2,574 research outputs found
On the Phenomenology of Hydrodynamic Shear Turbulence
The question of a purely hydrodynamic origin of turbulence in accretion disks
is reexamined, on the basis of a large body of experimental and numerical
evidence on various subcritical (i.e., linearly stable) hydrodynamic flows.
One of the main points of this paper is that the length scale and velocity
fluctuation amplitude which are characteristic of turbulent transport in these
flows scale like , where is the minimal Reynolds number for
the onset of fully developed turbulence. From this scaling, a simple
explanation of the dependence of with relative gap width in subcritical
Couette-Taylor flows is developed. It is also argued that flows in the shearing
sheet limit should be turbulent, and that the lack of turbulence in all such
simulations performed to date is most likely due to a lack of resolution, as a
consequence of the effect of the Coriolis force on the large scale fluctuations
of turbulent flows.
These results imply that accretion flows should be turbulent through
hydrodynamic processes. If this is the case, the Shakura-Sunyaev
parameter is constrained to lie in the range in accretion
disks, depending on unknown features of the mechanism which sustains
turbulence. Whether the hydrodynamic source of turbulence is more efficient
than the MHD one where present is an open question.Comment: 31 pages, 3 figures. Accepted for publication in Ap
Waves and Instabilities in Accretion Disks: MHD Spectroscopic Analysis
A complete analytical and numerical treatment of all magnetohydrodynamic
waves and instabilities for radially stratified, magnetized accretion disks is
presented. The instabilities are a possible source of anomalous transport.
While recovering results on known hydrodynamicand both weak- and strong-field
magnetohydrodynamic perturbations, the full magnetohydrodynamic spectra for a
realistic accretion disk model demonstrates a much richer variety of
instabilities accessible to the plasma than previously realized. We show that
both weakly and strongly magnetized accretion disks are prone to strong
non-axisymmetric instabilities.The ability to characterize all waves arising in
accretion disks holds great promise for magnetohydrodynamic spectroscopic
analysis.Comment: FOM-Institute for plasma physics "Rijnhuizen", Nieuwegein, the
Netherlands 12 pages, 3 figures, Accepted for publication in ApJ
Testing Spallation Processes With Beryllium and Boron
The nucleosynthesis of Be and B by spallation processes provides unique
insight into the origin of cosmic rays. Namely, different spallation schemes
predict sharply different trends for the growth of LiBeB abundances with
respect to oxygen. ``Primary'' mechanisms predict BeB O, and are well
motivated by the data if O/Fe is constant at low metallicity. In contrast,
``secondary'' mechanisms predict BeB O and are consistent with
the data if O/Fe increases towards low metallicity as some recent data suggest.
Clearly, any primary mechanism, if operative, will dominate early in the
history of the Galaxy. In this paper, we fit the BeB data to a two-component
scheme which includes both primary and secondary trends. In this way, the data
can be used to probe the period in which primary mechanisms are effective. We
analyze the data using consistent stellar atmospheric parameters based on
Balmer line data and the continuum infrared flux. Results depend sensitively on
Pop II O abundances and, unfortunately, on the choice of stellar parameters.
When using recent results which show O/Fe increasing toward lower metallicity,
a two-component Be-O fits indicates that primary and secondary components
contribute equally at [O/H] = -1.8 for Balmer line data; and
[O/H] = -1.4 to -1.8 for IRFM. We apply these constraints to recent
models for LiBeB origin. The Balmer line data does not show any evidence for
primary production. On the other hand, the IRFM data does indicate a preference
for a two-component model, such as a combination of standard GCR and
metal-enriched particles accelerated in superbubbles. These conclusions rely on
a detailed understanding of the abundance data including systematic effects
which may alter the derived O-Fe and BeB-Fe relations.Comment: 40 pages including 11 ps figures. Written in AASTe
Nanoengineering of a Negative-Index Binary-Staircase Lens for the Optics Regime
We show that a binary-staircase optical element can be engineered to exhibit
an effective negative index of refraction, thereby expanding the range of
optical properties theoretically available for future optoelectronic devices.
