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Enhancement of methane emission measurement techniques is necessary to address the need for greenhouse gas emissions monitoring. Here we introduce a gas analyzer designed for remote sensing of atmospheric methane aboard unmanned aerial vehicles. This device employs the wavelength modulation spectroscopy approach and quadrature detection of laser radiation scattered from the underlying surface. Our results demonstrate that the observed correlation between various signal attributes and the distance to the surface, where laser radiation scatters, aligns with analytical expectations. Calibrations proved that the instrument provides reliable methane measurements up to 120 meters while being lightweight and power efficient. Notably, this device outperforms its competitors at altitudes exceeding 50 meters, which is safer for piloting.

A new physics-based compact model, which makes it possible to simulate in a unified way the neutron and proton of cosmic ray induced SEU cross sections, including effects from nuclear reaction products and from direct ionization by low-energy protons, has been proposed and vali-dated. The proposed approach is analytical and based on explicit analytical relationships and approximations with physics-based fitting parameters. GEANT4 or SRIM numerical calculations can be used as an aid to adjust or refine the phenomenological parameters or functions included in the model taking into account real geometrical configurations and chemical compositions of the devices. In particular, explicit energy dependencies of the soft error cross sections for protons and neutrons over a wide range of nucleon energies were obtained and validated. Main application areas of developed model include space physics, accelerator studies high energy physics and nuclear experiments., Comment: 12 pages, 12 figures, 33 references

The following results of dissertation are submitted for defense: 1. Precise measurements of coordinates and proper motion of the pulsar PSR 0329+54 using the VLBI method. 2. Establishing of the reason for the discrepancy between the coordinates of pulsars measured by VLBI and timing methods, which comes down to the influence of low-frequency noise at the time of pulse arrivals (TOAs) from the pulsar. 3. A special method for processing timing observations that allows you to correct TOA - coordinates of pulsars. 4. Theoretical dependencies of the behavior of dispersion of pulsar parameter depending on the observation interval and the type of correlated noise, on the basis of which it became possible to propose a new time scale BPT based on the orbital motion of pulsar in binary system stable over long periods of time (more than 10 years). 5. A theory that explains spontaneous changes in the rotational frequency of pulsars through their interaction with the passing gravitating mass and the theoretical power spectrum of low-frequency fluctuations of the pulsar rotational phase caused by gravitational disturbances from the passage of bodies near the pulsar., Comment: Dissertation for an academic degree of candidate of physical and mathematical sciences (PhD thesis). Dissertation was defended 14 Feb 2000 in Lebedev Physical Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow. 97 pages, 19 figures, 11 tables. Translated from Russian by author

Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) are bright radio transients with millisecond durations which typically occur at extragalactic distances. The association of FRB 20200428 with the Galactic magnetar SGR J1935+2154 strongly indicates that they could originate from neutron stars, which naturally leads to the expectation that periodicity connected with the spinning of magnetars should exist in the activities of repeating FRBs. However, previous studies have failed to find any signatures supporting such a conjecture. Here we perform a thorough search for short timescale periodicity in the five most active repeating sources, i.e. FRBs 20121102A, 20180916B, 20190520B, 20200120E, and 20201124A. Three different methods are employed, including the phase folding algorithm, the Schuster periodogram and the Lomb-Scargle periodogram. For the two most active repeaters from which more than 1600 bursts have been detected, i.e. FRB 20121102A and FRB 20201124A, more in-depth period searches are conducted by considering various burst properties such as the pulse width, peak flux, fluence, and the brightness temperature. For these two repeaters, we have also selected those days on which a large number of bursts were detected and performed periodicity analysis based on the single-day bursts. No periodicity in a period range of 1 ms-1000 s is found in all the efforts, although possible existence of a very short period between 1 ms-10 ms still could not be completely excluded for FRBs 20200120E and 20201124A due to limited timing accuracy of currently available observations. Implications of such a null result on the theoretical models of FRBs are discussed., Comment: 22 pages, 23 figures, 1 table

