A dynamical proximity analysis of interacting galaxy pairs

Using the impulsive approximation to study the velocity changes of stars during disk-sphere collisions and a method due to Bottlinger to study the post collision orbits of stars, the formation of various types of interacting galaxies is studied as a function of the distance of closest approach between the two galaxies

The nature of the evolution of galaxies by mergers

The merger theory for the formation of elliptical galaxies is examined by conducting a dynamical study of the expected frequency of merging galaxies on the basis of the collisional theory, using galaxy models without halos. The expected merger rates obtained on the basis of the collisional theory fall about a magnitude below the observational value in the present epoch. In the light of current observational evidence and the results obtained, a marked regularity in the formation of ellipticals is indicated, followed by secular evolution by mergers

Minimizing Running Costs in Consumption Systems

A standard approach to optimizing long-run running costs of discrete systems is based on minimizing the mean-payoff, i.e., the long-run average amount of resources ("energy") consumed per transition. However, this approach inherently assumes that the energy source has an unbounded capacity, which is not always realistic. For example, an autonomous robotic device has a battery of finite capacity that has to be recharged periodically, and the total amount of energy consumed between two successive charging cycles is bounded by the capacity. Hence, a controller minimizing the mean-payoff must obey this restriction. In this paper we study the controller synthesis problem for consumption systems with a finite battery capacity, where the task of the controller is to minimize the mean-payoff while preserving the functionality of the system encoded by a given linear-time property. We show that an optimal controller always exists, and it may either need only finite memory or require infinite memory (it is decidable in polynomial time which of the two cases holds). Further, we show how to compute an effective description of an optimal controller in polynomial time. Finally, we consider the limit values achievable by larger and larger battery capacity, show that these values are computable in polynomial time, and we also analyze the corresponding rate of convergence. To the best of our knowledge, these are the first results about optimizing the long-run running costs in systems with bounded energy stores.Comment: 32 pages, corrections of typos and minor omission

Fat tailed distributions for deaths in conflicts and disasters

We study the statistics of human deaths from wars, conflicts, similar man-made conflicts as well as natural disasters. The probability distribution of number of people killed in natural disasters as well as man made situations show power law decay for the largest sizes, with similar exponent values. Comparisons with natural disasters, when event sizes are measured in terms of physical quantities (e.g., energy released in earthquake, volume of rainfall, land area affected in forest fires, etc.) also show striking resemblances. The universal patterns in their statistics suggest that some subtle similarities in their mechanisms and dynamics might be responsible.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figs + 2 table

Competing field pulse induced dynamic transition in Ising models

The dynamic magnetization-reversal phenomena in the Ising model under a finite-duration external magnetic field competing with the existing order for $T<T_c^0$ has been discussed. The nature of the phase boundary has been estimated from the mean-field equation of motion. The susceptibility and relaxation time diverge at the MF phase boundary. A Monte Carlo study also shows divergence of relaxation time around the phase boundary. Fluctuation of order parameter also diverge near the phase boundary. The behavior of the fourth order cumulant shows two distinct behavior: for low temperature and pulse duration region of the phase boundary the value of the cumulant at the crossing point for different system sizes is much less than that corersponding to the static transition in the same dimension which indicate a new universality class for the dynamic transition. Also, for higher temperature and pulse duration, the transition seem to fall in a mean-field like weak-singularity universality class.Comment: 12 pages, 17 ps & eps figures, to appear in a Special Issue of Phase Transitions (2004), Ed. S. Pur

Wave Propagation in 1-D Spiral geometry

In this article, we investigate the wave equation in spiral geometry and study the modes of vibrations of a one-dimensional (1-D) string in spiral shape. Here we show that the problem of wave propagation along a spiral can be reduced to Bessel differential equation and hence, very closely related to the problem of radial waves of two-dimensional (2-D) vibrating membrane in circular geometry

Gain Enhancement of a Wide Slot Antenna Using a Second-Order Bandpass Frequency Selective Surface

Gain enhancement of a wide slot antenna over a wide frequency band using a low profile, second order bandpass frequency selective surface (FSS) as a superstrate is presented in this paper. The proposed multilayered FSS with non-resonant unit cells in each layer allows in-phase transmission of waves radiated from the antenna over a 3dB bandwidth of about 50%. The design allows an enhancement of upto 4dBi in the antenna gain over the entire frequency band (5-8GHz) of operation. The FSS provides a very low insertion loss between the two transmission poles along with a linearly decreasing transmission phase over the band. The composite structure shows an impedance bandwidth (-10dB) of 65% with an average gain between 6-8dBi over the frequency band with a peak gain of 9dBi. Measurement results of the fabricated prototype matches well with the predicted values