33,691 research outputs found
The end-to-end testbed of the Optical Metrology System on-board LISA Pathfinder
LISA Pathfinder is a technology demonstration mission for the Laser
Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA). The main experiment on-board LISA
Pathfinder is the so-called LISA Technology Package (LTP) which has the aim to
measure the differential acceleration between two free-falling test masses with
an accuracy of 3x10^(-14) ms^(-2)/sqrt[Hz] between 1 mHz and 30 mHz. This
measurement is performed interferometrically by the Optical Metrology System
(OMS) on-board LISA Pathfinder. In this paper we present the development of an
experimental end-to-end testbed of the entire OMS. It includes the
interferometer and its sub-units, the interferometer back-end which is a
phasemeter and the processing of the phasemeter output data. Furthermore,
3-axes piezo actuated mirrors are used instead of the free-falling test masses
for the characterisation of the dynamic behaviour of the system and some parts
of the Drag-free and Attitude Control System (DFACS) which controls the test
masses and the satellite. The end-to-end testbed includes all parts of the LTP
that can reasonably be tested on earth without free-falling test masses. At its
present status it consists mainly of breadboard components. Some of those have
already been replaced by Engineering Models of the LTP experiment. In the next
steps, further Engineering Models and Flight Models will also be inserted in
this testbed and tested against well characterised breadboard components. The
presented testbed is an important reference for the unit tests and can also be
used for validation of the on-board experiment during the mission
Computational analysis of projectile impact resistance on aluminium (a356) curvilinear surface reinforced with carbon nanotubes (cnts) for applications in systems of protection
Computational tests for ballistic impact energy absorption were developed on A356/CNTs composite material with the goal of estimating the improvement of the material’s mechanical properties by the contribution of the CNTs [1]. For the implementation of computational tests on the material exposed to projectile impact, A356/CNTs was configured by means of generalized Hooke’s model for anisotropic materials [1] and Johnson-Cook’s model was used to determine material failure and propagation of energy [2]. A curvilinear surface (semi-spheres on a plaque) with an area of 23x23 cm and thickness of 12 mm was elaborated to represent the composite material. The impact on surface was done with a 9 mm projectile and the surface was developed with 4.5 mm radium semi-spheres. It was used a 0.3% of nanotube insertions on the composite total volume. The results indicated the plaque stopped the impact without drilling. Incidence of damage to wearer, as well as possibility of composite material improvement and the diffusion/dispersion analysis on the curvilinear surface was also done
Extraordinary absorption of decorated undoped graphene
We theoretically study absorption by an undoped graphene layer decorated with
arrays of small particles. We discuss periodic and random arrays within a
common formalism, which predicts a maximum absorption of for suspended
graphene in both cases. The limits of weak and strong scatterers are
investigated and an unusual dependence on particle-graphene separation is found
and explained in terms of the effective number of contributing evanescent
diffraction orders of the array. Our results can be important to boost
absorption by single layer graphene due to its simple setup with potential
applications to light harvesting and photodetection based on energy (F\"orster)
rather than charge transfer.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure
Effect of a magnetic flux on the critical behavior of a system with long range hopping
We study the effect of a magnetic flux in a 1D disordered wire with long
range hopping.
It is shown that this model is at the metal-insulator transition (MIT) for
all disorder values and the spectral correlations are given by critical
statistics. In the weak disorder regime a smooth transition between orthogonal
and unitary symmetry is observed as the flux strength increases. By contrast,
in the strong disorder regime the spectral correlations are almost flux
independent. It is also conjectured that the two level correlation function for
arbitrary flux is given by the dynamical density-density correlations of the
Calogero-Sutherland (CS) model at finite temperature. Finally we describe the
classical dynamics of the model and its relevance to quantum chaos.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
meV resolution in laser-assisted energy-filtered transmission electron microscopy
The electronic, optical, and magnetic properties of quantum solids are
determined by their low-energy (< 100 meV) many-body excitations. Dynamical
characterization and manipulation of such excitations relies on tools that
combine nm-spatial, fs-temporal, and meV-spectral resolution. Currently,
phonons and collective plasmon resonances can be imaged in nanostructures with
sub-nm and 10s meV space/energy resolution using state-of-the-art
energy-filtered transmission electron microscopy (TEM), but only under static
conditions, while fs-resolved measurements are common but lack spatial or
energy resolution. Here, we demonstrate a new method of spectrally resolved
photon-induced near-field electron microscopy (SRPINEM) that allows us to
obtain nm-fs-resolved maps of nanoparticle plasmons with an energy resolution
determined by the laser linewidth (20 meV in this work), and not limited by
electron beam and spectrometer energy spreading. This technique can be extended
to any optically-accessible low-energy mode, thus pushing TEM to a previously
inaccessible spectral domain with an unprecedented combination of space, energy
and temporal resolution.Comment: 19 pages, 7 figure
Total electron scattering cross sections from thiophene for the (1-300 eV) impact energy range
Experimental electron scattering cross sections for thiophene in the impact energy range from 1 to 300 eV have been measured with a magnetically confined electron transmission-beam apparatus. Random uncertainty limits have been estimated to be less than 5%, and systematic errors derived from acceptance angle limitations have also been identified and evaluated. Experimental values are compared with our previous low energy (1-15 eV) R-matrix and intermediate/high energy (15-300 eV) IAM-SCAR+I calculations finding reasonable agreement, within the combined uncertainty limits. Some of the low energy shape and core-excited resonances predicted by previous calculations are experimentally confirmed in this study
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