The advantages of high-quality-factor whispering gallery mode microresonators can be applied to develop novel photonic devices for the mid-IR range. ZBLAN (glass based on heavy metal fluorides) is one of the most promising materials to be used for this purpose due to low optical losses in the mid-IR. We developed original fabrication method based on melting of commercially available ZBLAN-based optical fiber to produce high-Q ZBLAN microspheres with the diameters of 250 to 350 $\mu$m. We effectively excited whispering gallery modes in these microspheres and demonstrated high quality factor both at 1.55 $\mu$m and 2.64 $\mu$m. Intrinsic quality factor at telecom wavelength was shown $(5.4\pm0.4)\cdot10^8$ which is defined by the material losses in ZBLAN. In the mid-IR at 2.64 $\mu$m we demonstrated record quality factor in ZBLAN exceeding $10^8$ which is comparable to the highest values of the Q-factor among all materials in the mid-IR.

Self-injection locking of a diode laser to a high-quality-factor microresonator is widely used for frequency stabilization and linewidth narrowing. We constructed several microresonator-based laser sources with measured instantaneous linewidths of 1 Hz and used them for investigation and implementation of the self-injection locking effect. We studied analytically and experimentally the dependence of the stabilization coefficient on tunable parameters such as locking phase and coupling rate. It was shown that precise control of the locking phase allows fine tuning of the generated frequency from the stabilized laser diode. We also showed that it is possible for such laser sources to realize fast continuous and linear frequency modulation by injection current tuning inside the self-injection locking regime. We conceptually demonstrate coherent frequency-modulated continuous wave LIDAR over a distance of 10 km using such a microresonator-stabilized laser diode in the frequency-chirping regime and measure velocities as low as sub-micrometer per second in the unmodulated case. These results could be of interest for cutting-edge technology applications such as space debris monitoring and long-range object classification, high resolution spectroscopy and others.

We demonstrate the imaging capability of a frequency modulated continuous wave lidar based on a fiber bundle. The lidar constructs velocity and range images for hard targets at a rate of 60 Hz. The sensing range is up to 30 m with 20 mW of output power. The instrument employs custom electronics with seven parallel heterodyne receivers. An example of image recovery is presented on 6-pixel "pictures" of a spinning disk and a drone hovering in the air. In experiments, we also tested the laser tuning linearity correction with a phase-locked loop. We see the practicality of such a low-resolution system as a boost in scanning rate of conventional lidars or for direct target imaging with a further upgrade of pixel count., Comment: This work has been submitted to the IEEE for possible publication

We present a new implementation of the hydrological cycle scheme into a general circulation model of the Martian atmosphere. The model includes a semi-Lagrangian transport scheme for water vapor and ice, and accounts for microphysics of phase transitions between them. The hydrological scheme includes processes of saturation, nucleation, particle growth, sublimation and sedimentation under the assumption of a variable size distribution. The scheme has been implemented into the Max Planck Institute Martian general circulation model (MPI--MGCM) and tested assuming mono- and bimodal log-normal distributions of ice condensation nuclei. We present a comparison of the simulated annual variations, horizontal and vertical distributions of water vapor and ice clouds with the available observations from instruments onboard Mars orbiters. The accounting for bi-modality of aerosol particle distribution improves the simulations of the annual hydrological cycle, including predicted ice clouds mass, opacity, number density, particle radii. The increased number density and lower nucleation rates brings the simulated cloud opacities closer to observations. Simulations show a weak effect of the excess of small aerosol particles on the simulated water vapor distributions.

