Semipermanent sealing of leaks in high vacuum systems

Silicone-rubber adhesive is applied externally to seal hair-line cracks in sections of high vacuum system while system is partially evacuated. No pretreatment of surface is required since adhesive will be drawn into crack while diffusion or ion pump is off

Apparatus for study of plasmas at elevated temperatures

Microwave discharge plasmas take place within heated zone. Changes in weight of specimens in plasma as well as temperature of sample and plasma can be obtained, facilitating determinations of reaction rates and recombination coefficients

Minimum free-energy path of homogenous nucleation from the phase-field equation

The minimum free-energy path (MFEP) is the most probable route of the nucleation process on the multidimensional free-energy surface. In this study, the phase-field equation is used as a mathematical tool to deduce the minimum free-energy path (MFEP) of homogeneous nucleation. We use a simple square-gradient free-energy functional with a quartic local free-energy function as an example and study the time evolution of a single nucleus placed within a metastable environment. The time integration of the phase-field equation is performed using the numerically efficient cell-dynamics method. By monitoring the evolution of the size of the nucleus and the free energy of the system simultaneously, we can easily deduce the free-energy barrier as a function of the size of the sub- and the super-critical nucleus along the MFEP.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, Journal of Chemical Physics accepted for publicatio

Summary of results and conclusions based on analysis of volume imaging and high spectral resolution lidar data acquired during FIRE phase 1, part 1

The collection of long term global statistics on cloud cover may be most easily accomplished with satellite based observations; however, measurements derived from passive satellite retrieval methods must be calibrated and verified by in situ or ground based remote sensor observations. Verification is not straight forward, however, because the highly variable nature of cloud altitude, morphology, and optical characteristics complicates the scaling of point measurements to satellite footprint sized areas. This is particularly evident for cirrus clouds which may be organized on horizontal scales of 10's of meters to 8 km or more, and have optical depths ranging from less than .003 to greater than 3. Cirrus clouds can strongly influence earths' radiative balance, but, because they are often transmissive, cirrus clouds are difficult to detect and characterize from satellite measurements. Because of its precise ranging capabilities, spatial resolution and sensitivity, lidar observations have played an important role in the detection, depiction, and characterization of cirrus clouds. Some of the characteristics of cirrus clouds are summarized which observed the High Spectral Resolution and Volume Imaging Lidars during the phase 1 IFO and ETO periods

Gaining analytic control of parton showers

Parton showers are widely used to generate fully exclusive final states needed to compare theoretical models to experimental observations. While, in general, parton showers give a good description of the experimental data, the precise functional form of the probability distribution underlying the event generation is generally not known. The reason is that realistic parton showers are required to conserve four-momentum at each vertex. In this paper we investigate in detail how four-momentum conservation is enforced in a standard parton shower and why this destroys the analytic control of the probability distribution. We show how to modify a parton shower algorithm such that it conserves four-momentum at each vertex, but for which the full analytic form of the probability distribution is known. We then comment how this analytic control can be used to match matrix element calculations with parton showers, and to estimate effects of power corrections and other uncertainties in parton showers.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures, v2: final journal versio

Summary of results and conclusions based on analysis of volume imaging and high spectral resolution lidar data acquired during FIRE phase 1, part 2

Since the fall of 1986, cirrus clouds were observed with backscatter cross sections ranging from less than 1 x 10(exp -7) to 4.2 x 10(exp -5)m/sr, optical thicknesses ranging from less than .003 to greater than 2.7, and bulk average backscatter phase functions from .02 to .065/sr. Cirrus cloud structures were recorded ranging in vertical extent from 0.1 to 8 km, having horizontal scales from 10's of meters to 266 km, and exhibiting aspect ratios of from 1:5 to 1:100. The altitude relationship between cloud top and bottom boundaries and the optical center of the cloud is influenced by the type of formation observed. Cirrus morphology and generation processes appear to be related to the wind field. The high spectral resolution lidar (HSRL) was adapted to the task of cirrus cloud optical property measurement. The HSRL data reported were collected with the CuCl2 transmitter producing 50 mW of output power, achieving eye safe, direct optical depth and backscatter cross section measurements with 10 minute averaging times

GenEvA (I): A new framework for event generation

We show how many contemporary issues in event generation can be recast in terms of partonic calculations with a matching scale. This framework is called GenEvA, and a key ingredient is a new notion of phase space which avoids the problem of phase space double-counting by construction and includes a built-in definition of a matching scale. This matching scale can be used to smoothly merge any partonic calculation with a parton shower. The best partonic calculation for a given region of phase space can be determined through physics considerations alone, independent of the algorithmic details of the merging. As an explicit example, we construct a positive-weight partonic calculation for e+e- -> n jets at next-to-leading order (NLO) with leading-logarithmic (LL) resummation. We improve on the NLO/LL result by adding additional higher-multiplicity tree-level (LO) calculations to obtain a merged NLO/LO/LL result. These results are implemented using a new phase space generator introduced in a companion paper [arXiv:0801.4028].Comment: 60 pages, 22 figures, v2: corrected typos, added reference

GenEvA (II): A phase space generator from a reweighted parton shower

We introduce a new efficient algorithm for phase space generation. A parton shower is used to distribute events across all of multiplicity, flavor, and phase space, and these events can then be reweighted to any desired analytic distribution. To verify this method, we reproduce the e+e- -> n jets tree-level result of traditional matrix element tools. We also show how to improve tree-level matrix elements automatically with leading-logarithmic resummation. This algorithm is particularly useful in the context of a new framework for event generation called GenEvA. In a companion paper [arXiv:0801.4026], we show how the GenEvA framework can address contemporary issues in event generation.Comment: 54 pages, 20 figures, v2: corrected typos, added reference