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Switching Propulsion Mechanisms of Tubular Catalytic Micromotors
Different propulsion mechanisms have been suggested for describing the motion of a variety of chemical micromotors, which have attracted great attention in the last decades due to their high efficiency and thrust force, enabling several applications in the fields of environmental remediation and biomedicine. Bubble-recoil based motion, in particular, has been modeled by three different phenomena: capillary forces, bubble growth, and bubble expulsion. However, these models have been suggested independently based on a single influencing factor (i.e., viscosity), limiting the understanding of the overall micromotor performance. Therefore, the combined effect of medium viscosity, surface tension, and fuel concentration is analyzed on the micromotor swimming ability, and the dominant propulsion mechanisms that describe its motion more accurately are identified. Using statistically relevant experimental data, a holistic theoretical model is proposed for bubble-propelled tubular catalytic micromotors that includes all three above-mentioned phenomena and provides deeper insights into their propulsion physics toward optimized geometries and experimental conditions
Integration of Action and Language Knowledge: A Roadmap for Developmental Robotics
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The Free Will Theorem
On the basis of three physical axioms, we prove that if the choice of a
particular type of spin 1 experiment is not a function of the information
accessible to the experimenters, then its outcome is equally not a function of
the information accessible to the particles. We show that this result is
robust, and deduce that neither hidden variable theories nor mechanisms of the
GRW type for wave function collapse can be made relativistic. We also establish
the consistency of our axioms and discuss the philosophical implications.Comment: 31 pages, 6figure
Absolute fluorescence and absorption measurements over a dynamic range of 106 with cavity-enhanced laser-induced fluorescence
We present a novel spectroscopic technique that exhibits high sensitivity and a large dynamic range for the measurement of absolute absorption coefficients. We perform a simultaneous and correlated laser-induced fluorescence and cavity ring-down measurement of the same sample in a single pulsed laser beam. The combined measurement offers a large dynamic range and a lower limit of detection than either technique on its own. The methodology, dubbed cavity-enhanced laser-induced fluorescence, is developed and rigorously tested against the electronic spectroscopy of 1,4-bis(phenylethynyl)benzene in a molecular beam and density measurements in a cell. We outline how the method can be used to determine absolute quantities, such as sample densities, absorption cross sections, and fluorescence quantum yields, particularly in spatially confined samples
Weak Interaction Studies with 6He
The 6He nucleus is an ideal candidate to study the weak interaction. To this
end we have built a high-intensity source of 6He delivering ~10^10 atoms/s to
experiments. Taking full advantage of that available intensity we have
performed a high-precision measurement of the 6He half-life that directly
probes the axial part of the nuclear Hamiltonian. Currently, we are preparing a
measurement of the beta-neutrino angular correlation in 6He beta decay that
will allow to search for new physics beyond the Standard Model in the form of
tensor currents.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, proceedings for the Eleventh Conference on the
Intersections of Particle and Nuclear Physics (CIPANP 2012
Production of 26Al in stellar hydrogen-burning environments: spectroscopic properties of states in 27Si
Model predictions of the amount of the radioisotope 26Al produced in
hydrogen-burning environments require reliable estimates of the thermonuclear
rates for the 26gAl(p,{\gamma})27Si and 26mAl(p,{\gamma})27Si reactions. These
rates depend upon the spectroscopic properties of states in 27Si within about 1
MeV of the 26gAl+p threshold (Sp = 7463 keV). We have studied the
28Si(3He,{\alpha})27Si reaction at 25 MeV using a high-resolution
quadrupole-dipole-dipole-dipole magnetic spectrograph. For the first time with
a transfer reaction, we have constrained J{\pi} values for states in 27Si over
Ex = 7.0 - 8.1 MeV through angular distribution measurements. Aside from a few
important cases, we generally confirm the energies and spin-parity assignments
reported in a recent {\gamma}-ray spectroscopy study. The magnitudes of neutron
spectroscopic factors determined from shell-model calculations are in
reasonable agreement with our experimental values extracted using this
reaction.Comment: accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.
The 21Na(p,gamma)22Mg Reaction and Oxygen-Neon Novae
The 21Na(p,gamma)22Mg reaction is expected to play an important role in the
nucleosynthesis of 22Na in Oxygen-Neon novae. The decay of 22Na leads to the
emission of a characteristic 1.275 MeV gamma-ray line. This report provides the
first direct measurement of the rate of this reaction using a radioactive 21Na
beam, and discusses its astrophysical implications. The energy of the important
state was measured to be E= 205.7 0.5 keV with a resonance
strength meV.Comment: Accepted for publication in Physical Review Letter
Precision Measurement of the 6He Half-Life and the Weak Axial Current in Nuclei
Studies of 6He beta decay along with tritium can play an important role in
testing ab-initio nuclear wave-function calculations and may allow for fixing
low-energy constants in effective field theories. Here, we present an improved
determination of the 6He half-life to a relative precision of 3x10^(-4). Our
value of 806.89 \pm 0.11(stat)^{+0.23}_{-0.19}(syst) ms resolves a major
discrepancy between previous measurements. Calculating the statistical rate
function we determined the ft-value to be 803.04 ^{+0.26}_{-0.23} s. The
extracted Gamow-Teller matrix element agrees within a few percent with
ab-initio calculations.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, published in Physical Review Letter
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