73,060 research outputs found
Discovery of Substructure in the Scatter-Broadened Image of Sgr A*
We have detected substructure within the smooth scattering disk of the
celebrated Galactic Center radio source Sagittarius A* (SgrA*). We observed
this structure at 1.3 cm wavelength with the Very Long Baseline Array together
with the Green Bank Telescope, on baselines of up to 3000 km, long enough to
completely resolve the average scattering disk. Such structure is predicted
theoretically, as a consequence of refraction by large-scale plasma
fluctuations in the interstellar medium. Along with the much-studied
scaling of angular broadening
with observing wavelength , our observations
indicate that the spectrum of interstellar turbulence is shallow, with an inner
scale larger than 300 km. The substructure is consistent with an intrinsic size
of about 1 mas at 1.3 cm wavelength, as inferred from deconvolution of the
average scattering. Further observations of the substructure can set stronger
constraints on the properties of scattering material and on the intrinsic size
of SgrA*. These constraints will guide understanding of effects of
scatter-broadening and emission physics of the black hole, in images with the
Event Horizon Telescope at millimeter wavelengths.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, accepted by Astrophysical Journal Letters; minor
corrections to the text and figures are introduce
Enhanced flux pinning in YBa2Cu3O7-d films by nano-scaled substrate surface roughness
Nano-scaled substrate surface roughness is shown to strongly influence the
critical current density Jc in YBCO films made by pulse-laser-deposition on the
crystalline LaAlO3 substrates consisting of two separate twin-free and
twin-rich regions. The nano-scaled corrugated surface was created in the
twin-rich region during the deposition process. Using magneto-optical imaging
techniques coupled with optical and atomic force microscopy, we observed an
enhanced flux pinning in the YBCO films in the twin-rich region, resulted in
\~30% increase in Jc, which was unambiguously confirmed by the direct transport
measurement.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figures, accepted by Applied Physics Letter
Irrelevance of memory in the minority game
By means of extensive numerical simulations we show that all the distinctive
features of the minority game introduced by Challet and Zhang (1997), are
completely independent from the memory of the agents. The only crucial
requirement is that all the individuals must posses the same information,
irrespective of the fact that this information is true or false.Comment: 4 RevTeX pages, 4 figure
Effective renormalized multi-body interactions of harmonically confined ultracold neutral bosons
We calculate the renormalized effective 2-, 3-, and 4-body interactions for N
neutral ultracold bosons in the ground state of an isotropic harmonic trap,
assuming 2-body interactions modeled with the combination of a zero-range and
energy-dependent pseudopotential. We work to third-order in the scattering
length a defined at zero collision energy, which is necessary to obtain both
the leading-order effective 4-body interaction and consistently include
finite-range corrections for realistic 2-body interactions. The leading-order,
effective 3- and 4-body interaction energies are U3 = -(0.85576...)(a/l)^2 +
2.7921(1)(a/l)^3 + O[(a/l)^4] and U4 = +(2.43317...)(a/l)^3 + O[(a\l)^4], where
w and l are the harmonic oscillator frequency and length, respectively, and
energies are in units of hbar*w. The one-standard deviation error 0.0001 for
the third-order coefficient in U3 is due to numerical uncertainty in estimating
a slowly converging sum; the other two coefficients are either analytically or
numerically exact. The effective 3- and 4-body interactions can play an
important role in the dynamics of tightly confined and strongly correlated
systems. We also performed numerical simulations for a finite-range boson-boson
potential, and it was comparison to the zero-range predictions which revealed
that finite-range effects must be taken into account for a realistic
third-order treatment. In particular, we show that the energy-dependent
pseudopotential accurately captures, through third order, the finite-range
physics, and in combination with the multi-body effective interactions gives
excellent agreement with the numerical simulations, validating our theoretical
analysis and predictions.Comment: Updated introduction, correction of a few typos and sign error
Breathing oscillations of a trapped impurity in a Bose gas
Motivated by a recent experiment [J. Catani et al., arXiv:1106.0828v1
preprint, 2011], we study breathing oscillations in the width of a harmonically
trapped impurity interacting with a separately trapped Bose gas. We provide an
intuitive physical picture of such dynamics at zero temperature, using a
time-dependent variational approach. In the Gross-Pitaevskii regime we obtain
breathing oscillations whose amplitudes are suppressed by self trapping, due to
interactions with the Bose gas. Introducing phonons in the Bose gas leads to
the damping of breathing oscillations and non-Markovian dynamics of the width
of the impurity, the degree of which can be engineered through controllable
parameters. Our results reproduce the main features of the impurity dynamics
observed by Catani et al. despite experimental thermal effects, and are
supported by simulations of the system in the Gross-Pitaevskii regime.
Moreover, we predict novel effects at lower temperatures due to self-trapping
and the inhomogeneity of the trapped Bose gas.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figure
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Visualising gas heating from an RF plasma loudspeaker
In an electro-acoustic transduction mechanism, an ac modulation (here in the audio frequency range) of the electric field in an atmospheric pressure air plasma gives rise to a rapid increase in the gas temperature and dimensions of the gas volume. As in natural lightning, the rapid expansion in the ionised column though the air produces external pressure variations at the modulation frequency.
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Spatial and temporal measurement of the gas temperature can identify the nature of the thermal expansion and provide a direct approach to understanding its relationship to the sound pressure wave that is generated. However, the established method through spectroscopic measurement of rotational line emission from nitrogen molecules is limited to the main current channel where relaxation and subsequent optical emission of the excited nitrogen molecules occurs. The wider picture is revealed through the use of the Schlieren method where the refractive index gradients caused by gas heating in the plasma are imaged
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