976 research outputs found
Ageing and relaxation times in disordered insulators
We focus on the slow relaxations observed in the conductance of disordered
insulators at low temperature (especially granular aluminum films). They
manifest themselves as a temporal logarithmic decrease of the conductance after
a quench from high temperatures and the concomitant appearance of a field
effect anomaly centered on the gate voltage maintained. We are first interested
in ageing effects, i.e. the age dependence of the dynamical properties of the
system. We stress that the formation of a second field effect anomaly at a
different gate voltage is not a "history free" logarithmic (lnt) process, but
departs from lnt in a way which encodes the system's age. The apparent
relaxation time distribution extracted from the observed relaxations is thus
not "constant" but evolves with time. We discuss what defines the age of the
system and what external perturbation out of equilibrium does or does not
rejuvenate it. We further discuss the problem of relaxation times and comment
on the commonly used "two dip" experimental protocol aimed at extracting
"characteristic times" for the glassy systems (granular aluminum, doped indium
oxide...). We show that it is inoperable for systems like granular Al and
probably highly doped InOx where it provides a trivial value only determined by
the experimental protocol. But in cases where different values are obtained
like in lightly doped InOx or some ultra thin metal films, potentially
interesting information can be obtained, possibly about the "short time"
dynamics of the different systems. Present ideas about the effect of doping on
the glassiness of disordered insulators may also have to be reconsidered.Comment: to appear in the proceedings of the 14th International Conference on
Transport and Interactions in Disordered Systems (TIDS14
Charging of highly resistive granular metal films
We have used the Scanning Kelvin probe microscopy technique to monitor the
charging process of highly resistive granular thin films. The sample is
connected to two leads and is separated by an insulator layer from a gate
electrode. When a gate voltage is applied, charges enter from the leads and
rearrange across the sample. We find very slow processes with characteristic
charging times exponentially distributed over a wide range of values, resulting
in a logarithmic relaxation to equilibrium. After the gate voltage has been
switched off, the system again relaxes logarithmically slowly to the new
equilibrium. The results cannot be explained with diffusion models, but most of
them can be understood with a hopping percolation model, in which the
localization length is shorter than the typical site separation. The technique
is very promising for the study of slow phenomena in highly resistive systems
and will be able to estimate the conductance of these systems when direct
macroscopic measurement techniques are not sensitive enough.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figure
OPserver: interactive online-computations of opacities and radiative accelerations
Codes to compute mean opacities and radiative accelerations for arbitrary
chemical mixtures using the Opacity Project recently revised data have been
restructured in a client--server architecture and transcribed as a subroutine
library. This implementation increases efficiency in stellar modelling where
element stratification due to diffusion processes is depth dependent, and thus
requires repeated fast opacity reestimates. Three user modes are provided to
fit different computing environments, namely a web browser, a local workstation
and a distributed grid.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figur
A Beam Driven Plasma-Wakefield Linear Collider: From Higgs Factory to Multi-TeV
Plasma wakefield acceleration (PWFA) holds much promise for advancing the
energy frontier because it can potentially provide a 1000-fold or more increase
in acceleration gradient with excellent power efficiency in respect with
standard technologies. Most of the advances in beam-driven plasma wakefield
acceleration were obtained by a UCLA/USC/SLAC collaboration working at the SLAC
FFTB[ ]. These experiments have shown that plasmas can accelerate and focus
both electron and positron high energy beams, and an accelerating gradient in
excess of 50 GeV/m can be sustained in an 85 cm-long plasma. The FFTB
experiments were essentially proof-of-principle experiments that showed the
great potential of plasma accelerators.
The FACET[ ] test facility at SLAC will in the period 2012-2016 further study
several issues that are directly related to the applicability of PWFA to a
high-energy collider, in particular two-beam acceleration where the witness
beam experiences high beam loading (required for high efficiency), small energy
spread and small emittance dilution (required to achieve luminosity).
