1,165 research outputs found
Compound nuclear decay and the liquid to vapor phase transition: a physical picture
Analyses of multifragmentation in terms of the Fisher droplet model (FDM) and
the associated construction of a nuclear phase diagram bring forth the problem
of the actual existence of the nuclear vapor phase and the meaning of its
associated pressure. We present here a physical picture of fragment production
from excited nuclei that solves this problem and establishes the relationship
between the FDM and the standard compound nucleus decay rate for rare particles
emitted in first-chance decay. The compound thermal emission picture is
formally equivalent to a FDM-like equilibrium description and avoids the
problem of the vapor while also explaining the observation of Boltzmann-like
distribution of emission times. In this picture a simple Fermi gas thermometric
relation is naturally justified and verified in the fragment yields and time
scales. Low energy compound nucleus fragment yields scale according to the FDM
and lead to an estimate of the infinite symmetric nuclear matter critical
temperature between 18 and 27 MeV depending on the choice of the surface energy
coefficient of nuclear matter.Comment: Five page two column pages, four figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.
Searching for cavities of various densities in the Earth's crust with a low-energy electron-antineutrino beta-beam
We propose searching for deep underground cavities of different densities in
the Earth's crust using a long-baseline electron-antineutrino disappearance
experiment, realized through a low-energy beta-beam with highly-enhanced
luminosity. We focus on four cases: cavities with densities close to that of
water, iron-banded formations, heavier mineral deposits, and regions of
abnormal charge accumulation that have been posited to appear prior to the
occurrence of an intense earthquake. The sensitivity to identify cavities
attains confidence levels higher than and for exposures
times of 3 months and 1.5 years, respectively, and cavity densities below 1 g
cm or above 5 g cm, with widths greater than 200 km. We
reconstruct the cavity density, width, and position, assuming one of them known
while keeping the other two free. We obtain large allowed regions that improve
as the cavity density differs more from the Earth's mean density. Furthermore,
we demonstrate that knowledge of the cavity density is important to obtain
O(10%) error on the width. Finally, we introduce an observable to quantify the
presence of a cavity by changing the orientation of the electron-antineutrino
beam, with which we are able to identify the presence of a cavity at the
to C.L.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures; matches published versio
Propulsion and Space Vehicle Systems Analysis Program Tensor I, volume I Technical report no. 341
Computer program for space vehicle and propulsion systems analysi
A Conceptual Framework for Application of Performance Measurement as an Early Warning System in Projects, an Analysis on the Case of the London Ambulance Service Project
This study presents an overview of the concept of early warning signs in projects and explains how a performance measurement system can be
utilized as an early warning signal for avoiding failure. An analysis will be done on the published assessments of a project, the London Ambulance
Service, which failed to fulfill its goals. This analysis has been performed in order to illustrate the feasible problems pertaining to a real case and
its consequences. The rationale behind this selection is not to offer criticism relating to this specific project's performance but to learn
constructively from it and move towards a better practice. A statement has been made that, with application of a performance measurement
system in the project phase, chaos and perhaps total failure in the operational phase could have been prevented. Also, a conceptual performance
measurement system has been proposed, using the main problems in the project phase as a reference for addressing the dimensions of
performance to be measured, objects to be controlled, and the indicators. The overall aim of this paper is to increase understanding of the
concept of early warning signs in projects and offer a possible approach, which can assist project managers in taking timely preventive actions in
order to avoid undesired outcomes
Neutrino-nucleus interaction rates at a low-energy beta-beam facility
We compute the neutrino detection rates to be expected at a low-energy
beta-beam facility. We consider various nuclei as neutrino detectors and
compare the case of a small versus large storage ring.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure
Local Projections of Low-Momentum Potentials
Nuclear interactions evolved via renormalization group methods to lower
resolution become increasingly non-local (off-diagonal in coordinate space) as
they are softened. This inhibits both the development of intuition about the
interactions and their use with some methods for solving the quantum many-body
problem. By applying "local projections", a softened interaction can be reduced
to a local effective interaction plus a non-local residual interaction. At the
two-body level, a local projection after similarity renormalization group (SRG)
evolution manifests the elimination of short-range repulsive cores and the flow
toward universal low-momentum interactions. The SRG residual interaction is
found to be relatively weak at low energy, which motivates a perturbative
treatment
Structure functions and intermittency in ionospheric plasma turbulence
Low frequency electrostatic turbulence in the ionospheric E-region is studied by means of numerical and experimental methods. We use the structure functions of the electrostatic potential as a diagnostics of the fluctuations. We demonstrate the inherently intermittent nature of the low level turbulence in the collisional ionospheric plasma by using results for the space-time varying electrostatic potential from two dimensional numerical simulations. An instrumented rocket can not directly detect the one-point potential variation, and most measurements rely on records of potential differences between two probes. With reference to the space observations we demonstrate that the results obtained by potential difference measurements can differ significantly from the one-point results. It was found, in particular, that the intermittency signatures become much weaker, when the proper rocket-probe configuration is implemented. We analyze also signals from an actual ionospheric rocket experiment, and find a reasonably good agreement with the appropriate simulation results, demonstrating again that rocket data, obtained as those analyzed here, are unlikely to give an adequate representation of intermittent features of the low frequency ionospheric plasma turbulence for the given conditions
Non-characteristic Half-lives in Radioactive Decay
Half-lives of radionuclides span more than 50 orders of magnitude. We
characterize the probability distribution of this broad-range data set at the
same time that explore a method for fitting power-laws and testing
goodness-of-fit. It is found that the procedure proposed recently by Clauset et
al. [SIAM Rev. 51, 661 (2009)] does not perform well as it rejects the
power-law hypothesis even for power-law synthetic data. In contrast, we
establish the existence of a power-law exponent with a value around 1.1 for the
half-life density, which can be explained by the sharp relationship between
decay rate and released energy, for different disintegration types. For the
case of alpha emission, this relationship constitutes an original mechanism of
power-law generation
Low-frequency electrostatic waves in the ionospheric E-region: a comparison of rocket observations and numerical simulations
International audienceLow frequency electrostatic waves in the lower parts of the ionosphere are studied by a comparison of observations by instrumented rockets and of results from numerical simulations. Particular attention is given to the spectral properties of the waves. On the basis of a good agreement between the observations and the simulations, it can be argued that the most important nonlinear dynamics can be accounted for in a 2-D numerical model, referring to a plane perpendicular to a locally homogeneous magnetic field. It does not seem necessary to take into account turbulent fluctuations or motions in the neutral gas component. The numerical simulations explain the observed strongly intermittent nature of the fluctuations: secondary instabilities develop on the large scale gradients of the largest amplitude waves, and the small scale dynamics is strongly influenced by these secondary instabilities. We compare potential variations obtained at a single position in the numerical simulations with two point potential-difference signals, where the latter is the adequate representation for the data obtained by instrumented rockets. We can demonstrate a significant reduction in the amount of information concerning the plasma turbulence when the latter signal is used for analysis. In particular we show that the bicoherence estimate is strongly affected. The conclusions have implications for studies of low frequency ionospheric fluctuations in the E and F regions by instrumented rockets, and also for other methods relying on difference measurements, using two probes with large separation. The analysis also resolves a long standing controversy concerning the supersonic phase velocities of these cross-field instabilities being observed in laboratory experiments
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