatic configurations and to show that on average, the bistatic configuration can achieve a location accuracy of 10.0 cm over a bistatic range of 25 m, which can be further improved by deploying a multistatic radar configuration.
Most planetary radar applications require recording of complex voltages at sampling rates of up to 20 MHz. I describe the design and implementation of a sampling system that has been installed at the Arecibo Observatory, Goldstone Solar System Radar, and Green Bank Telescope. After many years of operation, these data-taking systems have enabled the acquisition of hundreds of data sets, many of which still await publication.
Radar and optical simultaneous observations of meteors are important to understand the size distribution of the interplanetary dust. However, faint meteors detected by high power large aperture radar observations, which are typically as faint as 10 mag. in optical, have not been detected until recently in optical observations, mainly due to insufficient sensitivity of the optical observations. In this paper, two radar and optical simultaneous observations were organized. The first observation was carried out in 2009 to 2010 using Middle and Upper Atmosphere Radar (MU radar) and an image-intensified CCD camera. The second observation was carried out in 2018 using the MU radar and a mosaic CMOS camera, Tomo-e Gozen, mounted on the 1.05-m Kiso Schmidt Telescope. In total, 331 simultaneous meteors were detected. The relationship between radar cross sections and optical V-band magnitudes was well approximated by a linear function. A transformation function from the radar cross section to the V-band magnitude was derived for sporadic meteors. The transformation function was applied to about 150,000 meteors detected by the MU radar in 2009--2015, large part of which are sporadic, and a luminosity function was derived in the magnitude range of $-1.5$ to $9.5$ mag. The luminosity function was well approximated by a single power-law function with the population index of $r = 3.52{pm}0.12$. The present observation indicates that the MU radar has capability to detect interplanetary dust of $10^{-5}$ to $10^{0}$ g in mass as meteors.
Studies of planet migration derived from disc planet interactions began before the discovery of exoplanets. The potential importance of migration for determining orbital architectures being realised, the field received greater attention soon after the initial discoveries of exoplanets. Early studies based on very simple disc models indicated very fast migration times for low mass planets that raised questions about its relevance. However, more recent studies, made possible with improving resources, that considered improved physics and disc models revealed processes that could halt or reverse this migration. That in turn led to a focus on special regions in the disc where migration could be halted. In this way the migration of low mass planets could be reconciled with formation theories. In the case of giant planets which have a nonlinear interaction with the disc, the migration should be slower and coupled to the evolution of the disc. The latter needs to be considered more fully to make future progress in all cases. Here we are primarily concerned with processes where migration is connected with the presence of the protopolanetary disk. Migration may also be induced by disc-free gravitational interactions amongst planets or with binary companions. This is only briefly discussed here.