Asteroseismic Theory of Rapidly Oscillating Ap Stars

This paper reviews some of the important advances made over the last decade concerning theory of roAp stars.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figure

Melting of immiscible physical and compatibilized polymer blends in single screw extruders

Melting is a major step in plasticating single screw extrusion, but most of the existing phenomenological know how was gathered by performing Maddock-type experiments with homopolymers. Given the current widespread industrial use of polymer blends, it is worth determining whether the same mechanisms and mathematical models apply, or whether different sequences develop. This work reports the results of Maddock-type experiments using a PA6/PP blend, both in its immiscible and compatibilized varieties. A melting mechanism combining the features of the classical Tadmor mechanism and of the dispersed melting mechanism, also previously reported in the literature, was observed

Melting of polymer blends and concomitant morphology development in single screw extruders

The current understanding of the melting stage in single screw extruders results from pioneering research efforts that were initiated in the fifties and continued for more than thirty years. Most of these theoretical and experimental studies used homopolymers as model systems, whereas in industrial practice there has been a considerable evolution in terms of the complexity of the materials being extruded. This work reports an attempt to monitor the melting sequence and the morphology development of immiscible physical and chemically compatibilized PA6/PP blends. A hybrid melting mechanism, incorporating elements of the Tadmor and of the Dispersive melting mechanisms seems to develop; the early stages of morphology development seem to be similar to those observed in the Haake mixer and Twin-screw extruder

Morphology development of immiscible polymer blends during melting in single-screw extruders : effect of composition and compatibilization

Melting in single screw extruders began to be studied in the fifties, based on the pioneering work of Maddock. Most theoretical and experimental studies used homopolymers as model systems. However, in practice, there has been a considerable evolution in terms of the complexity of the materials being extruded. In the case of polymer blends, the morphology developed during melting should determine the final blend properties. Therefore, this work aims at investigating the morphology evolution during the melting stage of immiscible physical and chemically compatibilized PA6/PP blends. In general, the sequence of steps of morphology evolution reported for twin screw extruders and batch mixers was observed, though adapted to the flow kinematics along a helical single screw channel. The global morphological development is not affected by blend composition, but distinct domains seem to be formed when in situ reactive compatibilization takes place

Asteroseismology and Magnetic Cycles

Small cyclic variations in the frequencies of acoustic modes are expected to be a common phenomenon in solar-like pulsators, as a result of stellar magnetic activity cycles. The frequency variations observed throughout the solar and stellar cycles contain information about structural changes that take place inside the stars as well as about variations in magnetic field structure and intensity. The task of inferring and disentangling that information is, however, not a trivial one. In the sun and solar-like pulsators, the direct effect of the magnetic field on the oscillations might be significantly important in regions of strong magnetic field (such as solar- / stellar-spots), where the Lorentz force can be comparable to the gas-pressure gradient. Our aim is to determine the sun- / stellar-spots effect on the oscillation frequencies and attempt to understand if this effect contributes strongly to the frequency changes observed along the magnetic cycle. The total contribution of the spots to the frequency shifts results from a combination of direct and indirect effects of the magnetic field on the oscillations. In this first work we considered only the indirect effect associated with changes in the stratification within the starspot. Based on the solution of the wave equation and the variational principle we estimated the impact of these stratification changes on the oscillation frequencies of global modes in the sun and found that the induced frequency shifts are about two orders of magnitude smaller than the frequency shifts observed over the solar cycle.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figures, ESF Conference: The Modern Era of Helio- and Asteroseismology, to be published on 3 December 2012 at Astronomische Nachrichten 333, No. 10, 1032-103

Spin-polarized transport in ferromagnetic multilayered semiconductor nanostructures

The occurrence of inhomogeneous spin-density distribution in multilayered ferromagnetic diluted magnetic semiconductor nanostructures leads to strong dependence of the spin-polarized transport properties on these systems. The spin-dependent mobility, conductivity and resistivity in (Ga,Mn)As/GaAs,(Ga,Mn)N/GaN, and (Si,Mn)/Si multilayers are calculated as a function of temperature, scaled by the average magnetization of the diluted magnetic semiconductor layers. An increase of the resistivity near the transition temperature is obtained. We observed that the spin-polarized transport properties changes strongly among the three materials.Comment: 3 pages, 4 figure

Are all maximally entangled states pure?

We study if all maximally entangled states are pure through several entanglement monotones. In the bipartite case, we find that the same conditions which lead to the uniqueness of the entropy of entanglement as a measure of entanglement, exclude the existence of maximally mixed entangled states. In the multipartite scenario, our conclusions allow us to generalize the idea of monogamy of entanglement: we establish the \textit{polygamy of entanglement}, expressing that if a general state is maximally entangled with respect to some kind of multipartite entanglement, then it is necessarily factorized of any other system.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure. Proof of theorem 3 corrected e new results concerning the asymptotic regime include

Nonminimal Maxwell-Chern-Simons-O(3)-sigma vortices: asymmetric potential case

In this work we study a nonlinear gauged O(3)-sigma model with both minimal and nonminimal coupling in the covariant derivative. Using an asymmetric scalar potential, the model is found to exhibit both topological and non-topological soliton solutions in the Bogomol'nyi limit.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures. Some typos corrected, two references changed. To appear in Physical Review