550 research outputs found
Cooperative mixing induced surface roughening in bilayer metals: a possible novel surface damage mechanism
Molecular dynamics simulations have been used to study a collective atomic
transport phenomenon by repeated Ar irradiations in the Ti/Pt interfacial
system. The ion-induced injection of surface atoms to the bulk, the ejection of
bulk atoms to the top layers together with surface erosion is strongly enhanced
by interfacial mixing. This process leads to a dense interfacial material, and
broadening of the interface region. The process scales with the relative
difference of the atomic masses. We find that surface roughening and
interfacial mixing is strongly coupled via an enhanced counterflow material
transport normal to the surface which might be a novel surface damage
mechanism. This cooperative phenomenon is active when the bilayer system is
subjected to a high dose ion irradiation (multiple ion irradiations) and leads
to surface cavity growth.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures. accepted in Nucl. Instrum. Meth.
Does the thermal spike affect low-energy ion-induced interfacial mixing?
Molecular dynamics simulations have been used to obtain the three-dimensional
distribution of interfacial mixing and cascade defects in Ti/Pt multilayer
system due to single 1 keV impacts at grazing angle of incidence. The
Ti/Pt system was chosen because of its relatively high heat of mixing in the
binary alloy and therefore a suitable candidate for testing the effect of heat
of mixing on ion-beam mixing. However, the calculated mixing profile is not
sensitive to the heat of mixing. Therefore the thermal spike model of mixing is
not fully supported under these irradiation conditions. Instead we found that
the majority of mixing occurs after the thermal spike during the relaxation
process. These conclusions are supported by liquid, vacancy as well as adatom
analysis. The interfacial mixing is in various aspects anomalous in this
system: the time evolution of mixing is leading to a phase delay for Ti mixing,
and Pt exhibits an unexpected double peaked mixing evolution. The reasons to
these effects are discussed.Comment: 7 pages, 12 figures, Nucl. Instr. Meth. B211, 524. (2003
Vortices in simulations of solar surface convection
We report on the occurrence of small-scale vortices in simulations of the
convective solar surface. Using an eigenanalysis of the velocity gradient
tensor, we find the subset of high vorticity regions in which the plasma is
swirling. The swirling regions form an unsteady, tangled network of filaments
in the turbulent downflow lanes. Near-surface vertical vortices are underdense
and cause a local depression of the optical surface. They are potentially
observable as bright points in the dark intergranular lanes. Vortex features
typically exist for a few minutes, during which they are moved and twisted by
the motion of the ambient plasma. The bigger vortices found in the simulations
are possibly, but not necessarily, related to observations of granular-scale
spiraling pathlines in "cork animations" or feature tracking.Comment: 11 pages, 13 figures, accepted for publication in A&A, complementary
movies at http://www.mps.mpg.de/homes/moll/strudel/papermovies
High-order aberration compensation with Multi-frame Blind Deconvolution and Phase Diversity image restoration techniques
Context. For accurately measuring intensities and determining magnetic field
strengths of small-scale solar (magnetic) structure, knowledge of and
compensation for the point spread function is crucial. For images recorded with
the Swedish 1-meter Solar Telescope, restoration with Multi-Frame Blind
Deconvolution and Joint Phase Diverse Speckle methods lead to remarkable
improvements in image quality but granulation contrasts that are too low,
indicating additional stray light. Aims. We propose a method to compensate for
stray light from high-order atmospheric aberrations not included in MFBD and
JPDS processing. Methods. To compensate for uncorrected aberrations, a
reformulation of the image restoration process is proposed that allows the
average effect of hundreds of high-order modes to be compensated for by relying
on Kolmogorov statistics for these modes. The applicability of the method
requires simultaneous measurements of Fried's parameter r0. The method is
tested with simulations as well as real data and extended to include
compensation for conventional stray light. Results. We find that only part of
the reduction of granulation contrast in SST images is due to uncompensated
high-order aberrations. The remainder is still unaccounted for and attributed
to stray light from the atmosphere, the telescope with its re-imaging system
and to various high-altitude seeing effects. Conclusions. We conclude that
statistical compensation of high-order modes is a viable method to reduce the
loss of contrast occurring when a limited number of aberrations is explicitly
compensated for with MFBD and JPDS processing. We show that good such
compensation is possible with only 10 recorded frames. The main limitation of
the method is that already MFBD and JPDS processing introduces high-order
compensation that, if not taken into account, can lead to over-compensation.Comment: in press in Astronomy & Astrophysic
Monitoring cow comfort and rumen health indices in a cubicle-housed herd with an automatic milking system: a repeated measures approach
[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1186/s13620-015-0040-7.]
The Quiet-Sun Photosphere and Chromosphere
The overall structure and the fine structure of the solar photosphere outside
active regions are largely understood, except possibly important roles of a
turbulent near-surface dynamo at its bottom, internal gravity waves at its top,
and small-scale vorticity. Classical 1D static radiation-escape modelling has
been replaced by 3D time-dependent MHD simulations that come closer to reality.
