Low pT Hadronic Physics with CMS

The pixel detector of CMS can be used to reconstruct very low pT charged particles down to about 0.1 GeV/c. This can be achieved with high efficiency, good resolution and a negligible fake rate for elementary collisions. In the case of central PbPb collisions the fake rate can be kept low for pT > 0.4 GeV/c. In addition, the detector can be employed for identification of neutral hadrons (V0s) and converted photons.Comment: 6 pages. Presented at the Poster Session of Quark Matter 2006 Conference, Shanghai, 14-20 November 2006. Submitted to IJMP

Intrinsic volumes of random polytopes with vertices on the boundary of a convex body

Let $K$ be a convex body in $\R^d$, let $j\in\{1, ..., d-1\}$, and let $\varrho$ be a positive and continuous probability density function with respect to the $(d-1)$-dimensional Hausdorff measure on the boundary $\partial K$ of $K$. Denote by $K_n$ the convex hull of $n$ points chosen randomly and independently from $\partial K$ according to the probability distribution determined by $\varrho$. For the case when $\partial K$ is a $C^2$ submanifold of $\R^d$ with everywhere positive Gauss curvature, M. Reitzner proved an asymptotic formula for the expectation of the difference of the $j$th intrinsic volumes of $K$ and $K_n$, as $n\to\infty$. In this article, we extend this result to the case when the only condition on $K$ is that a ball rolls freely in $K$

Local load sharing fiber bundles with a lower cutoff of strength disorder

We study the failure properties of fiber bundles with a finite lower cutoff of the strength disorder varying the range of interaction between the limiting cases of completely global and completely local load sharing. Computer simulations revealed that at any range of load redistribution there exists a critical cutoff strength where the macroscopic response of the bundle becomes perfectly brittle, i.e. linearly elastic behavior is obtained up to global failure, which occurs catastrophically after the breaking of a small number of fibers. As an extension of recent mean field studies [Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 125501 (2005)], we demonstrate that approaching the critical cutoff, the size distribution of bursts of breaking fibers shows a crossover to a universal power law form with an exponent 3/2 independent of the range of interaction.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Damage in Fiber Bundle Models

We introduce a continuous damage fiber bundle model that gives rise to macroscopic plasticity and compare its behavior with that of dry fiber bundles. Several interesting constitutive behaviors are found in this model depending on the value of the damage parameter and on the form of the disorder distribution. In addition, we compare the behavior of global load transfer models with local load transfer models and study in detail the damage evolution before failure. We emphasize the analogies between our results and spinodal nucleation in first-order phase transitions.Comment: 9 pages, 13 figures (ps, eps

Creep rupture of viscoelastic fiber bundles

We study the creep rupture of bundles of viscoelastic fibers occurring under uniaxial constant tensile loading. A novel fiber bundle model is introduced which combines the viscoelastic constitutive behaviour and the strain controlled breaking of fibers. Analytical and numerical calculations showed that above a critical external load the deformation of the system monotonically increases in time resulting in global failure at a finite time $t_f$, while below the critical load the deformation tends to a constant value giving rise to an infinite lifetime. Our studies revealed that the nature of the transition between the two regimes, i.e. the behaviour of $t_f$ at the critical load $sigma_c$, strongly depends on the range of load sharing: for global load sharing $t_f$ has a power law divergence at $\sigma_c$ with a universal exponent of 0.5, however, for local load sharing the transition becomes abrupt: at the critical load $t_f$ jumps to a finite value, analogous to second and first order phase transitions, respectively. The acoustic response of the bundle during creep is also studied.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, APS style, submitted for publicatio