7,489 research outputs found
Carbon Deficiency in Externally-Polluted White Dwarfs: Evidence for Accretion of Asteroids
Existing determinations show that n(C)/n(Fe) is more than a factor of 10
below solar in the atmospheres of three white dwarfs that appear to be
externally-polluted. These results are not easily explained if the stars have
accreted interstellar matter, and we re-interpret these measurements as
evidence that these stars have accreted asteroids of a chrondritic composition.Comment: 23 pages, 6 figures, accepted for Ap
A study by the lattice discrete element method for exploring the fractal nature of scale effects
Nowadays, there are many applications in the field of Engineering related to quasi-brittle materials such as ceramics, natural stones, and concrete, among others. When damage is produced, two phenomena can take place: the damage produced governs the collapse process when working with this type of material, and its random nature rules the nonlinear behavior up to the collapse. The interaction among clouds of micro-cracks generates the localization process that implies transforming a continuum domain into a discontinue one. This process also governs the size effect, that is, the changes of the global parameters as the strength and characteristic strain and energies when the size of the structure changes. Some aspects of the scaling law based on the fractal concepts proposed by Prof Carpinteri are analyzed in this work. On the other hand, the Discrete Method is an interesting option to be used in the simulation collapse process of quasi-brittle materials. This method can allow failures with relative ease. Moreover, it can also help to relax the continuum hypothesis. In the present work, a version of the Discrete Element Method is used to simulate the mechanical behavior of different size specimens until collapse by analyzing the size effect represented by this method. This work presents two sets of examples. Its results allow the researchers to see the connection between the numerical results regarding the size effect and the theoretical law based on the fractal dimension of the parameter studied. Two main aspects appear as a result of the analysis presented here. Understand better some aspects of the size effect using the numerical tool and show that the Lattice Discrete Element Method has enough robustness to be applied in the nonlinear analysis of structures built by quasi-brittle materials
A formal framework for a nonlocal generalization of Einstein's theory of gravitation
The analogy between electrodynamics and the translational gauge theory of
gravity is employed in this paper to develop an ansatz for a nonlocal
generalization of Einstein's theory of gravitation. Working in the linear
approximation, we show that the resulting nonlocal theory is equivalent to
general relativity with "dark matter". The nature of the predicted "dark
matter", which is the manifestation of the nonlocal character of gravity in our
model, is briefly discussed. It is demonstrated that this approach can provide
a basis for the Tohline-Kuhn treatment of the astrophysical evidence for dark
matter.Comment: 13 pages RevTex, no figures; v2: minor corrections, reference added,
matches published versio
Probing weakly-bound molecules with nonresonant light
We show that weakly-bound molecules can be probed by "shaking" in a pulsed
nonresonant laser field. The field introduces a centrifugal term which expels
the highest vibrational level from the potential that binds it. Our numerical
simulations applied to the Rb and KRb Feshbach molecules indicate that
shaking by feasible laser pulses can be used to accurately recover the square
of the vibrational wavefunction and, by inversion, also the long-range part of
the molecular potential.Comment: revised version, 4 pages, 4 figure
Centrifugal terms in the WKB approximation and semiclassical quantization of hydrogen
A systematic semiclassical expansion of the hydrogen problem about the
classical Kepler problem is shown to yield remarkably accurate results. Ad hoc
changes of the centrifugal term, such as the standard Langer modification where
the factor l(l+1) is replaced by (l+1/2)^2, are avoided. The semiclassical
energy levels are shown to be exact to first order in with all higher
order contributions vanishing. The wave functions and dipole matrix elements
are also discussed.Comment: 5 pages, to appear in Phys. Rev.
Symmetric hyperbolic systems for Bianchi equations
We obtain a family of first-order symmetric hyperbolic systems for the
Bianchi equations. They have only physical characteristics: the light cone and
timelike hypersurfaces. In the proof of the hyperbolicity, new positivity
properties of the Bel tensor are used.Comment: latex, 7 pages, accepted for publication in Class. Quantum Gra
The Cauchy problem on a characteristic cone for the Einstein equations in arbitrary dimensions
We derive explicit formulae for a set of constraints for the Einstein
equations on a null hypersurface, in arbitrary dimensions. We solve these
constraints and show that they provide necessary and sufficient conditions so
that a spacetime solution of the Cauchy problem on a characteristic cone for
the hyperbolic system of the reduced Einstein equations in wave-map gauge also
satisfies the full Einstein equations. We prove a geometric uniqueness theorem
for this Cauchy problem in the vacuum case.Comment: 83 pages, 1 figur
Induced Time-Reversal Symmetry Breaking Observed in Microwave Billiards
Using reciprocity, we investigate the breaking of time-reversal (T) symmetry
due to a ferrite embedded in a flat microwave billiard. Transmission spectra of
isolated single resonances are not sensitive to T-violation whereas those of
pairs of nearly degenerate resonances do depend on the direction of time. For
their theoretical description a scattering matrix model from nuclear physics is
used. The T-violating matrix elements of the effective Hamiltonian for the
microwave billiard with the embedded ferrite are determined experimentally as
functions of the magnetization of the ferrite.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Generalized harmonic formulation in spherical symmetry
In this pedagogically structured article, we describe a generalized harmonic
formulation of the Einstein equations in spherical symmetry which is regular at
the origin. The generalized harmonic approach has attracted significant
attention in numerical relativity over the past few years, especially as
applied to the problem of binary inspiral and merger. A key issue when using
the technique is the choice of the gauge source functions, and recent work has
provided several prescriptions for gauge drivers designed to evolve these
functions in a controlled way. We numerically investigate the parameter spaces
of some of these drivers in the context of fully non-linear collapse of a real,
massless scalar field, and determine nearly optimal parameter settings for
specific situations. Surprisingly, we find that many of the drivers that
perform well in 3+1 calculations that use Cartesian coordinates, are
considerably less effective in spherical symmetry, where some of them are, in
fact, unstable.Comment: 47 pages, 15 figures. v2: Minor corrections, including 2 added
references; journal version
Huygens' Principle for the Klein-Gordon equation in the de Sitter spacetime
In this article we prove that the Klein-Gordon equation in the de Sitter
spacetime obeys the Huygens' principle only if the physical mass of the
scalar field and the dimension of the spatial variable are tied by
the equation . Moreover, we define the incomplete Huygens'
principle, which is the Huygens' principle restricted to the vanishing second
initial datum, and then reveal that the massless scalar field in the de Sitter
spacetime obeys the incomplete Huygens' principle and does not obey the
Huygens' principle, for the dimensions , only. Thus, in the de Sitter
spacetime the existence of two different scalar fields (in fact, with m=0 and
), which obey incomplete Huygens' principle, is equivalent to
the condition (in fact, the spatial dimension of the physical world). For
these two values of the mass are the endpoints of the so-called in
quantum field theory the Higuchi bound. The value of the
physical mass allows us also to obtain complete asymptotic expansion of the
solution for the large time. Keywords: Huygens' Principle; Klein-Gordon
Equation; de Sitter spacetime; Higuchi Boun
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