59,518 research outputs found
Nucleation of quark matter in neutron stars cores
We consider the general conditions of quark droplets formation in high
density neutron matter. The growth of the quark bubble (assumed to contain a
sufficiently large number of particles) can be described by means of a
Fokker-Planck equation. The dynamics of the nucleation essentially depends on
the physical properties of the medium it takes place. The conditions for quark
bubble formation are analyzed within the frameworks of both dissipative and
non-dissipative (with zero bulk and shear viscosity coefficients) approaches.
The conversion time of the neutron star to a quark star is obtained as a
function of the equation of state of the neutron matter and of the microscopic
parameters of the quark nuclei. As an application of the obtained formalism we
analyze the first order phase transition from neutron matter to quark matter in
rapidly rotating neutron stars cores, triggered by the gravitational energy
released during the spinning down of the neutron star. The endothermic
conversion process, via gravitational energy absorption, could take place, in a
very short time interval, of the order of few tens seconds, in a class of dense
compact objects, with very high magnetic fields, called magnetars.Comment: 31 pages, 2 figures, to appear in Ap
Locally monochromatic two-step nonlinear trident process in a plane wave
In many-cycle plane waves at intermediate intensities, the nonlinear trident
process can be well-approximated by the two sequential steps of nonlinear
Compton scattering of a polarised real photon followed by its transformation
into an electron-positron pair via nonlinear Breit-Wheeler pair creation. We
investigate this two-step process in the intermediate intensity regime by
employing the locally monochromatic approximation for each step and numerically
evaluating resulting expressions. When photon polarisation is included, it is
found to produce an order 10% decrease in the trident rate: the importance of
polarisation increases at lower intensities, and decreases at higher
intensities. Its importance persists at higher intensities in a
linearly-polarised background, but disappears at high intensities in a
circularly-polarised background. If the two steps are made to take place in two
linearly-polarised plane wave pulses with perpendicular polarisations, the pair
yield can be increased by approximately 30% compared to two plane waves with
the same polarisation. It is also shown that harmonic structures in the Compton
step can be passed to the pair step if the Compton edge is at an energy of the
order of the threshold for linear Breit-Wheeler.Comment: 14 pages, 9 figure
Electro-diffusion in a plasma with two ion species
Electric field is a thermodynamic force that can drive collisional
inter-ion-species transport in a multicomponent plasma. In an inertial
confinement fusion (ICF) capsule, such transport causes fuel ion separation
even with a target initially prepared to have equal number densities for the
two fuel ion species. Unlike the baro-diffusion driven by ion pressure gradient
and the thermo-diffusion driven by ion and electron temperature gradients,
electro-diffusion has a critical dependence on the charge-to-mass ratio of the
ion species. Specifically, it is shown here that electro-diffusion vanishes if
the ion species have the same charge-to-mass ratio. An explicit expression for
the electro-diffusion ratio is obtained and used to investigate the relative
importance of electro- and baro-diffusion mechanisms. In particular, it is
found that electro-diffusion reinforces baro-diffusion in the deuterium and
tritium mix, but tends to cancel it in the deuterium and helium-3 mix.Comment: Submitted to Phys. Plasmas on 2012-03-06 (revised version 05/13/2012
Zero-temperature criticality in the two-dimensional gauge glass model
The zero-temperature critical state of the two-dimensional gauge glass model
is investigated. It is found that low-energy vortex configurations afford a
simple description in terms of gapless, weakly interacting vortex-antivortex
pair excitations. A linear dielectric screening calculation is presented in a
renormalization group setting that yields a power-law decay of spin-wave
stiffness with distance. These properties are in agreement with low-temperature
specific heat and spin-glass susceptibility data obtained in large-scale
multi-canonical Monte Carlo simulations.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Experimental archeology and serious games: challenges of inhabiting virtual heritage
Experimental archaeology has long yielded valuable insights into the tools and techniques that featured in past peoples’ relationship with the material world around them. However, experimental archaeology has, hitherto, confined itself to rigid, empirical and quantitative questions. This paper applies principles of experimental archaeology and serious gaming tools in the reconstructions of a British Iron Age Roundhouse. The paper explains a number of experiments conducted to look for quantitative differences in movement in virtual vs material environments using both “virtual” studio reconstruction as well as material reconstruction. The data from these experiments was then analysed to look for differences in movement which could be attributed to artefacts and/or environments. The paper explains the structure of the experiments, how the data was generated, what theories may make sense of the data, what conclusions have been drawn and how serious gaming tools can support the creation of new experimental heritage environments
Spin-Current Relaxation Time in Spin-Polarized Heisenberg Paramagnets
We study the spatial Fourier transform of the spin correlation function
G_q(t) in paramagnetic quantum crystals by direct simulation of a 1d lattice of
atoms interacting via a nearest-neighbor Heisenberg exchange Hamiltonian. Since
it is not practical to diagonalize the s=1/2 exchange Hamiltonian for a lattice
which is of sufficient size to study long-wavelength (hydrodynamic)
fluctuations, we instead study the s -> infinity limit and treat each spin as a
vector with a classical equation of motion. The simulations give a detailed
picture of the correlation function G_q(t) and its time derivatives. At high
polarization, there seems to be a hierarchy of frequency scales: the local
exchange frequency, a wavelength-independent relaxation rate 1/tau that
vanishes at large polarization P ->1, and a wavelength-dependent spin-wave
frequency proportional to q^2. This suggests a form for the correlation
function which modifies the spin diffusion coefficients obtained in a moments
calculation by Cowan and Mullin, who used a standard Gaussian ansatz for the
second derivative of the correlation function.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure
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