22,396 research outputs found
Interaction of a Modulated Electron Beam with a Plasma
The results of a theoretical and experimental investigation of the high-frequency interaction of an electron beam with a plasma are reported. An electron beam, modulated at a microwave frequency, passes through a uniform region of a mercury arc discharge after which it is demodulated. Exponentially growing wave amplification along the electron beam was experimentally observed for the first time at a microwave frequency equal to the plasma frequency. Approximate theories of the effects of 1) plasma-electron collision frequencies, 2) plasma-electron thermal velocities and 3) finite beam diameter, are given. In a second experiment the interaction between a modulated electron beam and a slow electrostatic wave on a plasma column has been studied. A strong interaction occurs when the velocity of the electron beam is approximately equal to the velocity of the wave and the interaction is essentially the same as that which occurs in traveling-wave amplifiers, except that here the plasma colum replaces the usual helical slow-wave circuit. The theory predicting rates of growth is presented and compared with the experimental results
Post Big Bang Processing of the Primordial Elements
We explore the Gnedin-Ostriker suggestion that a post-Big-Bang
photodissociation process may modify the primordial abundances of the light
elements. We consider several specific models and discuss the general features
that are necessary (but not necessarily sufficient) to make the model work. We
find that with any significant processing, the final D and He abundances,
which are independent of their initial standard big bang nucleosynthesis (SBBN)
values, rise quickly to a level several orders of magnitude above the
observationally inferred primordial values. Solutions for specific models show
that the only initial abundances that can be photoprocessed into agreement with
observations are those that undergo virtually no processing and are already in
agreement with observation. Thus it is unlikely that this model can work for
any non-trivial case unless an artificial density and/or photon distribution is
invoked.Comment: 12 page Latex file (AASTEX style). Tarred, gzipped, and uuencoded
postscript files of seven figures. Also available (with ps file of paper) at
ftp://www-physics.mps.ohio-state.edu/pub/nucex/phot
On causality, apparent 'superluminality' and reshaping in barrier penetration
We consider tunnelling of a non-relativistic particle across a potential
barrier. It is shown that the barrier acts as an effective beam splitter which
builds up the transmitted pulse from the copies of the initial envelope shifted
in the coordinate space backwards relative to the free propagation. Although
along each pathway causality is explicitly obeyed, in special cases reshaping
can result an overall reduction of the initial envelope, accompanied by an
arbitrary coordinate shift. In the case of a high barrier the delay amplitude
distribution (DAD) mimics a Dirac -function, the transmission amplitude
is superoscillatory for finite momenta and tunnelling leads to an accurate
advancement of the (reduced) initial envelope by the barrier width. In the case
of a wide barrier, initial envelope is accurately translated into the complex
coordinate plane. The complex shift, given by the first moment of the DAD,
accounts for both the displacement of the maximum of the transmitted
probability density and the increase in its velocity. It is argued that
analysing apparent 'superluminality' in terms of spacial displacements helps
avoid contradiction associated with time parameters such as the phase time
Current collection by high voltage anodes in near ionospheric conditions
The authors experimentally identified three distinct regimes with large differences in current collection in the presence of neutrals and weak magnetic fields. In magnetic field/anode voltage space the three regions are separated by very sharp transition boundaries. The authors performed a series of laboratory experiments to study the dependence of the region boundaries on several parameters, such as the ambient neutral density, plasma density, magnetic field strength, applied anode voltage, voltage pulsewidth, chamber material, chamber size and anode radius. The three observed regimes are: classical magnetic field limited collection; stable medium current toroidal discharge; and large scale, high current space glow discharge. There is as much as several orders of magnitude of difference in the amount of collected current upon any boundary crossing, particularly if one enters the space glow regime. They measured some of the properties of the plasma generated by the breakdown that is present in regimes II and III in the vicinity of the anode including the sheath modified electrostatic potential, I-V characteristics at high voltage as well as the local plasma density
Bounds on Heavy-to-Heavy Mesonic Form Factors
We provide upper and lower bounds on the form factors for B -> D, D^* by
utilizing inclusive heavy quark effective theory sum rules. These bounds are
calculated to leading order in Lambda_QCD/m_Q and alpha_s. The O(alpha_s^2
beta_0) corrections to the bounds at zero recoil are also presented. We compare
our bounds with some of the form factor models used in the literature. All the
models we investigated failed to fall within the bounds for the combination of
form factors (omega^2 - 1)/(4 omega)|omega h_{A2}+h_{A3}|^2.Comment: 27 pages, 10 figure
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