Scalar Casimir effect between Dirichlet spheres or a plate and a sphere

We present a simple formalism for the evaluation of the Casimir energy for two spheres and a sphere and a plane, in case of a scalar fluctuating field, valid at any separations. We compare the exact results with various approximation schemes and establish when such schemes become useful. The formalism can be easily extended to any number of spheres and/or planes in three or arbitrary dimensions, with a variety of boundary conditions or non-overlapping potentials/non-ideal reflectors.Comment: published version; 13 pages, 2 figures; add. material (in Sec.VI) and corrections (esp. in App.B

Effective Kinetic Theory for High Temperature Gauge Theories

Quasiparticle dynamics in relativistic plasmas associated with hot, weakly-coupled gauge theories (such as QCD at asymptotically high temperature $T$) can be described by an effective kinetic theory, valid on sufficiently large time and distance scales. The appropriate Boltzmann equations depend on effective scattering rates for various types of collisions that can occur in the plasma. The resulting effective kinetic theory may be used to evaluate observables which are dominantly sensitive to the dynamics of typical ultrarelativistic excitations. This includes transport coefficients (viscosities and diffusion constants) and energy loss rates. We show how to formulate effective Boltzmann equations which will be adequate to compute such observables to leading order in the running coupling $g(T)$ of high-temperature gauge theories [and all orders in $1/\log g(T)^{-1}$]. As previously proposed in the literature, a leading-order treatment requires including both $22$ particle scattering processes as well as effective ``$12$'' collinear splitting processes in the Boltzmann equations. The latter account for nearly collinear bremsstrahlung and pair production/annihilation processes which take place in the presence of fluctuations in the background gauge field. Our effective kinetic theory is applicable not only to near-equilibrium systems (relevant for the calculation of transport coefficients), but also to highly non-equilibrium situations, provided some simple conditions on distribution functions are satisfied.Comment: 40 pages, new subsection on soft gauge field instabilities adde

Enriched and Isogeometric Boundary Element Methods for Acoustic Wave Scattering

This thesis concerns numerical acoustic wave scattering analysis. Such problems have been solved with computational procedures for decades, with the boundary element method being established as a popular choice of approach. However, such problems become more computationally expensive as the wavelength of an incident wave decreases; this is because capturing the oscillatory nature of the incident wave and its scattered field requires increasing numbers of nodal variables. Authors from mathematical and engineering backgrounds have attempted to overcome this problem using a wide variety of procedures. One such approach, and the approach which is further developed in this thesis, is to include the fundamental character of wave propagation in the element formulation. This concept, known as the Partition of Unity Boundary Element Method (PU-BEM), has been shown to significantly reduce the computational burden of wave scattering problems. This thesis furthers this work by considering the different interpolation functions that are used in boundary elements. Initially, shape functions based on trigonomet- ric functions are developed to increase continuity between elements. Following that, non-uniform rational B-splines, ubiquitous in Computer Aided Design (CAD) soft- ware, are used in developing an isogeometric approach to wave scattering analysis of medium-wave problems. The enriched isogeometric approach is named the eXtended Isogeometric Boundary Element Method (XIBEM). In addition to the work above, a novel algorithm for finding a uniform placement of points on a unit sphere is presented. The algorithm allows an arbitrary number of points to be chosen; it also allows a fixed point or a bias towards a fixed point to be used. This algorithm is used for the three-dimensional acoustic analyses in this thesis. The new techniques developed within this thesis significantly reduce the number of degrees of freedom required to solve a problem to a certain accuracy—this reduc- tion is more than 70% in some cases. This reduces the number of equations that have to be solved and reduces the amount of integration required to evaluate these equations

Une méthode de couplage éléments finis-conditions absorbantes de type-padé pour les problèmes de diffraction acoustique

Nous nous intéressons aux problèmes harmoniques de diffraction acoustique en milieu infini régis par l'équation de Helmholtz. La simulation numérique de ces phénomènes est complexe notamment lorsqu'il est question de fréquences élevées et d'obstacles de forme allongée tel qu'un sous-marin. Les codes éléments finis commerciaux sont incapables de cerner tous les aspects liés à ce type de problèmes. De plus, ce genre d'applications fait appel à de grandes ressources de calcul. En effet, la taille du système d'équations à résoudre (plusieurs millions de ddl) engendre souvent l'épuisement des ressources des calculateurs traditionnels. Notre objectif est de solutionner ce type de problèmes avec une précision pratique en utilisant le minimum de ressources. Nous proposons ainsi une méthode de couplage éléments finis de type Lagrange et à base d'ondes planes avec les conditions absorbantes d'ordre élevé basées sur les approximants complexes de Padé. A travers une série d'expériences numériques, nous montrons l'efficacité de ces conditions absorbantes en comparaison avec les conditions absorbantes de Bayliss-Gunzburger-Turkel d'ordre deux implémentées dans les codes commerciaux. La méthodologie proposée permet non seulement une réduction de la taille du domaine de calcul sans dégradation de la précision mais conduit également à la résolution de systèmes d'équations de taille relativement réduite

Approximation by multipoles of the multiple acoustic scattering by small obstacles and application to the Foldy theory of isotropic scattering.

50 (avec 1,5 interligne)International audienceThe asymptotic analysis, carried out in this paper, for the problem of a multiple scattering of a time-harmonic wave by obstacles whose size is small as compared with the wavelength establishes that the effect of the small bodies can be approximated at any order of accuracy by the field radiated by point sources. Among other issues, this asymptotic expansion of the wave furnishes a mathematical justification with optimal error estimates of Foldy's method that consists in approximating each small obstacle by a point isotropic scatterer. Finally, it is shown how this theory can be further improved by adequately locating the center of phase of the point scatterers and taking into account of self-interactions