6,500 research outputs found
'Strange Fits of Passion' - Narrational ecologies "In the House of Ephra and Bahmanduch"
This article discusses the ceramic art installation In the House of Ephra and Bahmanduch, a triptych of spaces cloistering three works: Sub Rosa, Lilith by the Red Sea Carpet and Flock. Together, these spaces form an interdisciplinary exploration into connections between Aramaic incantation bowls, contemporary ceramic art practice and critical theory. Aramaic incantation bowls are clay vessels covered with magic spell texts from Late Antique Iraq, whose purpose is to protect the home and its occupants from demons. Over the course of time, In the House of Ephra and Bahmanduch has evolved into a series of immersive room- scapes manifesting the imagined psycho-space of the Babylonian homes in which magic bowl praxis was evident. Collectively, the installation explores the idea that the bowl texts buried in the floor and spoken into the air permeate the space and become embodied within the building’s fabric. The work broadens out heritages of meaning carried by clay as an art medium, revealing wider narrational landscapes implicit in the bowl texts and praxis
Quantum fluctuations and glassy behavior: The case of a quantum particle in a random potential
In this paper we expand our previous investigation of a quantum particle
subject to the action of a random potential plus a fixed harmonic potential at
a finite temperature T. In the classical limit the system reduces to a
well-known ``toy'' model for an interface in a random medium. It also applies
to a single quantum particle like an an electron subject to random
interactions, where the harmonic potential can be tuned to mimic the effect of
a finite box. Using the variational approximation, or alternatively, the limit
of large spatial dimensions, together with the use the replica method, and are
able to solve the model and obtain its phase diagram in the
plane, where is the particle's mass. The phase diagram is similar to that
of a quantum spin-glass in a transverse field, where the variable
plays the role of the transverse field. The glassy phase is characterized by
replica-symmetry-breaking. The quantum transition at zero temperature is also
discussed.Comment: revised version, 23 pages, revtex, 5 postscript figures in a separate
file figures.u
Quantum Monte Carlo simulations of a particle in a random potential
In this paper we carry out Quantum Monte Carlo simulations of a quantum
particle in a one-dimensional random potential (plus a fixed harmonic
potential) at a finite temperature. This is the simplest model of an interface
in a disordered medium and may also pertain to an electron in a dirty metal. We
compare with previous analytical results, and also derive an expression for the
sample to sample fluctuations of the mean square displacement from the origin
which is a measure of the glassiness of the system. This quantity as well as
the mean square displacement of the particle are measured in the simulation.
The similarity to the quantum spin glass in a transverse field is noted. The
effect of quantum fluctuations on the glassy behavior is discussed.Comment: 23 pages, 7 figures included as eps files, uses RevTeX. Accepted for
publication in J. of Physics A: Mathematical and Genera
The importance of radio sources in accounting for the highest mass black holes
The most massive black holes lie in the most massive elliptical galaxies, and
at low-z all radio-loud AGNs lie in giant ellipticals. This strongly suggests a
link between radio-loudness and black hole mass. We argue that the increase in
the radio-loud fraction with AGN luminosity in optically-selected quasar
samples is consistent with this picture. We also use the ratio of black holes
today to quasars at z~2 to conclude that the most bolometrically-luminous AGN,
either radio-loud or radio quiet, are constrained to have lifetimes <~10^8 yr.
If radio sources are associated with black holes of >~10^9 M_sun at all
redshifts, then the same lifetime constraint applies to all radio sources with
luminosities above L_5GHz ~ 10^24 W/Hz/sr.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures. To appear in "Lifecycles of Radio Galaxies", ed
J. Biretta et al., New Astronomy Review
On the melting of the nanocrystalline vortex matter in high-temperature superconductors
Multilevel Monte Carlo simulations of the vortex matter in the
highly-anisotropic high-temperature superconductor BiSrCaCuO
were performed. We introduced low concentration of columnar defects satisfying
. Both the electromagnetic and Josephson interactions among
pancake vortices were included. The nanocrystalline, nanoliquid and homogeneous
liquid phases were identified in agreement with experiments. We observed the
two-step melting process and also noted an enhancement of the structure factor
just prior to the melting transition. A proposed theoretical model is in
agreement with our findings.Comment: 4 figure
Replica field theory for a polymer in random media
In this paper we revisit the problem of a (non self-avoiding) polymer chain
in a random medium which was previously investigated by Edwards and Muthukumar
(EM). As noticed by Cates and Ball (CB) there is a discrepancy between the
predictions of the replica calculation of EM and the expectation that in an
infinite medium the quenched and annealed results should coincide (for a chain
that is free to move) and a long polymer should always collapse. CB argued that
only in a finite volume one might see a ``localization transition'' (or
crossover) from a stretched to a collapsed chain in three spatial dimensions.
