635 research outputs found
Mechanism and kinetics of aging in Inconel 718
Age hardening in Inconel 718 is investigated using Brinell hardness measurements. Formation of a precipitate causes an increase in hardness
Silicon on ceramic process. Silicon sheet growth development for the large-area silicon sheet task of the low-cost silicon solar array project
The technical and economic feasibility of producing solar-cell-quality sheet silicon was investigated. The sheets were made by coating one surface of carbonized ceramic substrates with a thin layer of large-grain polycrystalline silicon from the melt. Significant progress was made in all areas of the program
Dip-coating process: Silicon sheet growth development for the large-area silicon sheet task of the low-cost silicon solar array project
The objective of this research program is to investigate the technical and economic feasibility of producing solar-cell-quality sheet silicon by coating one surface of carbonized ceramic substrates with a thin layer of large-grain polycrystalline silicon from the melt. The past quarter demonstrated significant progress in several areas. Seeded growth of silicon-on-ceramic (SOC) with an EFG ribbon seed was demonstrated. Different types of mullite were successfully coated with silicon. A new method of deriving minority carrier diffusion length, L sub n from spectral response measurements was evaluated. ECOMOD cost projections were found to be in good agreement with the interim SAMIS method proposed by JPL. On the less positive side, there was a decrease in cell performance which we believe to be due to an unidentified source of impurities
Determination of Omega_b From Big Bang Nucleosynthesis in the Presence of Regions of Antimatter
Production of regions of antimatter in the early universe is predicted in
many baryogenesis models. Small scale antimatter regions would annihilate
during or soon after nucleosynthesis, affecting the abundances of the light
elements. In this paper we study how the acceptable range in Omega_b changes in
the presence of antimatter regions, as compared to the standard big bang
nucleosynthesis. It turns out that it is possible to produce at the same time
both a low 4He value (Y_p < 0.240) and a low D/H value (D/H < 4e-5), but
overproduction of 7Li is unavoidable at large Omega_b.Comment: 9 pages, PRD version, ref. 6 correcte
Radiative decay of a massive particle and the non-thermal process in primordial nucleosynthesis
We consider the effects on big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) of the radiative
decay of a long-lived massive particle. If high-energy photons are emitted
after the BBN epoch ( sec), they may change the abundances of
the light elements through photodissociation processes, which may result in a
significant discrepancy between standard BBN and observation. Taking into
account recent observational and theoretical developments in this field, we
revise our previous study constraining the abundance of the
radiatively-decaying particles. In particular, on the theoretical side, it was
recently claimed that the non-thermal production of Li, which is caused by
the photodissociation of \hefour, most severely constrains the abundance of
the radiatively-decaying particle. We will see, however, it is premature to
emphasize the importance of the non-thermal production of Li because (i)
the theoretical computation of the Li abundance has large uncertainty due
to the lack of the precise understanding of the Li production cross
section, and (ii) the observational data of Li abundance has large errors.Comment: 15 pages, using REVTeX and 3 postscript figure
Lithium-6: A Probe of the Early Universe
I consider the synthesis of 6Li due to the decay of relic particles, such as
gravitinos or moduli, after the epoch of Big Bang Nucleosynthesis. The
synthesized 6Li/H ratio may be compared to 6Li/H in metal-poor stars which, in
the absence of stellar depletion of 6Li, yields significantly stronger
constraints on relic particle densities than the usual consideration of
overproduction of 3He. Production of 6Li during such an era of non-thermal
nucleosynthesis may also be regarded as a possible explanation for the
relatively high 6Li/H ratios observed in metal-poor halo stars.Comment: final version, Physical Review Letters, additional figure giving
limits on relic decaying particle
Excitons in a Photosynthetic Light-Harvesting System: A Combined Molecular Dynamics/Quantum Chemistry and Polaron Model Study
The dynamics of pigment-pigment and pigment-protein interactions in
light-harvesting complexes is studied with a novel approach which combines
molecular dynamics (MD) simulations with quantum chemistry (QC) calculations.
The MD simulations of an LH-II complex, solvated and embedded in a lipid
bilayer at physiological conditions (with total system size of 87,055 atoms)
revealed a pathway of a water molecule into the B800 binding site, as well as
increased dimerization within the B850 BChl ring, as compared to the
dimerization found for the crystal structure. The fluctuations of pigment (B850
BChl) excitation energies, as a function of time, were determined via ab initio
QC calculations based on the geometries that emerged from the MD simulations.
