Resonant relaxation in protoplanetary disks

Resonant relaxation is a novel form of two-body relaxation that arises in nearly Keplerian disks such as protoplanetary disks. Resonant relaxation does not affect the semimajor axes of the particles, but enhances relaxation of particle eccentricities and inclinations. The equilibrium state after resonant relaxation is a Rayleigh distribution, with the mean-square eccentricity and inclination inversely proportional to mass. The rate of resonant relaxation depends strongly on the precession rate of the disk. If the precession due to the disk's self-gravity is small compared to the total precession, then the relaxation is concentrated near the secular resonance between each pair of interacting bodies; on the other hand if the precession rate is dominated by the disk's self-gravity then relaxation occurs through coupling to the large-scale low-frequency m=1 normal modes of the disk. Depending on the disk properties, resonant relaxation may be either stronger or weaker than the usual non-resonant relaxation.Comment: 19 pages, 1 figure, LaTeX, submitted to A

How does the relaxation of a supercooled liquid depend on its microscopic dynamics?

Using molecular dynamics computer simulations we investigate how the relaxation dynamics of a simple supercooled liquid with Newtonian dynamics differs from the one with a stochastic dynamics. We find that, apart from the early beta-relaxation regime, the two dynamics give rise to the same relaxation behavior. The increase of the relaxation times of the system upon cooling, the details of the alpha-relaxation, as well as the wave vector dependence of the Edwards-Anderson-parameters are independent of the microscopic dynamics.Comment: 6 pages of Latex, 4 figure

An analytical Model which Determines the Apparent T1 for Modified Look-Locker Inversion Recovery (MOLLI) -- Analysis of the Longitudinal Relaxation under the Influence of Discontinuous Balanced and Spoiled Gradient Echo Readouts

Quantitative nuclear magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) shifts more and more into the focus of clinical research. Especially determination of relaxation times without/and with contrast agents becomes the foundation of tissue characterization, e.g. in cardiac MRI for myocardial fibrosis. Techniques which assess longitudinal relaxation times rely on repetitive application of readout modules, which are interrupted by free relaxation periods, e.g. the Modified Look-Locker Inversion Recovery = MOLLI sequence. These discontinuous sequences reveal an apparent relaxation time, and, by techniques extrapolated from continuous readout sequences, the real T1 is determined. What is missing is a rigorous analysis of the dependence of the apparent relaxation time on its real partner, readout sequence parameters and biological parameters as heart rate. This is provided in this paper for the discontinuous balanced steady state free precession (bSSFP) and spoiled gradient echo readouts. It turns out that the apparente longitudinal relaxation rate is the time average of the relaxation rates during the readout module, and free relaxation period. Knowing the heart rate our results vice versa allow to determine the real T1 from its measured apparent partner.Comment: 1 Figur

Short-time β\beta-relaxation in glass-forming liquids is cooperative in nature

Temporal relaxation of density fluctuations in supercooled liquids near the glass transition occurs in multiple steps. The short-time $\beta$-relaxation is generally attributed to spatially local processes involving the rattling motion of a particle in the transient cage formed by its neighbors. Using molecular dynamics simulations for three model glass-forming liquids, we show that the $\beta$-relaxation is actually cooperative in nature. Using finite-size scaling analysis, we extract a growing length-scale associated with $\beta$-relaxation from the observed dependence of the $\beta$-relaxation time on the system size. Remarkably, the temperature dependence of this length scale is found to be the same as that of the length scale that describes the spatial heterogeneity of local dynamics in the long-time $\alpha$-relaxation regime. These results show that the conventional interpretation of $\beta$-relaxation as a local process is too simplified and provide a clear connection between short-time dynamics and long-time structural relaxation in glass-forming liquids

A tree search approach for the solution of set problems using alternative relaxations

A number of alternative relaxations for the family of set problems (FSP) in general and set covering problems (SCP) in particular are introduced and discussed. These are (i) Network flow relaxation, (ii) Assignment relaxation, (iii) Shortest route relaxation, (iv) Minimum spanning tree relaxation. A unified tree search method is developed which makes use of these relaxations. Computational experience of processing a collection of test problems is reported