2,024 research outputs found
Three flow regimes of viscous jet falling onto a moving surface
A stationary viscous jet falling from an oriented nozzle onto a moving
surface is studied, both theoretically and experimentally. We distinguish three
flow regimes and classify them by the convexity of the jet shape (concave,
vertical and convex). The fluid is modeled as a Newtonian fluid, and the model
for the flow includes viscous effects, inertia and gravity. By studying the
characteristics of the conservation of momentum for a dynamic jet, the boundary
conditions for each flow regime are derived, and the flow regimes are
characterized in terms of the process and material parameters. The model is
solved by a transformation into an algebraic equation. We make a comparison
between the model and experiments, and obtain qualitative agreement
Falling of a viscous jet onto a moving surface
We analyze the stationary flow of a jet of Newtonian fluid that is drawn by
gravity onto a moving surface. The situation is modeled by a third-order ODE on
a domain of unknown length and with an additional integral condition; by
solving part of the equation explicitly we can reformulate the problem as a
first-order ODE, again with an integral constraint. We show that there are two
flow regimes, and characterize the associated regions in the three-dimensional
parameter space in terms of an easily calculable quantity. In a qualitative
sense the results from the model are found to correspond with experimental
observations.Comment: 16 pages, 11 figure
Exact and Truncated Dynamics in Nonequilibrium Field Theory
Nonperturbative dynamics of quantum fields out of equilibrium is often
described by the time evolution of a hierarchy of correlation functions, using
approximation methods such as Hartree, large N, and nPI-effective action
techniques. These truncation schemes can be implemented equally well in a
classical statistical system, where results can be tested by comparison with
the complete nonlinear evolution obtained by numerical methods. For a 1+1
dimensional scalar field we find that the early-time behaviour is reproduced
qualitatively by the Hartree dynamics. The inclusion of direct scattering
improves this to the quantitative level. We show that the emergence of
nonthermal temperature profiles at intermediate times can be understood in
terms of the fixed points of the evolution equations in the Hartree
approximation. The form of the profile depends explicitly on the initial
ensemble. While the truncated evolution equations do not seem to be able to get
away from the fixed point, the full nonlinear evolution shows thermalization
with a (surprisingly) slow relaxation.Comment: 30 pages with 12 eps figures, minor changes; to appear in Phys.Rev.
Optimality Theory as a Framework for Lexical Acquisition
This paper re-investigates a lexical acquisition system initially developed
for French.We show that, interestingly, the architecture of the system
reproduces and implements the main components of Optimality Theory. However, we
formulate the hypothesis that some of its limitations are mainly due to a poor
representation of the constraints used. Finally, we show how a better
representation of the constraints used would yield better results
Charmonium spectral functions in Nf=2 QCD
We report on a study of charmonium at high temperature in 2-flavour QCD. This
is the first such study with dynamical fermions. Using an improved anisotropic
lattice action, spectral functions are extracted from correlators in the vector
and pseudoscalar channels. No signs of medium-induced suppression of the ground
states are seen for temperatures up to 1.5T_c, while at T~2T_c there are clear
signs of modifications. The current systematic and statistical uncertainties in
our data, in particular the relatively coarse lattice and small volume, do not
allow us to draw a firm conclusion at this stage.Comment: 6 pages, talk by JIS at Lattice 2005 (Non-zero temperature and
density
Health Considerations Regarding Horizontal Transfer of Microbial Transgenes Present in Genetically Modified Crops
The potential effects of horizontal gene transfer on human health are an important item in the safety assessment of genetically modified organisms. Horizontal gene transfer from genetically modified crops to gut microflora most likely occurs with transgenes of microbial origin. The characteristics of microbial transgenes other than antibiotic-resistance genes in market-approved genetically modified crops are reviewed. These characteristics include the microbial source, natural function, function in genetically modified crops, natural prevalence, geographical distribution, similarity to other microbial genes, known horizontal transfer activity, selective conditions and environments for horizontally transferred genes, and potential contribution to pathogenicity and virulence in humans and animals. The assessment of this set of data for each of the microbial genes reviewed does not give rise to health concerns. We recommend including the above-mentioned items into the premarket safety assessment of genetically modified crops carrying transgenes other than those reviewed in the present study
The approach to thermalization in the classical phi^4 theory in 1+1 dimensions: energy cascades and universal scaling
We study the dynamics of thermalization and the approach to equilibrium in
the classical phi^4 theory in 1+1 spacetime dimensions. At thermal equilibrium
we exploit the equivalence between the classical canonical averages and
transfer matrix quantum traces of the anharmonic oscillator to obtain exact
results for the temperature dependence of several observables, which provide a
set of criteria for thermalization. We find that the Hartree approximation is
remarkably accurate in equilibrium. The non-equilibrium dynamics is studied by
numerically solving the equations of motion in light-cone coordinates for a
broad range of initial conditions and energy densities.The time evolution is
described by several stages with a cascade of energy towards the ultraviolet.
