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Fission-Fusion Neutron Source Progress Report July 31, 2009
In this report the authors describe progress in evaluating the feasibility of a novel concept for producing intense pulses of 14 MeV neutrons using the DT fusion reaction. In this new scheme the heating of the DT is accomplished using fission fragments rather than ion beams as in conventional magnet fusion schemes or lasers in ICF schemes. This has the great advantage that there is no need for any large auxiliary power source. The scheme does require large magnetic fields, but generating these fields, e.g. with superconducting magnets, requires only a modest power source. As a source of fission fragments they propose using a dusty reactor concept introduced some time ago by one of us (RC). The version of the dusty reactor that they propose using for our neutron source would operate as a thermal neutron reactor and use highly enriched uranium in the form of micron sized pellets of UC. Our scheme for using the fission fragments to produce intense pulses of 14 MeV neutrons is based on the fission fragment rocket idea. In the fission fragment rocket scheme it was contemplated that the fission fragments produced in a low density reactor core would then be guided out of the reactor by large magnetic fields. A simple version of this idea would be to use the fission fragments escaping from one side of a tandem magnet mirror to heat DT gas confined in the adjacent magnetic trap
Magnetic Resonance Force Microscopy Measurement of Entangled Spin States
We simulate magnetic resonance force microscopy measurements of an entangled
spin state. One of the entangled spins drives the resonant cantilever
vibrations, while the other remote spin does not interact directly with the
quasiclassical cantilever. The Schr\"odinger cat state of the cantilever
reveals two possible outcomes of the measurement for both entangled spins.Comment: 3 pages RevTe
Nearly K\"ahler heterotic compactifications with fermion condensates
We revisit AdS_4 heterotic compactifications on nearly K\"ahler manifolds in
the presence of H-flux and certain fermion condensates. Unlike previous
studies, we do not assume the vanishing of the supersymmetry variations.
Instead we determine the full equations of motion originating from the
ten-dimensional action, and subsequently we provide explicit solutions to them
on nearly K\"ahler manifolds at first order in alpha'. The Bianchi identity is
also taken into account in order to guarantee the absence of all anomalies. In
the presence of H-flux, which is identified with the torsion of the internal
space, as well as of fermion condensates in the gaugino and dilatino sectors,
new solutions are determined. These solutions provide a full classification of
consistent backgrounds of heterotic supergravity under our assumptions. All the
new solutions are non-supersymmetric, while previously known supersymmetric
ones are recovered too. Our results indicate that fully consistent
(supersymmetric or not) heterotic vacua on nearly K\"ahler manifolds are
scarce, even on AdS_4, and they can be completely classified.Comment: 1+17 pages, 1 figure; v2: remark and two references added, published
versio
Strangeness in Neutron Stars
It is generally agreed on that the tremendous densities reached in the
centers of neutron stars provide a high-pressure environment in which numerous
novel particles processes are likely to compete with each other. These
processes range from the generation of hyperons to quark deconfinement to the
formation of kaon condensates and H-matter. There are theoretical suggestions
of even more exotic processes inside neutron stars, such as the formation of
absolutely stable strange quark matter, a configuration of matter even more
stable than the most stable atomic nucleus, iron. In the latter event, neutron
stars would be largely composed of pure quark matter, eventually enveloped in a
thin nuclear crust. No matter which physical processes are actually realized
inside neutron stars, each one leads to fingerprints, some more pronounced than
others though, in the observable stellar quantities. This feature combined with
the unprecedented progress in observational astronomy, which allows us to see
vistas with remarkable clarity that previously were only imagined, renders
neutron stars to nearly ideal probes for a wide range of physical studies,
including the role of strangeness in dense matter.Comment: 15 pages, 6 figures, Presented at the 5th International Conference on
Strangeness in Quark Matter (Strangeness 2000), Berkeley, California, USA,
July 20-25, 200
Resonant Hawking radiation in Bose-Einstein condensates
We study double-barrier interfaces separating regions of asymptotically
subsonic and supersonic flow of Bose condensed atoms. These setups contain at
least one black hole sonic horizon from which the analog of Hawking radiation
should be generated and emitted against the flow in the subsonic region.
Multiple coherent scattering by the double-barrier structure strongly modulates
the transmission probability of phonons, rendering it very sensitive to their
frequency. As a result, resonant tunneling occurs with high probability within
a few narrow frequency intervals. This gives rise to highly non-thermal spectra
with sharp peaks. We find that these peaks are mostly associated to decaying
resonances and only occasionally to dynamical instabilities. Even at achievable
nonzero temperatures, the radiation peaks can be dominated by the spontaneous
emission, i.e. enhanced zero-point fluctuations, and not, as often in analog
models, by stimulated emission.Comment: 20 pages, 9 figures, revised versio
Phase Transitions in Rotating Neutron Stars
As rotating neutron stars slow down, the pressure and the density in the core
region increase due to the decreasing centrifugal forces and phase transitions
may occur in the center. We extract the analytic behavior near the critical
angular velocity , where the phase transitions occur in the center of
a neutron star, and calculate the moment of inertia, angular velocity, rate of
slow down, braking index, etc. For a first order phase transition these
quantities have a characteristic behavior, e.g., the braking index diverges as
. Observational consequences for first, second
and other phase transitions are discussed.Comment: 5 pages, one figure included, revtex latex styl
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