Ultrabroad-bandwidth multifrequency Raman generation

We report on the modeling of transient stimulated rotational Raman scattering in H2 gas. We predict a multifrequency output, spanning a bandwidth greater than the pump frequency, that may be generated without any significant delay with respect to the pump pulses. The roles of dispersion and transiency are quantified

Transverse effects in multifrequency Raman generation

The theory of ultrabroadband multifrequency Raman generation is extended, for the first time, to allow for beam-propagation effects in one and two transverse dimensions. We show that a complex transverse structure develops even when diffraction is neglected. In the general case, we examine how the ultrabroadband multifrequency Raman generation process is affected by the intensity, phase quality, and width of the input beams, and by the length of the Raman medium. The evolution of power spectra, intensity profiles, and global characteristics of the multifrequency beams are investigated and explained. In the two-dimensional transverse case, bandwidths comparable to the optical carrier frequency, spanning the whole visible spectrum and beyond, are still achievable

Chaotic Orbits in Thermal-Equilibrium Beams: Existence and Dynamical Implications

Phase mixing of chaotic orbits exponentially distributes these orbits through their accessible phase space. This phenomenon, commonly called ``chaotic mixing'', stands in marked contrast to phase mixing of regular orbits which proceeds as a power law in time. It is operationally irreversible; hence, its associated e-folding time scale sets a condition on any process envisioned for emittance compensation. A key question is whether beams can support chaotic orbits, and if so, under what conditions? We numerically investigate the parameter space of three-dimensional thermal-equilibrium beams with space charge, confined by linear external focusing forces, to determine whether the associated potentials support chaotic orbits. We find that a large subset of the parameter space does support chaos and, in turn, chaotic mixing. Details and implications are enumerated.Comment: 39 pages, including 14 figure

An Assessment to Benchmark the Seismic Performance of a Code-Conforming Reinforced-Concrete Moment-Frame Building

