67 research outputs found
Surface instabilities in granular matter and ion-sputtered surfaces
We apply a theoretical approach, originally introduced to describe aeolian
ripples formation in sandy deserts, to the study of surface instability in ion
sputtered surfaces. The two phenomena are distinct by several orders of
magnitudes and by several physical mechanisms, but they obey to similar
geometrical constraints and therefore they can be described by means of the
same approach. This opens a novel conceptual framework for the study of the
dynamical surface roughening and ripple formation on crystal and amorphous
surfaces during ion sputtering.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figure
Ripples and ripples: from sandy deserts to ion-sputtered surfaces
We study the morphological evolution of surfaces during ion sputtering and we compare their dynamical corrugation with aeolian ripple formation in sandy deserts. We show that, although the two phenomena are physically different, they must obey similar geometrical constraints and therefore they can be described within the same theoretical framework. The present theory distinguishes between atoms that stay bounded in the bulk and others that are mobile on the surface. We describe the excavation mechanisms, the adsorption and the surface mobility by means of a continuous equation derived from the study of dune formation on sand. We explore the spontaneous development of ordered nanostructures and explain the different dynamical behaviours experimentally observed in metals or in semiconductors or in amorphous systems. We also show that this novel approach can describe the occurrence of rotation in the ripple direction and the formation of other kinds of self-organized patterns induced by changes in the sputtering incidence angle
Perturbative quantum gauge invariance: Where the ghosts come from
A condensed introduction to quantum gauge theories is given in the
perturbative S-matrix framework; path integral methods are used nowhere. This
approach emphasizes the fact that it is not necessary to start from classical
gauge theories which are then subject to quantization, but it is also possible
to recover the classical group structure and coupling properties from purely
quantum mechanical principles. As a main tool we use a free field version of
the Becchi-Rouet-Stora-Tyutin gauge transformation, which contains no
interaction terms related to a coupling constant. This free gauge
transformation can be formulated in an analogous way for quantum
electrodynamics, Yang-Mills theories with massless or massive gauge bosons and
quantum gravity.Comment: 28 pages, LATEX. Some typos corrected, version to be publishe
Does gravity cause load-bearing bridges in colloidal and granular systems?
We study structures which can bear loads, "bridges", in particulate packings. To investigate the relationship between bridges and gravity, we experimentally determine bridge statistics in colloidal packings. We vary the effective magnitude and direction of gravity, volume fraction, and interactions, and find that the bridge size distributions depend only on the mean number of neighbors. We identify a universal distribution, in agreement with simulation results for granulars, suggesting that applied loads merely exploit preexisting bridges, which are inherent in dense packings
Bound-free pair production in ultra-relativistic ion collisions at the LHC collider: Analytic approach to the total and differential cross sections
A theoretical investigation of the bound-free electron-positron pair
production in relativistic heavy ion collisions is presented. Special attention
is paid to the positrons emitted under large angles with respect to the beam
direction. The measurement of these positrons in coincidence with the
down--charged ions is in principle feasible by LHC experiments. In order to
provide reliable estimates for such measurements, we employ the equivalent
photon approximation together with the Sauter approach and derive simple
analytic expressions for the differential pair--production cross section, which
compare favorably to the results of available numerical calculations. Based on
the analytic expressions, detailed calculations are performed for collisions of
bare Pb ions, taking typical experimental conditions of the LHC
experiments into account. We find that the expected count rate strongly depends
on the experimental parameters and may be significantly enhanced by increasing
the positron-detector acceptance cone.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure
Hierarchical information clustering by means of topologically embedded graphs
We introduce a graph-theoretic approach to extract clusters and hierarchies
in complex data-sets in an unsupervised and deterministic manner, without the
use of any prior information. This is achieved by building topologically
embedded networks containing the subset of most significant links and analyzing
the network structure. For a planar embedding, this method provides both the
intra-cluster hierarchy, which describes the way clusters are composed, and the
inter-cluster hierarchy which describes how clusters gather together. We
discuss performance, robustness and reliability of this method by first
investigating several artificial data-sets, finding that it can outperform
significantly other established approaches. Then we show that our method can
successfully differentiate meaningful clusters and hierarchies in a variety of
real data-sets. In particular, we find that the application to gene expression
patterns of lymphoma samples uncovers biologically significant groups of genes
which play key-roles in diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of some of the most
relevant human lymphoid malignancies.Comment: 33 Pages, 18 Figures, 5 Table
Is astronomy possible with neutral ultra-high energy cosmic ray particles existing in the Standard Model?
The recently observed correlation between HiRes stereo cosmic ray events with
energies E ~ 10 EeV and BL Lacs occurs at an angle which strongly suggests that
the primary particles are neutral. We analyze whether this correlation, if not
a statistical fluctuation, can be explained within the Standard Model, i.e.,
assuming only known particles and interactions. We have not found a plausible
process which can account for these correlations. The mechanism which comes
closest -- the conversion of protons into neutrons in the IR background of our
Galaxy -- still under-produces the required flux of neutral particles by about
2 orders of magnitude. The situation is different at E ~ 100 EeV where the flux
of cosmic rays at Earth may contain up to a few percent of neutrons pointing
back to the extragalactic sources.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figur
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