Simulations with the Max Planck Institute Martian general circulation model for Martian years 28 and 34 reveal details of the water "pump" mechanism and the role of gravity wave (GW) forcing. Water is advected to the upper atmosphere mainly by upward branches of the meridional circulation: in low latitudes during equinoxes and over the south pole during solstices. Molecular diffusion plays little role in water transport in the middle atmosphere and across the mesopause. GWs modulate the circulation and temperature during global dust storms, thus changing the timing and intensity of the transport. At equinoxes, they facilitate water accumulation in the polar warming regions in the middle atmosphere followed by stronger upwelling over the equator. As equinoctial storms decay, GWs tend to accelerate the reduction of water in the thermosphere. GWs delay the onset of the transport during solstitial storms and change the globally averaged amount of water in the upper atmosphere by 10-25%.

Self-injection locking to a high-quality-factor microresonator is a key component of various up-to-date photonic applications, including compact narrow-linewidth lasers and microcomb sources. For optimal construction of such devices it is necessary to know the parameters of the locking mode, which is a challenging task. We developed and verified experimentally an original technique based on the fundamentals of the self-injection locking effect, which allows determining the key parameters of the mode of the microresonator (quality factor, vertical index) as well as laser diode parameters. We demonstrated that this method can be used in the spectral ranges where conventional methods are not applicable, for example, in the mid-IR. We stabilized a 2.64 $\mu$m laser diode by a high-Q whispering gallery mode microresonator made of crystalline silicon. Using the elaborated technique, the quality factor of the microresonator was determined to be $5\cdot10^8$.

We present results of simulations with the Max Planck Institute general circulation model (MPI-MGCM) implementing a hydrological cycle scheme. The simulations reveal a seasonal water "pump" mechanism responsible for the upward transport of water vapor. This mechanism occurs in high latitudes above 60$^\circ$ of the southern hemisphere at perihelion, when the upward branch of the meridional circulation is particularly strong. A combination of the mean vertical flux with variations induced by solar tides facilitates penetration of water across the "bottleneck" at approximately 60 km. The meridional circulation then transports water across the globe to the northern hemisphere. Since the intensity of the meridional cell is tightly controlled by airborne dust, the water abundance in the thermosphere strongly increases during dust storms., Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures

Results of a search for individual impulsive signals on the Large Scanning Antenna of the Lebedev Physical Institute at 111 MHz carried out from July 2012 through May 2018 are presented. The data were convolved with a template of a specified form and convolved with a test dispersion measure. A region of sky with central coordinates $\alpha = 05^h 32^m;$ $\delta = +41.72^\circ$ and also a region of sky around the coordinates fixed earlier for FRB 121102 ($\alpha = 05^h 32^m;$ $\delta = +33.1^\circ$) were chosen for the analysis. In all, 355 hours of observations were processed for each beam. Three radio bursts with dispersion measures of $247$ $pc \cdot cm^{-3}$, $570$ $ pc \cdot cm^{-3}$, $1767$ $ pc \cdot cm^{-3}$ were detected in the course of reducing the data., Comment: 20 pages, 8 figures

Timing of highly stable millisecond pulsars provides the possibility of independently verifying terrestrial time scales on intervals longer than a year. An ensemble pulsar time scale is constructed based on pulsar timing data obtained on the 64-m Parkes telescope (Australia) in 1995--2010. Optimal Wiener filters were applied to enhance the accuracy of the ensemble time scale. The run of the time--scale difference PT$_{ens}$ $-$ TT(BIPM2011) does not exceed $0.8 {\pm} 0.4$ $\mu s$ over the entire studied time interval. The fractional instability of the difference $_{ens}$ $-$ TT(BIPM2011) over 15 years is ${\sigma_z} = (0.6\pm 1.6){\cdot}10^{-15}$, which corresponds to an upper limit for the energy density of the gravitational--wave background ${\Omega_g}h^2 {\sim} 10^{-10}$ and variations in the gravitational potential ${\sim} 10^{-15}$ Hz at the frequency $2{\cdot}10^{-9}$., Comment: 11 pages, 2 figures

