2,109 research outputs found
Boissier and botany at Geneva: a historical note
Geneva's contribution to this meeting in Edinburgh is the publication of a booklet dedicated to Boissier (Burdet 1985) on the centenary of his death—an anniversary which coincides with the completion, or approaching completion, of a series of major studies on the floras of SW Asia covering much of the area of Boissier's classic Flora Orientali
A simple model for heterogeneous flows of yield stress fluids
Various experiments evidence spatial heterogeneities in sheared yield stress
fluids. To account for heterogeneities in the velocity gradient direction, we
use a simple model corresponding to a non-monotonous local constitutive curve
and study a simple shear geometry. Different types of boundary conditions are
considered. Under controlled macroscopic shear stress , we find
homogeneous flow in the bulk and a hysteretic macroscopic stress - shear rate
curve. Under controlled macroscopic shear rate , shear banding is
predicted within a range of values of . For small shear rates,
stick slip can also be observed. These qualitative behaviours are robust when
changing the boundary conditions.Comment: 13 pages, 13 figure
Slow flows of yield stress fluids: complex spatio-temporal behaviour within a simple elasto-plastic model
A minimal athermal model for the flow of dense disordered materials is
proposed, based on two generic ingredients: local plastic events occuring above
a microscopic yield stress, and the non-local elastic release of the stress
these events induce in the material. A complex spatio-temporal rheological
behaviour results, with features in line with recent experimental observations.
At low shear rates, macroscopic flow actually originates from collective
correlated bursts of plastic events, taking place in dynamically generated
fragile zones. The related correlation length diverges algebraically at small
shear rates. In confined geometries bursts occur preferentially close to the
walls yielding an intermittent form of flow localization.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Microscopic Derivation of Non-Markovian Thermalization of a Brownian Particle
In this paper, the first microscopic approach to the Brownian motion is
developed in the case where the mass density of the suspending bath is of the
same order of magnitude as that of the Brownian (B) particle. Starting from an
extended Boltzmann equation, which describes correctly the interaction with the
fluid, we derive systematicaly via the multiple time-scale analysis a reduced
equation controlling the thermalization of the B particle, i.e. the relaxation
towards the Maxwell distribution in velocity space. In contradistinction to the
Fokker-Planck equation, the derived new evolution equation is non-local both in
time and in velocity space, owing to correlated recollision events between the
fluid and particle B. In the long-time limit, it describes a non-markovian
generalized Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process. However, in spite of this complex
dynamical behaviour, the Stokes-Einstein law relating the friction and
diffusion coefficients is shown to remain valid. A microscopic expression for
the friction coefficient is derived, which acquires the form of the Stokes law
in the limit where the mean-free in the gas is small compared to the radius of
particle B.Comment: 28 pages, no figure, submitted to Journal of Statistical Physic
Optimal eavesdropping on QKD without quantum memory
We consider the security of the BB84, six-state and SARG04 quantum key
distribution protocols when the eavesdropper doesn't have access to a quantum
memory. In this case, Eve's most general strategy is to measure her ancilla
with an appropriate POVM designed to take advantage of the post-measurement
information that will be released during the sifting phase of the protocol.
After an optimization on all the parameters accessible to Eve, our method
provides us with new bounds for the security of six-state and SARG04 against a
memoryless adversary. In particular, for the six-state protocol we show that
the maximum QBER for which a secure key can be extracted is increased from
12.6% (for collective attacks) to 20.4% with the memoryless assumption.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures. Analysis of six-state and SARG04 QKD protocols
adde
Diffusion in pores and its dependence on boundary conditions
We study the influence of the boundary conditions at the solid liquid
interface on diffusion in a confined fluid. Using an hydrodynamic approach, we
compute numerical estimates for the diffusion of a particle confined between
two planes. Partial slip is shown to significantly influence the diffusion
coefficient near a wall. Analytical expressions are derived in the low and high
confinement limits, and are in good agreement with numerical results. These
calculations indicate that diffusion of tagged particles could be used as a
sensitive probe of the solid-liquid boundary conditions.Comment: soumis \`a J.Phys. Cond. Matt. special issue on "Diffusion in
Liquids, Polymers, Biophysics and Chemical Dynamics
Elastic consequences of a single plastic event : a step towards the microscopic modeling of the flow of yield stress fluids
With the eventual aim of describing flowing elasto-plastic materials, we
focus on the elementary brick of such a flow, a plastic event, and compute the
long-range perturbation it elastically induces in a medium submitted to a
global shear strain. We characterize the effect of a nearby wall on this
perturbation, and quantify the importance of finite size effects. Although for
the sake of simplicity most of our explicit formulae deal with a 2D situation,
our statements hold for 3D situations as well.Comment: submitted to EPJ
Possibility to study eta-mesic nuclei and photoproduction of slow eta-mesons at the GRAAL facility
A new experiment is proposed with the aim to study eta-mesic nuclei and
low-energy interactions of eta with nuclei. Two decay modes of eta produced by
a photon beam inside a nucleus will be observed, namely a collisional decay
\eta N \to \pi N inside the nucleus and the radiative decay \eta \to \gamma
\gamma outside. In addition, a collisional decay of stopped S_{11}(1535)
resonance inside the nucleus, S_{11}(1535) N \to N N, will be studied. The
experiment can be performed using the tagged photon beam at ESRF with the
end-point energy 1000 MeV and the GRAAL detector which includes a
high-resolution BGO calorimeter and a large acceptance lead-scintillator
time-of-flight wall. Some results of simulation and estimates of yields are
given.Comment: 20 pages, 19 figure
Jordan-Wigner Approach to Dynamic Correlations in 2D Spin-1/2 Models
We discuss the dynamic properties of the square-lattice spin-1/2 XY model
obtained using the two-dimensional Jordan-Wigner fermionization approach. We
argue the relevancy of the fermionic picture for interpreting the neutron
scattering measurements in the two-dimensional frustrated quantum magnet
Cs_2CuCl_4.Comment: Presented at 12-th Czech and Slovak Conference on Magnetism,
Ko\v{s}ice, 12-15 July 200
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