4,174 research outputs found
Hydrogen absorption in solid aluminum during high-temperature steam oxidation
Hydrogen is emitted by aluminum heated in a vacuum after high-temperature steam treatment. Wire samples are tested for this effect, showing dependence on surface area. Two different mechanisms of absorption are inferred, and reactions deduced
Polling bias and undecided voter allocations: US Presidential elections, 2004 - 2016
Accounting for undecided and uncertain voters is a challenging issue for
predicting election results from public opinion polls. Undecided voters typify
the uncertainty of swing voters in polls but are often ignored or allocated to
each candidate in a simple, deterministic manner. Historically this may have
been adequate because the undecided were comparatively small enough to assume
that they do not affect the relative proportions of the decided voters.
However, in the presence of high numbers of undecided voters, these static
rules may in fact bias election predictions from election poll authors and
meta-poll analysts. In this paper, we examine the effect of undecided voters in
the 2016 US presidential election to the previous three presidential elections.
We show there were a relatively high number of undecided voters over the
campaign and on election day, and that the allocation of undecided voters in
this election was not consistent with two-party proportional (or even)
allocations. We find evidence that static allocation regimes are inadequate for
election prediction models and that probabilistic allocations may be superior.
We also estimate the bias attributable to polling agencies, often referred to
as "house effects".Comment: 32 pages, 9 figures, 6 table
The hydrogenation of metals upon interaction with water
Hydrogen evolution at 600 deg and 5 x 10 to the 7th power - 10 to the 6th power torr from AVOOO Al samples, which were pickled in 10 percent NaOH, is discussed. An H evolution kinetic equation is derived for samples of equal vol. and different surfaces (5 and 20 sq cm). The values of the H evolution coefficient K indicated an agreement with considered H diffusion mechanism through an oxide layer. The activation energy for the H evolution process, obtained from the K-temp. relation, was 13,000 2000 cal/g-atom
Cosmology with the lights off: Standard sirens in the Einstein Telescope era
We explore the prospects for constraining cosmology using gravitational-wave
(GW) observations of neutron-star binaries by the proposed Einstein Telescope
(ET), exploiting the narrowness of the neutron-star mass function. Double
neutron-star (DNS) binaries are expected to be one of the first sources
detected after "first-light" of Advanced LIGO and are expected to be detected
at a rate of a few tens per year in the advanced era. However the proposed ET
could catalog tens of thousands per year. Combining the measured source
redshift distributions with GW-network distance determinations will permit not
only the precision measurement of background cosmological parameters, but will
provide an insight into the astrophysical properties of these DNS systems. Of
particular interest will be to probe the distribution of delay times between
DNS-binary creation and subsequent merger, as well as the evolution of the
star-formation rate density within ET's detection horizon. Keeping H_0,
\Omega_{m,0} and \Omega_{\Lambda,0} fixed and investigating the precision with
which the dark-energy equation-of-state parameters could be recovered, we found
that with 10^5 detected DNS binaries we could constrain these parameters to an
accuracy similar to forecasted constraints from future CMB+BAO+SNIa
measurements. Furthermore, modeling the merger delay-time distribution as a
power-law, and the star-formation rate (SFR) density as a parametrized version
of the Porciani and Madau SF2 model, we find that the associated astrophysical
parameters are constrained to within ~ 10%. All parameter precisions scaled as
1/sqrt(N), where N is the number of cataloged detections. We also investigated
how precisions varied with the intrinsic underlying properties of the Universe
and with the distance reach of the network (which may be affected by the
low-frequency cutoff of the detector).Comment: 24 pages, 11 figures, 6 tables. Minor changes to reflect published
version. References updated and correcte
Matter formed at the BNL relativistic heavy ion collider
We suggest that the "new form of matter" found just above by RHIC is
made up of tightly bound quark-antiquark pairs, essentially 32 chirally
restored (more precisely, nearly massless) mesons of the quantum numbers of
, , and . Taking the results of lattice gauge
simulations (LGS) for the color Coulomb potential from the work of the
Bielefeld group and feeding this into a relativistic two-body code, after
modifying the heavy-quark lattice results so as to include the
velocity-velocity interaction, all ground-state eigenvalues of the 32 mesons go
to zero at just as they do from below as predicted by the vector
manifestation (VM in short) of hidden local symmetry. This could explain the
rapid rise in entropy up to found in LGS calculations. We argue that how
the dynamics work can be understood from the behavior of the hard and soft
glue.Comment: Final versio
Efficient computation of the first passage time distribution of the generalized master equation by steady-state relaxation
The generalized master equation or the equivalent continuous time random walk
equations can be used to compute the macroscopic first passage time
distribution (FPTD) of a complex stochastic system from short-term microscopic
simulation data. The computation of the mean first passage time and additional
low-order FPTD moments can be simplified by directly relating the FPTD moment
generating function to the moments of the local FPTD matrix. This relationship
can be physically interpreted in terms of steady-state relaxation, an extension
of steady-state flow. Moreover, it is amenable to a statistical error analysis
that can be used to significantly increase computational efficiency. The
efficiency improvement can be extended to the FPTD itself by modelling it using
a Gamma distribution or rational function approximation to its Laplace
transform
Cosmological Parameters from Observations of Galaxy Clusters
Studies of galaxy clusters have proved crucial in helping to establish the
standard model of cosmology, with a universe dominated by dark matter and dark
energy. A theoretical basis that describes clusters as massive,
multi-component, quasi-equilibrium systems is growing in its capability to
interpret multi-wavelength observations of expanding scope and sensitivity. We
review current cosmological results, including contributions to fundamental
physics, obtained from observations of galaxy clusters. These results are
consistent with and complementary to those from other methods. We highlight
several areas of opportunity for the next few years, and emphasize the need for
accurate modeling of survey selection and sources of systematic error.
Capitalizing on these opportunities will require a multi-wavelength approach
and the application of rigorous statistical frameworks, utilizing the combined
strengths of observers, simulators and theorists.Comment: 53 pages, 21 figures. To appear in Annual Review of Astronomy &
Astrophysic
Strongly Coupled Quark Gluon Plasma (SCQGP)
We propose that the reason for the non-ideal behavior seen in lattice
simulation of quark gluon plasma (QGP) and relativistic heavy ion collisions
(URHICs) experiments is that the QGP near T_c and above is strongly coupled
plasma (SCP), i.e., strongly coupled quark gluon plasma (SCQGP). It is
remarkable that the widely used equation of state (EoS) of SCP in QED (quantum
electrodynamics) very nicely fits lattice results on all QGP systems, with
proper modifications to include color degrees of freedom and running coupling
constant. Results on pressure in pure gauge, 2-flavors and 3-flavors QGP, are
all can be explained by treating QGP as SCQGP as demonstated here.Energy
density and speed of sound are also presented for all three systems. We further
extend the model to systems with finite quark mass and a reasonably good fit to
lattice results are obtained for (2+1)-flavors and 4-flavors QGP. Hence it is
the first unified model, namely SCQGP, to explain the non-ideal QGP seen in
lattice simulations with just two system dependent parameters.Comment: Revised with corrections and new results, Latex file (11 pages),
postscript file of 7 figure
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