We suggest a new approach to the detection of gravitational waves using observations of a group of millisecond pulsars. In contrast to the usual method, based on increasing the accuracy of the arrival times of pulses by excluding possible distorting factors, our method supposes that the additive phase noise that is inevitably present even in the most accurate observational data has various spectral components, which have characteristic amplitudes and begin to appear on different time scales. We use the "Caterpillar" (Singular Spectral Analysis, SSA) method to decompose the signal into its components. Our initial data are the residuals of the pulse arrival times for six millisecond pulsars. We constructed the angular correlation function for components of the decomposition of a given number, whose theoretical form for the case of an isotropic and homogeneous gravitational-wave background is known. The individual decomposition components show a statistically significant agreement with the theoretical expectations (correlation coefficient $\rho=0.92\pm 0.10$)., Comment: 16 pages, 7 figures

A new approach to the problem of gravitational waves detection based on simultaneous timing of several pulsars and subsequent expansion of the post-fit timing data into components of different spectral kind (with different spectral indices) is proposed. Presence of a signal caused by stochastic gravitational waves in spectral components is tested with the two-point angular correlation function as proposed in the pulsar timing array. This new approach was applied to timing data of a few millisecond pulsars and allowed to detect a signature similar to one predicted for gravitational wave background at relatively high confidence level: correlation coefficient between experimental and theoretical two-point correlations $\rho=0.82\pm 0.07$., Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures

The algorithm of the ensemble pulsar time scale (PT$_{\rm ens}$) based on the optimal Wiener filtration method has been proposed. This algorithm allows the separation of the contributions to the post-fit pulsar timing residuals of the atomic clock and pulsar itself. Filters were designed with the use of the cross-spectra of the timing residuals. The method has been applied to the timing data of six millisecond pulsars. Direct comparison with the classical method of the weighted average showed that use of the optimal Wiener filters before averaging allows noticeably to improve the fractional instability of the ensemble time scale. Application of the proposed method to the most stable millisecond pulsars with the fractional instability $\sigma_z < 10^{-15}$ may improve the fractional instability of PT$_{\rm ens}$ up to the level $\sim 10^{-16}$., Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures

The algorithm of the ensemble pulsar time based on the optimal Wiener filtration method has been constructed. This algorithm allows the separation of the contributions to the post-fit pulsar timing residuals of the atomic clock and pulsar itself. Filters were designed with the use of the cross- and autocovariance functions of the timing residuals. The method has been applied to the timing data of millisecond pulsars PSR B1855+09 and PSR B1937+21 and allowed the filtering out of the atomic scale component from the pulsar data. Direct comparison of the terrestrial time TT(BIPM06) and the ensemble pulsar time PT$_{\rm ens}$ revealed that fractional instability of TT(BIPM06)--PT$_{\rm ens}$ is equal to $\sigma_z=(0.8\pm 1.9)\cdot 10^{-15}$. Based on the $\sigma_z$ statistics of TT(BIPM06)--PT$_{\rm ens}$ a new limit of the energy density of the gravitational wave background was calculated to be equal to $\Omega_g h^2 \sim 3\cdot 10^{-9}$., Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures

An algorithm of the ensemble pulsar time based on the Wiener filtration method has been constructed. This algorithm has allowed the separation of the contributions of an atomic clock and a pulsar itself to the post-fit pulsar timing residuals. The method has been applied to the timing data of the millisecond pulsars PSR B1855+09 and PSR B1937+21 and allowed the filtering out of the atomic scale component from the pulsar phase variations. Direct comparison of the terrestrial time TT(BIPM96) and the ensemble pulsar time PT$_{\rm ens}$ has displayed that the difference TT(BIPM96) -- PT$_{\rm ens}$ is within $\pm0.4 \mu$s range. A new limit of gravitational wave background based on the difference TT(BIPM96) -- PT$_{\rm ens}$ was established to be $\Omega_g {\rm h}^2\sim 10^{-10}$., Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures. Accepted to Chin. J. Astron. Astrophys. (ChJAA)