Spectroscopic measurements of temperature and plasma impurity concentration during magnetic reconnection at the Swarthmore Spheromak Experiment

Electron temperature measurements during counterhelicity spheromak merging studies at the Swarthmore Spheromak Experiment (SSX) [M. R. Brown, Phys. Plasmas 6, 1717 (1999)] are presented. VUV monochromator measurements of impurity emission lines are compared with model spectra produced by the non-LTE excitation kinematics code PRISMSPECT [J. J. MacFarlane et al., in Proceedings of the Third Conference on Inertial Fusion Science and Applications (2004)] to yield the electron temperature in the plasma with 1 µs time resolution. Average T_e is seen to increase from 12 to 19 eV during spheromak merging. Average C III ion temperature, measured with a new ion Doppler spectrometer (IDS) [C. D. Cothran et al., Rev. Sci. Instrum. 77, 063504 (2006)], likewise rises during spheromak merging, peaking at ~22 eV, but a similar increase in T_i is seen during single spheromak discharges with no merging. The VUV emission line measurements are also used to constrain the concentrations of various impurities in the SSX plasma, which are dominated by carbon, but include some oxygen and nitrogen. A burst of soft x-ray emission is seen during reconnection with a new four-channel detector (SXR). There is evidence for spectral changes in the soft x-ray emission as reconnection progresses, although our single-temperature equilibrium spectral models are not able to provide adequate fits to all the SXR data

Model Energy Landscapes of Low-Temperature Fluids: Dipolar Hard Spheres

An analytical model of non-Gaussian energy landscape of low-temperature fluids is developed based on the thermodynamics of the fluid of dipolar hard spheres. The entire excitation profile of the liquid, from the high temperatures to the point of ideal-glass transition, has been obtained from the Monte Carlo simulations. The fluid of dipolar hard spheres loses stability when reaching the point of ideal-glass transition transforming via a first-order transition into a columnar liquid phase of dipolar chains locally arranged in a body-centered tetragonal order.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Paraelectric and ferroelectric order in two-state dipolar fluids

Monte Carlo simulations are used to examine cooperative creation of polar state in fluids of two-state particles with nonzero dipole in the excited state. With lowering temperature such systems undergo a second order transition from nonpolar to polar, paraelectric phase. The transition is accompanied by a dielectric anomaly of polarization susceptibility increasing by three orders of magnitude. The paraelectric phase is then followed by formation of a nematic ferroelectric which further freezes into an fcc ferroelectric crystal by a first order transition. A mean-field model of phase transitions is discussed.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Fluid-Induced Propulsion of Rigid Particles in Wormlike Micellar Solutions

In the absence of inertia, a reciprocal swimmer achieves no net motion in a viscous Newtonian fluid. Here, we investigate the ability of a reciprocally actuated particle to translate through a complex fluid that possesses a network using tracking methods and birefringence imaging. A geometrically polar particle, a rod with a bead on one end, is reciprocally rotated using magnetic fields. The particle is immersed in a wormlike micellar (WLM) solution that is known to be susceptible to the formation of shear bands and other localized structures due to shear-induced remodeling of its microstructure. Results show that the nonlinearities present in this WLM solution break time-reversal symmetry under certain conditions, and enable propulsion of an artificial "swimmer." We find three regimes dependent on the Deborah number (De): net motion towards the bead-end of the particle at low De, net motion towards the rod-end of the particle at intermediate De, and no appreciable propulsion at high De. At low De, where the particle time-scale is longer then the fluid relaxation time, we believe that propulsion is caused by an imbalance in the fluid first normal stress differences between the two ends of the particle (bead and rod). At De~1, however, we observe the emergence of a region of network anisotropy near the rod using birefringence imaging. This anisotropy suggests alignment of the micellar network, which is "locked in" due to the shorter time-scale of the particle relative to the fluid

