The small community solar thermal power experiment. Parabolic dish technology for industrial process heat application

Aspects of incorporating a thermal energy transport system (ETS) into a field of parabolic dish collectors for industrial process heat (IPH) applications were investigated. Specific objectives are to: (1) verify the mathematical optimization of pipe diameters and insulation thicknesses calculated by a computer code; (2) verify the cost model for pipe network costs using conventional pipe network construction; (3) develop a design and the associated production costs for incorporating risers and downcomers on a low cost concentrator (LCC); (4) investigate the cost reduction of using unconventional pipe construction technology. The pipe network design and costs for a particular IPH application, specifically solar thermally enhanced oil recovery (STEOR) are analyzed. The application involves the hybrid operation of a solar powered steam generator in conjunction with a steam generator using fossil fuels to generate STEOR steam for wells. It is concluded that the STEOR application provides a baseline pipe network geometry used for optimization studies of pipe diameter and insulation thickness, and for development of comparative cost data, and operating parameters for the design of riser/downcomer modifications to the low cost concentrator

Reflectance measurements of cotton leaf senescence altered by mepiquat chloride

Spectrophotometric reflectance measurements were made on plant-attached leaves to evaluate growth chamber-grown cotton leaf (Gossypium hirsutum L.) senescence (chlorophyll degradation as criterion) that was delayed by mepiquat chloride (1,1-dimethylpiperidinium chloride) rates of 0, 10, 40, 70, and 100 g a.i./ha. Mepiquat chloride (MC increased both chlorophyll and leaf water contents as compared with that of untreated leaves. Reflectance was inversely and linearly correlated (r = -0.873**) with eater content at the 1.65 micrometer wavelength and was inversely correlated (r = -0.812**) with chlorophyll concentration at the 0.55 micrometer wavelength but best fit a quadratic equation. Either wavelength measurement might be useful to remotely detect cotton leaf senescence or fields of MC-treated cotton plants

Gamow-Teller strength distributions in Fe and Ni stable isotopes

We study Gamow-Teller strength distributions in some selected nuclei of particular Astrophysical interest within the iron mass region. The theoretical framework is based on a proton-neutron Quasiparticle Random Phase Approximation built on a deformed selfconsistent mean field basis obtained from two-body density-dependent Skyrme forces. We compare our results to available experimental information obtained from (n,p) and (p,n) charge exchange reactions.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figure

Confinement and Chiral Dynamics in the Multi-flavor Schwinger Model

Two-dimensional QED with $N$ flavor fermions is solved at zero and finite temperature with arbitrary fermion masses to explore QCD physics such as chiral condensate and string tension. The problem is reduced to solving a Schr\"odinger equation for $N$ degrees of freedom with a specific potential determined by the ground state of the Schr\"odinger problem itself.Comment: 9 pages. 3 ps files and sprocl.sty attached. To appear in the Proceedings of the QCD 96 workshop (March, Minnesota

Isospin mixing and Fermi transitions: Selfconsistent deformed mean field calculations and beyond

We study Fermi transitions and isospin mixing in an isotopic chain 70-78 Kr considering various approximations that use the same Skyrme-Hartree-Fock single particle basis. We study Coulomb effects as well as the effect of BCS and quasiparticle random phase approximation (QRPA) correlations. A measure of isospin mixing in the approximate ground state is defined by means of the expectation value of the isospin operator squared in N=Z nuclei (which is generalized to N different from Z nuclei). Starting from strict Hartree-Fock approach without Coulomb, it is shown that the isospin breaking is negligible, on the order of a few per thousand for (N-Z)=6, increasing to a few percent with Coulomb. Pairing correlations induce rather large isospin mixing and Fermi transitions of the forbidden type (beta- for NZ). The enhancement produced by BCS correlations is compensated to a large extent by QRPA correlations induced by isospin conserving residual interactions that tend to restore isospin symmetry.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures, to be published in Phys. Rev.

Aspects of Confinement and Chiral Dynamics in 2-d QED at Finite Temperature

We evaluate the Polyakov loop and string tension at zero and finite temperature in $QED_2.$ Using bozonization the problem is reduced to solving the Schr\"odinger equation with a particular potential determined by the ground state. In the presence of two sources of opposite charges the vacuum angle parameter $\theta$ changes by $2\pi (q/e)$, independent of the number of flavors. This, in turn, alters the chiral condensate. Particularly, in the one flavor case through a simple computer algorithm, we explore the chiral dynamics of a heavy fermion.Comment: 4 pages, 2 ps files, uses sprocl.sty. To appear in Proceedings of DPF96 (August, Minnesota

Material Dependence of the Wire-Particle Casimir Interaction

We study the Casimir interaction between a metallic cylindrical wire and a metallic spherical particle by employing the scattering formalism. At large separations, we derive the asymptotic form of the interaction. In addition, we find the interaction between a metallic wire and an isotropic atom, both in the non-retarded and retarded limits. We identify the conditions under which the asymptotic Casimir interaction does not depend on the material properties of the metallic wire and the particle. Moreover, we compute the exact Casimir interaction between the particle and the wire numerically. We show that there is a complete agreement between the numerics and the asymptotic energies at large separations. For short separations, our numerical results show good agreement with the proximity force approximation