10,130 research outputs found
Magnetohydrodynamic activity inside a sphere
We present a computational method to solve the magnetohydrodynamic equations
in spherical geometry. The technique is fully nonlinear and wholly spectral,
and uses an expansion basis that is adapted to the geometry:
Chandrasekhar-Kendall vector eigenfunctions of the curl. The resulting lower
spatial resolution is somewhat offset by being able to build all the boundary
conditions into each of the orthogonal expansion functions and by the
disappearance of any difficulties caused by singularities at the center of the
sphere. The results reported here are for mechanically and magnetically
isolated spheres, although different boundary conditions could be studied by
adapting the same method. The intent is to be able to study the nonlinear
dynamical evolution of those aspects that are peculiar to the spherical
geometry at only moderate Reynolds numbers. The code is parallelized, and will
preserve to high accuracy the ideal magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) invariants of the
system (global energy, magnetic helicity, cross helicity). Examples of results
for selective decay and mechanically-driven dynamo simulations are discussed.
In the dynamo cases, spontaneous flips of the dipole orientation are observed.Comment: 15 pages, 19 figures. Improved figures, in press in Physics of Fluid
Lake restoration lags â fact sheet
Regulatory responses to declines in lake health have often been characterised by long lag times. Under these circumstances regulation has often failed to prevent declining lake health or to implement successful restoration programmes. For Lake Rotorua, response lags can be seen in the time passing between the recognition of water quality decline (e.g. weed problems and algal blooms), and the effect of regulatory actions to improve water quality (e.g. land use management changes). Research undertaken by Mueller et al. (2015) has shown that lag times of approximately 5 years may occur between significant environmental declines and regulatory responses
High-vacuum-compatible high-power Faraday isolators for gravitational-wave interferometers
Faraday isolators play a key role in the operation of large-scale gravitational-wave detectors. Second-generation gravitational-wave interferometers such as the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and Advanced Virgo will use high-average-power cw lasers (up to 200 W) requiring specially designed Faraday isolators that are immune to the effects resulting from the laser beam absorptionâdegraded isolation ratio, thermal lensing, and thermally induced beam steering. In this paper, we present a comprehensive study of Faraday isolators designed specifically for high-performance operation in high-power gravitational-wave interferometers
Renormalons in Effective Field Theories
We investigate the high-order behavior of perturbative matching conditions in
effective field theories. These series are typically badly divergent, and are
not Borel summable due to infrared and ultraviolet renormalons which introduce
ambiguities in defining the sum of the series. We argue that, when treated
consistently, there is no physical significance to these ambiguities. Although
nonperturbative matrix elements and matching conditions are in general
ambiguous, the ambiguity in any physical observable is always higher order in
than the theory has been defined. We discuss the implications for the
recently noticed infrared renormalon in the pole mass of a heavy quark. We show
that a ratio of form factors in exclusive decays (which is related
to the pole mass) is free from renormalon ambiguities regardless of the mass
used as the expansion parameter of HQET. The renormalon ambiguities also cancel
in inclusive heavy hadron decays. Finally, we demonstrate the cancellation of
renormalons in a four-Fermi effective theory obtained by integrating out a
heavy colored scalar.Comment: Minor changes mad
Characterization of the 8-hydroxyquinoline scaffold for inhibitors of West Nile virus serine protease
West Nile virus (WNV) is a mosquito-borne member of flaviviruses that causes significant morbidity and mortality especially among children. There is currently no approved vaccine or antiviral therapeutic for human use. In a previous study, we described compounds containing the 8-hydroxyquinoline (8-HQ) scaffold as inhibitors of WNV serine protease (NS2B/NS3pro) in a high throughput screen (HTS) using the purified WNV NS2B/NS3pro as the target. In this study, we analyzed potencies of some commercially available as well as chemically synthesized derivatives of 8-HQ by biochemical assays. An insight into the contribution of various substitutions of 8-HQ moiety for inhibition of the protease activity was revealed. Most importantly, the substitution of the N1 of the 8-HQ ring by âCHâ in compound 26 significantly reduced the inhibition of the viral protease by this naphthalen-1-ol derivative. The kinetic constant (Ki) for the most potent 8-HQ inhibitor (compound 14) with an IC50 value of 2.01 ± 0.08 ?M using the tetra-peptide substrate was determined to be 5.8 ?M. This compound inhibits the WNV NS2B/NS3pro by a competitive mode of inhibition which is supported by molecular modeling
Nonperturbative Effects from the Resummation of Perturbation Theory
Using the general argument in Borel resummation of perturbation theory that
links the divergent perturbation theory to the nonperturbative effect we argue
that the nonperturbative effect associated with the perturbation theory should
have a branch cut only along the positive real axis in the complex coupling
plane. The component in the weak coupling expansion of the nonperturbative
amplitude, which usually includes the leading term in the weak coupling
expansion, that gives rise to the branch cut can be calculated in principle
from the perturbation theory combined with some exactly calculable properties
of the nonperturbative effect. The realization of this mechanism is
demonstrated in the double well potential and the two-dimensional O(N)
nonlinear sigma model. In these models the leading term in weak coupling of the
nonperturbative effect can be obtained with good accuracy from the first terms
of the perturbation theory. Applying this mechanism to the infrared renormalon
induced nonperturbative effect in QCD, we suggest some of the QCD condensate
effects can be calculated in principle from the perturbation theory.Comment: 21 Pages, 1 Figure; To appear in Phys Rev
The non-perturbative groundstate of Q.C.D and the local composite operator A_mu^2
We investigate the possibility that the dimension 2 condensate A_mu^2 has a
non zero non-perturbative value in Yang-Mills theory. We introduce a
multiplicatively renormalisable effective potential for this condensate and
show through two loop calculations that a non zero condensate is energetically
favoured.Comment: 12 page
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