The influence of antiferroelectric compounds on helical pitch of orthoconic W-1000 mixture

The influence of six antiferroelectric compounds on the helical pitch of mixture W-1000, which was reported as long pitch orthoconic antiferroelectric liquid crystalline mixture, was checked by spectrophotometry and polarimetry methods. The electro-optical properties for the mixture with the longest pitch were measured. An improvement in electro-optical response due to the long pitch is reported. The novelty in electro-optical properties is the good symmetry response.

Polarimetric Response of Rice Fields at C-Band: Analysis and Phenology Retrieval

A set of ten RADARSAT-2 images acquired in fully polarimetric mode over a test site with rice fields in Seville, Spain, has been analyzed to extract the main features of the C-band radar backscatter as a function of rice phenology. After observing the evolutions versus phenology of different polarimetric observables and explaining their behavior in terms of scattering mechanisms present in the scene, a simple retrieval approach has been proposed. This algorithm is based on three polarimetric observables and provides estimates from a set of four relevant intervals of phenological stages. The validation against ground data, carried out at parcel level for a set of six stands and up to nine dates per stand, provides a 96% rate of coincidence. Moreover, an equivalent compact-pol retrieval algorithm has been also proposed and validated, providing the same performance at parcel level. In all cases, the inversion is carried out by exploiting a single satellite acquisition, without any other auxiliary information.

Crop Phenology Estimation Using a Multitemporal Model and a Kalman Filtering Strategy

In this letter, a new approach for crop phenology estimation with remote sensing is presented. The proposed methodology is aimed to exploit tools from a dynamical system context. From a temporal sequence of images, a geometrical model is derived, which allows us to translate this temporal domain into the estimation problem. The evolution model in state space is obtained through dimensional reduction by a principal component analysis, defining the state variables, of the observations. Then, estimation is achieved by combining the generated model with actual samples in an optimal way using a Kalman filter. As a proof of concept, an example with results obtained with this approach over rice fields by exploiting stacks of TerraSAR-X dual polarization images is shown.

Estimation of Key Dates and Stages in Rice Crops Using Dual-Polarization SAR Time Series and a Particle Filtering Approach

Information of crop phenology is essential for evaluating crop productivity. In a previous work, we determined phenological stages with remote sensing data using a dynamic system framework and an extended Kalman filter (EKF) approach. In this paper, we demonstrate that the particle filter is a more reliable method to infer any phenological stage compared to the EKF. The improvements achieved with this approach are discussed. In addition, this methodology enables the estimation of key cultivation dates, thus providing a practical product for many applications. The dates of some important stages, as the sowing date and the day when the crop reaches the panicle initiation stage, have been chosen to show the potential of this technique.

Dynamical Approach for Real-Time Monitoring of Agricultural Crops

In this paper, a novel approach for exploiting multitemporal remote sensing data focused on real-time monitoring of agricultural crops is presented. The methodology is defined in a dynamical system context using state-space techniques, which enables the possibility of merging past temporal information with an update for each new acquisition. The dynamic system context allows us to exploit classical tools in this domain to perform the estimation of relevant variables. A general methodology is proposed, and a particular instance is defined in this study based on polarimetric radar data to track the phenological stages of a set of crops. A model generation from empirical data through principal component analysis is presented, and an extended Kalman filter is adapted to perform phenological stage estimation. Results employing quad-pol Radarsat-2 data over three different cereals are analyzed. The potential of this methodology to retrieve vegetation variables in real time is shown.

Retrieval of phenological stages of onion fields during the first year of growth by means of C-band polarimetric SAR measurements

The phenological stages of onion fields in the first year of growth are estimated using polarimetric observables and single-polarization intensity channels. Experiments are undertaken on a time series of RADARSAT-2 C-band full-polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images collected in 2009 over the Barrax region, Spain, where ground truth information about onion growth stages is provided by the European Space Agency (ESA)-funded agricultural bio/geophysical retrieval from frequent repeat pass SAR and optical imaging (AgriSAR) field campaign conducted in that area. The experimental results demonstrate that polarimetric entropy or copolar coherence when used jointly with the cross-polarized intensity allows unambiguously distinguishing three phenological intervals.

Influence of Incidence Angle on the Coherent Copolar Polarimetric Response of Rice at X-Band

The coherent nature of the acquisition by TerraSAR-X of both copolar channels (HH and VV) enables the generation of many different polarimetric observables with physical interpretation, as have recently been used for monitoring rice fields. In this letter, the influence of incidence angle upon these polarimetric observables is analyzed by comparing three stacks of images that were acquired simultaneously at different incidence angles (22°, 30°, and 40°) during a whole cultivation campaign. We show that the response of observables related to dominance (entropy, ratios of components) and type of scattering mechanisms (alpha angles) is not greatly influenced by incidence angle at some stages: early and advanced vegetative phases, and maturation. Moreover, the acquisition geometry drives the sensitivity to the presence of the initial stems and tillers, being detected earlier at shallower angles. This analysis is a necessary step before studying potential methodologies for combining different orbits and beams for reducing the time between acquisitions for monitoring purposes.

