Dynamics of counterpropagating waves in parametrically driven systems: dispersion vs. advection

The dynamics of parametrically driven counterpropagating waves in a one-dimensional extended nearly conservative annular system are described by two coupled, damped, parametrically driven nonlinear Schrödinger (NLS) equations with opposite transport terms due to the group velocity, and small dispersion. The system is characterized by two length scales defined by a balance between (a) forcing and dispersion (the dispersive scale), and (b) forcing and advection at the group velocity (the transport scale). Both are large compared to the basic wavelength of the pattern. The dispersive scale plays an important role in the structure of solutions arising from secondary instabilities of frequency-locked spatially uniform standing waves (SW), and manifests itself both in traveling pulses or fronts and in extended spatio-temporal chaos, depending on the signs of the dispersion coefficient and nonlinearity. Author Keywords: Parametric resonance; Counterpropagating waves; Weak dispersion; Faraday wave

Recent results from beam tests of large area silicon drift detectors

Silicon drift detectors with an active area of 7.0 × 7.5 cm2 will equip the two middle layers of the Inner Tracking System of the ALICE experiment. The performance of several prototypes was studied during beam tests carried out at the CERN SPS facility. The results of the beam test data analysis are discussed in this paper

Impurity-induced stabilization of solitons in arrays of parametrically driven nonlinear oscillators

Chains of parametrically driven, damped pendula are known to support soliton-like clusters of in-phase motion which become unstable and seed spatiotemporal chaos for sufficiently large driving amplitudes. We show that the pinning of the soliton on a "long" impurity (a longer pendulum) expands dramatically its stability region whereas "short" defects simply repel solitons producing effective partition of the chain. We also show that defects may spontaneously nucleate solitons.Comment: 4 pages in RevTeX; 7 figures in ps forma

Pattern formation and localization in the forced-damped FPU lattice

We study spatial pattern formation and energy localization in the dynamics of an anharmonic chain with quadratic and quartic intersite potential subject to an optical, sinusoidally oscillating field and a weak damping. The zone-boundary mode is stable and locked to the driving field below a critical forcing that we determine analytically using an approximate model which describes mode interactions. Above such a forcing, a standing modulated wave forms for driving frequencies below the band-edge, while a ``multibreather'' state develops at higher frequencies. Of the former, we give an explicit approximate analytical expression which compares well with numerical data. At higher forcing space-time chaotic patterns are observed.Comment: submitted to Phys.Rev.

Enhanced charm hadroproduction due to nonlinear corrections to the DGLAP equations

We have studied the effects of nonlinear scale evolution of the parton distribution functions to charm production in $pp$ collisions at center-of-mass energies of 5.5, 8.8 and 14 TeV. We find that the differential charm cross section can be enhanced up to a factor of 4-5 at low $p_T$. The enhancement is quite sensitive to the charm quark mass and the renormalization/factorization scales.Comment: 4 pages, 3 eps-figures. To appear in the proceedings of the seventeenth international conference on Ultra-Relativistic Nucleus-Nucleus Collisions (Quark Matter 2004

Extended parametric resonances in nonlinear Schrodinger systems

We study an example of exact parametric resonance in a extended system ruled by nonlinear partial differential equations of nonlinear Schr\"odinger type. It is also conjectured how related models not exactly solvable should behave in the same way. The results have applicability in recent experiments in Bose-Einstein condensation and to classical problems in Nonlinear Optics.Comment: 1 figur

Correction of Dopant Concentration Fluctuation Effects in Silicon Drift Detectors

Dopant fluctuations in silicon wafers are responsible for systematic errors in the determination of the particle crossing point in silicon drift detectors. In this paper, we report on the first large scale measurement of this effect by means of a particle beam. A significant improvement of the anodic resolution has been obtained by correcting for these systematic deviations

The ALICE Silicon Drift Detector System

The project of the two Silicon Drift Detector layers of the ALICE Inner Tracking System is reviewed. Recent results obtained from beam tests are presented

Multistable Pulse-like Solutions in a Parametrically Driven Ginzburg-Landau Equation

It is well known that pulse-like solutions of the cubic complex Ginzburg-Landau equation are unstable but can be stabilised by the addition of quintic terms. In this paper we explore an alternative mechanism where the role of the stabilising agent is played by the parametric driver. Our analysis is based on the numerical continuation of solutions in one of the parameters of the Ginzburg-Landau equation (the diffusion coefficient $c$), starting from the nonlinear Schr\"odinger limit (for which $c=0$). The continuation generates, recursively, a sequence of coexisting stable solutions with increasing number of humps. The sequence "converges" to a long pulse which can be interpreted as a bound state of two fronts with opposite polarities.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figures; to appear in PR

D meson enhancement in pp collisions at the LHC due to nonlinear gluon evolution

When nonlinear effects on the gluon evolution are included with constraints from HERA, the gluon distribution in the free proton is enhanced at low momentum fractions, x < 0.01, and low scales, Q^2 < 10 GeV^2, relative to standard, DGLAP-evolved, gluon distributions. Consequently, such gluon distributions can enhance charm production in pp collisions at center of mass energy 14 TeV by up to a factor of five at midrapidity, y \sim 0, and transverse momentum p_T -> 0 in the most optimistic case. We show that most of this enhancement survives hadronization into D mesons. Assuming the same enhancement at leading and next-to-leading order, we show that the D enhancement may be measured by D^0 reconstruction in the K^-\pi^+ decay channel with the ALICE detector.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures, final version accepted by J. Phys.