Influence of Nitrate Contamination on the Swell and Compressibility Characteristics of a Tropical Clayey Soil

This research work assessed the influence contaminated groundwater chemistry (especially nitrate contamination) on the volume change behavior during consolidation for a southwestern Nigerian clayey soil. 1-D Consolidation tests using deionized water and various concentrations of nitrate solution as the saturation/inundation liquid were performed on undisturbed clayey soil samples collected from Odi- Olowo Street (nitrate contamination prone area) in Akure, the capital of Ondo state, Nigeria. The compressibility/swell characteristics of the soil are influenced by nitrate contamination, as shown by the variation in the values of the coefficient of permeability, coefficient of consolidation, compression and swell indices (k, cv, Cc and Cs). This implies that the swell potential, magnitude and rate of settlement are affected. These properties directly influence the performance of shallow structural foundations. It was concluded that lack of chemical analysis for soil and groundwater in a nitrate contamination prone area before construction could lead to an overestimation of the swell and compressibility indices for the site. Permeability of the clayey soil increased significantly with increase in nitrate contamination, this portends the danger of emerging breakthrough of contaminants in the shallow contaminated zone through the underlying clayey layer to deeper confined aquifers being relied upon for portable drinking water

Cooper Instability in the Occupation Dependent Hopping Hamiltonians

A generic Hamiltonian, which incorporates the effect of the orbital contraction on the hopping amplitude between the nearest sites, is studied both analytically at the weak coupling limit and numerically at the intermediate and strong coupling regimes for finite atomic cluster. The effect of the orbital contraction due to hole localization at atomic sites is specified with two coupling parameters V and W (multiplicative and additive contraction terms). The singularity of the vertex part of the two-particle Green's function determines the critical temperature Tc and the relaxation rate Gamma(T) of the order parameter at temperature above Tc. Unlike in conventional BCS superconductors, Gamma has a non-zero imaginary part which may influence the fluctuation conductivity of superconductor above Tc. We compute the ground state energy as a function of the particle number and magnetic flux through the cluster, and show the existence of the parity gap Delta appearing at the range of system parameters consistent with the appearance of Cooper instability. Numeric calculation of the Hubbard model (with U>0) at arbitrary occupation does not show any sign of superconductivity in small cluster.Comment: 13 pages, 12 figure

Persistent Currents in Helical Structures

Recent discovery of mesoscopic electronic structures, in particular the carbon nanotubes, made necessary an investigation of what effect may helical symmetry of the conductor (metal or semiconductor) have on the persistent current oscillations. We investigate persistent currents in helical structures which are non-decaying in time, not requiring a voltage bias, dissipationless stationary flow of electrons in a normal-metallic or semiconducting cylinder or circular wire of mesoscopic dimension. In the presence of magnetic flux along the toroidal structure, helical symmetry couples circular and longitudinal currents to each other. Our calculations suggest that circular persistent currents in these structures have two components with periods $\Phi_0$ and $\Phi_0/s$ ($s$ is an integer specific to any geometry). However, resultant circular persistent current oscillations have $\Phi_0$ period. \pacs{PACS:}PACS:73.23.-bComment: 4 pages, 2 figures. Submitted to PR

Spin Current in p-wave Superconducting Rings

A formula of the spin current in mesoscopic superconductors is derived from the mean-field theory of superconductivity. The spin flow is generated by the spatial fluctuations of $\vec{d}$ which represents a spin state of spin-triplet superconductors. We discuss a possibility of the circulating spin current in isolated p-wave superconducting rings at the zero magnetic field. The direction of the spin current depends on topological numbers which characterize the spatial configuration of $\vec{d}$ on the ring.Comment: 4page

Theory of Submanifolds, Associativity Equations in 2D Topological Quantum Field Theories, and Frobenius Manifolds

