Influence of stress concentrator shape and testing temperature on impact fracture regularities of pipeline steel

The structure and impact toughness of the pipeline 17Mn1Si steel have been studied. The main attention was paid to the analysis of various conditions of stress concentration under dynamic loadings. The process of strain localization with increasing stress state stiffness at the tip of the concentrator with decreasing testing temperature was investigated. Impact loading diagrams for specimens with various stress concentrator shapes were registered and analyzed

Benzene and toluene in the surface air of northern Eurasia from TROICA-12 campaign along the Trans-Siberian Railway

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) were measured by proton transfer reaction mass spectrometry (PTR-MS) on a mobile laboratory in a transcontinental TROICA-12 (21 July–4 August 2008) campaign along the Trans-Siberian Railway from Moscow to Vladivostok. Surface concentrations of benzene (C6H6) and toluene (C7H8) along with non-methane hydrocarbons (NMHCs), CO, O3, SO2, NO, NO2 and meteorology are analyzed in this study to identify the main sources of benzene and toluene along the Trans-Siberian Railway. The most measurements in the TROICA-12 campaign were conducted under low-wind/stagnant conditions in moderately ( ∼  78 % of measurements) to weakly polluted ( ∼  20 % of measurements) air directly affected by regional anthropogenic sources adjacent to the railway. Only 2 % of measurements were identified as characteristic of highly polluted urban atmosphere. Maximum values of benzene and toluene during the campaign reached 36.5 and 45.6 ppb, respectively, which is significantly less than their short-term exposure limits (94 and 159 ppb for benzene and toluene, respectively). About 90 % of benzene and 65 % of toluene content is attributed to motor vehicle transport and 10 and 20 %, respectively, provided by the other local- and regional-scale sources. The highest average concentrations of benzene and toluene are measured in the industrial regions of the European Russia (up to 0.3 and 0.4 ppb for benzene and toluene, respectively) and south Siberia (up to 0.2 and 0.4 ppb for benzene and toluene, respectively). Total contribution of benzene and toluene to photochemical ozone production along the Trans-Siberian Railway is about 16 % compared to the most abundant organic VOC – isoprene. This contribution, however, is found to be substantially higher (up to 60–70 %) in urbanized areas along the railway, suggesting an important role of anthropogenic pollutant sources in regional ozone photochemistry and air quality

Topology of "white" stars in relativistic fragmentation of light nuclei

In the present paper, experimental observations of the multifragmentation processes of light relativistic nuclei carried out by means of emulsions are reviewed. Events of the type of "white" stars in which the dissociation of relativistic nuclei is not accompanied by the production of mesons and the target-nucleus fragments are considered. A distinctive feature of the charge topology in the dissociation of the Ne, Mg, Si, and S nuclei is an almost total suppression of the binary splitting of nuclei to fragments with charges higher than 2. The growth of the nuclear fragmentation degree is revealed in an increase in the multiplicity of singly and doubly charged fragments with decreasing charge of the non-excited part of the fragmenting nucleus. The processes of dissociation of stable Li, Be, B, C, N, and O isotopes to charged fragments were used to study special features of the formation of systems consisting of the lightest $\alpha$, d, and t nuclei. Clustering in form of the $^3$He nucleus can be detected in "white" stars via the dissociation of neutron-deficient Be, B, C, and N isotopes.Comment: 20 pages, 3 figures, 9 tables, conference: Conference on Physics of Fundamental Interactions, Moscow, Russia, 1-5 Mar 2004.(Author's translation

Fragmentation of relativistic nuclei in peripheral interactions in nuclear track emulsion

The technique of nuclear track emulsions is used to explore the fragmentation of light relativistic nuclei down to the most peripheral interactions - nuclear "white" stars. A complete pattern of therelativistic dissociation of a $^8$B nucleus with target fragment accompaniment is presented. Relativistic dissociation $^{9}$Be$\to2\alpha$ is explored using significant statistics and a relative contribution of $^{8}$Be decays from 0$^+$ and 2$^+$ states is established. Target fragment accompaniments are shown for relativistic fragmentation $^{14}$N$\to$3He+H and $^{22}$Ne$\to$5He. The leading role of the electromagnetic dissociation on heavy nuclei with respect to break-ups on target protons is demonstrated in all these cases. It is possible to conclude that the peripheral dissociation of relativistic nuclei in nuclear track emulsion is a unique tool to study many-body systems composed of lightest nuclei and nucleons in the energy scale relevant for nuclear astrophysics.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures, 4 tables, conference: Relativistic nuclear physics: from Nuclotron to LHC energies, Kiev, June 18-22, 200

NEXT-100 Technical Design Report (TDR). Executive Summary

In this Technical Design Report (TDR) we describe the NEXT-100 detector that will search for neutrinoless double beta decay (bbonu) in Xe-136 at the Laboratorio Subterraneo de Canfranc (LSC), in Spain. The document formalizes the design presented in our Conceptual Design Report (CDR): an electroluminescence time projection chamber, with separate readout planes for calorimetry and tracking, located, respectively, behind cathode and anode. The detector is designed to hold a maximum of about 150 kg of xenon at 15 bar, or 100 kg at 10 bar. This option builds in the capability to increase the total isotope mass by 50% while keeping the operating pressure at a manageable level. The readout plane performing the energy measurement is composed of Hamamatsu R11410-10 photomultipliers, specially designed for operation in low-background, xenon-based detectors. Each individual PMT will be isolated from the gas by an individual, pressure resistant enclosure and will be coupled to the sensitive volume through a sapphire window. The tracking plane consists in an array of Hamamatsu S10362-11-050P MPPCs used as tracking pixels. They will be arranged in square boards holding 64 sensors (8 times8) with a 1-cm pitch. The inner walls of the TPC, the sapphire windows and the boards holding the MPPCs will be coated with tetraphenyl butadiene (TPB), a wavelength shifter, to improve the light collection.Comment: 32 pages, 22 figures, 5 table

Core collapse supernovae in the QCD phase diagram

We compare two classes of hybrid equations of state with a hadron-to-quark matter phase transition in their application to core collapse supernova simulations. The first one uses the quark bag model and describes the transition to three-flavor quark matter at low critical densities. The second one employs a Polyakov-loop extended Nambu-Jona-Lasinio (PNJL) model with parameters describing a phase transition to two-flavor quark matter at higher critical densities. These models possess a distinctly different temperature dependence of their transition densities which turns out to be crucial for the possible appearance of quark matter in supernova cores. During the early post bounce accretion phase quark matter is found only if the phase transition takes place at sufficiently low densities as in the study based on the bag model. The increase critical density with increasing temperature, as obtained for our PNJL parametrization, prevents the formation of quark matter. The further evolution of the core collapse supernova as obtained applying the quark bag model leads to a structural reconfiguration of the central proto-neutron star where, in addition to a massive pure quark matter core, a strong hydrodynamic shock wave forms and a second neutrino burst is released during the shock propagation across the neutrinospheres. We discuss the severe constraints in the freedom of choice of quark matter models and their parametrization due to the recently observed 2 solar mass pulsar and their implications for further studies of core collapse supernovae in the QCD phase diagram.Comment: 19 pages, 4 figures, CPOD2010 conference proceedin