The mechanism for achieving a negative-index lens is based on exploiting the
periodicity of the surface corrugation. By designing and nanofabricating a
plano-concave binary-staircase lens in the InP/InGaAsP platform, we have
experimentally demonstrated at 1.55 microns that such negative-index concave
lenses can focus plane waves. The beam propagation in the lens was studied
experimentally and was in excellent agreement with the three-dimensional
finite-difference time-domain numerical simulations.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Influence of Gamma-Ray Emission on the Isotopic Composition of Clouds in the Interstellar Medium
We investigate one mechanism of the change in the isotopic composition of
cosmologically distant clouds of interstellar gas whose matter was subjected
only slightly to star formation processes. According to the standard
cosmological model, the isotopic composition of the gas in such clouds was
formed at the epoch of Big Bang nucleosynthesis and is determined only by the
baryon density in the Universe. The dispersion in the available cloud
composition observations exceeds the errors of individual measurements. This
may indicate that there are mechanisms of the change in the composition of
matter in the Universe after the completion of Big Bang nucleosynthesis. We
have calculated the destruction and production rates of light isotopes (D, 3He,
4He) under the influence of photonuclear reactions triggered by the gamma-ray
emission from active galactic nuclei (AGNs). We investigate the destruction and
production of light elements depending on the spectral characteristics of the
gamma-ray emission. We show that in comparison with previous works, taking into
account the influence of spectral hardness on the photonuclear reaction rates
can increase the characteristic radii of influence of the gamma-ray emission
from AGNs by a factor of 2-8. The high gamma-ray luminosities of AGNs observed
in recent years increase the previous estimates of the characteristic radii by
two orders of magnitude. This may suggest that the influence of the emission
from AGNs on the change in the composition of the medium in the immediate
neighborhood (the host galaxy) has been underestimated.Comment: 13 pages, 13 figures, 3 table
A double-sided silicon micro-strip super-module for the ATLAS inner detector upgrade in the high-luminosity LHC
The ATLAS experiment is a general purpose detector aiming to fully exploit the discovery potential of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. It is foreseen that after several years of successful data-taking, the LHC physics programme will be extended in the so-called High-Luminosity LHC, where the instantaneous luminosity will be increased up to 5 Ă 1034 cmâ2 sâ1. For ATLAS, an upgrade scenario will imply the complete replacement of its internal tracker, as the existing detector will not provide the required performance due to the cumulated radiation damage and the increase in the detector occupancy. The current baseline layout for the new ATLAS tracker is an all-silicon-based detector, with pixel sensors in the inner layers and silicon micro-strip detectors at intermediate and outer radii. The super-module is an integration concept proposed for the strip region of the future ATLAS tracker, where double-sided stereo silicon micro-strip modules are assembled into a low-mass local support structure. An electrical super-module prototype for eight double-sided strip modules has been constructed. The aim is to exercise the multi-module readout chain and to investigate the noise performance of such a system. In this paper, the main components of the current super-module prototype are described and its electrical performance is presented in detail
Ultrahigh Energy Cosmic Rays: The state of the art before the Auger Observatory
In this review we discuss the important progress made in recent years towards
understanding the experimental data on cosmic rays with energies \agt 10^{19}
eV. We begin with a brief survey of the available data, including a description
of the energy spectrum, mass composition, and arrival directions. At this point
we also give a short overview of experimental techniques. After that, we
introduce the fundamentals of acceleration and propagation in order to discuss
the conjectured nearby cosmic ray sources. We then turn to theoretical notions
of physics beyond the Standard Model where we consider both exotic primaries
and exotic physical laws. Particular attention is given to the role that
TeV-scale gravity could play in addressing the origin of the highest energy
cosmic rays. In the final part of the review we discuss the potential of future
cosmic ray experiments for the discovery of tiny black holes that should be
produced in the Earth's atmosphere if TeV-scale gravity is realized in Nature.Comment: Final version. To be published in Int. J. Mod. Phys.
Performance of the LHCb vertex locator
The Vertex Locator (VELO) is a silicon microstrip detector that surrounds the proton-proton interaction region in the LHCb experiment. The performance of the detector during the first years of its physics operation is reviewed. The system is operated in vacuum, uses a bi-phase CO2 cooling system, and the sensors are moved to 7 mm from the LHC beam for physics data taking. The performance and stability of these characteristic features of the detector are described, and details of the material budget are given. The calibration of the timing and the data processing algorithms that are implemented in FPGAs are described. The system performance is fully characterised. The sensors have a signal to noise ratio of approximately 20 and a best hit resolution of 4 ÎŒm is achieved at the optimal track angle. The typical detector occupancy for minimum bias events in standard operating conditions in 2011 is around 0.5%, and the detector has less than 1% of faulty strips. The proximity of the detector to the beam means that the inner regions of the n+-on-n sensors have undergone space-charge sign inversion due to radiation damage. The VELO performance parameters that drive the experiment's physics sensitivity are also given. The track finding efficiency of the VELO is typically above 98% and the modules have been aligned to a precision of 1 ÎŒm for translations in the plane transverse to the beam. A primary vertex resolution of 13 ÎŒm in the transverse plane and 71 ÎŒm along the beam axis is achieved for vertices with 25 tracks. An impact parameter resolution of less than 35 ÎŒm is achieved for particles with transverse momentum greater than 1 GeV/c
Precision luminosity measurements at LHCb
Measuring cross-sections at the LHC requires the luminosity to be determined accurately at each centre-of-mass energy âs. In this paper results are reported from the luminosity calibrations carried out at the LHC interaction point 8 with the LHCb detector for âs = 2.76, 7 and 8 TeV (proton-proton collisions) and for âsNN = 5 TeV (proton-lead collisions). Both the "van der Meer scan" and "beam-gas imaging" luminosity calibration methods were employed. It is observed that the beam density profile cannot always be described by a function that is factorizable in the two transverse coordinates. The introduction of a two-dimensional description of the beams improves significantly the consistency of the results. For proton-proton interactions at âs = 8 TeV a relative precision of the luminosity calibration of 1.47% is obtained using van der Meer scans and 1.43% using beam-gas imaging, resulting in a combined precision of 1.12%. Applying the calibration to the full data set determines the luminosity with a precision of 1.16%. This represents the most precise luminosity measurement achieved so far at a bunched-beam hadron collider
A double-sided, shield-less stave prototype for the ATLAS upgrade strip tracker for the high luminosity LHC
A detailed description of the integration structures for the barrel region of the silicon strips tracker of the ATLAS Phase-II upgrade for the upgrade of the Large Hadron Collider, the so-called High Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC), is presented. This paper focuses on one of the latest demonstrator prototypes recently assembled, with numerous unique features. It consists of a shortened, shield-less, and double sided stave, with two candidate power distributions implemented. Thermal and electrical performances of the prototype are presented, as well as a description of the assembly procedures and tools
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