Condensation risk: comparison of steady-state and transient methods

Accurate assessment of both surface and interstitial condensation risk is important not only to reduce the damaging effect of moisture within the structure of buildings, but also to provide a healthy environment free from mould growth. The current British Standard (BS EN ISO 13788: 2002) contains an assessment procedure based on the assumption of a steady-state heat flow through the building envelope, neglecting the transient nature of the problem. This paper compares and evaluates numerical results of the condensation risk calculation under both steady-state and transient conditions using the existing numerical codes. Significant differences are apparent between the predictions of the simple (steady-state) and complex (transient) methods for all construction details modelled

Tadpole renormalization and relativistic corrections in lattice NRQCD

We make a comparison of two tadpole renormalization schemes in the context of the quarkonium hyperfine splittings in lattice NRQCD. Improved gauge-field and NRQCD actions are analyzed using the mean-link $u_{0,L}$ in Landau gauge, and using the fourth root of the average plaquette $u_{0,P}$. Simulations are done for $c\bar c$, $b\bar c$, and $b\bar b$ systems. The hyperfine splittings are computed both at leading and at next-to-leading order in the relativistic expansion. Results are obtained at lattice spacings in the range of about 0.14~fm to 0.38~fm. A number of features emerge, all of which favor tadpole renormalization using $u_{0,L}$. This includes much better scaling behavior of the hyperfine splittings in the three quarkonium systems when $u_{0,L}$ is used. We also find that relativistic corrections to the spin splittings are smaller when $u_{0,L}$ is used, particularly for the $c\bar c$ and $b\bar c$ systems. We also see signs of a breakdown in the NRQCD expansion when the bare quark mass falls below about one in lattice units. Simulations with $u_{0,L}$ also appear to be better behaved in this context: the bare quark masses turn out to be larger when $u_{0,L}$ is used, compared to when $u_{0,P}$ is used on lattices with comparable spacings. These results also demonstrate the need to go beyond tree-level tadpole improvement for precision simulations.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figures (minor changes to some phraseology and references

Quarkonium spin structure in lattice NRQCD

Numerical simulations of the quarkonium spin splittings are done in the framework of lattice nonrelativistic quantum chromodynamics (NRQCD). At leading order in the velocity expansion the spin splittings are of $O(M_Q v^4)$, where $M_Q$ is the renormalized quark mass and $v^2$ is the mean squared quark velocity. A systematic analysis is done of all next-to-leading order corrections. This includes the addition of $O(M_Q v^6)$ relativistic interactions, and the removal of $O(a^2 M_Q v^4)$ discretization errors in the leading-order interactions. Simulations are done for both S- and P-wave mesons, with a variety of heavy quark actions and over a wide range of lattice spacings. Two prescriptions for the tadpole improvement of the action are also studied in detail: one using the measured value of the average plaquette, the other using the mean link measured in Landau gauge. Next-to-leading order interactions result in a very large reduction in the charmonium splittings, down by about 60% from their values at leading order. There are further indications that the velocity expansion may be poorly convergent for charmonium. Prelimary results show a small correction to the hyperfine splitting in the Upsilon system.Comment: 16 pages, REVTEX v3.1, 5 postscript figures include

The thermodynamic evolution of the cosmological event horizon

By manipulating the integral expression for the proper radius $R_e$ of the cosmological event horizon (CEH) in a Friedmann-Robertson-Walker (FRW) universe, we obtain an analytical expression for the change \dd R_e in response to a uniform fluctuation \dd\rho in the average cosmic background density $\rho$. We stipulate that the fluctuation arises within a vanishing interval of proper time, during which the CEH is approximately stationary, and evolves subsequently such that \dd\rho/\rho is constant. The respective variations 2\pi R_e \dd R_e and \dd E_e in the horizon entropy $S_e$ and enclosed energy $E_e$ should be therefore related through the cosmological Clausius relation. In that manner we find that the temperature $T_e$ of the CEH at an arbitrary time in a flat FRW universe is $E_e/S_e$, which recovers asymptotically the usual static de Sitter temperature. Furthermore, it is proven that during radiation-dominance and in late times the CEH conforms to the fully dynamical First Law T_e \drv S_e = P\drv V_e - \drv E_e, where $V_e$ is the enclosed volume and $P$ is the average cosmic pressure.Comment: 6 page

New Cosmological Structures on Medium Angular Scales Detected with the Tenerife Experiments

We present observations at 10 and 15 GHz taken with the Tenerife experiments in a band of the sky at Dec.=+35 degrees. These experiments are sensitive to multipoles in the range l=10-30. The sensitivity per beam is 56 and 20 microK for the 10 and the 15 GHz data, respectively. After subtraction of the prediction of known radio-sources, the analysis of the data at 15 GHz at high Galactic latitude shows the presence of a signal with amplitude Delta Trms ~ 32 microK. In the case of a Harrison-Zeldovich spectrum for the primordial fluctuations, a likelihood analysis shows that this signal corresponds to a quadrupole amplitude Q_rms-ps=20.1+7.1-5.4 microK, in agreement with our previous results at Dec.+=40 degrees and with the results of the COBE DMR. There is clear evidence for the presence of individual features in the RA range 190 degrees to 250 degrees with a peak to peak amplitude of ~110 microK. A preliminary comparison between our results and COBE DMR predictions for the Tenerife experiments clearly indicates the presence of individual features common to both. The constancy in amplitude over such a large range in frequency (10-90 GHz) is strongly indicative of an intrinsic cosmological origin for these structures.Comment: ApJ Letters accepted, 13 pages Latex (uses AASTEX) and 4 encapsulated postscript figures