We prove that the associativity equations of two-dimensional topological quantum field theories are very natural reductions of the fundamental nonlinear equations of the theory of submanifolds in pseudo-Euclidean spaces and give a natural class of potential flat torsionless submanifolds. We show that all potential flat torsionless submanifolds in pseudo-Euclidean spaces bear natural structures of Frobenius algebras on their tangent spaces. These Frobenius structures are generated by the corresponding flat first fundamental form and the set of the second fundamental forms of the submanifolds (in fact, the structural constants are given by the set of the Weingarten operators of the submanifolds). We prove in this paper that each N-dimensional Frobenius manifold can locally be represented as a potential flat torsionless submanifold in a 2N-dimensional pseudo-Euclidean space. By our construction this submanifold is uniquely determined up to motions. Moreover, in this paper we consider a nonlinear system, which is a natural generalization of the associativity equations, namely, the system describing all flat torsionless submanifolds in pseudo-Euclidean spaces, and prove that this system is integrable by the inverse scattering method.Comment: 10 pages, Proceedings of the Workshop "Nonlinear Physics. Theory and Experiment. IV. Gallipoli (Lecce), Italy, June 22 - July 1, 200

Suitability of local binder compositional variation on silica sand for foundry core-making

The use of local oils, namely groundnut oil, cotton seed oil and palm oil with Nigeria local clay and silica sand for the production of foundry cores has been investigated on varying composition. Addition of cassava starch, local clay, oil and moisture to sand are used to produce strong and efficient core. These oils were tested and it was found that the three could be used to produce foundry cores. The best composition was found to be core comprising 2.5% starch, 2.5% clay, 8% oil, 8% moisture and 68% sand and baked at 150oC for 1 h 30min. The tensile strength of the core were as high as 600 KN/m2

Non-adiabatic Josephson Dynamics in Junctions with in-Gap Quasiparticles

Conventional models of Josephson junction dynamics rely on the absence of low energy quasiparticle states due to a large superconducting gap. With this assumption the quasiparticle degrees of freedom become "frozen out" and the phase difference becomes the only free variable, acting as a fictitious particle in a local in time Josephson potential related to the adiabatic and non-dissipative supercurrent across the junction. In this article we develop a general framework to incorporate the effects of low energy quasiparticles interacting non-adiabatically with the phase degree of freedom. Such quasiparticle states exist generically in constriction type junctions with high transparency channels or resonant states, as well as in junctions of unconventional superconductors. Furthermore, recent experiments have revealed the existence of spurious low energy in-gap states in tunnel junctions of conventional superconductors - a system for which the adiabatic assumption typically is assumed to hold. We show that the resonant interaction with such low energy states rather than the Josephson potential defines nonlinear Josephson dynamics at small amplitudes.Comment: 9 pages, 1 figur

A study of phase separation processes in presence of dislocations in binary systems subjected to irradiation

Dislocation-assisted phase separation processes in binary systems subjected to irradiation effect are studied analytically and numerically. Irradiation is described by athermal atomic mixing in the form of ballistic flux with spatially correlated stochastic contribution. While studying the dynamics of domain size growth we have shown that the dislocation mechanism of phase decomposition delays the ordering processes. It is found that spatial correlations of the ballistic flux noise cause segregation of dislocation cores in the vicinity of interfaces effectively decreasing the interface width. A competition between regular and stochastic components of the ballistic flux is discussed.Comment: 22 pages, 11 figure

Stability of dynamic coherent states in intrinsic Josephson-junction stacks near internal cavity resonance

Stacks of intrinsic Josephson junctions in the resistive state can by efficiently synchronized by the internal cavity mode resonantly excited by the Josephson oscillations. We study the stability of dynamic coherent states near the resonance with respect to small perturbations. Three states are considered: the homogeneous and alternating-kink states in zero magnetic field and the homogeneous state in the magnetic field near the value corresponding to half flux quantum per junction. We found two possible instabilities related to the short-scale and long-scale perturbations. The homogeneous state in modulated junction is typically unstable with respect to the short-scale alternating phase deformations unless the Josephson current is completely suppressed in one half of the stack. The kink state is stable with respect to such deformations and homogeneous state in the magnetic field is only stable within a certain range of frequencies and fields. Stability with respect to the long-range deformations is controlled by resonance excitations of fast modes at finite wave vectors and typically leads to unstable range of the wave-vectors. This range shrinks with approaching the resonance and increasing the in-plane dissipation. As a consequence, in finite-height stacks the stability frequency range near the resonance increases with decreasing the height.Comment: 15 pages, 8 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev.