12,860 research outputs found
Maximum power, ecological function and efficiency of an irreversible Carnot cycle. A cost and effectiveness optimization
In this work we include, for the Carnot cycle, irreversibilities of linear
finite rate of heat transferences between the heat engine and its reservoirs,
heat leak between the reservoirs and internal dissipations of the working
fluid. A first optimization of the power output, the efficiency and ecological
function of an irreversible Carnot cycle, with respect to: internal temperature
ratio, time ratio for the heat exchange and the allocation ratio of the heat
exchangers; is performed. For the second and third optimizations, the optimum
values for the time ratio and internal temperature ratio are substituted into
the equation of power and, then, the optimizations with respect to the cost and
effectiveness ratio of the heat exchangers are performed. Finally, a criterion
of partial optimization for the class of irreversible Carnot engines is herein
presented.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figures. Submitted to Energy Convers. Manag
Control of dissipation in superconducting films by magnetic stray fields
Hybrid superconducting/magnetic nanostructures on Si substrates have been
built with identical physical dimensions but different magnetic configurations.
By constructing arrays based on Co-dots with in-plane, out-of-plane, and vortex
state magnetic configurations, the stray fields are systematically tuned.
Dissipation in the mixed state of superconductors can be decreased (increased)
by several orders of magnitude by decreasing (increasing) the stray magnetic
fields. Furthermore, ordering of the stray fields over the entire array helps
to suppress dissipation and enhance commensurability effects increasing the
number of dissipation minima.Comment: 16 pages including 4 figures; accepted in Applied Physics Letter
STIM map: detection map for exoplanets imaging beyond asymptotic Gaussian residual speckle noise
Direct imaging of exoplanets is a challenging task as it requires to reach a
high contrast at very close separation to the star. Today, the main limitation
in the high-contrast images is the quasi-static speckles that are created by
residual instrumental aberrations. They have the same angular size as planetary
companions and are often brighter, hence hindering our capability to detect
exoplanets. Dedicated observation strategies and signal processing techniques
are necessary to disentangle these speckles from planetary signals. The output
of these methods is a detection map in which the value of each pixel is related
to a probability of presence of a planetary signal. The detection map found in
the literature relies on the assumption that the residual noise is Gaussian.
However, this is known to lead to higher false positive rates, especially close
to the star. In this paper, we re-visit the notion of detection map by
analyzing the speckle noise distribution, namely the Modified Rician
distribution. We use non-asymptotic analysis of the sum of random variables to
show that the tail of the distribution of the residual noise decays as an
exponential distribution, hence explaining the high false detection rate
obtained with the Gaussian assumption. From this analysis, we introduce a novel
time domain detection map and we demonstrate its capabilities and the relevance
of our approach through experiments on real data. We also provide an empirical
rule to determine detection threshold providing a good trade off between true
positive and false positive rates for exoplanet detection
Effective penetration length and interstitial vortex pinning in superconducting films with regular arrays of defects
In order to compare magnetic and non-magnetic pinning we have nanostructured
two superconducting films with regular arrays of pinning centers: Cu
(non-magnetic) dots in one case, and Py (magnetic) dots in the other. For low
applied magnetic fields, when all the vortices are pinned in the artificial
inclusions, magnetic dots prove to be better pinning centers, as has been
generally accepted. Unexpectedly, when the magnetic field is increased and
interstitial vortices appear, the results are very different: we show how the
stray field generated by the magnetic dots can produce an effective reduction
of the penetration length. This results in strong consequences in the transport
properties, which, depending on the dot separation, can lead to an enhancement
or worsening of the transport characteristics. Therefore, the election of the
magnetic or non-magnetic character of the pinning sites for an effective
reduction of dissipation will depend on the range of the applied magnetic
field.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figure
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