13,087 research outputs found
From particle segregation to the granular clock
Recently several authors studied the segregation of particles for a system
composed of mono-dispersed inelastic spheres contained in a box divided by a
wall in the middle. The system exhibited a symmetry breaking leading to an
overpopulation of particles in one side of the box. Here we study the
segregation of a mixture of particles composed of inelastic hard spheres and
fluidized by a vibrating wall. Our numerical simulations show a rich
phenomenology: horizontal segregation and periodic behavior. We also propose an
empirical system of ODEs representing the proportion of each type of particles
and the segregation flux of particles. These equations reproduce the major
features observed by the simulations.Comment: 10 page
A 3D Printed Toolbox for Opto-Mechanical Components
Nowadays is very common to find headlines in the media where it is stated
that 3D printing is a technology called to change our lives in the near future.
For many authors, we are living in times of a third industrial revolution.
Howerver, we are currently in a stage of development where the use of 3D
printing is advantageous over other manufacturing technologies only in rare
scenarios. Fortunately, scientific research is one of them. Here we present the
development of a set of opto-mechanical components that can be built easily
using a 3D printer based on Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) and parts that can
be found on any hardware store. The components of the set presented here are
highly customizable, low-cost, require a short time to be fabricated and offer
a performance that compares favorably with respect to low-end commercial
alternatives.Comment: 9 pages, 9 figure
A bottom-up approach to the strong CP problem
The strong CP problem is one of many puzzles in the theoretical description
of elementary particle physics that still lacks an explanation. While top-down
solutions to that problem usually comprise new symmetries or fields or both, we
want to present a rather bottom-up perspective. The main problem seems to be
how to achieve small CP violation in the strong interactions despite large CP
violation in weak interactions. Observation of CP violation is exclusively
through the Higgs--Yukawa interactions. In this paper, we show that with
minimal assumptions on the structure of mass (Yukawa) matrices they do not
contribute to the strong CP problem and thus we can provide a pathway to a
solution of the strong CP problem within the structures of the Standard Model
and no extension at the electroweak scale is needed. However, to address the
flavor puzzle, models based on minimal SU(3) flavor groups leading to the
proposed flavor matrices are favored. Though we refrain from an explicit a UV
completion of the Standard Model, we provide a simple requirement those models
should have to intrinsically not show a strong CP problem.Comment: 12 pages; v2: extended discussion, title changed to be more genera
Comment on ``Scaling Laws for a System with Long-Range Interactions within Tsallis Statistics''
In their recent Letter [Phys. Rev. Lett. 83, 4233 (1999)], Salazar and Toral
(ST) study numerically a finite Ising chain with non-integrable interactions
decaying like 1/r^(d+sigma) where -d <= sigma <= 0 (like ST, we discuss general
dimensionality d). In particular, they explore a presumed connection between
non-integrable interactions and Tsallis's non-extensive statistics. We point
out that (i) non-integrable interactions provide no more motivation for Tsallis
statistics than do integrable interactions, i.e., Gibbs statistics remain
meaningful for the non-integrable case, and in fact provide a {\em complete and
exact treatment}; and (ii) there are undesirable features of the method ST use
to regulate the non-integrable interactions.Comment: Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Let
Phase transition in a super superspin glass
We here confirm the occurrence of spin glass phase transition and extract
estimates of associated critical exponents of a highly monodisperse and densely
compacted system of bare maghemite nanoparticles. This system has earlier been
found to behave like an archetypal spin glass, with e.g. a sharp transition
from paramagnetic to non-equilibrium behavior, suggesting that this system
undergoes a spin-glass phase transition at a relatively high temperature,
140 K.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
- …