8,529 research outputs found
Universal transloader moves delicate equipment without stress
Transloader moves delicate or heavy items over irregular surfaces without transmitting stress to the load. The loader is supported on three pivot points which produce a wrap free base. The base is supported by an artificial four-wheel frame
Accurate measurement of a 96% input coupling into a cavity using polarization tomography
Pillar microcavities are excellent light-matter interfaces providing an
electromagnetic confinement in small mode volumes with high quality factors.
They also allow the efficient injection and extraction of photons, into and
from the cavity, with potentially near-unity input and output-coupling
efficiencies. Optimizing the input and output coupling is essential, in
particular, in the development of solid-state quantum networks where artificial
atoms are manipulated with single incoming photons. Here we propose a technique
to accurately measure input and output coupling efficiencies using polarization
tomography of the light reflected by the cavity. We use the residual
birefringence of pillar microcavities to distinguish the light coupled to the
cavity from the uncoupled light: the former participates to rotating the
polarization of the reflected beam, while the latter decreases the polarization
purity. Applying this technique to a micropillar cavity, we measure a output coupling and a input coupling with unprecedented
precision.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure
Velocity selection problem for combined motion of melting and solidification fronts
We discuss a free boundary problem for two moving solid-liquid interfaces
that strongly interact via the diffusion field in the liquid layer between
them. This problem arises in the context of liquid film migration (LFM) during
the partial melting of solid alloys. In the LFM mechanism the system chooses a
more efficient kinetic path which is controlled by diffusion in the liquid
film, whereas the process with only one melting front would be controlled by
the very slow diffusion in the mother solid phase. The relatively weak
coherency strain energy is the effective driving force for LFM. As in the
classical dendritic growth problems, also in this case an exact family of
steady-state solutions with two parabolic fronts and an arbitrary velocity
exists if capillary effects are neglected. We develop a velocity selection
theory for this problem, including anisotropic surface tension effects. The
strong diffusion interaction and coherency strain effects in the solid near the
melting front lead to substantial changes compared to classical dendritic
growth.Comment: submitted to PR
ISO spectroscopy of compact HII regions in the Galaxy. II Ionization and elemental abundances
Based on the ISO spectral catalogue of compact HII regions by Peeters et al.
(2001), we present a first analysis of the hydrogen recombination and atomic
fine-structure lines originated in the ionized gas. The sample consists of 34
HII regions located at galactocentric distances between Rgal = 0 and 15 kpc.
The SWS HI recombination lines between 2 and 8 mum are used to estimate the
extinction law at these wavelengths for 14 HII regions. An extinction in the K
band between 0 and 3 mag. has been derived. The fine-structure lines of
N, O, Ne, S and Ar are detected in most of the sources. Most of these elements
are observed in two different ionization stages probing a range in ionization
potential up to 41 eV. The ISO data, by itself or combined with radio data
taken from the literature, is used to derive the elemental abundances relative
to hydrogen. The present data thus allow us to describe for each source its
elemental abundance, its state of ionization and to constrain the properties of
the ionizing star(s).Comment: Accepted in Astronomy and Astrophysics, 22 pages, 20 figures, 9
table
A mid-IR survey of the L 1641-N region with ISOCAM
We present an analysis of the L 1641 outflow region using broad-band and
narrow-band imaging data at mid-infrared wavelengths from ISOCAM. We detect a
total of 34 sources in the x region covered by
the broad-band filters. Four of these sources have no reported detection in
previous studies of the region. We find that the source previously identified
as the near-IR counter-part to the IRAS detected point-source (IRAS 05338-0624)
is not the brightest source in the wavelength region of the IRAS 12 \micron\
filter. We find instead that a nearby object (within the beam of IRAS and not
detected at near-IR wavelengths) outshines all others sources in the area by a
factor of 2. We submit that this source is likely to be the IRAS detected
point source. A comparison of the near-IR (J-H vs H-K) and mid-IR (J-K vs [6.7
um]-[14 um]) color-color plots shows only four sources with excess emission at
near-IR wavelengths, but atleast 85% of all sources show excess emission at
mid-IR wavelengths. The CVF spectra suggest a range of evolutionary status in
the program stars ranging from embedded YSOs to the young disks. When combined
with optical and near-IR age estimates, these results show active current
star-formation in the region that has been on-going for at least 2 Myr.Comment: Submitted to ApJ. Abstracted edited for arXiv submission Replaced by
version accepted by Ap
Phase Field Model for Three-Dimensional Dendritic Growth with Fluid Flow
We study the effect of fluid flow on three-dimensional (3D) dendrite growth
using a phase-field model on an adaptive finite element grid. In order to
simulate 3D fluid flow, we use an averaging method for the flow problem coupled
to the phase-field method and the Semi-Implicit Approximated Projection Method
(SIAPM). We describe a parallel implementation for the algorithm, using Charm++
FEM framework, and demonstrate its efficiency. We introduce an improved method
for extracting dendrite tip position and tip radius, facilitating accurate
comparison to theory. We benchmark our results for two-dimensional (2D)
dendrite growth with solvability theory and previous results, finding them to
be in good agreement. The physics of dendritic growth with fluid flow in three
dimensions is very different from that in two dimensions, and we discuss the
origin of this behavior
Observed transition from Richtmyer-Meshkov jet formation through feedout oscillations to Rayleigh-Taylor instability in a laser target
Experimental study of hydrodynamic perturbation evolution triggered by a
laser-driven shock wave breakout at the free rippled rear surface of a plastic
target is reported. At sub-megabar shock pressure, planar jets manifesting the
development of the Richtmyer-Meshkov-type instability in a non-accelerated
target are observed. As the shock pressure exceeds 1 Mbar, an oscillatory
rippled expansion wave is observed, followed by the "feedout" of the
rear-surface perturbations to the ablation front and the development of the
Rayleigh-Taylor instability, which breaks up the accelerated target.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figure
Analytic approach to the evolutionary effects of genetic exchange
We present an approximate analytic study of our previously introduced model
of evolution including the effects of genetic exchange. This model is motivated
by the process of bacterial transformation. We solve for the velocity, the rate
of increase of fitness, as a function of the fixed population size, . We
find the velocity increases with , eventually saturated at an which
depends on the strength of the recombination process. The analytical treatment
is seen to agree well with direct numerical simulations of our model equations
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