Results from the NEMO 3 experiment

The aim of the NEMO 3 experiment is the search for neutrinoless double beta decay and precise measurement of two-neutrino double beta decay of several isotopes. The experiment has been taking data since 2003. Since no evidence for neutrinoless double beta decay of Mo100 and Se82 has been found, a 90% C.L. lower limit on the half-life of this process and corresponding upper limit on the effective Majorana neutrino mass are derived. The data are also interpreted in terms of alternative models, such as weak right-handed currents or Majoron emission. In addition, NEMO 3 has performed precision measurements of the two-neutrino double beta decay for seven different isotopes. The most recent experimental results of NEMO 3 are presented in this paper.Comment: 5 pages, 2 tables, talk at the 10th ICATPP Conference (Como, Italy, 8 - 12 October 2007

Primordial magnetic fields constrained by CMB anisotropies and dynamo cosmology

Magneto-curvature stresses could deform magnetic field lines and this would give rise to back reaction and restoring magnetic stresses [Tsagas, PRL (2001)]. Barrow et al [PRD (2008)] have shown in Friedman universe the expansion to be slow down in spatial section of negative Riemann curvatures. From Chicone et al [CMP (1997)] paper, proved that fast dynamos in compact 2D manifold implies negatively constant Riemannian curvature, here one applies the Barrow-Tsagas ideas to cosmic dynamos. Fast dynamo covariant stretching of Riemann slices of cosmic Lobachevsky plane is given. Inclusion of advection term on dynamo equations [Clarkson et al, MNRAS (2005)] is considered. In absence of advection a fast dynamo is also obtained. Viscous and restoring forces on stretching particles decrease, as magnetic rates increase. From COBE data ($\frac{{\delta}B}{B}\approx{10^{-5}}$), one computes stretching $\frac{{\delta}V^{y}}{V^{y}}=1.5\frac{{\delta}B}{B}\approx{1.5{\times}10^{-5}}$. Zeldovich et al has computed the maximum magnetic growth rate as ${\gamma}_{max}\approx{8.0{\times}10^{-1}t^{-1}}$. From COBE data one computes a lower growth rate for the magnetic field as ${\gamma}_{COBE}\approx{6.0{\times}10^{-6}t^{-1}}$, well-within Zeldovich et al estimate. Instead of the Harrison value $B\approx{t^{{4/3}}}$ one obtains the lower primordial field $B\approx{10^{-6}t}$ which yields the $B\approx{10^{-6}G}$ at the $1s$ Big Bang time.Comment: Dept of theoretical physics-UERJ-Brasi

Electrostatics in Periodic Slab Geometries I

We propose a new method to sum up electrostatic interactions in 2D slab geometries. It consists of a combination of two recently proposed methods, the 3D Ewald variant of Yeh and Berkowitz, J. Chem. Phys. 111 (1999) 3155, and the purely 2D method MMM2D by Arnold and Holm, to appear in Chem. Phys. Lett. 2002. The basic idea involves two steps. First we use a three dimensional summation method whose summation order is changed to sum up the interactions in a slab-wise fashion. Second we subtract the unwanted interactions with the replicated layers analytically. The resulting method has full control over the introduced errors. The time to evaluate the layer correction term scales linearly with the number of charges, so that the full method scales like an ordinary 3D Ewald method, with an almost linear scaling in a mesh based implementation. In this paper we will introduce the basic ideas, derive the layer correction term and numerically verify our analytical results.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figure

Performance assessment of demand controlled ventilation controls concerning indoor VOC exposure based on a dynamic VOC emission model

The performance assessment of ventilation systems often focusses only on CO2 and humidity levels. The indoor Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) emissions of building materials or other products is thereby overlooked. The new generation of ventilation systems, Demand Controlled Ventilation (DCV), are systems that do not supply the nominal airflow continuously but are controlled by CO2 or humidity sensors in order to save energy. This poses potential problems for exposure to VOCs. In this study, a dynamic VOC model, which takes into account changing temperature and humidity that was derived from literature, is implemented in a CONTAM model of the Belgian reference apartment. The impact of a DCV system on the indoor VOC levels is investigated. Results show that the use of a dynamic model is necessary compared to the previously used approximation of a constant emission. Furthermore, on a system level, the influence of the ventilation system control on the indoor VOC levels shows. The overall VOC concentration in the different rooms will be higher because of lowered ventilation rates. Especially in rooms that are often unoccupied during the day, the accumulation of VOCs shows. In the development of DCV system controls, the aspect of VOC exposure should not be overlooked to be able to benefit from both the energy savings and improved Indoor Air Quality (IAQ)

A coupled BES-zonal model to predict stratification in a large building

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Electrostatics in Periodic Slab Geometries II

In a previous paper a method was developed to subtract the interactions due to periodically replicated charges (or other long-range entities) in one spatial dimension. The method constitutes a generalized "electrostatic layer correction" (ELC) which adapts any standard 3D summation method to slab-like conditions. Here the implementation of the layer correction is considered in detail for the standard Ewald (EW3DLC) and the PPPM mesh Ewald (PPPMLC) methods. In particular this method offers a strong control on the accuracy and an improved computational complexity of O(N log N) for mesh-based implementations. We derive anisotropic Ewald error formulas and give some fundamental guidelines for optimization. A demonstration of the accuracy, error formulas and computation times for typical systems is also presented.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figure

Adaptive Harmonic Analysis

In this paper we describe a new approach to the harmonic analysis of the tide. For a number of reasons the harmonic constants are not really constant but vary slowly in time. Therefore, we introduce a narrow-band noise process to model the time-varying behaviour of these harmonic parameters. Furthermore, since the measurements available are not perfect, we also introduce a, possibly time-varying, measurement noise process to model the errors associated with the measurement process. By employing a Kalman filter to estimate the harmonic parameters recursively, the estimates can be adapted contineously to chaning conditions. The adaptive harmonic analysis can be used for the on-line prediction of the astronomical tide or, since the Kalman filter also produces the covariance of the estimation error, to gain quantitative insight into the resolution of tidal constituents