After a transient stage, the spatio-temporal gradient terms become larger than
the nonlinear term and a stage of universal cascade emerges.This cascade starts
at a time scale t_0 independent of the initial conditions (except for very low
energy density). Here the power spectra feature universal scaling behavior and
the front of the cascade k(t) grows as a power law k(t) sim t^alpha with alpha
lesssim 0.25. The wake behind the cascade is described as a state of Local
Thermodynamic Equilibrium (LTE) with all correlations being determined by the
equilibrium functional form with an effective time dependent temperatureTeff(t)
which slowly decreases as sim t^{-alpha}.Two well separated time scales emerge
while Teff(t) varies slowly, the wavectors in the wake with k < k(t) attain LTE
on much shorter time scales.This universal scaling stage ends when the front of
the cascade reaches the cutoff at a time t_1 sim a^{-1/alpha}. Virialization
starts to set much earlier than LTE. We find that strict thermalization is
achieved only for an infinite time scale.Comment: relevance for quantum field theory discussed providing validity
criteria. To appear in Phys. Rev.
Proximity effects in the superconductor / heavy fermion bilayer system Nb / CeCu_6
We have investigated the proximity effect between a superconductor (Nb) and a
'Heavy Fermion' system (CeCu_6) by measuring critical temperatures and
parallel critical fields H_{c2}^{\parallel}(T) of Nb films with varying
thickness deposited on 75 nm thick films of CeCu_6, and comparing the results
with the behavior of similar films deposited on the normal metal Cu. For Nb on
CeCu_6 we find a strong decrease of T_c with decreasing Nb thickness and a
finite critical thickness of the order of 10 nm. Also, dimensional crossovers
in H_{c2}^{\parallel}(T) are completely absent, in strong contrast with Nb/Cu.
Analysis of the data by a proximity effect model based on the Takahashi-Tachiki
theory shows that the data can be explained by taking into account both the
high effective mass (or low electronic diffusion constant), {\it and} the large
density of states at the Fermi energy which characterize the Heavy Fermion
metal.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figure. Manuscript has been submitted to a refereed
journa
Bubbles and Filaments: Stirring a Cahn-Hilliard Fluid
The advective Cahn-Hilliard equation describes the competing processes of
stirring and separation in a two-phase fluid. Intuition suggests that bubbles
will form on a certain scale, and previous studies of Cahn-Hilliard dynamics
seem to suggest the presence of one dominant length scale. However, the
Cahn-Hilliard phase-separation mechanism contains a hyperdiffusion term and we
show that, by stirring the mixture at a sufficiently large amplitude, we excite
the diffusion and overwhelm the segregation to create a homogeneous liquid. At
intermediate amplitudes we see regions of bubbles coexisting with regions of
hyperdiffusive filaments. Thus, the problem possesses two dominant length
scales, associated with the bubbles and filaments. For simplicity, we use use a
chaotic flow that mimics turbulent stirring at large Prandtl number. We compare
our results with the case of variable mobility, in which growth of bubble size
is dominated by interfacial rather than bulk effects, and find qualitatively
similar results.Comment: 20 pages, 27 figures. RevTeX
The inexorable resistance of inertia determines the initial regime of drop coalescence
Drop coalescence is central to diverse processes involving dispersions of
drops in industrial, engineering and scientific realms. During coalescence, two
drops first touch and then merge as the liquid neck connecting them grows from
initially microscopic scales to a size comparable to the drop diameters. The
curvature of the interface is infinite at the point where the drops first make
contact, and the flows that ensue as the two drops coalesce are intimately
coupled to this singularity in the dynamics. Conventionally, this process has
been thought to have just two dynamical regimes: a viscous and an inertial
regime with a crossover region between them. We use experiments and simulations
to reveal that a third regime, one that describes the initial dynamics of
coalescence for all drop viscosities, has been missed. An argument based on
force balance allows the construction of a new coalescence phase diagram
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