An approach to metal fatigue

Cumulative fatigue damage based on investigation of fatigue limit associated with crack, crack propagation rate, and stress interaction cycle in metal

Nonhypnotic low-dose etomidate for rapid correction of hypercortisolaemia in cushing's syndrome

We determined the adrenostatic potential of low-dose nonhypnotic etomidate in six patients with Cushing's syndrome (ectopic Cushing's syndrome,n=2; Cushing's disease,n=3; bilateral adrenal adenoma,n=1). Etomidate was given as a continuous infusion for 32 h in a dose of 2.5 mg/h (n=5) or 0.3 mg/kg/h (n=3), respectively. Saline was given during a control period. The responsiveness to exogenous ACTH was studied during placebo and 7 and 31 h after commencing etomidate by administration of 250 µg 1–24 ACTH i.v. Etomidate (2.5 mg/h) led to a consistent decrease in serum cortisol in all patients from a mean of 39.4±13.3 to 21.1±5.7 µg/dl after 7 h (P<0.05 compared with placebo). After 24 h cortisol was reduced further to a mean steady state concentration of 12.3±5.7 µg/dl (P<0.05). At the end of the infusion period the cortisol increase in response to ACTH was reduced but not abolished. In contrast, a dose of 0.3 mg/kg/h etomidate induced unresponsiveness of serum cortisol to exogenous ACTH within 7 h. However, sedation was observed in two out of three patients at this dose, while during etomidate in a dose of 2.5 mg/h no side effects were seen. We conclude that low-dose non-hypnotic etomidate reduces serum cortisol to within the normal range in patients with Cushing's syndrome. The possibility to dissociate the adrenostatic effect of etomidate from its hypnotic action, the absence of side effects, and the i.v. route suggest that etomidate in a dose of 0.04–0.05 mg/kg/h may become the drug of choice for rapid initial control of hypercortisolism

Modelling and Measurement of Charge Transfer in Multiple GEM Structures

Measurements and numerical simulations on the charge transfer in Gas Electron Multiplier (GEM) foils are presented and their implications for the usage of GEM foils in Time Projection Chambers are discussed. A small test chamber has been constructed and operated with up to three GEM foils. The charge transfer parameters derived from the electrical currents monitored during the irradiation with an Fe-55 source are compared with numerical simulations. The performance in magnetic fields up to 2 T is also investigated.Comment: 21 pages, 16 figures, submitted to NIM-

Microscopic theory for the light-induced anomalous Hall effect in graphene

We employ a quantum Liouville equation with relaxation to model the recently observed anomalous Hall effect in graphene irradiated by an ultrafast pulse of circularly polarized light. In the weak-field regime, we demonstrate that the Hall effect originates from an asymmetric population of photocarriers in the Dirac bands. By contrast, in the strong-field regime, the system is driven into a non-equilibrium steady state that is well-described by topologically non-trivial Floquet-Bloch bands. Here, the anomalous Hall current originates from the combination of a population imbalance in these dressed bands together with a smaller anomalous velocity contribution arising from their Berry curvature. This robust and general finding enables the simulation of electrical transport from light-induced Floquet-Bloch bands in an experimentally relevant parameter regime and creates a pathway to designing ultrafast quantum devices with Floquet-engineered transport properties

Electron Energy Loss Spectroscopy of strongly correlated systems in infinite dimensions

We study the electron-energy loss spectra of strongly correlated electronic systems doped away from half-filling using dynamical mean-field theory ($d=\infty$). The formalism can be used to study the loss spectra in the optical (${\bf q=0}$) limit, where it is simply related to the optical response, and hence can be computed in an approximation-free way in $d=\infty$. We apply the general formalism to the one-band Hubbard model off $n=1$, with inclusion of site-diagonal randomness to simulate effects of doping. The interplay between the coherence induced plasmon feature and the incoherence-induced high energy continuum is explained in terms of the evolution in the local spectral density upon hole doping. Inclusion of static disorder is shown to result in qualitative changes in the low-energy features, in particular, to the overdamping of the plasmon feature, resulting in a completely incoherent response. The calculated EELS lineshapes are compared to experimentally observed EELS spectra for the normal state of the high-$T_{c}$ materials near optimal doping and good qualitative agreement is found.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, submitted to J. Phys. - Cond. Mat

Order via Nonlinearity in Randomly Confined Bose Gases

A Hartree-Fock mean-field theory of a weakly interacting Bose-gas in a quenched white noise disorder potential is presented. A direct continuous transition from the normal gas to a localized Bose-glass phase is found which has localized short-lived excitations with a gapless density of states and vanishing superfluid density. The critical temperature of this transition is as for an ideal gas undergoing Bose-Einstein condensation. Increasing the particle-number density a first-order transition from the localized state to a superfluid phase perturbed by disorder is found. At intermediate number densities both phases can coexist.Comment: Author Information under http://www.theo-phys.uni-essen.de/tp/ags/pelster_dir/. International Journal of Bifurcation and Chaos (in press

The MINERν\nuA Data Acquisition System and Infrastructure

MINER$\nu$A (Main INjector ExpeRiment $\nu$-A) is a new few-GeV neutrino cross section experiment that began taking data in the FNAL NuMI (Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory Neutrinos at the Main Injector) beam-line in March of 2010. MINER$\nu$A employs a fine-grained scintillator detector capable of complete kinematic characterization of neutrino interactions. This paper describes the MINER$\nu$A data acquisition system (DAQ) including the read-out electronics, software, and computing architecture.Comment: 34 pages, 16 figure

Direct Evidence of the Role of Hybridization in the X-Ray Magnetic Circular Dichroism of a-Ce

We present an x-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD) study of a [Ce(10 Å)/Fe(30 Å)] multilayer performed at the Ce-M4,5 absorption edges. In this system the Ce-4f electrons are strongly hybridized with the valence band. XMCD experiments show that they carry an ordered magnetic moment. The differences of the shape of the XMCD signals of a typical g-like compound (CeCuSi) and of the Ce/ Fe multilayer highlight the role of hybridization in determining the ground state of cerium atoms in the multilayer, which results in a mixing of J = 5/2 and J = 7/2 coupled states

Cross Section Measurement of Charged Pion Photoproduction from Hydrogen and Deuterium

We have measured the differential cross section for the gamma n --> pi- p and gamma p --> pi+ n reactions at center of mass angle of 90 degree in the photon energy range from 1.1 to 5.5 GeV at Jefferson Lab (JLab). The data at photon energies greater than 3.3 GeV exhibit a global scaling behavior for both pi- and pi+ photoproduction, consistent with the constituent counting rule and the existing pi+ photoproduction data. Possible oscillations around the scaling value are suggested by these new data The data show enhancement in the scaled cross section at a center-of-mass energy near 2.2 GeV. The cross section ratio of exclusive pi- to pi+ photoproduction at high energy is consistent with the prediction based on one-hard-gluon-exchange diagrams

A precise extraction of the induced polarization in the 4He(e,e'p)3H reaction

We measured with unprecedented precision the induced polarization Py in 4He(e,e'p)3H at Q^2 = 0.8 (GeV/c)^2 and 1.3 (GeV/c)^2. The induced polarization is indicative of reaction-mechanism effects beyond the impulse approximation. Our results are in agreement with a relativistic distorted-wave impulse approximation calculation but are over-estimated by a calculation with strong charge-exchange effects. Our data are used to constrain the strength of the spin independent charge-exchange term in the latter calculation.Comment: submitted to Physical Review Letter