706 research outputs found
Experimental Studies of Phase Change Materials in a Bubbling Fluidized Bed
Proceedings of: 14th International Conference on Fluidization: From Fundamentals to Products. Noordwijkerhout, Netherlands, 26-31 may 2013.The aim of this work is to experimentally study the behaviour of three microencapsulated PCM in a bubbling fluidized bed for thermal energy storage. Different experiments, heating and cooling the granular PCM with fluidizing air, are carried out with different superficial gas velocities. When achieving their phase change temperature two of the three materials present agglomeration. For this reason, the material flowability and wear resistance are studied by measuring the angle of repose and attrition, respectively. Nevertheless, the angle of repose does not seem to be influenced by the temperature of the material and the particle size distributions after the attrition tests indicate that the bed particles are just slightly smaller than the original ones.This work was partially founded by the Spanish Government (Project ENE2010-15403), the regional Government of Castilla-La Mancha (Project PPIC10-0055-4054) and Castilla-La Mancha University (Project GE20101662).Publicad
Binary Collisions and the Slingshot Effect
We derive the equations for the gravity assist manoeuvre in the general 2D
case without the constraints of circular planetary orbits or widely different
masses as assumed by Broucke, and obtain the slingshot conditions and maximum
energy gain for arbitrary mass ratios of two colliding rigid bodies. Using the
geometric view developed in an earlier paper by the authors the possible
trajectories are computed for both attractive or repulsive interactions
yielding a further insight on the slingshot mechanics and its parametrization.
The general slingshot manoeuvre for arbitrary masses is explained as a
particular case of the possible outcomes of attractive or repulsive binary
collisions, and the correlation between asymptotic information and orbital
parameters is obtained in general.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication Dec'07, Celestial
Mechanics and Dynamical Astronom
Stability of the lattice formed in first-order phase transitions to matter containing strangeness in protoneutron stars
Well into the deleptonization phase of a core collapse supernova, a
first-order phase transition to matter with macroscopic strangeness content is
assumed to occur and lead to a structured lattice defined by negatively charged
strange droplets. The lattice is shown to crystallize for expected droplet
charges and separations at temperatures typically obtained during the
protoneutronstar evolution. The melting curve of the lattice for small
spherical droplets is presented. The one-component plasma model proves to be an
adequate description for the lattice in its solid phase with deformation modes
freezing out around the melting temperature. The mechanical stability against
shear stresses is such that velocities predicted for convective phenomena and
differential rotation during the Kelvin-Helmholtz cooling phase might prevent
the crystallization of the phase transition lattice. A solid lattice might be
fractured by transient convection, which could result in anisotropic neutrino
transport. The melting curve of the lattice is relevant for the mechanical
evolution of the protoneutronstar and therefore should be included in future
hydrodynamics simulations.Comment: accepted for publication in Physical Review
On three-manifolds dominated by circle bundles
We determine which three-manifolds are dominated by products. The result is
that a closed, oriented, connected three-manifold is dominated by a product if
and only if it is finitely covered either by a product or by a connected sum of
copies of the product of the two-sphere and the circle. This characterization
can also be formulated in terms of Thurston geometries, or in terms of purely
algebraic properties of the fundamental group. We also determine which
three-manifolds are dominated by non-trivial circle bundles, and which
three-manifold groups are presentable by products.Comment: 12 pages; to appear in Math. Zeitschrift; ISSN 1103-467
Electron spin relaxation by nuclei in semiconductor quantum dots
We have studied theoretically the electron spin relaxation in semiconductor
quantum dots via interaction with nuclear spins. The relaxation is shown to be
determined by three processes: (i) -- the precession of the electron spin in
the hyperfine field of the frozen fluctuation of the nuclear spins; (ii) -- the
precession of the nuclear spins in the hyperfine field of the electron; and
(iii) -- the precession of the nuclear spin in the dipole field of its nuclear
neighbors. In external magnetic fields the relaxation of electron spins
directed along the magnetic field is suppressed. Electron spins directed
transverse to the magnetic field relax completely in a time on the order of the
precession period of its spin in the field of the frozen fluctuation of the
nuclear spins. Comparison with experiment shows that the hyperfine interaction
with nuclei may be the dominant mechanism of electron spin relaxation in
quantum dots
Jorge A. Swieca's contributions to quantum field theory in the 60s and 70s and their relevance in present research
After revisiting some high points of particle physics and QFT of the two
decades from 1960 to 1980, I comment on the work by Jorge Andre Swieca. I
explain how it fits into the quantum field theory during these two decades and
draw attention to its relevance to the ongoing particle physics research. A
