30,179 research outputs found
Modeling relaxation and jamming in granular media
We introduce a stochastic microscopic model to investigate the jamming and
reorganization of grains induced by an object moving through a granular medium.
The model reproduces the experimentally observed periodic sawtooth fluctuations
in the jamming force and predicts the period and the power spectrum in terms of
the controllable physical parameters. It also predicts that the avalanche
sizes, defined as the number of displaced grains during a single advance of the
object, follow a power-law, , where the exponent is
independent of the physical parameters
Lattice Gas Dynamics; Application to Driven Vortices in Two Dimensional Superconductors
A continuous time Monte Carlo lattice gas dynamics is developed to model
driven steady states of vortices in two dimensional superconducting networks.
Dramatic differences are found when compared to a simpler Metropolis dynamics.
Subtle finite size effects are found at low temperature, with a moving smectic
that becomes unstable to an anisotropic liquid on sufficiently large length
scales.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
Robust self-trapping of vortex beams in a saturable optical medium
We report the first observation of robust self-trapping of vortex beams
propagating in a uniform condensed medium featuring local saturable
self-focusing nonlinearity. Optical vortices with topological charge m=1, that
remain self-trapped over ~ 5 Rayleigh lengths, are excited in carbon disulfide
using a helical light beam at 532 nm and intensities from 8 to 10 GW/cm^2. At
larger intensities, the vortex beams lose their stability, spontaneously
breaking into two fragments. Numerical simulations based on the nonlinear
Schr\"odinger equation including the three-photon absorption and nonpolynomial
saturation of the refractive nonlinearity demonstrate close agreement with the
experimental findings.Comment: 27 pages, 7 figures,to be published in Phys. Rev. A (2016
Recommendations to the formulation of EU regulation 2092/91 on livestock production
Within the SAFO network, the workpackage on standard development has focussed on the topic, on how and to what degree the EU-Regulations con-tribute to the objective of a high status of anima health and food safety in organic livestock production. Results and conclusions from the discussions at 5 SAFO workshops are presented
Multimode optomechanical system in the quantum regime
We realise a simple and robust optomechanical system with a multitude of
long-lived () mechanical modes in a phononic-bandgap shielded membrane
resonator. An optical mode of a compact Fabry-Perot resonator detects these
modes' motion with a measurement rate () that exceeds the
mechanical decoherence rates already at moderate cryogenic temperatures
(). Reaching this quantum regime entails, i.~a., quantum
measurement backaction exceeding thermal forces, and thus detectable
optomechanical quantum correlations. In particular, we observe ponderomotive
squeezing of the output light mediated by a multitude of mechanical resonator
modes, with quantum noise suppression up to -2.4 dB (-3.6 dB if corrected for
detection losses) and bandwidths . The multi-mode
nature of the employed membrane and Fabry-Perot resonators lends itself to
hybrid entanglement schemes involving multiple electromagnetic, mechanical, and
spin degrees of freedom.Comment: 19 pages, 9 figure
Closed Brayton Cycle power system with a high temperature pellet bed reactor heat source for NEP applications
Capitalizing on past and future development of high temperature gas reactor (HTGR) technology, a low mass 15 MWe closed gas turbine cycle power system using a pellet bed reactor heating helium working fluid is proposed for Nuclear Electric Propulsion (NEP) applications. Although the design of this directly coupled system architecture, comprising the reactor/power system/space radiator subsystems, is presented in conceptual form, sufficient detail is included to permit an assessment of overall system performance and mass. Furthermore, an attempt is made to show how tailoring of the main subsystem design characteristics can be utilized to achieve synergistic system level advantages that can lead to improved reliability and enhanced system life while reducing the number of parasitic load driven peripheral subsystems
Topology of evolving networks: local events and universality
Networks grow and evolve by local events, such as the addition of new nodes
and links, or rewiring of links from one node to another. We show that
depending on the frequency of these processes two topologically different
networks can emerge, the connectivity distribution following either a
generalized power-law or an exponential. We propose a continuum theory that
predicts these two regimes as well as the scaling function and the exponents,
in good agreement with the numerical results. Finally, we use the obtained
predictions to fit the connectivity distribution of the network describing the
professional links between movie actors.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figure
Giant strongly connected component of directed networks
We describe how to calculate the sizes of all giant connected components of a
directed graph, including the {\em strongly} connected one. Just to the class
of directed networks, in particular, belongs the World Wide Web. The results
are obtained for graphs with statistically uncorrelated vertices and an
arbitrary joint in,out-degree distribution . We show that if
does not factorize, the relative size of the giant strongly
connected component deviates from the product of the relative sizes of the
giant in- and out-components. The calculations of the relative sizes of all the
giant components are demonstrated using the simplest examples. We explain that
the giant strongly connected component may be less resilient to random damage
than the giant weakly connected one.Comment: 4 pages revtex, 4 figure
XMM-Newton observations of the spiral galaxy M74 (NGC 628)
The face-on spiral galaxy M74 (NGC 628) was observed by XMM on 2002 February
2. In total, 21 sources are found in the inner 5' from the nucleus (after
rejection of a few sources associated to foreground stars). Hardness ratios
suggest that about half of them belong to the galaxy. The higher-luminosity end
of the luminosity function is fitted by a power-law of slope -0.8. This can be
interpreted as evidence of ongoing star formation, in analogy with the
distributions found in disks of other late-type galaxies. A comparison with
previous Chandra observations reveals a new ultraluminous X-ray transient (L_x
\~ 1.5 x 10^39 erg/s in the 0.3--8 keV band) about 4' North of the nucleus. We
find another transient black-hole candidate (L_x ~ 5 x 10^38 erg/s) about 5'
North-West of the nucleus. The UV and X-ray counterparts of SN 2002ap are also
found in this XMM observation.Comment: submitted to ApJL. Based on publicly available data, see
http://xmm.vilspa.esa.es/external/xmm_news/items/sn_2002_ap/index.shtm
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