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<p>The properties of Mercury's regolith have been investigated at optical and near-infrared wavelengths with high-resolution imaging, photometric, and spectroscopic observations with the Swedish Vacuum Solar Telescope and the Nordic Optical Telescope. </p><p>A new global optical map at a spatial resolution of 200 km shows that the well known (from Mariner 10) and poorly known hemispheres are indistinguishable with respect to the distribution, number density, and morphological parameters of bright albedo features. This indicates a globally uniform recent (<3 Gyr) geologic evolution, a compositionally very homogeneous surface and the absence of a lunar-like mare–terrae albedo dichotomy.</p><p>It is found that the spectrum of Mercury is linear, strongly sloped, lacks detectable absorption features and displays a unique relation between the continuum slope and photometric geometry. Mercury has a photometrically smoother surface than the average near-side Moon, and is 10–15% fainter and 50% more back scattering in the V-band. Unlike the case for the Moon, the average single-particle backscattering anisotropy increases with wavelength.</p><p>Intimate regolith mixing models are used to determine a probable surface composition of predominantly Ca-rich labradorite plagioclase feldspar with minor low-iron enstatitic orthopyroxene, and rule out high-iron pyroxenes or olivines as other than insignificant constituents. Abundances of FeO ~1.2 wt%, TiO₂ ~0 wt%, and submicroscopic metallic iron ~0.1–0.3 wt% are found for the average surface. This implies an optically active grain size of 15–30 μm that is a factor of two smaller than for the Moon.</p><p>A numerical integration study shows that hermeocentric orbits with semi-major axes <30 mercurian radii for elliptic retrograde, and circular prograde, object are stable for durations in excess of 4.5 Myr. The weak gravitational scattering effect of Mercury indicates that re-impacting particles may have been important for the early evolution of its crust.</p>

The properties of Mercury's regolith have been investigated at optical and near-infrared wavelengths with high-resolution imaging, photometric, and spectroscopic observations with the Swedish Vacuum Solar Telescope and the Nordic Optical Telescope. A new global optical map at a spatial resolution of 200 km shows that the well known (from Mariner 10) and poorly known hemispheres are indistinguishable with respect to the distribution, number density, and morphological parameters of bright albedo features. This indicates a globally uniform recent (&lt;3 Gyr) geologic evolution, a compositionally very homogeneous surface and the absence of a lunar-like mare–terrae albedo dichotomy. It is found that the spectrum of Mercury is linear, strongly sloped, lacks detectable absorption features and displays a unique relation between the continuum slope and photometric geometry. Mercury has a photometrically smoother surface than the average near-side Moon, and is 10–15% fainter and 50% more back scattering in the V-band. Unlike the case for the Moon, the average single-particle backscattering anisotropy increases with wavelength. Intimate regolith mixing models are used to determine a probable surface composition of predominantly Ca-rich labradorite plagioclase feldspar with minor low-iron enstatitic orthopyroxene, and rule out high-iron pyroxenes or olivines as other than insignificant constituents. Abundances of FeO ~1.2 wt%, TiO2 ~0 wt%, and submicroscopic metallic iron ~0.1–0.3 wt% are found for the average surface. This implies an optically active grain size of 15–30 μm that is a factor of two smaller than for the Moon. A numerical integration study shows that hermeocentric orbits with semi-major axes &lt;30 mercurian radii for elliptic retrograde, and circular prograde, object are stable for durations in excess of 4.5 Myr. The weak gravitational scattering effect of Mercury indicates that re-impacting particles may have been important for the early evolution of its crust.

Charge transfer reactions and their rates play a key role in correctly estimating element abundances in astrophysical objects such as supernovae. The reaction $C + O^+ \rightarrow C^+ + O(^1D) + \Delta E$ has been shown to be of significance when estimating oxygen abundances through model spectrum evaluations, and the relative rate of this reaction can under certain circumstances completely dictate the neutralization rate of oxygen ions. In this project, the rate of this reaction for four different temperatures is estimated using the Olson-Demkov model to calculate the cross section of the reaction as well as calculating rates for a few more reactions to compare to established literature values.  We find that the Olson-Demkov model produces good estimates for reactions that have small energy defects (within an order of magnitude of more rigorous quantum mechanical calculations), but the model underestimates the rate coefficient by several orders of magnitude as the energy defect increases. As the investigated reactions are all exothermic, the energy defect is the released energy from the reaction (i.e., the energy defect is positive). It is also found in most cases that the Olson-Demkov model rate is poorly estimated by the rate coefficient based only on the cross section at the mean velocity, caused by the cross section rising rapidly for velocities higher than the mean. The rate estimates produced for C+O$^+$ are also likely to be underestimated, especially for the temperatures 100 and 1000 Kelvin. No literature comparison is available for this specific reaction, but this conclusion is consistent with the other investigated reactions. / Supernovor är bland de mest extrema fenomen vi kan observera i hela Universum. Dessa våldsamma explosioner lämnar spår efter sig i många år och har varit ovärdeliga objekt att observera för att lära oss mer hur vår galax och Universum har utvecklats över tid. Ljuset från supernovor och deras kvarlevor kan analyseras för att ta reda på vad för ämnen som finns kvar eller som har bildats av både explosionen och de processer som ägt rum efteråt. En typ av reaktion som är viktig för att fullt ut förstå dessa miljöer är så kallade "laddningsöverföringar", en reaktion där en laddad och en oladdad partikel interagerar med varandra varvid laddningen förflyttas mellan de två. Detta projekt har fokuserat på en modell som avser att räkna ut uppskattningar på hur sannolikt det är för dessa reaktioner att äga rum. Modellen, som kallas för Olson-Demkov-modellen, har även jämförts med andra modeller för att se under vilka förhållanden som den fungerar.

A visualisation procedure was developed which predicts excited hydroxyl (OH*) radiation from the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) solutions of cryogenic hydrogen-oxygen rocket flames. The model of backward ray tracing through inhomogeneous media with a continuously changing refractive index was implemented. It obtains the optical paths of light rays that originate in the rocket chamber, pass through the window and enter a simulated camera. Through the use of spectral modelling, the emission and absorption spectra eλ and κλ are simulated on the ray path from information about temperature, pressure and concentration of constituent species at relevant points. By solving a radiative transfer equation with the integration of emission and absorption spectra along the ray line-by-line, a spectral radiance is calculated, multiplied with the spectral filter transmittance and then integrated into total radiance. The values of total radiances at the window edge are visualised as a simulated 2D image. Such images are comparable with the OH* measurement images. The modelling of refraction effects results in up to 20 % of total radiance range absolute difference compared to line-of-sight integration. The implementation of accurate self-absorption corrects significant over-prediction, which occurs if the flame is assumed to be optically thin. Modelling of refraction results in images with recognisable areas where the effect of a liquid oxygen (LOx) jet core can be observed, as the light is significantly refracted. The algorithm is parallelised and thus ready for use on big computational clusters. It uses partial pre-computation of spectra to reduce computational effort.