4,405 research outputs found
From solid solution to cluster formation of Fe and Cr in -Zr
To understand the mechanisms by which Fe and Cr additions increase the
corrosion rate of irradiated Zr alloys, a combination of experimental (atom
probe tomography, x-ray diffraction and thermoelectric power measurements) and
modelling (density functional theory) techniques are employed to investigate
the non-equilibrium solubility and clustering of Fe and Cr in binary Zr alloys.
Cr occupies both interstitial and substitutional sites in the {\alpha}-Zr
lattice, Fe favours interstitial sites, and a low-symmetry site that was not
previously modelled is found to be the most favourable for Fe. Lattice
expansion as a function of alloying concentration (in the dilute regime) is
strongly anisotropic for Fe additions, expanding the -axis while contracting
the -axis. Defect clusters are observed at higher solution concentrations,
which induce a smaller amount of lattice strain compared to the dilute defects.
In the presence of a Zr vacancy, all two-atom clusters are more soluble than
individual point defects and as many as four Fe or three Cr atoms could be
accommodated in a single Zr vacancy. The Zr vacancy is critical for the
increased solubility of defect clusters, the implications for irradiation
induced microstructure changes in Zr alloys are discussed.Comment: 15 pages including figure, 9 figures, 2 tables. Submitted for
publication in Acta Mater, Journal of Nuclear Materials (2015
Causal Space-Times on a Null Lattice
I investigate a discrete model of quantum gravity on a causal null-lattice
with \SLC structure group. The description is geometric and foliates in a
causal and physically transparent manner. The general observables of this model
are constructed from local Lorentz symmetry considerations only. For smooth
configurations, the local lattice actions reduce to the Hilbert-Palatini
action, a cosmological term and the three topological terms of dimension four
of Pontyagin, Euler and Nieh-Yan. Consistency conditions for a topologically
hypercubic complex with null 4-simplexes are derived and a topological lattice
theory that enforces these non-local constraints is constructed. The lattice
integration measure is derived from an \SLC-invariant integration measure by
localization of the non-local structure group. This measure is unique up to a
density that depends on the local 4-volume. It can be expressed in terms of
manifestly coordinate invariant geometrical quantities. The density provides an
invariant regularization of the lattice integration measure that suppresses
configurations with small local 4-volumes. Amplitudes conditioned on geodesic
distances between local observables have a physical interpretation and may have
a smooth ultraviolet limit. Numerical studies on small lattices in the
unphysical strong coupling regime of large imaginary cosmological constant
suggest that this model of triangulated causal manifolds is finite. Two
topologically different triangulations of space-time are discussed: a single,
causally connected universe and a duoverse with two causally disjoint connected
components. In the duoverse, two hypercubic sublattices are causally disjoint
but the local curvature depends on fields of both sublattices. This may
simulate effects of dark matter in the continuum limit.Comment: Greatly improved version, new numerics, appendices, etc.. 42 pages,
14 figure
Lattice methods for strongly interacting many-body systems
Lattice field theory methods, usually associated with non-perturbative
studies of quantum chromodynamics, are becoming increasingly common in the
calculation of ground-state and thermal properties of strongly interacting
non-relativistic few- and many-body systems, blurring the interfaces between
condensed matter, atomic and low-energy nuclear physics. While some of these
techniques have been in use in the area of condensed matter physics for a long
time, others, such as hybrid Monte Carlo and improved effective actions, have
only recently found their way across areas. With this topical review, we aim to
provide a modest overview and a status update on a few notable recent
developments. For the sake of brevity we focus on zero-temperature,
non-relativistic problems. After a short introduction, we lay out some general
considerations and proceed to discuss sampling algorithms, observables, and
systematic effects. We show selected results on ground- and excited-state
properties of fermions in the limit of unitarity. The appendix contains details
on group theory on the lattice.Comment: 64 pages, 32 figures; topical review for J. Phys. G; replaced with
published versio
Ab initio parametrised model of strain-dependent solubility of H in alpha-iron
The calculated effects of interstitial hydrogen on the elastic properties of
alpha-iron from our earlier work are used to describe the H interactions with
homogeneous strain fields using ab initio methods. In particular we calculate
the H solublility in Fe subject to hydrostatic, uniaxial, and shear strain. For
comparison, these interactions are parametrised successfully using a simple
model with parameters entirely derived from ab initio methods. The results are
used to predict the solubility of H in spatially-varying elastic strain fields,
representative of realistic dislocations outside their core. We find a strong
directional dependence of the H-dislocation interaction, leading to strong
attraction of H by the axial strain components of edge dislocations and by
screw dislocations oriented along the critical slip direction. We
further find a H concentration enhancement around dislocation cores, consistent
with experimental observations.Comment: part 2/2 from splitting of 1009.3784 (first part was 1102.0187),
minor changes from previous version
S and D-wave phase shifts in isospin-2 pi pi scattering from lattice QCD
The isospin-2 pi pi system provides a useful testing ground for determining
elastic hadron scattering parameters from finite-volume spectra obtained using
lattice QCD computations. A reliable determination of the excited state
spectrum of two pions in a cubic box follows from variational analysis of
correlator matrices constructed using a large basis of operators. A general
operator construction is presented which respects the symmetries of a
multi-hadron system in flight. This is applied to the case of pi pi and allows
for the determination of the scattering phase-shifts at a large number of
kinematic points, in both S-wave and D-wave, within the elastic region. The
technique is demonstrated with a calculation at a pion mass of 396 MeV, where
the elastic scattering is found to be well described by a scattering length
parameterisation.Comment: Tables of little-group CGCs in ancillary file; v2: minor changes to
reflect published versio
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