Phase transitions of quasistationary states in the Hamiltonian Mean Field model

The out-of-equilibrium dynamics of the Hamiltonian Mean Field (HMF) model is studied in presence of an externally imposed magnetic field h. Lynden-Bell's theory of violent relaxation is revisited and shown to adequately capture the system dynamics, as revealed by direct Vlasov based numerical simulations in the limit of vanishing field. This includes the existence of an out-of-equilibrium phase transition separating magnetized and non magnetized phases. We also monitor the fluctuations in time of the magnetization, which allows us to elaborate on the choice of the correct order parameter when challenging the performance of Lynden-Bell's theory. The presence of the field h removes the phase transition, as it happens at equilibrium. Moreover, regions with negative susceptibility are numerically found to occur, in agreement with the predictions of the theory.Comment: 6 pages, 7 figure

A dynamical classification of the range of pair interactions

We formalize a classification of pair interactions based on the convergence properties of the {\it forces} acting on particles as a function of system size. We do so by considering the behavior of the probability distribution function (PDF) P(F) of the force field F in a particle distribution in the limit that the size of the system is taken to infinity at constant particle density, i.e., in the "usual" thermodynamic limit. For a pair interaction potential V(r) with V(r) \rightarrow \infty) \sim 1/r^a defining a {\it bounded} pair force, we show that P(F) converges continuously to a well-defined and rapidly decreasing PDF if and only if the {\it pair force} is absolutely integrable, i.e., for a > d-1, where d is the spatial dimension. We refer to this case as {\it dynamically short-range}, because the dominant contribution to the force on a typical particle in this limit arises from particles in a finite neighborhood around it. For the {\it dynamically long-range} case, i.e., a \leq d-1, on the other hand, the dominant contribution to the force comes from the mean field due to the bulk, which becomes undefined in this limit. We discuss also how, for a \leq d-1 (and notably, for the case of gravity, a=d-2) P(F) may, in some cases, be defined in a weaker sense. This involves a regularization of the force summation which is generalization of the procedure employed to define gravitational forces in an infinite static homogeneous universe. We explain that the relevant classification in this context is, however, that which divides pair forces with a > d-2 (or a < d-2), for which the PDF of the {\it difference in forces} is defined (or not defined) in the infinite system limit, without any regularization. In the former case dynamics can, as for the (marginal) case of gravity, be defined consistently in an infinite uniform system.Comment: 12 pages, 1 figure; significantly shortened and focussed, additional references, version to appear in J. Stat. Phy

Fine structure splittings of excited P and D states in charmonium

It is shown that the fine structure splittings of the $2 ^3P_J$ and $3 ^3P_J$ excited states in charmonium are as large as those of the $1^3P_J$ state if the same $\alpha_s(\mu)\approx 0.36$ is used. The predicted mass $M(2 ^3P_0)=3.84$ GeV appears to be 120 MeV lower that the center of gravity of the $2 ^3P_J$ multiplet and lies below the $D\bar D^*$ threshold. Our value of $M(2 ^3P_0)$ is approximately 80 MeV lower than that from the paper by Godfrey and Isgur while the differences in the other masses are \la 20 MeV. Relativistic kinematics plays an important role in our analysis.Comment: 12 page

Protective effect and economic impact of insecticide application methods on barley.

Avalia o efeito protetor de diferentes formas de aplicação de inseticida sobre a transmissão do nanismo amarelo em cultivares de cevada, bem como determina os custos de produção e o lucro líquido destes manejos. Os experimentos foram realizados durante as safras 2011 e 2012, tendo-se utilizado os seguintes manejos nas parcelas principais: T1, tratamento de sementes com inseticida (TS) + inseticida na parte aérea aplicado quinzenalmente; T2, apenas TS; T3, inseticida aplicado à parte aérea, quando foi atingido o nível de controle de afídeos (NC); T4, sem inseticida; e T5, TS + inseticida na parte aérea, quando o NC foi atingido. As subparcelas foram constituídas de diferentes cultivares de cevada: BRS Cauê, BRS Brau e MN 6021. Foram utilizados os inseticidas lambda&#8209;cialotrina (piretroide) e thiametoxam (neonicotinoide). Houve diferenças no índice de doença do nanismo amarelo em ambas as safras para os diferentes manejos, enquanto o dano ao rendimento de grãos foi influenciado pelo ano e pela população de afídeos. Os custos de produção e lucro líquido diferiram entre os tratamentos. Constatou-se que o tratamento de sementes com inseticida é suficiente para reduzir a epidemia do nanismo&#8209;amarelo em anos com baixa pressão populacional de afídeos; porém, em anos com maiores populações, a aplicação de inseticida à parte aérea também se torna necessária

