Hot-wire anemometry in hypersonic helium flow

Hot-wire anemometry techniques are described that have been developed and used for hypersonic-helium-flow studies. The short run time available dictated certain innovations in applying conventional hot-wire techniques. Some examples are given to show the application of the techniques used. Modifications to conventional equipment are described, including probe modifications and probe heating controls

Probing GPDs in photoproduction processes at hadron colliders

Generalized parton distributions (GPDs) enter QCD factorization theorems for hard exclusive reactions. They encode rich information about hadron partonic structure. We explore a possibility to constrain GPDs in experiments at LHC considering two different exclusive processes: the timelike Compton scattering and the photoproduction of heavy vector mesons.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures; presented at PHOTON 2015: International Conference on the Structure and the Interactions of the Photon, Novosibirsk, Russia, 15 - 19 June, 2015. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1411.375

Defect free global minima in Thomson's problem of charges on a sphere

Given $N$ unit points charges on the surface of a unit conducting sphere, what configuration of charges minimizes the Coulombic energy $\sum_{i>j=1}^N 1/r_{ij}$? Due to an exponential rise in good local minima, finding global minima for this problem, or even approaches to do so has proven extremely difficult. For \hbox{$N = 10(h^2+hk+k^2)+ 2$} recent theoretical work based on elasticity theory, and subsequent numerical work has shown, that for $N \sim >500$--1000 adding dislocation defects to a symmetric icosadeltahedral lattice lowers the energy. Here we show that in fact this approach holds for all $N$, and we give a complete or near complete catalogue of defect free global minima.Comment: Revisions in Tables and Reference

The NASA integrated test facility and its impact on flight research

The Integrated Test Facility (ITF), being built at NASA Ames-Dryden Flight Research Facility, will provide new test capabilities for emerging research aircraft. An overview of the ITF and the challenges being addressed by this unique facility are outlined. The current ITF capabilities, being developed with the X-29 Forward Swept Wing Program, are discussed along with future ITF activities

On timelike and spacelike hard exclusive reactions

We show to next-to-leading order accuracy in the strong coupling alpha_s how the collinear factorization properties of QCD in the generalized Bjorken regime relate exclusive amplitudes for spacelike and timelike hadronic processes. This yields simple space--to--timelike relations linking the amplitudes for electroproduction of a photon or meson to those for photo- or meso-production of a lepton pair. These relations constitute a new test of the relevance of leading twist analyzes of experimental data.Comment: v2: major text revision; results, references, and author added; v3: matches the published version Phys. Rev. D86, rapid communication

The NWRA Classification Infrastructure: Description and Extension to the Discriminant Analysis Flare Forecasting System (DAFFS)

A classification infrastructure built upon Discriminant Analysis has been developed at NorthWest Research Associates for examining the statistical differences between samples of two known populations. Originating to examine the physical differences between flare-quiet and flare-imminent solar active regions, we describe herein some details of the infrastructure including: parametrization of large datasets, schemes for handling "null" and "bad" data in multi-parameter analysis, application of non-parametric multi-dimensional Discriminant Analysis, an extension through Bayes' theorem to probabilistic classification, and methods invoked for evaluating classifier success. The classifier infrastructure is applicable to a wide range of scientific questions in solar physics. We demonstrate its application to the question of distinguishing flare-imminent from flare-quiet solar active regions, updating results from the original publications that were based on different data and much smaller sample sizes. Finally, as a demonstration of "Research to Operations" efforts in the space-weather forecasting context, we present the Discriminant Analysis Flare Forecasting System (DAFFS), a near-real-time operationally-running solar flare forecasting tool that was developed from the research-directed infrastructure.Comment: J. Space Weather Space Climate: Accepted / in press; access supplementary materials through journal; some figures are less than full resolution for arXi

Editorial.

Welcome to the third issue of our journal . We are delighted to feature in this issue two peer-reviewed papers looking in detail at some of the outcomes of the ring-fenced money used for researcher development in the UK under the guise of Roberts funding. In her paper looking at impact of the training provided by this funding on late stage doctoral student researchers, Walsh and colleagues draw our attention to detailed analysis of impact via a variety of evaluation approaches. She also alerts us to the question of whether such development programmes should run alongside the traditional apprenticeship style training of such students. The second paper by Heading and colleagues provides a detailed example of a development programme event in information management and provides further evidence for impact of such training. Bai and Hudson move the focus to the research –teaching nexus and highlight the difficulty for TEFL staff in Chinese HEIs to develop a research strand in their careers. The importance in developing research capacity, providing support and mentoring to such staff is shown to be pivotal in their development. Finally conceptions of research from a variety of viewpoints are analyzed by Pitcher. Pitcher considers how the PhD itself, alongwith how the knowledge and outcomes of PhD research are perceived. In a preliminary survey of students on these matters, Pitcher highlights the importance of alignment with these concepts between student and supervisor thus avoiding difficulties between apprentice and supervisor as the research progresses which might inhibit development

Probing GPDs in Ultraperipheral Collisions

Ultraperipheral collisions in hadron colliders give new opportunites to investigate the hadron stucture through exclusive photoproduction processes. We describe the possibility of measuring the Generalized Parton Distributions in the Timelike Compton Scattering process and in the production of heavy vector meson.Comment: to appear in Proceedings Diffraction 2014, Primosten, Croatia, sept 10-16, 201