Optimization of rotor blades for combined structural, performance, and aeroelastic characteristics

The strategies whereby helicopter rotor blades can be optimized for combined structural, inertial, dynamic, aeroelastic, and aerodynamic performance characteristics are outlined. There are three key ingredients in the successful execution of such an interdisciplinary optimization. The first is the definition of a satisfactory performance index that combines all aspects of the problem without too many constraints. The second element is the judicious choice of computationally efficient analysis tools for the various quantitative components in both the cost functional and constraints. The third element is an effective strategy for combining the various disciplines either in parallel or sequential optimizations

Detection of the large scale alignment of massive galaxies at z~0.6

We report on the detection of the alignment between galaxies and large-scale structure at z~0.6 based on the CMASS galaxy sample from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopy Survey data release 9. We use two statistics to quantify the alignment signal: 1) the alignment two-point correlation function which probes the dependence of galaxy clustering at a given separation in redshift space on the projected angle (theta_p) between the orientation of galaxies and the line connecting to other galaxies, and 2) the cos(2theta)-statistic which estimates the average of cos(2theta_p) for all correlated pairs at given separation. We find significant alignment signal out to about 70 Mpc/h in both statistics. Applications of the same statistics to dark matter halos of mass above 10^12 M_sun/h in a large cosmological simulation show similar scale-dependent alignment signals to the observation, but with higher amplitudes at all scales probed. We show that this discrepancy may be partially explained by a misalignment angle between central galaxies and their host halos, though detailed modeling is needed in order to better understand the link between the orientations of galaxies and host halos. In addition, we find systematic trends of the alignment statistics with the stellar mass of the CMASS galaxies, in the sense that more massive galaxies are more strongly aligned with the large-scale structure.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ Letter

Dominant moving species in the formation of amorphous NiZr by solid-state reaction

The displacements of W and Hf markers have been monitored by backscattering of MeV He to study the growth of the amorphous NiZr phase by solid-state reaction. We find that the Ni is the dominant moving species in this reaction

Modelling Epsilon Aurigae without solid particles

Three components can be expected to contribute to the emission of epsilon Aurigae. There is a primary F star. There is an opaque disk which occults it, and there is a gas stream which is observed to produce absorption lines. Evidence that the disk is not responsible for the gas stream lines comes both from the radial velocities, which are too small, and from the IR energy distribution out of eclipse, which shows free-free emission that would produce inadequate optical depth in electron scattering. The color temperature of the IR excess can give misleading indications of low temperature material. Free-free emission at 10,000 K between 10 and 20 microns has a color temperature of 350 K. Attempts to mold the system are discussed

Inclusive Decays of Bottom Hadrons in New Formulation of Heavy Quark Effective Field Theory

We apply the new formulation of heavy quark effective field theory (HQEFT) to the inclusive decays of bottom hadrons. The long-term ambiguity of using heavy quark mass or heavy hadron mass for inclusive decays is clarified within the framework of the new formulation of HQEFT. The $1/m_b$ order corrections are absent and contributions from $1/m_b^2$ terms are calculated in detail. This enables us to reliably extract the important CKM matrix element $|V_{cb}|$ from the inclusive semileptonic decay rates. The resulting lifetime ratios $\tau(B^0_s)/\tau(B^0)$ and $\tau(\Lambda_b)/\tau(B^0)$ are found to well agree with the experimental data. We also calculate in detail the inclusive semileptonic branching ratios and the ratios of the $\tau$ and $\beta$ decay rates as well as the charm countings in the $B^0$, $B^0_s$ and $\Lambda_b$ systems. For $B^0$ decays, all the observables are found to be consistent with the experimental data. More precise data for the $B^0$ decays and further experimental measurements for the $B^0_s$ and $\Lambda_b$ systems will be very useful for testing the framework of new formulation of HQEFT at the level of higher order corrections.Comment: 20 pages, RevTex, 8 figures, 3 tables, revised version with `dressed heavy quark' being addressed, to be published in Int. J. Mod. Phys.

On the constrained KP hierarchy

An explanation for the so-called constrained hierarhies is presented by linking them with the symmetries of the KP hierarchy. While the existence of ordinary symmetries (belonging to the hierarchy) allows one to reduce the KP hierarchy to the KdV hierarchies, the existence of additional symmetries allows to reduce KP to the constrained KP.Comment: 7pp, LaTe

Three-dimensional physics and the pressure of hot QCD

We update Monte Carlo simulations of the three-dimensional SU(3) + adjoint Higgs theory, by extrapolating carefully to the infinite volume and continuum limits, in order to estimate the contribution of the infrared modes to the pressure of hot QCD. The sum of infrared contributions beyond the known 4-loop order turns out to be a smooth function, of a reasonable magnitude and specific sign. Unfortunately, adding this function to the known 4-loop terms does not improve the match to four-dimensional lattice data, in spite of the fact that other quantities, such as correlation lengths, spatial string tension, or quark number susceptibilities, work well within the same setup. We outline possible ways to reduce the mismatch.Comment: 14 page

Implications of Recent Bˉ0→D(∗)0X0\bar{B}^0\to D^{(*)0}X^0 Measurements

The recent measurements of the color-suppressed modes $\bar B^0\to D^{(*)0}\pi^0$ imply non-vanishing relative final-state interaction (FSI) phases among various $\bar B\to D\pi$ decay amplitudes. Depending on whether or not FSIs are implemented in the topological quark-diagram amplitudes, two solutions for the parameters $a_1$ and $a_2$ are extracted from data using various form-factor models. It is found that $a_2$ is not universal: $|a_2(D\pi)|= 0.40-0.55$ and $|a_2(D^*\pi)|= 0.25-0.35$ with a relative phase of order $(50-55)^\circ$ between $a_1$ and $a_2$. If FSIs are not included in quark-diagram amplitudes from the outset, $a_2^{eff}/a_1^{eff}$ and $a_2^{eff}$ will become smaller. The large value of $|a_2(D\pi)|$ compared to $|a_2^{eff}(D\pi)|$ or naive expectation implies the importance of long-distance FSI contributions to color-suppressed internal $W$-emission via final-state rescatterings of the color-allowed tree amplitude.Comment: 17 pages. The Introduction is substantially revised and the order of the presentation in Sec. 2 is rearranged. To appear in Phys. Re