Equilibrium and nonequilibrium properties of systems with long-range interactions

We briefly review some equilibrium and nonequilibrium properties of systems with long-range interactions. Such systems, which are characterized by a potential that weakly decays at large distances, have striking properties at equilibrium, like negative specific heat in the microcanonical ensemble, temperature jumps at first order phase transitions, broken ergodicity. Here, we mainly restrict our analysis to mean-field models, where particles globally interact with the same strength. We show that relaxation to equilibrium proceeds through quasi-stationary states whose duration increases with system size. We propose a theoretical explanation, based on Lynden-Bell's entropy, of this intriguing relaxation process. This allows to address problems related to nonequilibrium using an extension of standard equilibrium statistical mechanics. We discuss in some detail the example of the dynamics of the free electron laser, where the existence and features of quasi-stationary states is likely to be tested experimentally in the future. We conclude with some perspectives to study open problems and to find applications of these ideas to dipolar media.Comment: 8 pages, 14 figures, Procs. of STATPHYS23, to be published on EPJ

Study of a zirconium getter for purification of xenon gas

Oxygen, nitrogen and methane purification efficiencies for a common zirconium getter are measured in 1050 Torr of xenon gas. Starting with impurity concentrations near 10^{-6} g/g, the outlet impurity level is found to be less than 120*10^{-12} g/g for O2 and less than 950*10^{-12} g/g for N2. For methane we find residual contamination of the purified gas at concentrations varying over three orders of magnitude, depending on the purifier temperature and the gas flow rate. A slight reduction in the purifier's methane efficiency is observed after 13 mg of this impurity has been absorbed, which we attribute to partial exhaustion of the purifier's capacity for this species. We also find that the purifier's ability to absorb N2 and methane can be extinguished long before any decrease in O2 performance is observed, and slower flow rates should be employed for xenon purification due to the cooling effect that the heavy gas has on the getter.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figure

Nonperturbative hyperfine contribution to the b1b_1 and h1h_1 meson masses

Due to the nonperturbative contribution to the hyperfine splitting the mass of the $n^1P_1$ state is strongly correlated with the center of gravity $M_{\rm cog}(n^3P_J)$ of the $n^3P_J$ multiplet: $M(n^1P_1)$ is less than $M_{\rm cog}(n^3P_J)$ by about 40 MeV (20 MeV) for the 1P (2P) state. For $b_1(1235)$ the agreement with experiment is reached only if $a_0(980)$ belongs to the $1^3P_J$ multiplet. The predicted mass of $b_1(2^1P_1)$ is $\approx 1620$ MeV. For the isoscalar meson a correlation between the mass of $h_1$(1170) $(h_1(1380))$ and $M_{cog}(1^3P_J)$ composed from light (strange) quarks also takes place.Comment: 22 pages RevTe

Quarkonium Suppression

I discuss quarkonium suppression in equilibriated strongly interacting matter. After a brief review of basic features of quarkonium production I discuss the application of recent lattice data on the heavy quark potential to the problem of quarkonium dissociation as well as the problem of direct lattice determination of quarkonium properties in finite temperature lattice QCD.Comment: Invited plenary talk presented on 4th International Conference on Physics and Astrophysics of Quark Gluon Plasma (ICPAQGP-2001), November 26-30, 2001, Jaipur; 12 pp, LaTeX, uses pramana.st