Determining astrophysical three-body radiative capture reaction rates from inclusive Coulomb break-up measurements

A relationship between the Coulomb inclusive break-up probability and the radiative capture reaction rate for weakly bound three-body systems is established. This direct link provides a robust procedure to estimate the reaction rate for nuclei of astrophysical interest by measuring inclusive break-up processes at different energies and angles. This might be an advantageous alternative to the determination of reaction rates from the measurement of B(E1) distributions through exclusive Coulomb break-up experiments. In addition, it provides a reference to assess the validity of different theoretical approaches that have been used to calculate reaction rates. The procedure is applied to Li11 (Li9+n+n) and He6 (He4+n+n) three-body systems for which some data exist.This work has been partially supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad and the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER) under Projects No. FIS2011-28738-c02-01, No. FIS2013-41994-P, No. FPA2013-47327- C2-1-R, No. FIS2014-53448-c2-1-P, and FIS2014-51941-P and by Junta de Andalucía under Group No. FQM-160 and Project No. P11-FQM-7632. J. Casal acknowledges support from the Ministerio de Educacion, Cultura y Deporte, FPU Research Grant No. AP2010-3124. M. Rodríguez-Gallardo acknowledges postdoctoral support from the Universidad de Sevilla under the V Plan Propio de Investigacion, Contract No. USE-11206-M.Peer Reviewe

Antiferromagnetism in four dimensions: search for non-triviality

We present antiferromagnetism as a mechanism capable of modifying substantially the phase diagram and the critical behaviour of statistical mechanical models. This is particularly relevant in four dimensions, due to the connection between second order transition points and the continuum limit as a quantum field theory. We study three models with an antiferromagnetic interaction: the Ising and the O(4) Models with a second neighbour negative coupling, and the \RP{2} Model. Different conclusions are obtained depending on the model.Comment: 4 pages LateX. Contribution to Lat9

Development of electric resistance sintering process for the fabrication of hard metals: Processing, microstructure and mechanical properties

This work presents the development of the Electrical Resistance Sintering (ERS) process for the fabrication of hard metals. The compositions of the materials produced were WC with 6 and 10 wt% of Co. In addition to the specific characteristics of the technology, the characterization of the produced parts is presented and compared to materials obtained by conventional processes. The parts produced by ERS present densities comparable to the ones obtained by conventional methods. The microstructural comparison shows a considerable grain size reduction in the ERS materials which consequently brings a hardness increase. ERS materials show similar fracture toughness to conventional ones. The very fast sintering allows performing the process without any protective atmosphere, therefore making this process very attractive for the production of materials that need to be sintered under non-oxidising environments. The total duration of the cycle, including heating, holding time and cooling is few seconds. Finally, some considerations about the scale up and possible industrialization of the technology are explained.This work is financially supported by the Seventh Framework Program of the Commission of the European Communities under project EFFIPRO contract no. NMP2-SL-2013-608729

¿Por qué siguen produciéndose fallos por fatiga? Descripción de 2 casos paradigmáticos

Los criterios de diseño que permiten evitar fallos por fatiga están, en general, bien establecidos, tanto desde un punto de vista científico como desde una perspectiva de la ingeniería más aplicada. Puede decirse que los usuarios finales son más conscientes de la existencia de este proceso y reconocen las características principales del mismo. No obstante, a los expertos siguen llegando casos de fractura producidas por fatiga. En este trabajo se presentan dos casos paradigmáticos de roturas que representan situaciones extremas de la casuística que puede encontrarse. De un lado, un caso donde la falta de cuidado en el diseño y la ejecución hubieran permitido prever a priori la rotura del componente. De otro lado, se presenta el caso de una pieza diseñada usando de los métodos al uso que, sin embargo, experimentó rotura. Se postula que las tareas de difusión y concienciación siguen siendo imprescindibles para reducir los fallos por fatiga que se producen en nuestros días.Design criteria that avoid fatigue failures are generally well established, both from a scientific standpoint and from an engineering perspective. It can be said that end users are progressively aware of the existence of this process and recognize its main features. However, experts are still fixing fatigue case histories. In this paper, two fairly different paradigmatic cases are presented. On the one hand, lack of care in the design and execution has caused a foreseeable breakage of the component. On the other hand, the case of a part designed up-the-arts experienced breakage. We hypothesize that outreach and awareness are still essential to reduce fatigue failures occurring nowadays

Phase diagram of d=4 Ising Model with two couplings

We study the phase diagram of the four dimensional Ising model with first and second neighbour couplings, specially in the antiferromagnetic region, by using Mean Field and Monte Carlo methods. From the later, all the transition lines seem to be first order except that between ferromagnetic and disordered phases in a region including the first-neighbour Ising transition point.Comment: Latex file and 4 figures (epsfig required). It replaces the preprint entitled "Non-classical exponents in the d=4 Ising Model with two couplings". New analysis with more statistical data is performed. Final version to appear in Phys. Lett.

Bioadhesión sobre Alúmina. Propiedades superficiales

La alúmina es uno de los materiales cerámicos de mayor relevancia en usos biomédicos. Así, este trabajo hace una completa caracterización de su superficie a través de propiedades que son de especial importancia en aquellos procesos de interacción con superficies biológicas como son células y microorganismos. Tensión superficial, potencial zeta y rugosidad superficial se analizan utilizando métodos diversos. La tensión superficial se muestra en torno a 35 mJ m-2 aunque los valores dependen en muchos casos de la aproximación escogida y de los grupos de líquidos prueba necesarios para su determinación. El punto isoeléctrico aparece a pH = 4,6 lo que indica una carga superficial negativa cuando la alúmina se encuentre inmersa en líquidos fisiológicos (pH = 7). Los accidentes topográficos responsables de la macrorugosidad pueden considerarse de periodicidad en torno a 25um presentando alta variabilidad a escalas inferiores, por ello, es importante determinar la rugosidad a escalas próximas al tamaño de las células que intervienen en el proceso de adhesión