The near-horizon geometry of dilaton-axion black holes

Static black holes of dilaton-axion gravity become singular in the extreme limit, which prevents a direct determination of their near-horizon geometry. This is addressed by first taking the near-horizon limit of extreme rotating NUT-less black holes, and then going to the static limit. The resulting four-dimensional geometry may be lifted to a Bertotti-Robinson-like solution of six-dimensional vacuum gravity, which also gives the near-horizon geometry of extreme Kaluza-Klein black holes in five dimensions.Comment: 2 pages, "mprocl.sty" with Latex 2.09, contribution to the 9th Marcel Grossmann meeting (MG9), Rome, July 200

On a Dirichlet problem related to the invertibility of mappings arising in 2D grid generation problems

this paper depends strongly on a theorem of Carleman-HartmanWintner. This theorem is only true in two dimensional domains. In fact a straightforward generalization to more than two dimensional domains cannot be true. A counterexample to the proof of [15]forthe three dimensional case can be found by using a special harmonic function due to Kellogg [12]. This function is shown in [2]. A direct counterexample can be found in [13]. 2 Main result on smooth domain

Compaction and mobility in randomly agitated granular assemblies

We study the compaction and mobility properties of a dense granular material under weak random vibration. By putting in direct contact millimetric glass beads with piezoelectric transducers we manage to inject energy to the system in a disordered manner with accelerations much smaller than gravity, resulting in a slow compaction dynamics and no convection. We characterize the mobility inside the medium by pulling through it an intruder grain at constant velocity. We present an extensive study of the relation between drag force and velocity for different vibration conditions and sizes of the intruder.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figures, to appear in the proceedings of Powders and Grains 200

Rotating non-asymptotically flat black rings in charged dilaton gravity

We derive new rotating, non-asymptotically flat black ring solutions in five-dimensional Einstein-Maxwell-dilaton gravity with dilaton coupling constant $\alpha=\sqrt{8/3}$ which arises from a six-dimensional Kaluza-Klein theory. As a limiting case we also find new rotating, non-asymptotically flat five-dimensional black holes. The solutions are analyzed and the mass, angular momentum and charge are computed. A Smarr-like relation is found. It is shown that the first law of black hole thermodynamics is satisfied.Comment: 21 pages, LaTeX; v2 a reference added, typos correcte

Friction measuring apparatus Patent

Kinetic and static friction force measurement between magnetic tape and magnetic head surface

Evolution of midplate hotspot swells: Numerical solutions

The evolution of midplate hotspot swells on an oceanic plate moving over a hot, upwelling mantle plume is numerically simulated. The plume supplies a Gaussian-shaped thermal perturbation and thermally-induced dynamic support. The lithosphere is treated as a thermal boundary layer with a strongly temperature-dependent viscosity. The two fundamental mechanisms of transferring heat, conduction and convection, during the interaction of the lithosphere with the mantle plume are considered. The transient heat transfer equations, with boundary conditions varying in both time and space, are solved in cylindrical coordinates using the finite difference ADI (alternating direction implicit) method on a 100 x 100 grid. The topography, geoid anomaly, and heat flow anomaly of the Hawaiian swell and the Bermuda rise are used to constrain the models. Results confirm the conclusion of previous works that the Hawaiian swell can not be explained by conductive heating alone, even if extremely high thermal perturbation is allowed. On the other hand, the model of convective thinning predicts successfully the topography, geoid anomaly, and the heat flow anomaly around the Hawaiian islands, as well as the changes in the topography and anomalous heat flow along the Hawaiian volcanic chain

Stored mafic/ultramafic crust and early Archean mantle depletion

Both early and late Archean rocks from greenstone belts and felsic gneiss complexes exhibit positive epsilon(Nd) values of +1 to +5 by 3.5 Ga, demonstrating that a depleted mantle reservoir existed very early. The amount of preserved pre-3.0 Ga continental crust cannot explain such high epsilon values in the depleted residue unless the volume of residual mantle was very small: a layer less than 70 km thick by 3.0 Ga. Repeated and exclusive sampling of such a thin layer, especially in forming the felsic gneiss complexes, is implausible. Extraction of enough continental crust to deplete the early mantle and its destructive recycling before 3.0 Ga ago requires another implausibility, that the sites of crustal generation of recycling were substantially distinct. In contrast, formation of mafic or ultramafic crust analogous to present-day oceanic crust was continuous from very early times. Recycled subducted oceanic lithosphere is a likely contributor to present-day hotspot magmas, and forms a reservoir at least comparable in volume to continental crust. Subduction of an early mafic/ultramafic oceanic crust and temporary storage rather than immediate mixing back into undifferentiated mantle may be responsible for the depletion and high epsilon(Nd) values of the Archean upper mantle

Comment on "What does the Letelier-Gal'tsov metric describe?"

We show that the Letelier-Gal'tsov (LG) metric describing multiple crossed strings in relative motion does solve the Einstein equations, in spite of the discontinuity uncovered recently by Krasnikov [gr-qc/0502090] provided the strings are straight and moving with constant velocities.Comment: 3 page

The Letelier-Gal'tsov spacetime revisited

Contrary to a recent claim by Anderson ["The Mathematical Theory of Cosmic Strings", I.O.P. Publishing, Bristol 2003], we show that the Letelier-Gal'tsov metric does represent a system of crossed straight infinite cosmic strings moving with arbitrary constant velocities.Comment: 3 page