1,212 research outputs found
Characterization of a 5-eV neutral atomic oxygen beam facility
An experimental effort to characterize an existing 5-eV neutral atomic oxygen beam facility being developed at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory is described. This characterization effort includes atomic oxygen flux and flux distribution measurements using a catalytic probe, energy determination using a commercially designed quadrupole mass spectrometer (QMS), and the exposure of oxygen-sensitive materials in this beam facility. Also, comparisons were drawn between the reaction efficiencies of materials exposed in plasma ashers, and the reaction efficiencies previously estimated from space flight experiments. The results of this study show that the beam facility is capable of producing a directional beam of neutral atomic oxygen atoms with the needed flux and energy to simulate low Earth orbit (LEO) conditions for real time accelerated testing. The flux distribution in this facility is uniform to +/- 6 percent of the peak flux over a beam diameter of 6 cm
Fluctuations and Dissipation of Coherent Magnetization
A quantum mechanical model is used to derive a generalized Landau-Lifshitz
equation for a magnetic moment, including fluctuations and dissipation. The
model reproduces the Gilbert-Brown form of the equation in the classical limit.
The magnetic moment is linearly coupled to a reservoir of bosonic degrees of
freedom. Use of generalized coherent states makes the semiclassical limit more
transparent within a path-integral formulation. A general
fluctuation-dissipation theorem is derived. The magnitude of the magnetic
moment also fluctuates beyond the Gaussian approximation. We discuss how the
approximate stochastic description of the thermal field follows from our
result. As an example, we go beyond the linear-response method and show how the
thermal fluctuations become anisotropy-dependent even in the uniaxial case.Comment: 22 page
A Spectroscopic Orbit for Regulus
We present a radial velocity study of the rapidly rotating B-star Regulus
that indicates the star is a single-lined spectroscopic binary. The orbital
period (40.11 d) and probable semimajor axis (0.35 AU) are large enough that
the system is not interacting at present. However, the mass function suggests
that the secondary has a low mass (M_2 > 0.30 M_sun), and we argue that the
companion may be a white dwarf. Such a star would be the remnant of a former
mass donor that was the source of the large spin angular momentum of Regulus
itself.Comment: 18 pages, 2 figures, ApJL in pres
Quantum Nucleation in a Ferromagnetic Film Placed in a Magnetic Field at an Arbitrary Angle
We study the quantum nucleation in a thin ferromagnetic film placed in a
magnetic field at an arbitrary angle. The dependence of the quantum nucleation
and the temperature of the crossover from thermal to quantum regime on the
direction and the strength of the applied field are presented. It is found that
the maximal value of the rate and that of the crossover temperature are
obtained at a some angle with the magnetic field, not in the direction of the
applied field opposite to the initial easy axis.Comment: 15 pages, RevTex, 3 PostScript figures. To appear in Phys. Rev.
Persistent spins in the linear diffusion approximation of phase ordering and zeros of stationary gaussian processes
The fraction r(t) of spins which have never flipped up to time t is studied
within a linear diffusion approximation to phase ordering. Numerical
simulations show that, even in this simple context, r(t) decays with time like
a power-law with a non-trival exponent which depends on the space
dimension. The local dynamics at a given point is a special case of a
stationary gaussian process of known correlation function and the exponent
is shown to be determined by the asymptotic behavior of the
probability distribution of intervals between consecutive zero-crossings of
this process. An approximate way of computing this distribution is proposed, by
taking the lengths of the intervals between successive zero-crossings as
independent random variables. The approximation gives values of the exponent
in close agreement with the results of simulations.Comment: 10 pages, 2 postscript files. Submitted to PRL. Reference screwup
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Periodic Bounce for Nucleation Rate at Finite Temperature in Minisuperspace Models
The periodic bounce configurations responsible for quantum tunneling are
obtained explicitly and are extended to the finite energy case for
minisuperspace models of the Universe. As a common feature of the tunneling
models at finite energy considered here we observe that the period of the
bounce increases with energy monotonically. The periodic bounces do not have
bifurcations and make no contribution to the nucleation rate except the one
with zero energy. The sharp first order phase transition from quantum tunneling
to thermal activation is verified with the general criterions.Comment: 17 pages, 5 postscript figures include
Decoupling of Massive Right-handed Neutrinos
We investigate the effect of B+L - violating anomalous generation of massive
right-handed neutrinos on their decoupling, when the right-handed neutrino mass
is considerably greater than the right-handed gauge boson masses. Considering
normal annihilation channels, the Lee-Weinberg type of calculation, in this
case, gives an upper bound of about 700 Gev, which casts doubt on the existence
of such a right-handed neutrino mass greater than right-handed gauge boson
masses. We examine the possibility that a consideration of anomalous effects
related to the SU(2)_R gauge group may turn this into a lower bound of the
order of 100 Tev.Comment: 28 Pages, Latex, 2 figure
The chemical evolution of the solar neighbourhood
Recent models of galactic chemical evolution account for updated evolutionary
models of massive stars (with special emphasis on stellar winds) and for the
effects of intermediate mass and massive binaries. The results are summarised.
We also present a critical discussion on possible effects of stellar rotation
on overall galactic chemical evolutionary simulations.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures, Pacific Rim Conference, Xi'an, China, 11-17 July
200
Subcritical Fluctuations at the Electroweak Phase Transition
We study the importance of thermal fluctuations during the electroweak phase
transition. We evaluate in detail the equilibrium number density of large
amplitude subcritical fluctuations and discuss the importance of phase mixing
to the dynamics of the phase transition. Our results show that, for realistic
Higgs masses, the phase transition can be completed by the percolation of the
true vacuum, induced by the presence of subcritical fluctuations.Comment: RevTeX, 4 eps figs (uses epsf.sty), 26 pages, to be published in
Phys. Rev.
Weak reaction freeze-out constraints on primordial magnetic fields
We explore constraints on the strength of the primordial magnetic field based
upon the weak reaction freeze-out in the early universe. We find that limits on
the strength of the magnetic field found in other works are recovered simply by
examining the temperature at which the rate of weak reactions drops below the
rate of universal expansion ( H). The temperature for which the
ratio at freeze-out leads to acceptable helium production implies limits
on the magnetic field. This simplifies the application of magnetic fields to
other cosmological variants of the standard big-bang. As an illustration we
also consider effects of neutrino degeneracy on the allowed limits to the
primordial magnetic field.Comment: Submitted to Phys. Rev. D., 6 pages, 2 figure
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