From the results of these calculations we constructed a time-dependent
Hamiltonian of the B850 exciton system from which we determined the linear
absorption spectrum. Finally, a polaron model is introduced to describe quantum
mechanically both the excitonic and vibrational (phonon) degrees of freedom.
The exciton-phonon coupling that enters into the polaron model, and the
corresponding phonon spectral function are derived from the MD/QC simulations.
It is demonstrated that, in the framework of the polaron model, the absorption
spectrum of the B850 excitons can be calculated from the autocorrelation
function of the excitation energies of individual BChls, which is readily
available from the combined MD/QC simulations. The obtained result is in good
agreement with the experimentally measured absorption spectrum.Comment: REVTeX3.1, 23 pages, 13 (EPS) figures included. A high quality PDF
file of the paper is available at
http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Publications/Papers/PDF/DAMJ2001/DAMJ2001.pd
Maser radiation from collisionless shocks
Funding: UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (grant Nos. EP/N014472/1, EP/R004773/1 and EP/N013298/1) and the Science and Technologies Facilities Council of the United Kingdom. F.C. and L.O.S. acknowledge support from the European Research Council (InPairs ERC-2015-AdG 695088) and FCT Portugal (grant No. PD/BD/114307/2016).This paper describes a model of electron energization and cyclotron-maser emission applicable to astrophysical magnetized collisionless shocks. It is motivated by the work of Begelman, Ergun and Rees [Astrophys. J. 625 , 51 (2005)] who argued that the cyclotron-maser instability occurs in localized magnetized collisionless shocks such as those expected in blazar jets. We report on recent research carried out to investigate electron acceleration at collisionless shocks and maser radiation associated with the accelerated electrons. We describe how electrons accelerated by lower-hybrid,waves at collisionless shocks generate cyclotron-maser radiation when the accelerated electrons move into regions of stronger magnetic fields. The electrons are accelerated along the magnetic field and magnetically compressed leading to the formation of an electron velocity distribution having a horseshoe shape due to conservation of the electron magnetic moment. Under certain conditions the horseshoe electron velocity distribution function is unstable to the cyclotron-maser instability [Bingham and Cairns, Phys. Plasmas 7, 3089 (2000); Melrose, Rev. Mod. Plasma Phys. 1 , 5 (2017)].Publisher PDFPeer reviewe
The search for transient astrophysical neutrino emission with IceCube-DeepCore
We present the results of a search for astrophysical sources of brief transient neutrino emission using IceCube and DeepCore data acquired between 2012 May 15 and 2013 April 30. While the search methods employed in this analysis are similar to those used in previous IceCube point source searches, the data set being examined consists of a sample of predominantly sub-TeV muon-neutrinos from the Northern Sky (-5 degrees < delta < 90 degrees) obtained through a novel event selection method. This search represents a first attempt by IceCube to identify astrophysical neutrino sources in this relatively unexplored energy range. The reconstructed direction and time of arrival of neutrino events are used to search for any significant self-correlation in the data set. The data revealed no significant source of transient neutrino emission. This result has been used to construct limits at timescales ranging from roughly 1 s to 10 days for generic soft-spectra transients. We also present limits on a specific model of neutrino emission from soft jets in core-collapse supernovae
Measurement of the inclusive and dijet cross-sections of b-jets in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector
The inclusive and dijet production cross-sections have been measured for jets
containing b-hadrons (b-jets) in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass
energy of sqrt(s) = 7 TeV, using the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The
measurements use data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 34 pb^-1.
The b-jets are identified using either a lifetime-based method, where secondary
decay vertices of b-hadrons in jets are reconstructed using information from
the tracking detectors, or a muon-based method where the presence of a muon is
used to identify semileptonic decays of b-hadrons inside jets. The inclusive
b-jet cross-section is measured as a function of transverse momentum in the
range 20 < pT < 400 GeV and rapidity in the range |y| < 2.1. The bbbar-dijet
cross-section is measured as a function of the dijet invariant mass in the
range 110 < m_jj < 760 GeV, the azimuthal angle difference between the two jets
and the angular variable chi in two dijet mass regions. The results are
compared with next-to-leading-order QCD predictions. Good agreement is observed
between the measured cross-sections and the predictions obtained using POWHEG +
Pythia. MC@NLO + Herwig shows good agreement with the measured bbbar-dijet
cross-section. However, it does not reproduce the measured inclusive
cross-section well, particularly for central b-jets with large transverse
momenta.Comment: 10 pages plus author list (21 pages total), 8 figures, 1 table, final
version published in European Physical Journal
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