Advances and visions in large-scale hydrological modelling: findings from the 11th Workshop on Large-Scale Hydrological Modelling

Large-scale hydrological modelling has become increasingly wide-spread during the last decade. An annual workshop series on large-scale hydrological modelling has provided, since 1997, a forum to the German-speaking community for discussing recent developments and achievements in this research area. In this paper we present the findings from the 2007 workshop which focused on advances and visions in large-scale hydrological modelling. We identify the state of the art, difficulties and research perspectives with respect to the themes "sensitivity of model results", "integrated modelling" and "coupling of processes in hydrosphere, atmosphere and biosphere". Some achievements in large-scale hydrological modelling during the last ten years are presented together with a selection of remaining challenges for the future

Influence of Forming Rate on the Microstructure and Properties of Materials Subjected to Electromagnetic Forming

Electromagnetic high speed forming has been known since the 1960's and is successfully used for frictional connexions. In addition to joining, other applications of the process include coining, stamping and cutting. Regarding product quality and manufacturing costs, the process is superior to other methods and yet its utilisation can still be extended. The synopsis of the material's microstructure and properties owing to electromagnetic forming, which is given by this article, clarifies the processes from a materials science point of view. This will not only represent an academic view point but also provide insight into a potential expansion of the process to other areas of application

Hard and soft probe - medium interactions in a 3D hydro+micro approach at RHIC

We utilize a 3D hybrid hydro+micro model for a comprehensive and consistent description of soft and hard particle production in ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions at RHIC. In the soft sector we focus on the dynamics of (multi-)strange baryons, where a clear strangeness dependence of their collision rates and freeze-out is observed. In the hard sector we study the radiative energy loss of hard partons in a soft medium in the multiple soft scattering approximation. While the nuclear suppression factor $R_{AA}$ does not reflect the high quality of the medium description (except in a reduced systematic uncertainty in extracting the quenching power of the medium), the hydrodynamical model also allows to study different centralities and in particular the angular variation of $R_{AA}$ with respect to the reaction plane, allowing for a controlled variation of the in-medium path-length.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, Quark Matter 2006 proceedings, to appear in Journal of Physics

The Effect of Large Amplitude Fluctuations in the Ginzburg-Landau Phase Transition

The lattice Ginzburg-Landau model in d=3 and d=2 is simulated, for different values of the coherence length $\xi$ in units of the lattice spacing $a$, using a Monte Carlo method. The energy, specific heat, vortex density $v$, helicity modulus $\Gamma_\mu$ and mean square amplitude are measured to map the phase diagram on the plane $T-\xi$. When amplitude fluctuations, controlled by the parameter $\xi$, become large ($\xi \sim 1$) a proliferation of vortex excitations occurs changing the phase transition from continuous to first order.Comment: 4 pages, 5 postscript (eps) figure

Estimation of properties of low-lying excited states of Hubbard models : a multi-configurational symmetrized projector quantum Monte Carlo approach

We present in detail the recently developed multi-configurational symmetrized projector quantum Monte Carlo (MSPQMC) method for excited states of the Hubbard model. We describe the implementation of the Monte Carlo method for a multi-configurational trial wavefunction. We give a detailed discussion of issues related to the symmetry of the projection procedure which validates our Monte Carlo procedure for excited states and leads naturally to the idea of symmetrized sampling for correlation functions, developed earlier in the context of ground state simulations. It also leads to three possible averaging schemes. We have analyzed the errors incurred in these various averaging procedures and discuss and detail the preferred averaging procedure for correlations that do not have the full symmetry of the Hamiltonian. We study the energies and correlation functions of the low-lying excited states of the half-filled Hubbard model in 1-D. We have used this technique to study the pair-binding energies of two holes in $4n$ and $4n+2$ systems, which compare well the Bethe ansatz data of Fye, Martins and Scalettar. We have also studied small clusters amenable to exact diagonalization studies in 2-D and have reproduced their energies and correlation functions by the MSPQMC method. We identify two ways in which a multiconfigurational trial wavefunction can lead to a negative sign problem. We observe that this effect is not severe in 1-D and tends to vanish with increasing system size. We also note that this does not enhance the severity of the sign problem in two dimensions.Comment: 29 pages, 2 figures available on request, submitted to Phys. Rev.

Charge Transport in the Dense Two-Dimensional Coulomb Gas

The dynamics of a globally neutral system of diffusing Coulomb charges in two dimensions, driven by an applied electric field, is studied in a wide temperature range around the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition. I argue that the commonly accepted ``free particle drift'' mechanism of charge transport in this system is limited to relatively low particle densities. For higher densities, I propose a modified picture involving collective ``partner transfer'' between bound pairs. The new picture provides a natural explanation for recent experimental and numerical findings which deviate from standard theory. It also clarifies the origin of dynamical scaling in this context.Comment: 4 pages, RevTeX, 2 eps figures included; some typos corrected, final version to be published in Phys. Rev. Let

Phase Transitions Driven by Vortices in 2D Superfluids and Superconductors: From Kosterlitz-Thouless to 1st Order

The Landau-Ginzburg-Wilson hamiltonian is studied for different values of the parameter $\lambda$ which multiplies the quartic term (it turns out that this is equivalent to consider different values of the coherence length $\xi$ in units of the lattice spacing $a$). It is observed that amplitude fluctuations can change dramatically the nature of the phase transition: for small values of $\lambda$ ($\xi/a > 0.7$), instead of the smooth Kosterlitz-Thouless transition there is a {\em first order} transition with a discontinuous jump in the vortex density $v$ and a larger non-universal drop in the helicity modulus. In particular, for $\lambda$ sufficiently small ($\xi/a \cong 1$), the density of bound pairs of vortex-antivortex below $T_c$ is so low that, $v$ drops to zero almost for all temperature $T<Tc$.Comment: 8 pages, 5 .eps figure