The PWFA-LC concept presented in this document is an attempt to find the best
design that takes advantage of the PWFA, identify the critical parameters to be
achieved and eventually the necessary R&D to address their feasibility. It best
benefits from the extensive R&D that has been performed for conventional rf
linear colliders during the last twenty years, especially ILC[ ] and CLIC[ ],
with a potential for a comparably lower power consumption and cost.Comment: Submitted to the proceedings of the Snowmass Process CSS2013. Work
supported in part by the U.S. Department of Energy under contract number
DE-AC02-76SF0051
Automatically proving equivalence by type-safe reflection
We are also grateful for the support of the Scottish Informatics and Computer Science Alliance (SICSA) and EPSRC grant EP/N024222/1.One difficulty with reasoning and programming with dependent types is that proof obligations arise naturally once programs become even moderately sized. For example, implementing an adder for binary numbers indexed over their natural number equivalents naturally leads to proof obligations for equalities of expressions over natural numbers. The need for these equality proofs comes, in intensional type theories, from the fact that the propositional equality enables us to prove as equal terms that are not judgementally equal, which means that the typechecker can’t always obtain equalities by reduction. As far as possible, we would like to solve such proof obligations automatically. In this paper, we show one way to automate these proofs by reflection in the dependently typed programming language Idris. We show how defining reflected terms indexed by the original Idris expression allows us to construct and manipulate proofs. We build a hierarchy of tactics for proving equivalences in semi-groups, monoids, commutative monoids, groups, commutative groups, semi-rings and rings. We also show how each tactic reuses those from simpler structures, thus avoiding duplication of code and proofs.Postprin
Precise methane absorption measurements in the 1.64 mu m spectral region for the MERLIN mission
In this article we describe a high-precision laboratory measurement targeting the R(6) manifold of the 2.3 band of (CH4)-C-12. High-fidelity modeling of this absorption spectrum for atmospheric temperature and pressure conditions will be required by the Franco-German, Methane Remote Sensing LIDAR (MERLIN) space mission for retrievals of atmospheric methane. The analysis uses the Hartmann-Tran profile for modeling line shape and also includes line-mixing effects. To this end, six high-resolution and high signal-to-noise ratio absorption spectra of air-broadened methane were recorded using a frequency-stabilized cavity ring-down spectroscopy apparatus. Sample conditions corresponded to room temperature and spanned total sample pressures of 40 hPa-1013 hPa with methane molar fractions between 1 mu mol mol(-1) and 12 mu mol mol(-1). All spectroscopicmodel parameters were simultaneously adjusted in amultispectrum nonlinear least squares fit to the six measured spectra. Comparison of the fitted model to the measured spectra reveals the ability to calculate the room temperature, methane absorption coefficient to better than 0.1% at the online position of theMERLINmission. This is the first time that such fidelity has been reached in modelingmethane absorption in the investigated spectral region, fulfilling the accuracy requirements of the MERLIN mission. We also found excellent agreement when comparing the present results with measurements obtained over different pressure conditions and using other laboratory techniques. Finally, we also evaluated the impact of these new spectral parameters on atmospheric transmissions spectra calculations
Observation of shot-noise-induced asymmetry in the Coulomb blockaded Josephson junction
We have investigated the influence of shot noise on the IV-curves of a single
mesoscopic Josephson junction. We observe a linear enhancement of zero-bias
conductance of the Josephson junction with increasing shot noise power.
Moreover, the IV-curves become increasingly asymmetric. Our analysis on the
asymmetry shows that the Coulomb blockade of Cooper pairs is strongly
influenced by the non-Gaussian character of the shot noise.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, RevTE
Transport and cooling of singly-charged noble gas ion beams
The transport and cooling of noble gas singly-charged ion beams by means of a
Radio Frequency Quadrupole Cooler Buncher (RFQCB) have been studied at the
LIMBE low energy beam line of the GANIL facility. Ions as light as
have been cooled and stored before their extraction in bunches using as
buffer gas. Bunches characteristics have been studied as a function of the
parameters of the device. Sizeable transmissions of up to 10 have been
obtained. A detailed study of the lifetime of ions inside the buncher has been
performed giving an estimate of the charge exchange cross-section. Results of a
microscopic Monte-Carlo transport code show reasonable agreement with
experimental data.Comment: 13 figure
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