Diagnostic techniques in deflagration and detonation studies

Advances in experimental, high-speed techniques can be used to explore the processes occurring within energetic materials. This review describes techniques used to study a wide range of processes: hot-spot formation, ignition thresholds, deflagration, sensitivity and finally the detonation process. As this is a wide field the focus will be on small-scale experiments and quantitative studies. It is important that such studies are linked to predictive models, which inform the experimental design process. The stimuli range includes, thermal ignition, drop-weight, Hopkinson Bar and Plate Impact studies. Studies made with inert simulants are also included as these are important in differentiating between reactive response and purely mechanical behaviour

Spectroscopic Interpretation: The High Vibrations of CDBrClF

We extract the dynamics implicit in an algebraic fitted model Hamiltonian for the deuterium chromophore's vibrational motion in the molecule CDBrClF. The original model has 4 degrees of freedom, three positions and one representing interbond couplings. A conserved polyad allows in a semiclassical approach the reduction to 3 degrees of freedom. For most quantum states we can identify the underlying motion that when quantized gives the said state. Most of the classifications, identifications and assignments are done by visual inspection of the already available wave function semiclassically transformed from the number representation to a representation on the reduced dimension toroidal configuration space corresponding to the classical action and angle variables. The concentration of the wave function density to lower dimensional subsets centered on idealized simple lower dimensional organizing structures and the behavior of the phase along such organizing centers already reveals the atomic motion. Extremely little computational work is needed.Comment: 23 pages, 6 figures. Accepted for publication in J. Chem. Phy

Quartic oscillator potential in the {\gamma}-rigid regime of the collective geometrical model

A prolate $\gamma$-rigid version of the Bohr-Mottelson Hamiltonian with a quartic anharmonic oscillator potential in $\beta$ collective shape variable is used to describe the spectra for a variety of vibrational-like nuclei. Speculating the exact separation between the two Euler angles and the $\beta$ variable, one arrives to a differential Schr\"{o}dinger equation with a quartic anharmonic oscillator potential and a centrifugal-like barrier. The corresponding eigenvalue is approximated by an analytical formula depending only on a single parameter up to an overall scaling factor. The applicability of the model is discussed in connection to the existence interval of the free parameter which is limited by the accuracy of the approximation and by comparison to the predictions of the related $X(3)$ and $X(3)$-$\beta^{2}$ models. The model is applied to qualitatively describe the spectra for nine nuclei which exhibit near vibrational features.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures, 1 tabl

Adaptive Strain-Boost Hyperdynamics Simulations of Stress-Driven Atomic Processes

The deformation and failure phenomena of materials are the results of stress-driven, thermally activated processes at the atomic scale. Molecular-dynamics (MD) simulations can only span a very limited time range which hinders one from gaining full view of the deformation physics. Inspired by the Eshelby transformation formalism, we present here a transformation “strain-boost” method for accelerating atomistic simulations, which is often more efficient and robust than the bond-boost hyperdynamics method [R. A. Miron and K. A. Fichthorn, J. Chem. Phys. 119, 6210 (2003)] for exploring collective stress-driven processes such as dislocation nucleation, that have characteristic activation volumes larger than one atomic volume. By introducing an adaptive algorithm that safely maximizes the boost factor, we directly access the finite-temperature dynamical process of dislocation nucleation in compressed Cu nanopillar over time scale comparable to laboratory experiments. Our method provides stress- and temperature-dependent activation enthalpy, activation entropy and activation volume for surface-dislocation nucleation with no human guidance about crystallography or deformation physics. Remarkably, the accelerated MD results indicate that harmonic transition-state theory and the empirical Meyer-Neldel compensation rule give reasonable approximations of the dislocation nucleation rate

Gauge theory in dimension 77

We first review the notion of a $G_2$-manifold, defined in terms of a principal $G_2$ ("gauge") bundle over a $7$-dimensional manifold, before discussing their relation to supergravity. In a second thread, we focus on associative submanifolds and present their deformation theory. In particular, we elaborate on a deformation problem with coassociative boundary condition. Its space of infinitesimal deformations can be identified with the solution space of an elliptic equation whose index is given by a topological formula.Comment: 15 page