Heat transfer mechanisms in bubbly Rayleigh-Benard convection

The heat transfer mechanism in Rayleigh-Benard convection in a liquid with a mean temperature close to its boiling point is studied through numerical simulations with point-like vapor bubbles, which are allowed to grow or shrink through evaporation and condensation and which act back on the flow both thermally and mechanically. It is shown that the effect of the bubbles is strongly dependent on the ratio of the sensible heat to the latent heat as embodied in the Jacob number Ja. For very small Ja the bubbles stabilize the flow by absorbing heat in the warmer regions and releasing it in the colder regions. With an increase in Ja, the added buoyancy due to the bubble growth destabilizes the flow with respect to single-phase convection and considerably increases the Nusselt number.Comment: 11 pages, 14 figure

Dephasing-assisted Gain and Loss in Mesoscopic Quantum Systems

Motivated by recent experiments, we analyse the phonon-assisted steady-state gain of a microwave field driving a double quantum-dot in a resonator. We apply the results of our companion paper, which derives the complete set of fourth-order Lindblad dissipators using Keldysh methods, to show that resonator gain and loss are substantially affected by dephasing-assisted dissipative processes in the quantum-dot system. These additional processes, which go beyond recently proposed polaronic theories, are in good quantitative agreement with experimental observationsComment: 5 pages, 3 Figures, published together with arXiv:1608.0416

On the Absence of a Normal Nonabelian Sylow Subgroup

Let $G$ be a finite solvable group. We show that $G$ does not have a normal nonabelian Sylow $p$-subgroup when its prime character degree graph $\Delta(G)$ satisfies a technical hypothesis.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figur

Graded level zero integrable representations of affine Lie algebras

We study the structure of the category of integrable level zero representations with finite dimensional weight spaces of affine Lie algebras. We show that this category possesses a weaker version of the finite length property, namely that an indecomposable object has finitely many simple constituents which are non-trivial as modules over the corresponding loop algebra. Moreover, any object in this category is a direct sum of indecomposables only finitely many of which are non-trivial. We obtain a parametrization of blocks in this category.Comment: 17 pages; referee's suggestions incorporated; main result extends to non-simply laced cas

Climatic effects of 1950-2050 changes in US anthropogenic aerosols - Part 2: Climate response

We investigate the climate response to changing US anthropogenic aerosol sources over the 1950–2050 period by using the NASA GISS general circulation model (GCM) and comparing to observed US temperature trends. Time-dependent aerosol distributions are generated from the GEOS-Chem chemical transport model applied to historical emission inventories and future projections. Radiative forcing from US anthropogenic aerosols peaked in 1970–1990 and has strongly declined since due to air quality regulations. We find that the regional radiative forcing from US anthropogenic aerosols elicits a strong regional climate response, cooling the central and eastern US by 0.5–1.0 °C on average during 1970–1990, with the strongest effects on maximum daytime temperatures in summer and autumn. Aerosol cooling reflects comparable contributions from direct and indirect (cloud-mediated) radiative effects. Absorbing aerosol (mainly black carbon) has negligible warming effect. Aerosol cooling reduces surface evaporation and thus decreases precipitation along the US east coast, but also increases the southerly flow of moisture from the Gulf of Mexico resulting in increased cloud cover and precipitation in the central US. Observations over the eastern US show a lack of warming in 1960–1980 followed by very rapid warming since, which we reproduce in the GCM and attribute to trends in US anthropogenic aerosol sources. Present US aerosol concentrations are sufficiently low that future air quality improvements are projected to cause little further warming in the US (0.1 °C over 2010–2050). We find that most of the warming from aerosol source controls in the US has already been realized over the 1980–2010 period

The CORDEX.be initiative as a foundation for climate services in Belgium

The CORDEX.be project created the foundations for Belgian climate services by producing high-resolution Belgian climate information that (a) incorporates the expertise of the different Belgian climate modeling groups and that (b) is consistent with the outcomes of the international CORDEX ("COordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment") project. The key practical tasks for the project were the coordination of activities among different Belgian climate groups, fostering the links to specific international initiatives and the creation of a stakeholder dialogue. Scientifically, the CORDEX.be project contributed to the EURO-CORDEX project, created a small ensemble of High-Resolution (H-Res) future projections over Belgium at convection-permitting resolutions and coupled these to seven Local Impact Models. Several impact studies have been carried out. The project also addressed some aspects of climate change uncertainties. The interactions and feedback from the stakeholder dialogue led to different practical applications at the Belgian national level

The hydrological response of the Ourthe catchment to climate change as modelled by the HBV model

The Meuse is an important river in Western Europe, which is almost exclusively rain-fed. Projected changes in precipitation characteristics due to climate change, therefore, are expected to have a considerable effect on the hydrological regime of the river Meuse. We focus on an important tributary of the Meuse, the Ourthe, measuring about 1600 km2. The well-known hydrological model HBV is forced with three high-resolution (0.088°) regional climate scenarios, each based on one of three different IPCC CO2 emission scenarios: A1B, A2 and B1. To represent the current climate, a reference model run at the same resolution is used. Prior to running the hydrological model, the biases in the climate model output are investigated and corrected for. Different approaches to correct the distributed climate model output using single-site observations are compared. Correcting the spatially averaged temperature and precipitation is found to give the best results, but still large differences exist between observations and simulations. The bias corrected data are then used to force HBV. Results indicate a small increase in overall discharge, especially for the B1 scenario during the beginning of the 21st century. Towards the end of the century, all scenarios show a decrease in summer discharge, partially because of the diminished buffering effect by the snow pack, and an increased discharge in winter. It should be stressed, however, that we used results from only one GCM (the only one available at such a high resolution). It would be interesting to repeat the analysis with multiple model

Periodic forcing in viscous fingering of a nematic liquid crystal

We study viscous fingering of an air-nematic interface in a radial Hele-Shaw cell when periodically switching on and off an electric field, which reorients the nematic and thus changes its viscosity, as well as the surface tension and its anisotropy (mainly enforced by a single groove in the cell). We observe undulations at the sides of the fingers which correlate with the switching frequency and with tip oscillations which give maximal velocity to smallest curvatures. These lateral undulations appear to be decoupled from spontaneous (noise-induced) side branching. We conclude that the lateral undulations are generated by successive relaxations between two limiting finger widths. The change between these two selected pattern scales is mainly due to the change in the anisotropy. This scenario is confirmed by numerical simulations in the channel geometry, using a phase-field model for anisotropic viscous fingering.Comment: completely rewritten version, more clear exposition of results (14 pages in Revtex + 7 eps figures