1,221 research outputs found
A positive energy theorem for Einstein-aether and Ho\v{r}ava gravity
Energy positivity is established for a class of solutions to Einstein-aether
theory and the IR limit of Ho\v{r}ava gravity within a certain range of
coupling parameters. The class consists of solutions where the aether 4-vector
is divergence free on a spacelike surface to which it is orthogonal (which
implies that the surface is maximal). In particular, this result holds for
spherically symmetric solutions at a moment of time symmetry.Comment: 4 page
Mechanics of universal horizons
Modified gravity models such as Ho\v{r}ava-Lifshitz gravity or
Einstein-{\ae}ther theory violate local Lorentz invariance and therefore
destroy the notion of a universal light cone. Despite this, in the infrared
limit both models above possess static, spherically symmetric solutions with
"universal horizons" - hypersurfaces that are causal boundaries between an
interior region and asymptotic spatial infinity. In other words, there still
exist black hole solutions. We construct a Smarr formula (the relationship
between the total energy of the spacetime and the area of the horizon) for such
a horizon in Einstein-{\ae}ther theory. We further show that a slightly
modified first law of black hole mechanics still holds with the relevant area
now a cross-section of the universal horizon. We construct new analytic
solutions for certain Einstein-{\ae}ther Lagrangians and illustrate how our
results work in these exact cases. Our results suggest that holography may be
extended to these theories despite the very different causal structure as long
as the universal horizon remains the unique causal boundary when matter fields
are added.Comment: Minor clarifications. References update
Performance of a Miniaturized Arcjet
Performance measurements were obtained and life-limiting mechanisms were identified on a laboratory-model arcjet thruster designed to operate at a nominal power level of 300 W. The design employed a supersonic-arc-attachment concept and was operated from 200 to 400 W on hydrogen/nitrogen mixtures in ratios simulating fully decomposed hydrazine and ammonia. Power was provided by breadboard power processor. Performance was found to be a strong function of propellant flow rate. Anode losses were essentially constant for the range of mass flow rates tested. It is believed that the performance is dominated by viscous effects. Significantly improved performance was noted with simulated ammonia operation. At 300 W the specific impulse on simulated ammonia was 410 s with an efficiency of 0.34, while simulated hydrazine provided 370 s specific impulse at an efficiency of 0.27
Magnetic circuit for hall effect plasma accelerator
A Hall effect plasma accelerator includes inner and outer electromagnets, circumferentially surrounding the inner electromagnet along a thruster centerline axis and separated therefrom, inner and outer magnetic conductors, in physical connection with their respective inner and outer electromagnets, with the inner magnetic conductor having a mostly circular shape and the outer magnetic conductor having a mostly annular shape, a discharge chamber, located between the inner and outer magnetic conductors, a magnetically conducting back plate, in magnetic contact with the inner and outer magnetic conductors, and a combined anode electrode/gaseous propellant distributor, located at a bottom portion of the discharge chamber. The inner and outer electromagnets, the inner and outer magnetic conductors and the magnetically conducting back plate form a magnetic circuit that produces a magnetic field that is largely axial and radially symmetric with respect to the thruster centerline
Generally covariant model of a scalar field with high frequency dispersion and the cosmological horizon problem
Short distance structure of spacetime may show up in the form of high
freqency dispersion. Although such dispersion is not locally Lorentz invariant,
we show in a scalar field model how it can nevertheless be incorporated into a
generally covariant metric theory of gravity provided the locally preferred
frame is dynamical. We evaluate the resulting energy-momentum tensor and
compute its expectation value for a quantum field in a thermal state. The
equation of state differs at high temperatures from the usual one, but not by
enough to impact the problems of a hot big bang cosmology. We show that a
superluminal dispersion relation can solve the horizon problem via superluminal
equilibration, however it cannot do so while remaining outside the Planck
regime unless the dispersion relation is artificially chosen to have a rather
steep dependence on wavevector.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure; New section added with discussion of solution to
the cosmological horizon problem using superluminal dispersion, title changed
to reflect new content, various additional minor change
Dyon Spectrum in Generic N=4 Supersymmetric Z_N Orbifolds
We find the exact spectrum of a class of quarter BPS dyons in a generic N=4
supersymmetric Z_N orbifold of type IIA string theory on K3\times T^2 or T^6.
We also find the asymptotic expansion of the statistical entropy to first
non-leading order in inverse power of charges and show that it agrees with the
entropy of a black hole carrying same set of charges after taking into account
the effect of the four derivative Gauss-Bonnet term in the effective action of
the theory.Comment: LaTeX file, 39 pages; minor change
High-Power Krypton Hall Thruster Technology Being Developed for Nuclear-Powered Applications
The NASA Glenn Research Center has been performing research and development of moderate specific impulse, xenon-fueled, high-power Hall thrusters for potential solar electric propulsion applications. These applications include Mars missions, reusable tugs for low-Earth-orbit to geosynchronous-Earth-orbit transportation, and missions that require transportation to libration points. This research and development effort resulted in the design and fabrication of the NASA-457M Hall thruster that has been tested at input powers up to 95 kW. During project year 2003, NASA established Project Prometheus to develop technology in the areas of nuclear power and propulsion, which are enabling for deep-space science missions. One of the Project-Prometheus-sponsored Nuclear Propulsion Research tasks is to investigate alternate propellants for high-power Hall thruster electric propulsion. The motivation for alternate propellants includes the disadvantageous cost and availability of xenon propellant for extremely large scale, xenon-fueled propulsion systems and the potential system performance benefits of using alternate propellants. The alternate propellant krypton was investigated because of its low cost relative to xenon. Krypton propellant also has potential performance benefits for deep-space missions because the theoretical specific impulse for a given voltage is 20 percent higher than for xenon because of krypton's lower molecular weight. During project year 2003, the performance of the high-power NASA-457M Hall thruster was measured using krypton as the propellant at power levels ranging from 6.4 to 72.5 kW. The thrust produced ranged from 0.3 to 2.5 N at a discharge specific impulse up to 4500 sec
Linear constraints from generally covariant systems with quadratic constraints
How to make compatible both boundary and gauge conditions for generally
covariant theories using the gauge symmetry generated by first class
constraints is studied. This approach employs finite gauge transformations in
contrast with previous works which use infinitesimal ones. Two kinds of
variational principles are taken into account; the first one features
non-gauge-invariant actions whereas the second includes fully gauge-invariant
actions. Furthermore, it is shown that it is possible to rewrite fully
gauge-invariant actions featuring first class constraints quadratic in the
momenta into first class constraints linear in the momenta (and homogeneous in
some cases) due to the full gauge invariance of their actions. This shows that
the gauge symmetry present in generally covariant theories having first class
constraints quadratic in the momenta is not of a different kind with respect to
the one of theories with first class constraints linear in the momenta if fully
gauge-invariant actions are taken into account for the former theories. These
ideas are implemented for the parametrized relativistic free particle,
parametrized harmonic oscillator, and the SL(2,R) model.Comment: Latex file, revtex4, 18 pages, no figures. This version includes the
corrections to many misprints of v1 and also the ones of the published
version. The conceptual and technical parts of the paper are not altere
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