The solar chromosphere, in contrast, remains ill-understood although its
pivotal role in coronal mass and energy loading makes it a principal research
area. Its fine structure defines its overall structure, so that hard-to-observe
and hard-to-model small-scale dynamical processes are the key to understanding.
However, both chromospheric observation and chromospheric simulation presently
mature towards the required sophistication. The open-field features seem of
greater interest than the easier-to-see closed-field features.Comment: Accepted for special issue "Astrophysical Processes on the Sun" of
Phil. Trans. Royal Soc. A, ed. C. Parnell. Note: clicking on the year in a
citation opens the corresponding ADS abstract page in the browse
An Efficient Molecular Dynamics Scheme for the Calculation of Dopant Profiles due to Ion Implantation
We present a highly efficient molecular dynamics scheme for calculating the
concentration depth profile of dopants in ion irradiated materials. The scheme
incorporates several methods for reducing the computational overhead, plus a
rare event algorithm that allows statistically reliable results to be obtained
over a range of several orders of magnitude in the dopant concentration.
We give examples of using this scheme for calculating concentration profiles
of dopants in crystalline silicon. Here we can predict the experimental profile
over five orders of magnitude for both channeling and non-channeling implants
at energies up to 100s of keV.
The scheme has advantages over binary collision approximation (BCA)
simulations, in that it does not rely on a large set of empirically fitted
parameters. Although our scheme has a greater computational overhead than the
BCA, it is far superior in the low ion energy regime, where the BCA scheme
becomes invalid.Comment: 17 pages, 21 figures, 2 tables. See: http://bifrost.lanl.gov/~reed
The energy of waves in the photosphere and lower chromosphere: III. Inversion setup for Ca II H spectra in local thermal equilibrium
The Ca II H line is one of the strongest lines in the solar spectrum and
provides continuous information on the solar atmosphere from the photosphere to
the lower chromosphere. We describe an inversion approach that reproduces
observed Ca II H spectra assuming LTE. We developed an inversion strategy based
on the SIR code. The approach uses a two-step procedure with an archive of
pre-calculated spectra to fit the line core and a subsequent iterative
modification to improve the fit in the line wing. Simultaneous spectra in the
630nm range can optionally be used to fix the continuum temperature. The method
retrieves 1D temperature stratifications neglecting lateral radiative
transport. LOS velocities are included by an empirical approach. An archive of
about 300.000 pre-calculated spectra is more than sufficient to reproduce the
line core of observed Ca II H spectra both in quiet Sun and in active regions.
The final thermodynamical stratifications match observed and best-fit spectra
to a level of about 0.5 (1) % of Ic in the line wing (core). Inversion schemes
based on pre-calculated spectra allow one a reliable and relatively fast
retrieval of solar properties from observed chromospheric spectra. The approach
can be easily extended to an 1D NLTE case by a simple exchange of the
pre-calculated archive spectra.Comment: 15 pages, 15 figures, accepted for publication in A&A. The animation
will only be provided in the A&A online sectio
The energy of waves in the photosphere and lower chromosphere: IV. Inversion results of Ca II H spectra
Most static 1D atmosphere models in the quiet Sun predict a rise of the gas
temperature at chromospheric layers, but numerical simulations only yield an
increase in the brightness temperature. We investigate the thermal structure in
the solar chromosphere as derived from an LTE inversion of Ca II H spectra in
QS and active regions. We investigate the temperature stratifications on
differences between magnetic and field-free regions in the QS, and between QS
and ARs. We determine the energy content of individual calcium bright grains
(BGs). The rms temperature fluctuations are below 100 K in the photosphere and
200-300 K in the chromosphere. The average temperature stratification in the QS
does not exhibit a clear chromospheric temperature rise, opposite to the AR
case. We find an energy content of about 7*10E18 J for BGs that repeat with a
cadence of about 160 secs. The precursors of BGs have a vertical extent of
about 200 km and a horizontal extent of about 1 Mm. The comparison of observed
with synthetic NLTE profiles confirms that the solar chromosphere in the QS
oscillates between an atmosphere in radiative equilibrium and one with a
moderate chromospheric temperature rise. Two-dimensional x-z temperature maps
exhibit nearly horizontal canopy-like structures with a few Mm extent around
photospheric magnetic field concentrations at a height of about 600 km. The
large difference between QS regions and ARs, and the better match of AR and
non-LTE reference spectra suggest that magnetic heating processes are more
important than commonly assumed. The temperature fluctuations in QS derived by
the LTE inversion do not suffice on average to maintain a stationary
chromospheric temperature rise. The spatially and vertically resolved
information on the temperature structure allows one to investigate in detail
the topology and evolution of the thermal structure in the lower solar
atmosphere.Comment: 16 pages, 16 figures + 1 page Appendix, accepted by A&
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