This report describes a state-of-the-art performance-based earthquake engineering methodology that is used to assess the seismic performance of a four-story reinforced concrete (RC) office building that is generally representative of low-rise office buildings constructed in highly seismic regions of California. This “benchmark” building is considered to be located at a site in the Los Angeles basin, and it was designed with a ductile RC special moment-resisting frame as its seismic lateral system that was designed according to modern building codes and standards. The building’s performance is quantified in terms of structural behavior up to collapse, structural and nonstructural damage and associated repair costs, and the risk of fatalities and their associated economic costs. To account for different building configurations that may be designed in practice to meet requirements of building size and use, eight structural design alternatives are used in the performance assessments. Our performance assessments account for important sources of uncertainty in the ground motion hazard, the structural response, structural and nonstructural damage, repair costs, and life-safety risk. The ground motion hazard characterization employs a site-specific probabilistic seismic hazard analysis and the evaluation of controlling seismic sources (through disaggregation) at seven ground motion levels (encompassing return periods ranging from 7 to 2475 years). Innovative procedures for ground motion selection and scaling are used to develop acceleration time history suites corresponding to each of the seven ground motion levels. Structural modeling utilizes both “fiber” models and “plastic hinge” models. Structural modeling uncertainties are investigated through comparison of these two modeling approaches, and through variations in structural component modeling parameters (stiffness, deformation capacity, degradation, etc.). Structural and nonstructural damage (fragility) models are based on a combination of test data, observations from post-earthquake reconnaissance, and expert opinion. Structural damage and repair costs are modeled for the RC beams, columns, and slabcolumn connections. Damage and associated repair costs are considered for some nonstructural building components, including wallboard partitions, interior paint, exterior glazing, ceilings, sprinkler systems, and elevators. The risk of casualties and the associated economic costs are evaluated based on the risk of structural collapse, combined with recent models on earthquake fatalities in collapsed buildings and accepted economic modeling guidelines for the value of human life in loss and cost-benefit studies. The principal results of this work pertain to the building collapse risk, damage and repair cost, and life-safety risk. These are discussed successively as follows. When accounting for uncertainties in structural modeling and record-to-record variability (i.e., conditional on a specified ground shaking intensity), the structural collapse probabilities of the various designs range from 2% to 7% for earthquake ground motions that have a 2% probability of exceedance in 50 years (2475 years return period). When integrated with the ground motion hazard for the southern California site, the collapse probabilities result in mean annual frequencies of collapse in the range of [0.4 to 1.4]x10 -4 for the various benchmark building designs. In the development of these results, we made the following observations that are expected to be broadly applicable: (1) The ground motions selected for performance simulations must consider spectral shape (e.g., through use of the epsilon parameter) and should appropriately account for correlations between motions in both horizontal directions; (2) Lower-bound component models, which are commonly used in performance-based assessment procedures such as FEMA 356, can significantly bias collapse analysis results; it is more appropriate to use median component behavior, including all aspects of the component model (strength, stiffness, deformation capacity, cyclic deterioration, etc.); (3) Structural modeling uncertainties related to component deformation capacity and post-peak degrading stiffness can impact the variability of calculated collapse probabilities and mean annual rates to a similar degree as record-to-record variability of ground motions. Therefore, including the effects of such structural modeling uncertainties significantly increases the mean annual collapse rates. We found this increase to be roughly four to eight times relative to rates evaluated for the median structural model; (4) Nonlinear response analyses revealed at least six distinct collapse mechanisms, the most common of which was a story mechanism in the third story (differing from the multi-story mechanism predicted by nonlinear static pushover analysis); (5) Soil-foundation-structure interaction effects did not significantly affect the structural response, which was expected given the relatively flexible superstructure and stiff soils. The potential for financial loss is considerable. Overall, the calculated expected annual losses (EAL) are in the range of $52,000 to$97,000 for the various code-conforming benchmark building designs, or roughly 1% of the replacement cost of the building ($8.8M). These losses are dominated by the expected repair costs of the wallboard partitions (including interior paint) and by the structural members. Loss estimates are sensitive to details of the structural models, especially the initial stiffness of the structural elements. Losses are also found to be sensitive to structural modeling choices, such as ignoring the tensile strength of the concrete (40 EAL) or the contribution of the gravity frames to overall building stiffness and strength (15 change in EAL). Although there are a number of factors identified in the literature as likely to affect the risk of human injury during seismic events, the casualty modeling in this study focuses on those factors (building collapse, building occupancy, and spatial location of building occupants) that directly inform the building design process. The expected annual number of fatalities is calculated for the benchmark building, assuming that an earthquake can occur at any time of any day with equal probability and using fatality probabilities conditioned on structural collapse and based on empirical data. The expected annual number of fatalities for the code-conforming buildings ranges between 0.05*10 -2 and 0.21*10 -2 , and is equal to 2.30*10 -2 for a non-code conforming design. The expected loss of life during a seismic event is perhaps the decision variable that owners and policy makers will be most interested in mitigating. The fatality estimation carried out for the benchmark building provides a methodology for comparing this important value for various building designs, and enables informed decision making during the design process. The expected annual loss associated with fatalities caused by building earthquake damage is estimated by converting the expected annual number of fatalities into economic terms. Assuming the value of a human life is$3.5M, the fatality rate translates to an EAL due to fatalities of $3,500 to$5,600 for the code-conforming designs, and $79,800 for the non-code conforming design. Compared to the EAL due to repair costs of the code-conforming designs, which are on the order of$66,000, the monetary value associated with life loss is small, suggesting that the governing factor in this respect will be the maximum permissible life-safety risk deemed by the public (or its representative government) to be appropriate for buildings. Although the focus of this report is on one specific building, it can be used as a reference for other types of structures. This report is organized in such a way that the individual core chapters (4, 5, and 6) can be read independently. Chapter 1 provides background on the performance-based earthquake engineering (PBEE) approach. Chapter 2 presents the implementation of the PBEE methodology of the PEER framework, as applied to the benchmark building. Chapter 3 sets the stage for the choices of location and basic structural design. The subsequent core chapters focus on the hazard analysis (Chapter 4), the structural analysis (Chapter 5), and the damage and loss analyses (Chapter 6). Although the report is self-contained, readers interested in additional details can find them in the appendices

