Controlling the Eccentricity of Polar Lunar Orbits with Low-Thrust Propulsion

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Collision and Stable Regions around Bodies with Simple Geometric Shape

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

On the first nu(6) anti-aligned librating asteroid family of Tina

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

The role of Mab as a source for the mu ring of Uranus (Research Note)

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

The geotectonic environments of Early Precambrian granulites in Brazil

A review is presented concerning Archaean granulites occurring in some old domains of the South American Platform, which was consolidated at the end of the Brazilian Cycle (900-500 Ma). The rocks occur in different geotectonic environments and show variable ages, structures and lithological associations. The most important complexes are the Atlantic Granulite Belt in the São Francisco Craton and the Goias Granulite Belt in the Central Goias Massif, both several hundred kilometres long. The former is composed of the Caraibas Complex, the Jequié Complex, the Salvador Complex and several minor granulite occurrences along the Brazilian coast in the States of Espírito Santo and Rio de Janeiro. The latter includes the large basic-ultrabasic complexes of Barro Alto, Tocantins and Canabrava. Both belts consist of massive or foliated rocks, banded or homogeneous and varying from acidic to ultrabasic in composition. They are the result of metamorphism affecting diversified supra- and infracrustal material. The Atlantic Granulite Belt lies between greenstone/granite terrains which show ovoid and boomerang-type dome structures. The contacts between both are either tectonic or transitional. Another occurrence of Archaean granulites comprises intercalations of palaeosomes and melanosomes within migmatites and anatectic rocks. These vary in size from small lenses to irregular complexes which may attain sizes of several hundred square kilometres. Apart from migmatites, they are associated with gneisses, schists and granitoid bodies. They are located in regions which underwent remobilization of varying intensity during the Middle and Late Precambrian. The rocks show polymetamorphism, K-feldspar blastesis, tectonic overprinting and isotopic rejuvenation. These granulites are in some cases very similar to those formed during the Middle Precambrian. In some places it is therefore quite difficult to distinguish between Early and Middle Precambrian granulites - the more so, since interpretations of radiometric age values are largely controversial. At present there is no evidence of granulitic rocks related to the Late Precambrian geotectonic cycles of Brazil. © 1979.

Pulsar test of a violation of discrete symmetries in gravitation

We determine an improved limit on C and P violation to the extended gravitational potential of Leitner and Okubo using the millisecond pulsar PSR 1937+214 data. © 1989.

Quantum geometry of chiral bosons on a circle

We extend the geometric treatment done for the Majorana-Weyl fermions in two dimensions by Sanielevici and Semenoff to chiral bosons on a circle. For this case we obtain a generalized Floreanini-Jackiw Lagrangian density, and the corresponding gravitational (or Virasoro) anomalies are found as expected. © 1989 The American Physical Society.

The first case study of a thunderstorm in South Africa based on dual- Doppler radar observations

On 27 March 1991, an isolated thunderstorm passed between the two CSIR Doppler radars, spaced about 45km apart. Both radars simultaneously recorded Doppler data of the storm, and a detailed case study during an 11-min period is presented. Air motions synthesized from these data provide the first three-dimensional display of Doppler-derived wind fields within a multicell storm on the Transvaal Highveld. Regions of high divergence values (10 -2s -1) at low levels were found mostly in close proximity to reflectivity maxima (45-51 dBZ), which is consistent with findings from North America, that gravitational loading by the precipitation plays a key role in the initiation and maintenance of downdraughts. -from Authors

Collective scattering of massive stars in higher order gravity

In the weak field approximation of higher order gravity theory a gravitational potential is described by a Newtonian plus a Yukawa-like term. This new term is used to explain some aspects of galactic dynamics, without considering dark matter. Its presence modifies the scattering probability of a massive intruder star and relaxation time of the stellar system.

