7,296 research outputs found
Curriculum Changes
Some three years ago, President Friley requested that all divisions of Iowa State College begin a special study of their respective curricula with the view to making any changes that might seem justified in better attaining their objectives
Magnetoresistance of Three-Constituent Composites: Percolation Near a Critical Line
Scaling theory, duality symmetry, and numerical simulations of a random
network model are used to study the magnetoresistance of a
metal/insulator/perfect conductor composite with a disordered columnar
microstructure. The phase diagram is found to have a critical line which
separates regions of saturating and non-saturating magnetoresistance. The
percolation problem which describes this line is a generalization of
anisotropic percolation. We locate the percolation threshold and determine the
t = s = 1.30 +- 0.02, nu = 4/3 +- 0.02, which are the same as in
two-constituent 2D isotropic percolation. We also determine the exponents which
characterize the critical dependence on magnetic field, and confirm numerically
that nu is independent of anisotropy. We propose and test a complete scaling
description of the magnetoresistance in the vicinity of the critical line.Comment: Substantially revised version; description of behavior in finite
magnetic fields added. 7 pages, 7 figures, submitted to PR
New Method to Calculate Electrical Forces Acting on a Sphere in an Electrorheological Fluid
We describe a method to calculate the electrical force acting on a sphere in
a suspension of dielectric spheres in a host with a different dielectric
constant, under the assumption that a spatially uniform electric field is
applied. The method uses a spectral representation for the total electrostatic
energy of the composite. The force is expressed as a certain gradient of this
energy, which can be expressed in a closed analytic form rather than evaluated
as a numerical derivative. The method is applicable even when both the spheres
and the host have frequency-dependent dielectric functions and nonzero
conductivities, provided the system is in the quasistatic regime. In principle,
it includes all multipolar contributions to the force, and it can be used to
calculate multi-body as well as pairwise forces. We also present several
numerical examples, including host fluids with finite conductivities. The force
between spheres approaches the dipole-dipole limit, as expected, at large
separations, but departs drastically from that limit when the spheres are
nearly in contact. The force may also change sign as a function of frequency
when the host is a slightly conducting fluid.Comment: 29 pages, 8 figures, Accepted for Publication in Physical Review
Theory of Optical Transmission through Elliptical Nanohole Arrays
We present a theory which explains (in the quasistatic limit) the
experimentally observed [R. Gordon, {\it et al}, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 92},
037401 (2004)] squared dependence of the depolarization ratio on the aspect
ratio of the holes, as well as other features of extraordinary light
transition. We calculated the effective dielectric tensor of a metal film
penetrated by elliptical cylindrical holes and found the extraordinarily light
transmission at special frequencies related to the surface plasmon resonances
of the composite film. We also propose to use the magnetic field for getting a
strong polarization effect, which depends on the ratio of the cyclotron to
plasmon frequencies.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Spectral Representation for the Effective Macroscopic Response of a Polycrystal: Application to Third-Order Nonlinear Susceptibility
Erratum:
In our paper, we show that the spectral representation for isotropic
two-component composites also applies to uniaxial polycrystals. We have learned
that this result was, in fact, first conjectured by G.W. Milton. While our
derivation is more detailed, our result for the spectral function is the same
as Milton's. We very much regret not having been aware of this work at the time
of writing our paper.
Original abstract:
We extend the spectral theory used for the calculation of the effective
linear response functions of composites to the case of a polycrystalline
material with uniaxially anisotropic microscopic symmetry. As an application,
we combine these results with a nonlinear decoupling approximation as modified
by Ma et al., to calculate the third-order nonlinear optical susceptibility of
a uniaxial polycrystal, assuming that the effective dielectric function of the
polycrystal can be calculated within the effective-medium approximation.Comment: v2 includes erratum and the original preprin
Easy on that trigger dad: a study of long term family photo retrieval
We examine the effects of new technologies for digital photography on people's longer term storage and access to collections of personal photos. We report an empirical study of parents' ability to retrieve photos related to salient family events from more than a year ago. Performance was relatively poor with people failing to find almost 40% of pictures. We analyze participants' organizational and access strategies to identify reasons for this poor performance. Possible reasons for retrieval failure include: storing too many pictures, rudimentary organization, use of multiple storage systems, failure to maintain collections and participants' false beliefs about their ability to access photos. We conclude by exploring the technical and theoretical implications of these findings
Development and operation of research-scale III-V nanowire growth reactors
III-V nanowires are useful platforms for studying the electronic and
mechanical properties of materials at the nanometer scale. However, the costs
associated with commercial nanowire growth reactors are prohibitive for most
research groups. We developed hot-wall and cold-wall metal organic vapor phase
epitaxy (MOVPE) reactors for the growth of InAs nanowires, which both use the
same gas handling system. The hot-wall reactor is based on an inexpensive
quartz tube furnace and yields InAs nanowires for a narrow range of operating
conditions. Improvement of crystal quality and an increase in growth run to
growth run reproducibility are obtained using a homebuilt UHV cold-wall reactor
with a base pressure of 2 X 10 Torr. A load-lock on the UHV reactor
prevents the growth chamber from being exposed to atmospheric conditions during
sample transfers. Nanowires grown in the cold-wall system have a low defect
density, as determined using transmission electron microscopy, and exhibit
field effect gating with mobilities approaching 16,000 cm(V.s).Comment: Related papers at http://pettagroup.princeton.ed
HD101584: Circumstellar characteristics and evolutionary status
We have performed a study of the characteristics of the circumstellar
environment of the binary object HD101584, that provides information on a
likely evolutionary scenario. We have obtained and analysed ALMA observations,
complemented with observations using APEX, of a large number of molecular
lines. An analysis of the spectral energy distribution has also been performed.
Emissions from 12 molecular species (not counting isotopologues) have been
observed, and most of them mapped with angular resolutions in the range 0.1" to
0.6". Four circumstellar components are identified: i) a central compact source
of size 0.15", ii) an expanding equatorial density enhancement (a flattened
density distribution in the plane of the orbit) of size 3", iii) a bipolar
high-velocity outflow (150 km/s), and iv) an hourglass structure. The outflow
is directed almost along the line of sight. There is evidence of a second
bipolar outflow. The mass of the circumstellar gas is 0.5[D/1 kpc]^2 Msun,
about half of it lies in the equatorial density enhancement. The dust mass is
0.01[D/1 kpc]^2 Msun, and a substantial fraction of this is in the form of
large-sized, up to 1 mm, grains. The estimated kinetic age of the outflow is
770[D/1 kpc] yr. The kinetic energy and the scalar momentum of the accelerated
gas are estimated to be 7x10^(45)[D/1 kpc]^2 erg and 10^(39)[D/1 kpc]^2 g cm/s,
respectively. We provide good evidence that the binary system HD101584 is in a
post-common-envelope-evolution phase, that ended before a stellar merger.
Isotope ratios combined with stellar mass estimates suggest that the primary
star's evolution was terminated already on the first red giant branch (RGB).
Most of the energy required to drive the outflowing gas was probably released
when material fell towards the companion.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&
Branes with Background Fields in Boundary State Formalism
Interaction of branes in presence of internal gauge fields is considered by
using the boundary state formalism. This approach enables us to consider the
problems that are not easily accessible to the canonical approach via open
strings. The effects of compactification of some of the dimensions on tori are
also discussed. Also we study the massless state contribution on this
interaction.Comment: 12 pp. No figure
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