Production of Enhanced Beam Halos via Collective Modes and Colored Noise

We investigate how collective modes and colored noise conspire to produce a beam halo with much larger amplitude than could be generated by either phenomenon separately. The collective modes are lowest-order radial eigenmodes calculated self-consistently for a configuration corresponding to a direct-current, cylindrically symmetric, warm-fluid Kapchinskij-Vladimirskij equilibrium. The colored noise arises from unavoidable machine errors and influences the internal space-charge force. Its presence quickly launches statistically rare particles to ever-growing amplitudes by continually kicking them back into phase with the collective-mode oscillations. The halo amplitude is essentially the same for purely radial orbits as for orbits that are initially purely azimuthal; orbital angular momentum has no statistically significant impact. Factors that do have an impact include the amplitudes of the collective modes and the strength and autocorrelation time of the colored noise. The underlying dynamics ensues because the noise breaks the Kolmogorov-Arnol'd-Moser tori that otherwise would confine the beam. These tori are fragile; even very weak noise will eventually break them, though the time scale for their disintegration depends on the noise strength. Both collective modes and noise are therefore centrally important to the dynamics of halo formation in real beams.Comment: For full resolution pictures please go to http://www.nicadd.niu.edu/research/beams

Chaos and the continuum limit in nonneutral plasmas and charged particle beams

This paper examines discreteness effects in nearly collisionless N-body systems of charged particles interacting via an unscreened r^-2 force, allowing for bulk potentials admitting both regular and chaotic orbits. Both for ensembles and individual orbits, as N increases there is a smooth convergence towards a continuum limit. Discreteness effects are well modeled by Gaussian white noise with relaxation time t_R = const * (N/log L)t_D, with L the Coulomb logarithm and t_D the dynamical time scale. Discreteness effects accelerate emittance growth for initially localised clumps. However, even allowing for discreteness effects one can distinguish between orbits which, in the continuum limit, feel a regular potential, so that emittance grows as a power law in time, and chaotic orbits, where emittance grows exponentially. For sufficiently large N, one can distinguish two different `kinds' of chaos. Short range microchaos, associated with close encounters between charges, is a generic feature, yielding large positive Lyapunov exponents X_N which do not decrease with increasing N even if the bulk potential is integrable. Alternatively, there is the possibility of larger scale macrochaos, characterised by smaller Lyapunov exponents X_S, which is present only if the bulk potential is chaotic. Conventional computations of Lyapunov exponents probe X_N, leading to the oxymoronic conclusion that N-body orbits which look nearly regular and have sharply peaked Fourier spectra are `very chaotic.' However, the `range' of the microchaos, set by the typical interparticle spacing, decreases as N increases, so that, for large N, this microchaos, albeit very strong, is largely irrelevant macroscopically. A more careful numerical analysis allows one to estimate both X_N and X_S.Comment: 13 pages plus 17 figure

Age-dependent differences in human brain activity using a face- and location-matching task: An fMRI study

Purpose: To evaluate the differences of cortical activation patterns in young and elderly healthy subjects for object and spatial visual processing using a face- and location-matching task. Materials and Methods: We performed a face- and a location-matching task in 15 young (mean age: 28 +/- 9 years) and 19 elderly (mean age: 71 +/- 6 years) subjects. Each experiment consisted of 7 blocks alternating between activation and control condition. For face matching, the subjects had to indicate whether two displayed faces were identical or different. For location matching, the subjects had to press a button whenever two objects had an identical position. For control condition, we used a perception task with abstract images. Functional imaging was performed on a 1.5-tesla scanner using an EPI sequence. Results: In the face-matching task, the young subjects showed bilateral (right 1 left) activation in the occipito-temporal pathway (occipital gyrus, inferior and middle temporal gyrus). Predominantly right hemispheric activations were found in the fusiform gyrus, the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (inferior and middle frontal gyrus) and the superior parietal gyrus. In the elderly subjects, the activated areas in the right fronto-lateral cortex increased. An additional activated area could be found in the medial frontal gyrus (right > left). In the location-matching task, young subjects presented increased bilateral (right > left) activation in the superior parietal lobe and precuneus compared with face matching. The activations in the occipito-temporal pathway, in the right fronto-lateral cortex and the fusiform gyrus were similar to the activations found in the face-matching task. In the elderly subjects, we detected similar activation patterns compared to the young subjects with additional activations in the medial frontal gyrus. Conclusion: Activation patterns for object-based and spatial visual processing were established in the young and elderly healthy subjects. Differences between the elderly and young subjects could be evaluated, especially by using a face-matching task. Copyright (c) 2007 S. Karger AG, Basel