17,763 research outputs found
The Conductance of a Perfect Thin Film with Diffuse Surface Scattering
The conductance of thin films with diffusive surface scattering was solved
semi-classically by Fuchs and Sondheimer. However, when the intrinsic electron
mean free path is very large or infinite their conductance diverges. In this
letter a simple diffraction picture is presented. It yields a conductance which
corresponds to a limiting mean free path. PACS: 73.50.-h, 73.50.Bk, 73.23.-b,
73.25.+i, B14
Microscopic picture of aging in SiO2
We investigate the aging dynamics of amorphous SiO2 via molecular dynamics
simulations of a quench from a high temperature T_i to a lower temperature T_f.
We obtain a microscopic picture of aging dynamics by analyzing single particle
trajectories, identifying jump events when a particle escapes the cage formed
by its neighbors, and by determining how these jumps depend on the waiting time
t_w, the time elapsed since the temperature quench to T_f. We find that the
only t_w-dependent microscopic quantity is the number of jumping particles per
unit time, which decreases with age. Similar to previous studies for fragile
glass formers, we show here for the strong glass former SiO2 that neither the
distribution of jump lengths nor the distribution of times spent in the cage
are t_w-dependent. We conclude that the microscopic aging dynamics is
surprisingly similar for fragile and strong glass formers.Comment: 4 pages, 7 figure
Pseudo-High-Order Symplectic Integrators
Symplectic N-body integrators are widely used to study problems in celestial
mechanics. The most popular algorithms are of 2nd and 4th order, requiring 2
and 6 substeps per timestep, respectively. The number of substeps increases
rapidly with order in timestep, rendering higher-order methods impractical.
However, symplectic integrators are often applied to systems in which
perturbations between bodies are a small factor of the force due to a dominant
central mass. In this case, it is possible to create optimized symplectic
algorithms that require fewer substeps per timestep. This is achieved by only
considering error terms of order epsilon, and neglecting those of order
epsilon^2, epsilon^3 etc. Here we devise symplectic algorithms with 4 and 6
substeps per step which effectively behave as 4th and 6th-order integrators
when epsilon is small. These algorithms are more efficient than the usual 2nd
and 4th-order methods when applied to planetary systems.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures. Accepted for publication in the Astronomical
Journa
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