Here we carry out the replica calculation in the presence of an additional
confining harmonic potential that mimics the effect of a finite volume. Using a
variational scheme with five variational parameters we derive analytically for
d<4 the result R~(g |ln \mu|)^{-1/(4-d)} ~(g lnV)^{-1/(4-d)}, where R is the
radius of gyration, g is the strength of the disorder, \mu is the spring
constant associated with the confining potential and V is the associated
effective volume of the system. Thus the EM result is recovered with their
constant replaced by ln(V) as argued by CB. We see that in the strict infinite
volume limit the polymer always collapses, but for finite volume a transition
from a stretched to a collapsed form might be observed as a function of the
strength of the disorder. For d<2 and for large
V>V'~exp[g^(2/(2-d))L^((4-d)/(2-d))] the annealed results are recovered and
R~(Lg)^(1/(d-2)), where L is the length of the polymer. Hence the polymer also
collapses in the large L limit. The 1-step replica symmetry breaking solution
is crucial for obtaining the above results.Comment: Revtex, 32 page
Interpolation of the Josephson interaction in highly anisotropic superconductors from a solution of the two dimensional sine-Gordon equation
In this paper we solve numerically the two dimensional elliptic sine-Gordon
equation with appropriate boundary conditions. These boundary conditions are
chosen to correspond to the Josephson interaction between two adjacent pancakes
belonging to the same flux-line in a highly anisotropic superconductor. An
extrapolation is obtained between the regimes of low and high separation of the
pancakes. The resulting formula is a better candidate for use in numerical
simulations than previously derived formulas.Comment: 18 pages, 9 figure
Molecular Dynamics of pancake vortices with realistic interactions: Observing the vortex lattice melting transition
In this paper we describe a version of London Langevin molecular dynamics
simulations that allows for investigations of the vortex lattice melting
transition in the highly anisotropic high-temperature superconductor material
BiSrCaCuO. We include the full electromagnetic
interaction as well as the Josephson interaction among pancake vortices. We
also implement periodic boundary conditions in all directions, including the
z-axis along which the magnetic field is applied. We show how to implement flux
cutting and reconnection as an analog to permutations in the multilevel Monte
Carlo scheme and demonstrate that this process leads to flux entanglement that
proliferates in the vortex liquid phase. The first-order melting transition of
the vortex lattice is observed to be in excellent agreement with previous
multilevel Monte Carlo simulations.Comment: 4 figure
Photoacoustic evaluation of surfaces via pulsed evanescent field interaction
"May 2014."Dissertation Supervisor: Dr. John A. Viator.Includes vita.In recent years, major research funding and commercial development has been going toward the production and characterization of increasingly useful nanomaterials. These materials such as quantum dots, nanoparticles, and thin films can increase the efficiency of solar panels, create new treatments for cancer, and vastly improve the detection capabilities for various optical sensors for biosensing. Unfortunately, to date, very few methods of characterizing these types of materials exist such as scanning electron microscopy and ellipsometry. These techniques are prohibitively expensive, cannot be used with all materials, and require rigorous preparation schemes before scanning. Therefore, a new method to characterize thin films and detect the properties of nanomaterials is needed. This study proposes a newly revived method, Total Internal Reflection Photoacoustic Spectroscopy, along with related techniques, to deliver cost effective characterization and detection for nanomaterials and thin films.Includes bibliographical references (pages 122-143)
NICMOS Observations of Low-Redshift Quasar Host Galaxies
We have obtained Near-Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer images of
16 radio quiet quasars observed as part of a project to investigate the
``luminosity/host-mass limit.'' The limit results were presented in McLeod,
Rieke, & Storrie-Lombardi (1999). In this paper, we present the images
themselves, along with 1- and 2-dimensional analyses of the host galaxy
properties. We find that our model-independent 1D technique is reliable for use
on ground-based data at low redshifts; that many radio-quiet quasars live in
deVaucouleurs-law hosts, although some of the techniques used to determine host
type are questionable; that complex structure is found in many of the hosts,
but that there are some hosts that are very smooth and symmetric; and that the
nuclei radiate at ~2-20% of the Eddington rate based on the assumption that all
galaxies have central black holes with a constant mass fraction of 0.6%.
Despite targeting hard-to-resolve hosts, we have failed to find any that imply
super-Eddington accretion rates.Comment: To appear in ApJ, 28 pages including degraded figures. Download the
paper with full-resolutio figures from
http://www.astro.wellesley.edu/kmcleod/mm.p
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