particular aim of this article is to direct thr readers mindfulness to the
relevance of what at the time of Swieca was called "the Schwinger Higgs
screening mechanism". which, together with recent ideas which generalize the
concept of gauge theories, has all the ingredients to revolutionize the issue
of gauge theories and the standard model.Comment: 49 pages, expansion and actualization of text, improvement of
formulations and addition of many references to be published in EPJH -
Historical Perspectives on Contemporary Physic
Can social norms explain long-term trends in alcohol use? Insights from inverse generative social science
Social psychological theory posits entities and mechanisms that attempt to explain observable differences in behavior. For example, dual process theory suggests that an agent's behavior is influenced by intentional (arising from reasoning involving attitudes and perceived norms) and unintentional (i.e., habitual) processes. In order to pass the generative sufficiency test as an explanation of alcohol use, we argue that the theory should be able to explain notable patterns in alcohol use that exist in the population, e.g., the distinct differences in drinking prevalence and average quantities consumed by males and females. In this study, we further develop and apply inverse generative social science (iGSS) methods to an existing agent-based model of dual process theory of alcohol use. Using iGSS, implemented within a multi-objective grammar-based genetic program, we search through the space of model structures to identify whether a single parsimonious model can best explain both male and female drinking, or whether separate and more complex models are needed. Focusing on alcohol use trends in New York State, we identify an interpretable model structure that achieves high goodness-of-fit for both male and female drinking patterns simultaneously, and which also validates successfully against reserved trend data. This structure offers a novel interpretation of the role of norms in formulating drinking intentions, but the structure's theoretical validity is questioned by its suggestion that individuals with low autonomy would act against perceived descriptive norms. Improved evidence on the distribution of autonomy in the population is needed to understand whether this finding is substantive or is a modeling artefact
Instability and freezing in a solidifying melt conduit
Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2010. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Elsevier B.V. for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Physica D: Nonlinear Phenomena 240 (2011): 131-139, doi:10.1016/j.physd.2010.10.009.Previous works have shown that when liquid flows in a pipe whose boundary
temperature is below freezing, a tubular drainage conduit forms surrounded by solidified
material that freezes shut under the appropriate combination of forcing conditions. We
conduct laboratory experiments with wax in which the tube freezes shut below a certain
value of flux from a pump. As the flux is gradually decreased to this value, the total
pressure drop across the length of the tube first decreases to a minimum value and then
rises before freezing. Previous theoretical models of a tube driven by a constant pressure
drop suggest that once the pressure minimum is reached, the states for a lower flux
should be unstable and the tube should therefore freeze up. In our experiments, flux and
pressure drop were coupled, and this motivates us to extend the theory for low-Reynolds
number flow through a tube with solidification to incorporate a simple pressure drop-flux
relationship. Our model predicts a steady-state relationship between flux and pressure
drop that has a minimum of the pressure as the flux is varied. The stability properties of
these steady states depend on the boundary conditions: for a fixed flux, they are all stable,
whereas for fixed pressure drop, only those with a flux larger than that at the pressure
drop minimum are stable. For a mixed pressure-flux condition, the stability threshold of
the steady states lies between these two end members. This provides a possible
mechanism for the experimental observations.Support was received from the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Program, which is
supported by the Ocean Sciences Division of the National Science Foundation under
Grant OCE-0325296, and from the Oceanography Section of the Office of Naval
Research under Grant N00014-07-1-0776. The laboratory experiments were supported by
the Deep Ocean Exploration Institute of W.H.O.I
User-friendly tail bounds for sums of random matrices
This paper presents new probability inequalities for sums of independent,
random, self-adjoint matrices. These results place simple and easily verifiable
hypotheses on the summands, and they deliver strong conclusions about the
large-deviation behavior of the maximum eigenvalue of the sum. Tail bounds for
the norm of a sum of random rectangular matrices follow as an immediate
corollary. The proof techniques also yield some information about matrix-valued
martingales.
In other words, this paper provides noncommutative generalizations of the
classical bounds associated with the names Azuma, Bennett, Bernstein, Chernoff,
Hoeffding, and McDiarmid. The matrix inequalities promise the same diversity of
application, ease of use, and strength of conclusion that have made the scalar
inequalities so valuable.Comment: Current paper is the version of record. The material on Freedman's
inequality has been moved to a separate note; other martingale bounds are
described in Caltech ACM Report 2011-0
- …