Polarization attractors in harmonic mode-locked fiber laser

We report on a polarimetry of harmonic mode-locked erbium-doped fiber laser with carbon nanotubes saturable absorber. We find new types of vector solitons with locked, switching and precessing states of polarization. The underlying physics presents interplay between birefringence of a laser cavity created by polarization controller along with light induced anisotropy caused by polarization hole burning. © 2014 Optical Society of America.

Neutron Scattering Studies on Complex Magnetic Structures in Magnetoelectric Materials

In this thesis, the magnetic properties of four transition-metal oxides are presented. Their multiferroic and magnetoelectric phases have been investigated by means of different neutron scattering techniques. The materials TbMnO3 and MnWO4 belong to the group of spin-induced multiferroics. Their ferroelectric polarization can be explained by the inverse DzyaloshinskiiMoriya interaction. Another common feature of both materials is the presence of subsequent magnetic transitions from a spin-density wave to a spin spiral. The features of the phase transitions have been studied in both materials and it could be shown that diffuse magnetic scattering from the spin spiral is present even in the ordered spin-density wave phase. The excitation spectrum in the multiferroic phase of TbMnO3 was investigated in detail and a comprehensive dataset was obtained using time-of-flight spectroscopy. A spin-wave model could be obtained which can quantitatively describe the full dispersion. Furthermore, the polarization of the zone-center excitations could be derived which fit well to data from inelastic neutron spectroscopy and infrared spectroscopy. With the combination of spherical neutron polarimetry and a poling of the sample by an electric field, it was possible to observe the chiral magnetic component of the magnetic excitations in TbMnO3 and MnWO4. The spin-wave model for TbMnO3 obtained in this thesis is able to correctly describe the dispersion of this component. The double tungstate NaFe(WO4)2 is isostructural to the multiferroic MnWO4 and develops a complex magnetic phase diagram. By the use of neutron diffraction techniques, the zero-field structure and high-field structures in magnetic field applied along the b-axis could be determined. The data reveal a direct transition into an incommensurate spin-spiral structure. The value of the incommensurability is driven by anharmonic modulations and shows strong hysteresis effects. The static and dynamic properties in the magnetoelectric spin-glass phase of Ni0.42Mn0.58TiO3 were studied in detail. The spin-glass phase is composed of short-ranged MnTiO3 and NiTiO3-type order. The antiferromagnetic domains could be controlled by crossed magnetic and electric fields, which was visualized using spherical neutron polarimetry. A comprehensive dataset of the magnetic excitations in the spin-glass phase was collected. The dataset revealed correlations in the hexagonal plane which are only weakly coupled along the c-axis. The excitation spectra could be simulated by taking into account the MnTiO3-type order.

Insights into the emission of the blazar 1ES 1011+496 through unprecedented broadband observations during 2011 and 2012

Context. 1ES 1011+496 (z = 0.212) was discovered in very high-energy (VHE, E >100 GeV) γ rays with MAGIC in 2007. The absence of simultaneous data at lower energies led to an incomplete characterization of the broadband spectral energy distribution (SED). Aims. We study the source properties and the emission mechanisms, probing whether a simple one-zone synchrotron self-Compton (SSC) scenario is able to explain the observed broadband spectrum. Methods. We analyzed data in the range from VHE to radio data from 2011 and 2012 collected by MAGIC, Fermi-LAT, Swift, KVA, OVRO, and Metsähovi in addition to optical polarimetry data and radio maps from the Liverpool Telescope and MOJAVE. Results. The VHE spectrum was fit with a simple power law with a photon index of 3.69 ± 0.22 and a flux above 150 GeV of (1.46±0.16)×10^(−11) ph cm^(−2) s^(−1) . The source 1ES 1011+496 was found to be in a generally quiescent state at all observed wavelengths, showing only moderate variability from radio to X-rays. A low degree of polarization of less than 10% was measured in optical, while some bright features polarized up to 60% were observed in the radio jet. A similar trend in the rotation of the electric vector position angle was found in optical and radio. The radio maps indicated a superluminal motion of 1.8 ± 0.4 c, which is the highest speed statistically significant measured so far in a high-frequency-peaked BL Lac. Conclusions. For the first time, the high-energy bump in the broadband SED of 1ES 1011+496 could be fully characterized from 0.1 GeV to 1 TeV, which permitted a more reliable interpretation within the one-zone SSC scenario. The polarimetry data suggest that at least part of the optical emission has its origin in some of the bright radio features, while the low polarization in optical might be due to the contribution of parts of the radio jet with different orientations of the magnetic field with respect to the optical emission.