92 research outputs found
Materials preparation and longevity in hyperthermal atomic oxygen
Flight hardware fabrication, the design and fabrication of an atom beam source, construction of a surface science laboratory, and progress in research on processes and mechanisms of interaction of hyperthermal atoms at solid surfaces are discussed
Higher analogues of the discrete-time Toda equation and the quotient-difference algorithm
The discrete-time Toda equation arises as a universal equation for the
relevant Hankel determinants associated with one-variable orthogonal
polynomials through the mechanism of adjacency, which amounts to the inclusion
of shifted weight functions in the orthogonality condition. In this paper we
extend this mechanism to a new class of two-variable orthogonal polynomials
where the variables are related via an elliptic curve. This leads to a `Higher
order Analogue of the Discrete-time Toda' (HADT) equation for the associated
Hankel determinants, together with its Lax pair, which is derived from the
relevant recurrence relations for the orthogonal polynomials. In a similar way
as the quotient-difference (QD) algorithm is related to the discrete-time Toda
equation, a novel quotient-quotient-difference (QQD) scheme is presented for
the HADT equation. We show that for both the HADT equation and the QQD scheme,
there exists well-posed -periodic initial value problems, for almost all
\s\in\Z^2. From the Lax-pairs we furthermore derive invariants for
corresponding reductions to dynamical mappings for some explicit examples.Comment: 38 page
Arctic smoke - aerosol characteristics during a record smoke event in the European Arctic and its radiative impact
In early May 2006 a record high air pollution event was observed at Ny-Ă
lesund, Spitsbergen. An atypical weather pattern established a pathway for the rapid transport of biomass burning aerosols from agricultural fires in Eastern Europe to the Arctic. Atmospheric stability was such that the smoke was constrained to low levels, within 2 km of the surface during the transport. A description of this smoke event in terms of transport and main aerosol characteristics can be found in Stohl et al. (2007). This study puts emphasis on the radiative effect of the smoke. The aerosol number size distribution was characterised by lognormal parameters as having an accumulation mode centered around 165â185 nm and almost 1.6 for geometric standard deviation of the mode. Nucleation and small Aitken mode particles were almost completely suppressed within the smoke plume measured at Ny-Ă
lesund. Chemical and microphysical aerosol information obtained at Mt. Zeppelin (474 m a.s.l) was used to derive input parameters for a one-dimensional radiation transfer model to explore the radiative effects of the smoke. The daily mean heating rate calculated on 2 May 2006 for the average size distribution and measured chemical composition reached 0.55 K dayâ1 at 0.5 km altitude for the assumed external mixture of the aerosols but showing much higher heating rates for an internal mixture (1.7 K dayâ1). In comparison a case study for March 2000 showed that the local climatic effects due to Arctic haze, using a regional climate model, HIRHAM, amounts to a maximum of 0.3 K dayâ1 of heating at 2 km altitude (Treffeisen et al., 2005)
Nonperturbative QCD Contributions to the Semileptonic Decay Width of the B Meson
Nonperturbative QCD contributions to the inclusive semileptonic decay of the
B meson consist of the dynamic and kinematic components. We calculate the decay
width in an approach based on the light-cone expansion and the heavy quark
effective theory, which is able to include both components of nonperturbative
QCD contributions. The kinematic component results in the phase-space extension
and is shown to be quantitatively crucial, which could increase the decay width
significantly. We find that the semileptonic decay width is enhanced by
long-distance strong interactions by +(9\pm 6)%. This analysis is used to
determine the CKM matrix element |V_{cb}| with a controlled theoretical error.