Yukawa Textures From Heterotic Stability Walls

A holomorphic vector bundle on a Calabi-Yau threefold, X, with h^{1,1}(X)>1 can have regions of its Kahler cone where it is slope-stable, that is, where the four-dimensional theory is N=1 supersymmetric, bounded by "walls of stability". On these walls the bundle becomes poly-stable, decomposing into a direct sum, and the low energy gauge group is enhanced by at least one anomalous U(1) gauge factor. In this paper, we show that these additional symmetries can strongly constrain the superpotential in the stable region, leading to non-trivial textures of Yukawa interactions and restrictions on allowed masses for vector-like pairs of matter multiplets. The Yukawa textures exhibit a hierarchy; large couplings arise on the stability wall and some suppressed interactions "grow back" off the wall, where the extended U(1) symmetries are spontaneously broken. A number of explicit examples are presented involving both one and two stability walls, with different decompositions of the bundle structure group. A three family standard-like model with no vector-like pairs is given as an example of a class of SU(4) bundles that has a naturally heavy third quark/lepton family. Finally, we present the complete set of Yukawa textures that can arise for any holomorphic bundle with one stability wall where the structure group breaks into two factors.Comment: 53 pages, 4 figures and 13 table

A possible new phase of antagonistic nematogens in a disorienting field

A simple model is proposed for nematogenic molecules that favor perpendicular orientations as well as parallel ones. (Charged rods, for example, show this antagonistic tendency.) When a small disorienting field is applied along $z$, a low density phase $N_-$ of nematic order parameter $S_z<0$ coexists with a dense biaxial nematic $N_b$. (At zero field, $N_-$ becomes isotropic and $N_b$ uniaxial.) But at stronger fields, a new phase $N_{+4}$, invariant under $\pi/2$ rotations around the field axis, appears in between $N_-$ and $N_b$. Prospects for finding the $N_{+4}$ phase experimentally are briefly discussed.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures. Accepted for publication in PR

A New Method for Finding Vacua in String Phenomenology

One of the central problems of string-phenomenology is to find stable vacua in the four dimensional effective theories which result from compactification. We present an algorithmic method to find all of the vacua of any given string-phenomenological system in a huge class. In particular, this paper reviews and then extends hep-th/0606122 to include various non-perturbative effects. These include gaugino condensation and instantonic contributions to the superpotential.Comment: 27 pages, 5 .eps figures. V2: Minor corrections, reference adde

Coherent population trapping in quantized light field

A full quantum treatment of coherent population trapping (CPT) is given for a system of resonantly coupled atoms and electromagnetic field. We develop a regular analytical method of the construction of generalized dark states (GDS). It turns out that GDS do exist for all optical transitions $F_g\to F_e$, including bright transitions $F\to F+1$ and $F''\to F''$ with $F''$ a half-integer, for which the CPT effect is absent in a classical field. We propose an idea to use an optically thick medium with a transition $F''\to F''$ with $F'' \ge 3/2$ a half-integer as a ''quantum filter'', which transmits only a quantum light.Comment: revtex4, twocolumn, 6 pages, including 1 figur

A connection with parallel totally skew-symmetric torsion on a class of almost hypercomplex manifolds with Hermitian and anti-Hermitian metrics

The subject of investigations are the almost hypercomplex manifolds with Hermitian and anti-Hermitian (Norden) metrics. A linear connection D is introduced such that the structure of these manifolds is parallel with respect to D and its torsion is totally skew-symmetric. The class of the nearly Kaehler manifolds with respect to the first almost complex structure is of special interest. It is proved that D has a D-parallel torsion and is weak if it is not flat. Some curvature properties of these manifolds are studied.Comment: 18 page

Variability in the extreme helium star LSS 5121

We report a photometric and spectroscopic study of the hot extreme helium star LSS 5121. We found photometric variability, but no period was evident in its periodogram. This is consistent with the previous proposal, based on spectral line variations, that LSS 5121 is a non-radial pulsator similar to other hot extreme helium stars.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figure