14,385 research outputs found
Angular velocity distribution of a granular planar rotator in a thermalized bath
The kinetics of a granular planar rotator with a fixed center undergoing
inelastic collisions with bath particles is analyzed both numerically and
analytically by means of the Boltzmann equation. The angular velocity
distribution evolves from quasi-gaussian in the Brownian limit to an algebraic
decay in the limit of an infinitely light particle. In addition, we compare
this model with a planar rotator with a free center. We propose experimental
tests that might confirm the predicted behaviors.Comment: 10 Pages, 9 Figure
Application of the Gillespie algorithm to a granular intruder particle
We show how the Gillespie algorithm, originally developed to describe coupled
chemical reactions, can be used to perform numerical simulations of a granular
intruder particle colliding with thermalized bath particles. The algorithm
generates a sequence of collision ``events'' separated by variable time
intervals. As input, it requires the position-dependent flux of bath particles
at each point on the surface of the intruder particle. We validate the method
by applying it to a one-dimensional system for which the exact solution of the
homogeneous Boltzmann equation is known and investigate the case where the bath
particle velocity distribution has algebraic tails. We also present an
application to a granular needle in bath of point particles where we
demonstrate the presence of correlations between the translational and
rotational degrees of freedom of the intruder particle. The relationship
between the Gillespie algorithm and the commonly used Direct Simulation Monte
Carlo (DSMC) method is also discussed.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figures, to be published in J. Phys. A Math. Ge
Deep shower interpretation of the cosmic ray events observed in excess of the Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin energy
We consider the possibility that the ultra-high-energy cosmic ray flux has a
small component of exotic particles which create showers much deeper in the
atmosphere than ordinary hadronic primaries. It is shown that applying the
conventional AGASA/HiRes/Auger data analysis procedures to such exotic events
results in large systematic biases in the energy spectrum measurement. SubGZK
exotic showers may be mis-reconstructed with much higher energies and mimick
superGZK events. Alternatively, superGZK exotic showers may elude detection by
conventional fluorescence analysis techniques.Comment: 22 pages, 5 figure
Practical lossless compression with latent variables using bits back coding
Deep latent variable models have seen recent success in many data domains. Lossless compression is an application of these models which, despite having the potential to be highly useful, has yet to be implemented in a practical manner. We present 'Bits Back with ANS' (BB-ANS), a scheme to perform lossless compression with latent variable models at a near optimal rate. We demonstrate this scheme by using it to compress the MNIST dataset with a variational auto-encoder model (VAE), achieving compression rates superior to standard methods with only a simple VAE. Given that the scheme is highly amenable to parallelization, we conclude that with a sufficiently high quality generative model this scheme could be used to achieve substantial improvements in compression rate with acceptable running time. We make our implementation available open source at https://github.com/bits-back/bits-back
IGR J17488-2338: a newly discovered giant radio galaxy
We present the discovery of a large scale radio structure associated with IGR
J17488--2338, a source recently discovered by \emph{INTEGRAL} and optically
identified as a broad line AGN at redshift 0.24. At low frequencies, the source
properties are those of an intermediate-power FR II radio galaxy with a linear
size of 1.4\,Mpc. This new active galaxy is therefore a member of a class of
objects called Giant Radio Galaxies (GRGs), a rare type of radio galaxies with
physical sizes larger than 0.7\,Mpc; they represent the largest and most
energetic single entities in the Universe and are useful laboratories for many
astrophysical studies. Their large scale structures could be due either to
special external conditions or to uncommon internal properties of the source
central engine The AGN at the centre of IGR J17488--2338 has a black hole of
1.310 solar masses, a bolometric luminosity of
710erg\,s and an Eddington ratio of 0.3, suggesting that
it is powerful enough to produce the large structure observed in radio. The
source is remarkable also for other properties, among which its X-ray
absorption, at odds with its type 1 classification, and the presence of a
strong iron line which is a feature not often observed in radio galaxies.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication on Astronomy and
Astrophysic
Single polymer dynamics: coil-stretch transition in a random flow
By quantitative studies of statistics of polymer stretching in a random flow
and of a flow field we demonstrate that the stretching of polymer molecules in
a 3D random flow occurs rather sharply via the coil-stretch transition at the
value of the criterion close to theoretically predicted.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure
Observations of large raptors in northeast Sudan
During a targeted shorebird survey of wetlands along Sudan’s Red Sea Coast in January 2010 we took the opportunity to gather limited baseline information on large raptors within an understudied region. One 430 km transect was completed while driving from Atbara to Port Sudan on 19 January. Thirty Egyptian Vultures Neophron percnopterus were recorded at a mean of 7 birds per 100 km over 6.15 hours, and eight unidentified large vultures were seen. From subsequent ad hoc records gathered during 20 additional vehicle hours covering 450 km of coastline, we identified populations of Lappet-faced Vulture Torgos tracheliotos and Hooded Vulture Necrosyrtes monachus and migrant Steppe Eagle Aquila nipalensis
Transport coefficients of multi-particle collision algorithms with velocity-dependent collision rules
Detailed calculations of the transport coefficients of a recently introduced
particle-based model for fluid dynamics with a non-ideal equation of state are
presented. Excluded volume interactions are modeled by means of biased
stochastic multiparticle collisions which depend on the local velocities and
densities. Momentum and energy are exactly conserved locally. A general scheme
to derive transport coefficients for such biased, velocity dependent collision
rules is developed. Analytic expressions for the self-diffusion coefficient and
the shear viscosity are obtained, and very good agreement is found with
numerical results at small and large mean free paths. The viscosity turns out
to be proportional to the square root of temperature, as in a real gas. In
addition, the theoretical framework is applied to a two-component version of
the model, and expressions for the viscosity and the difference in diffusion of
the two species are given.Comment: 31 pages, 8 figures, accepted by J. Phys. Cond. Matte
Consistent particle-based algorithm with a non-ideal equation of state
A thermodynamically consistent particle-based model for fluid dynamics with
continuous velocities and a non-ideal equation of state is presented. Excluded
volume interactions are modeled by means of biased stochastic multiparticle
collisions which depend on the local velocities and densities. Momentum and
energy are exactly conserved locally. The equation of state is derived and
compared to independent measurements of the pressure. Results for the kinematic
shear viscosity and self-diffusion constants are presented. A caging and
order/disorder transition is observed at high densities and large collision
frequency.Comment: 7 pages including 4 figure
Influence of Magnetic Moment Formation on the Conductance of Coupled Quantum Wires
In this report, we develop a model for the resonant interaction between a
pair of coupled quantum wires, under conditions where self-consistent effects
lead to the formation of a local magnetic moment in one of the wires. Our
analysis is motivated by the experimental results of Morimoto et al. [Appl.
Phys. Lett. \bf{82}, 3952 (2003)], who showed that the conductance of one of
the quantum wires exhibits a resonant peak at low temperatures, whenever the
other wire is swept into the regime where local-moment formation is expected.
In order to account for these observations, we develop a theoretical model for
the inter-wire interaction that calculated the transmission properties of one
(the fixed) wire when the device potential is modified by the presence of an
extra scattering term, arising from the presence of the local moment in the
swept wire. To determine the transmission coefficients in this system, we
derive equations describing the dynamics of electrons in the swept and fixed
wires of the coupled-wire geometry. Our analysis clearly shows that the
observation of a resonant peak in the conductance of the fixed wire is
correlated to the appearance of additional structure (near or
) in the conductance of the swept wire, in agreement with the
experimental results of Morimoto et al
- …