The magnetic field of a current carrying cosmic string

The magnetostatic field of an infinite rectilinear current placed in the stationary gravitational field of a rotating cosmic string is found. An interesting aspect of this problem is that although the metric is mathematically very simple, its physical meaning is not trivial. It depends only on topological parameters. So, the cosmic string vacuum space-time is locally equivalent to the Minkowski space-time, but not globally. The calculations are so simple that they can easily be shown in the classroom. © 1997 American Association of Physics Teachers.

Seqüência Ordovício-Siluriana e Devoniana no Flanco Norte da Bacia do Paraná

Two stratigraphic sequences characterize the basal units of the Paraná basin. The Ordovician-Silurian sequence overlie directly the Neoproterozoic basement and consists of a 55m-thick unit of coarse-grained sandstones, diamictites, fossiliferous shales and fine-grained micaceous sandstones. The Alto Garças Formation constitutes the base of the sequence and is made of coarse-grained, massive and reddish sandstones associated with conglomeratic lenses. Diamictites with pebbles of diverse composition in siltic and arenaceous matrix were deposited during the Ordovician-Silurian glaciation. Whenever the basal sandstones are absent, the diamictites directly overlie the basement. The diamictites were previously included in the Vila Maria Formation. However our study revealed that they are part of the Iapó Formation. A transgressive event following the glaciation is marked by the deposition of the Vila Maria Formation, which is characterized by fossiliferous (mollusks, brachiopods, cryptospores and microplankton) and laminated shales and siltstones, grading upward to fine-grained micaceous sandstones with hummocky cross stratification. Layers containing trace fossils (Anthrophycus) occur at the transition between the siltstones and the sandstones. The Devonian sequence is represented by 80-170 meters thick sandstones of the Furnas Formation (lower unit) and a sucession of sandstones, siltstones and shales of the Ponta Grossa Formation (upper unit). Unlike other areas of the Paraná Basin, the Ponta Grossa Formation is characterized by coarsening-upward succession beginning with fine sandstones and grading upward to coarse and very-coarse sandstone beds. Cretaceous modifying tectonics affected the Paleozoic sequences, which are cut by a series of faults, in some cases showing displacements greater than 500 meters.

Teleparallel equivalent of the Kaluza-Klein theory

Relying upon the equivalence between a gauge theory for the translation group and general relativity, a teleparallel version of the original Kaluza-Klein theory is developed. In this model, only the internal space (fiber) turns out to be five dimensional, spacetime being kept always four dimensional. A five-dimensional translational gauge theory is obtained which unifies, in the sense of Kaluza-Klein theories, gravitational and electromagnetic interactions. ©2000 The American Physical Society.

Gravitomagnetic moments of the fundamental fields

The quadratic form of the Dirac equation in a Riemann space-time yields a gravitational gyromagnetic ratio κ(S) = 2 for the interaction of a Dirac spinor with curvature. A gravitational gyromagnetic ratio κ(S) = 1 is also found for the interaction of a vector field with curvature. It is shown that the Dirac equation in a curved background can be obtained as the square-root of the corresponding vector field equation only if the gravitational gyromagnetic ratios are properly taken into account.

On the regular-geometric-figure solution to the N-body problem

The regular-geometric-figure solution to the N-body problem is presented in a very simple way. The Newtonian formalism is used without resorting to a more involved rotating coordinate system. Those configurations occur for other kinds of interactions beyond the gravitational ones for some special values of the parameters of the forces. For the harmonic oscillator, in particular, it is shown that the N-body problem is reduced to N one-body problems.

Preheating in quintessential inflation

We perform a numerical study of the preheating mechanism of particle production in models of quintessential inflation and compare it with the usual gravitational production mechanism. We find that even for a very small coupling between the inflaton field and a massless scalar field, g ≳ 10 -6, preheating dominates over gravitational particle production. Reheating temperatures in the range 10 4 ≲ T rh ≲ 10 15 GeV can be easily obtained. © 2003 Published by Elsevier B.V.