196 research outputs found
How Topological Rearrangements and Liquid Fraction Control Liquid Foam Stability
International audienceThe stability of foam is investigated experimentally through coalescence events. Instability (coalescence) occurs when the system is submitted to external perturbations (T1) and when the liquid amount in the film network is below a critical value. Microscopically, transient thick films are observed during film rearrangements. Film rupture, with coalescence and eventual collapse of the foam, occurs when the available local liquid amount is too small for transient films to be formed. Similar experiments and results are shown in the two-bubble case
Venous thrombosis in immunocompetent patients with acute cytomegalovirus infection: a complication that may be underestimated
In the present study, we retrospectively studied clinical and laboratory findings associated with cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection in immunocompetent patients. We focused on severe CMV infection. Among 38 patients, five had a severe form of infection: one had meningitis, one had symptomatic thrombocytopenia and three had venous thromboses with pulmonary embolism, a rarely described complication. CMV-induced thrombosis has been reported in immunocompromised patients such as transplant recipients and patients with AIDS. Recent case reports have also described thrombotic phenomena in immunocompetent patients with CMV infection. Our study suggests that venous thrombosis during acute CMV infection is an underestimated complication
LUX -- A Laser-Plasma Driven Undulator Beamline
The LUX beamline is a novel type of laser-plasma accelerator. Building on the
joint expertise of the University of Hamburg and DESY the beamline was
carefully designed to combine state-of-the-art expertise in laser-plasma
acceleration with the latest advances in accelerator technology and beam
diagnostics. LUX introduces a paradigm change moving from single-shot
demonstration experiments towards available, stable and controllable
accelerator operation. Here, we discuss the general design concepts of LUX and
present first critical milestones that have recently been achieved, including
the generation of electron beams at the repetition rate of up to 5 Hz with
energies above 600 MeV and the generation of spontaneous undulator radiation at
a wavelength well below 9 nm.Comment: submitte
Chirp mitigation of plasma-accelerated beams using a modulated plasma density
Plasma-based accelerators offer the possibility to drive future compact light
sources and high-energy physics applications. Achieving good beam quality,
especially a small beam energy spread, is still one of the major challenges.
For stable transport, the beam is located in the focusing region of the
wakefield which covers only the slope of the accelerating field. This, however,
imprints a longitudinal energy correlation (chirp) along the bunch. Here, we
propose an alternating focusing scheme in the plasma to mitigate the
development of this chirp and thus maintain a small energy spread
The FLASHForward Facility at DESY
The FLASHForward project at DESY is a pioneering plasma-wakefield
acceleration experiment that aims to produce, in a few centimetres of ionised
hydrogen, beams with energy of order GeV that are of quality sufficient to be
used in a free-electron laser. The plasma wave will be driven by high-current
density electron beams from the FLASH linear accelerator and will explore both
external and internal witness-beam injection techniques. The plasma is created
by ionising a gas in a gas cell with a multi-TW laser system, which can also be
used to provide optical diagnostics of the plasma and electron beams due to the
<30 fs synchronisation between the laser and the driving electron beam. The
operation parameters of the experiment are discussed, as well as the scientific
program.Comment: 19 pages, 9 figure
Water-Window X-Ray Pulses from a Laser-Plasma Driven Undulator
Femtosecond (fs) x-ray pulses are a key tool to study the structure and dynamics of matter on its natural length and time scale. To complement radio-frequency accelerator-based large-scale facilities, novel laser-based mechanisms hold promise for compact laboratory-scale x-ray sources. Laser-plasma driven undulator radiation in particular offers high peak-brightness, optically synchronized few-fs pulses reaching into the few-nanometer (nm) regime. To date, however, few experiments have successfully demonstrated plasma-driven undulator radiation. Those that have, typically operated at single and comparably long wavelengths. Here we demonstrate plasma-driven undulator radiation with octave-spanning tuneability at discrete wavelengths reaching from 13nm to 4nm. Studying spontaneous undulator radiation is an important step towards a plasma-driven free-electron laser. Our specific setup creates a photon pulse, which closely resembles the plasma electron bunch length and charge profile and thus might enable novel methods to characterize the longitudinal electron phase space
A novel experimental approach for studying spontaneous imbibition processes with alkaline solutions
Spontaneous imbibition processes can play an important role in oil production. It can be enhanced or influenced by wettability changes generated by properly designed chemicals or by the natural surfactants resulting from reactive crude oils in the presence of alkaline solutions. The reaction of basic salts with some components of oil can, indeed, lead to the formation of natural soaps that reduces the interfacial tension between oil and brine. The latter scenario is studied herein on samples and oil from the St Ulrich oil field in the Vienna basin. To that end, spontaneous imbibition experiments were performed with two brines differing by the absence or presence of alkali. We first present a general novel technique to monitor saturation changes on small rock samples for the purpose of assessing the efficiency of a given recovery process. Samples of only 15 mm in diameter and 20 mm in length and set at irreducible saturation were fully immersed in the solution of interest, and the evolution of the samples’ saturation with time was monitored thanks to a dedicated NMR technique involving the quantification of the sole oil phase present within the sample. A fully-3D imbibition configuration was adopted, involving counter-current flows through all faces of the sample. The experimental method is fast for two reasons: (i) the kinetics of capillary imbibition process is proportional to the square of sample size, i.e. very rapid if accurate measurements can be acquired on tiny samples, (ii) the present 3D situation also involves faster kinetics than the 1D configuration often used. The NMR technique was crucial to achieve such conditions that cannot be satisfied with conventional volumetric methods. The kinetics of oil desaturation during spontaneous imbibition is interpreted with the help of an analytical 3D diffusion model. For the alkaline solution, the diffusion coefficient is reduced by a factor of only two compared to the non-alkaline brine, although the interfacial tension between the oil and the imbibing solution is reduced by a factor of 10. Hence, a wettability change to a more water wet state has to be assumed when the alkaline solution replaces the non-alkaline solution in the imbibition process. However, no significant impact on the final saturation was observed
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