19,227 research outputs found
Filamentary fragmentation in a turbulent medium
We present the results of smoothed particle hydrodynamic simulations
investigating the evolution and fragmentation of filaments that are accreting
from a turbulent medium. We show that the presence of turbulence, and the
resulting inhomogeneities in the accretion flow, play a significant role in the
fragmentation process. Filaments which experience a weakly turbulent accretion
flow fragment in a two-tier hierarchical fashion, similar to the fragmentation
pattern seen in the Orion Integral Shaped Filament. Increasing the energy in
the turbulent velocity field results in more sub-structure within the
filaments, and one sees a shift from gravity-dominated fragmentation to
turbulence-dominated fragmentation. The sub-structure formed in the filaments
is elongated and roughly parallel to the longitudinal axis of the filament,
similar to the fibres seen in observations of Taurus, and suggests that the
fray and fragment scenario is a possible mechanism for the production of
fibres. We show that the formation of these fibre-like structures is linked to
the vorticity of the velocity field inside the filament and the filament's
accretion from an inhomogeneous medium. Moreover, we find that accretion is
able to drive and sustain roughly sonic levels of turbulence inside the
filaments, but is not able to prevent radial collapse once the filaments become
supercritical. However, the supercritical filaments which contain fibre-like
structures do not collapse radially, suggesting that fibrous filaments may not
necessarily become radially unstable once they reach the critical line-density.Comment: (Accepted for publication in MNRAS
Effective coupling between two Brownian particles
We use the system-plus-reservoir approach to study the dynamics of a system
composed of two independent Brownian particles. We present an extension of the
well-known model of a bath of oscillators which is capable of inducing an
effective coupling between the two particles depending on the choice made for
the spectral function of the bath oscillators. The coupling is non-linear in
the variables of interest and an exponential dependence on these variables is
imposed in order to guarantee the translational invariance of the model if the
two particles are not subject to any external potential. The effective
equations of motion for the particles are obtained by the Laplace transform
method and besides recovering all the local dynamical properties for each
particle we end up with an effective interaction potential between them. We
explicitly analyze one of its possible forms.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figur
A generalization of the S-function method applied to a Duffing-Van der Pol forced oscillator
In [1,2] we have developed a method (we call it the S-function method) that
is successful in treating certain classes of rational second order ordinary
differential equations (rational 2ODEs) that are particularly `resistant' to
canonical Lie methods and to Darbouxian approaches. In this present paper, we
generalize the S-function method making it capable of dealing with a class of
elementary 2ODEs presenting elementary functions. Then, we apply this method to
a Duffing-Van der Pol forced oscillator, obtaining an entire class of first
integrals
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