Semiclassical description of resonant tunneling

We derive a semiclassical formula for the tunneling current of electrons trapped in a potential well which can tunnel into and across a wide quantum well. The calculations idealize an experimental situation where a strong magnetic field tilted with respect to an electric field is used. The resulting semiclassical expression is written as the sum over special periodic orbits which hit both walls of the quantum well and are perpendicular to the first wall.Comment: LaTeX, 8 page

Nuclear data for fusion: Validation of typical pre-processing methods for radiation transport calculations

AbstractNuclear data form the basis of the radiation transport codes used to design and simulate the behaviour of nuclear facilities, such as the ITER and DEMO fusion reactors. Typically these data and codes are biased towards fission and high-energy physics applications yet are still applied to fusion problems. With increasing interest in fusion applications, the lack of fusion specific codes and relevant data libraries is becoming increasingly apparent. Industry standard radiation transport codes require pre-processing of the evaluated data libraries prior to use in simulation. Historically these methods focus on speed of simulation at the cost of accurate data representation. For legacy applications this has not been a major concern, but current fusion needs differ significantly. Pre-processing reconstructs the differential and double differential interaction cross sections with a coarse binned structure, or more recently as a tabulated cumulative distribution function. This work looks at the validity of applying these processing methods to data used in fusion specific calculations in comparison to fission. The relative effects of applying this pre-processing mechanism, to both fission and fusion relevant reaction channels are demonstrated, and as such the poor representation of these distributions for the fusion energy regime. For the natC(n,el) reaction at 2.0MeV, the binned differential cross section deviates from the original data by 0.6% on average. For the 56Fe(n,el) reaction at 14.1MeV, the deviation increases to 11.0%. We show how this discrepancy propagates through to varying levels of simulation complexity. Simulations were run with Turnip-MC and the ENDF-B/VII.1 library in an effort to define a new systematic error for this range of applications. Alternative representations of differential and double differential distributions are explored in addition to their impact on computational efficiency and relevant simulation results

Positron emission particle tracking (PEPT): A novel approach to flow visualisation in lab-scale anaerobic digesters

YesPositron emission particle tracking (PEPT) was used to visualise the flow patterns established by mixing in two laboratory-scale anaerobic digesters fitted with mechanical mixing or gas mixing apparatus. PEPT allows the visualisation of flow patterns within a digester without necessitating the use of a transparent synthetic sludge. In the case of the mechanically-mixed digester, the mixing characteristics of opaque sewage sludge was compared to a transparent synthetic sludge at different mixing speeds. In the gas-mixed apparatus, two synthetic sludges were compared. In all scenarios, quasi-toroidal flow paths were established. However, mixing was less successful in more viscous liquids unless mixing power was increased to compensate for the increase in viscosity. The robustness of the PEPT derived velocities was found to be significantly affected by the frequency with which the particle enters a given volume of the vessel, with the accuracy of the calculated velocity decreasing in regions with low data capture. Nevertheless, PEPT was found to offer a means of accurate validation of computational fluid dynamics models which in turn can help to optimise flow patterns for biogas production.The first author was funded via an EPSRC CASE award in conjunction with Severn Trent Water. The second author was funded via a University of Birmingham Postgraduate Teaching Assistantship award

Reconnection and acoustic emission of quantized vortices in superfluid by the numerical analysis of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation

We study numerically the reconnection of quantized vortices and the concurrent acoustic emission by the analysis of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation. Two quantized vortices reconnect following the process similar to classical vortices; they approach, twist themselves locally so that they become anti-parallel at the closest place, reconnect and leave separately.The investigation of the motion of the singular lines where the amplitude of the wave function vanishes in the vortex cores confirms that they follow the above scenario by reconnecting at a point. This reconnection is not contradictory to the Kelvin's circulation theorem, because the potential of the superflow field becomes undefined at the reconnection point. When the locally anti-parallel part of the vortices becomes closer than the healing length, it moves with the velocity comparable to the sound velocity, emits the sound waves and leads to the pair annihilation or reconnection; this phenomena is concerned with the Cherenkov resonance. The vortices are broken up to smaller vortex loops through a series of reconnection, eventually disappearing with the acoustic emission. This may correspond to the final stage of the vortex cascade process proposed by Feynman. The change in energy components, such as the quantum, the compressible and incompressible kinetic energy is analyzed for each dynamics. The propagation of the sound waves not only appears in the profile of the amplitude of the wave function but also affects the field of its phase, transforming the quantum energy due to the vortex cores to the kinetic energy of the phase field.Comment: 11 pages, 16 figures, LaTe

Conspecific and Heterospecific Information Use in Bumblebees

Heterospecific social learning has been understudied in comparison to interactions between members of the same species. However, the learning mechanisms behind such information use can allow animals to be flexible in the cues that are used. This raises the question of whether conspecific cues are inherently more influential than cues provided by heterospecifics, or whether animals can simply use any cue that predicts fitness enhancing conditions, including those provided by heterospecifics. To determine how freely social information travels across species boundaries, we trained bumblebees (Bombus terrestris) to learn to use cues provided by conspecifics and heterospecific honey bees (Apis mellifera) to locate valuable floral resources. We found that heterospecific demonstrators did not differ from conspecifics in the extent to which they guided observers' choices, whereas various types of inorganic visual cues were consistently less effective than conspecifics. This was also true in a transfer test where bees were confronted with a novel flower type. However, in the transfer test, conspecifics were slightly more effective than heterospecific demonstrators. We then repeated the experiment with entirely naïve bees that had never foraged alongside conspecifics before. In this case, heterospecific demonstrators were equally efficient as conspecifics both in the initial learning task and the transfer test. Our findings demonstrate that social learning is not a unique process limited to conspecifics and that through associative learning, interspecifically sourced information can be just as valuable as that provided by conspecific individuals. Furthermore the results of this study highlight potential implications for understanding competition within natural pollinator communities

Creation of solitons and vortices by Bragg reflection of Bose-Einstein condensates in an optical lattice

We study the dynamics of Bose-Einstein condensates in an optical lattice and harmonic trap. The condensates are set in motion by displacing the trap and initially follow simple semiclassical paths, shaped by the lowest energy band. Above a critical displacement, the condensate undergoes Bragg reflection. For high atom densities, the first Bragg reflection generates a train of solitons and vortices, which destabilize the condensate and trigger explosive expansion. At lower densities, soliton and vortex formation requires multiple Bragg reflections, and damps the center-of-mass motion.Comment: 5 pages including 5 figures (for higher resolution figures please email the authors

Tunable Lyapunov exponent in inverse magnetic billiards

The stability properties of the classical trajectories of charged particles are investigated in a two dimensional stadium-shaped inverse magnetic domain, where the magnetic field is zero inside the stadium domain and constant outside. In the case of infinite magnetic field the dynamics of the system is the same as in the Bunimovich billiard, i.e., ergodic and mixing. However, for weaker magnetic fields the phase space becomes mixed and the chaotic part gradually shrinks. The numerical measurements of the Lyapunov exponent (performed with a novel method) and the integrable/chaotic phase space volume ratio show that both quantities can be smoothly tuned by varying the external magnetic field. A possible experimental realization of the arrangement is also discussed.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figure