Implications of the phase-space effects for the nonleptonic decay widths of b
hadrons are briefly discussed. The experimental evidence for the phase-space
effects is pointed out.Comment: 16 pages, Latex, 3 eps figures included, published version
(discussion extended, references updated, the main result unchanged
Analysis of hadronic invariant mass spectrum in inclusive charmless semileptonic B decays
We make an analysis of the hadronic invariant mass spectrum in inclusive
charmless semileptonic B meson decays in a QCD-based approach. The decay width
is studied as a function of the invariant mass cut. We examine their
sensitivities to the parameters of the theory. The theoretical uncertainties in
the determination of from the hadronic invariant mass spectrum are
investigated. A strategy for improving the theoretical accuracy in the value of
is described.Comment: 13 pages, 5 Postscript figure
A Reduction from Unbounded Linear Mixed Arithmetic Problems into Bounded Problems
We present a combination of the Mixed-Echelon-Hermite transformation and the
Double-Bounded Reduction for systems of linear mixed arithmetic that preserve
satisfiability and can be computed in polynomial time. Together, the two
transformations turn any system of linear mixed constraints into a bounded
system, i.e., a system for which termination can be achieved easily. Existing
approaches for linear mixed arithmetic, e.g., branch-and-bound and cuts from
proofs, only explore a finite search space after application of our two
transformations. Instead of generating a priori bounds for the variables, e.g.,
as suggested by Papadimitriou, unbounded variables are eliminated through the
two transformations. The transformations orient themselves on the structure of
an input system instead of computing a priori (over-)approximations out of the
available constants. Experiments provide further evidence to the efficiency of
the transformations in practice. We also present a polynomial method for
converting certificates of (un)satisfiability from the transformed to the
original system
Observations of supercooling and frazil ice formation in the Laptev Sea coastal polynya
This paper examines a hydrographic response to the windâdriven coastal polynya activity over the southeastern Laptev Sea shelf for AprilâMay 2008, using a combination of Environmental Satellite (Envisat) advanced synthetic aperture radar (ASAR) and TerraSARâX satellite imagery, aerial photography, meteorological data, and SBEâ37 salinityâtemperatureâdepth and acoustic Doppler current profiler landâfast ice edgemoored instruments. When ASAR observed the strongest endâofâApril polynya event with frazil ice formation, the moored instruments showed maximal acoustical scattering within the surface mixed layer, and the seawater temperatures were either at or 0.02°C below freezing. We also find evidence of the persistent orizontal temperature and salinity gradients across the fast ice edge to have the signature of geostrophic flow adjustment as predicted by polynya models
A weakly stable algorithm for general Toeplitz systems
We show that a fast algorithm for the QR factorization of a Toeplitz or
Hankel matrix A is weakly stable in the sense that R^T.R is close to A^T.A.
Thus, when the algorithm is used to solve the semi-normal equations R^T.Rx =
A^Tb, we obtain a weakly stable method for the solution of a nonsingular
Toeplitz or Hankel linear system Ax = b. The algorithm also applies to the
solution of the full-rank Toeplitz or Hankel least squares problem.Comment: 17 pages. An old Technical Report with postscript added. For further
details, see http://wwwmaths.anu.edu.au/~brent/pub/pub143.htm
Leptonic and Semileptonic Decays of Charm and Bottom Hadrons
We review the experimental measurements and theoretical descriptions of
leptonic and semileptonic decays of particles containing a single heavy quark,
either charm or bottom. Measurements of bottom semileptonic decays are used to
determine the magnitudes of two fundamental parameters of the standard model,
the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix elements and . These
parameters are connected with the physics of quark flavor and mass, and they
have important implications for the breakdown of CP symmetry. To extract
precise values of and from measurements, however,
requires a good understanding of the decay dynamics. Measurements of both charm
and bottom decay distributions provide information on the interactions
governing these processes. The underlying weak transition in each case is
relatively simple, but the strong interactions that bind the quarks into
hadrons introduce complications. We also discuss new theoretical approaches,
especially heavy-quark effective theory and lattice QCD, which are providing
insights and predictions now being tested by experiment. An international
effort at many laboratories will rapidly advance knowledge of this physics
during the next decade.Comment: This review article will be published in Reviews of Modern Physics in
the fall, 1995. This file contains only the abstract and the table of
contents. The full 168-page document including 47 figures is available at
http://charm.physics.ucsb.edu/papers/slrevtex.p
PQCD analysis of inclusive semileptonic decays of B mesons
We develop the perturbative QCD formalism for inclusive semileptonic
meson decays, which includes Sudakov suppression from the resummation of large
radiative corrections near the high end of charged lepton energy. Transverse
degrees of freedom of partons are introduced to facilitate the factorization of
meson decays. Ambiguities appearing in the quark-level analysis are then
avoided. A universal distribution function, arising from the nonperturbative
Fermi motion of the quark, is constructed according to the heavy quark
effective field theory based operator product expansion, through which the mean
and the width of the distribution function are related to hadronic matrix
elements of local operators. Charged lepton spectra of the
decay are presented. We find 50\% suppression near the end point of the
spectrum. The overall suppression on the total decay rate is 8\% for the free
quark model, and is less than 7\% for the use of smooth distribution functions.
With our predictions, it is then possible to extract the
Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix element from experimental data. We
also discuss possible implications of our analysis when confronted with the
rather small observed semileptonic branching ratio in meson decays.Comment: Section 4 on constructing the universal soft function was revise
- âŠ