Dynamics of nearly spherical vesicles in an external flow

We analytically derive an equation describing vesicle evolution in a fluid where some stationary flow is excited regarding that the vesicle shape is close to a sphere. A character of the evolution is governed by two dimensionless parameters, $S$ and $\Lambda$, depending on the vesicle excess area, viscosity contrast, membrane viscosity, strength of the flow, bending module, and ratio of the elongation and rotation components of the flow. We establish the ``phase diagram'' of the system on the $S-\Lambda$ plane: we find curves corresponding to the tank-treading to tumbling transition (described by the saddle-node bifurcation) and to the tank-treading to trembling transition (described by the Hopf bifurcation).Comment: 4 pages, 1 figur

The strong influence of substrate conductivity on droplet evaporation

We report the results of physical experiments that demonstrate the strong influence of the thermal conductivity of the substrate on the evaporation of a pinned droplet. We show that this behaviour can be captured by a mathematical model including the variation of the saturation concentration with temperature, and hence coupling the problems for the vapour concentration in the atmosphere and the temperature in the liquid and the substrate. Furthermore, we show that including two ad hoc improvements to the model, namely a Newton's law of cooling on the unwetted surface of the substrate and the buoyancy of water vapour in the atmosphere, give excellent quantitative agreement for all of the combinations of liquid and substrate considered

Magnetic studies of multi-walled carbon nanotube mats: Evidence for the paramagnetic Meissner effect

We report magnetic measurements up to 1200 K on multi-walled carbon nanotube mats using Quantum Design vibrating sample magnetometer. Extensive magnetic data consistently show two ferrromagnetic-like transitions at about 1000 K and 1275 K, respectively. The lower transition at about 1000 K is associated with an Fe impurity phase and its saturation magnetization is in quantitative agreement with the Fe concentration measured by an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer. On the other hand, the saturation magnetization for the higher transition phase ($\geq$1.0 emu/g) is about four orders of magnitude larger than that expected from the measured concentration of Co or CoFe, which has a high enough Curie temperature to explain this high transition. We show that this transition at about 1275 K is not consistent with a magnetic proximity effect of Fe-carbon systems and ferromagnetism of any carbon-based materials or magnetic impurities but with the paramagnetic Meissner effect due to the existence of $\pi$ Josephson junctions in a granular superconductor.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Low Energy Supersymmetry from the Heterotic Landscape

We study possible correlations between properties of the observable and hidden sectors in heterotic string theory. Specifically, we analyze the case of the Z6-II orbifold compactification which produces a significant number of models with the spectrum of the supersymmetric standard model. We find that requiring realistic features does affect the hidden sector such that hidden sector gauge group factors SU(4) and SO(8) are favoured. In the context of gaugino condensation, this implies low energy supersymmetry breaking.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures; to appear in Phys. Rev. Let

Decay of scalar turbulence revisited

We demonstrate that at long times the rate of passive scalar decay in a turbulent, or simply chaotic, flow is dominated by regions (in real space or in inverse space) where mixing is less efficient. We examine two situations. The first is of a spatially homogeneous stationary turbulent flow with both viscous and inertial scales present. It is shown that at large times scalar fluctuations decay algebraically in time at all spatial scales (particularly in the viscous range, where the velocity is smooth). The second example explains chaotic stationary flow in a disk/pipe. The boundary region of the flow controls the long-time decay, which is algebraic at some transient times, but becomes exponential, with the decay rate dependent on the scalar diffusion coefficient, at longer times.Comment: 4 pages, no figure

Resilience of the Spectral Standard Model

We show that the inconsistency between the spectral Standard Model and the experimental value of the Higgs mass is resolved by the presence of a real scalar field strongly coupled to the Higgs field. This scalar field was already present in the spectral model and we wrongly neglected it in our previous computations. It was shown recently by several authors, independently of the spectral approach, that such a strongly coupled scalar field stabilizes the Standard Model up to unification scale in spite of the low value of the Higgs mass. In this letter we show that the noncommutative neutral singlet modifies substantially the RG analysis, invalidates our previous prediction of Higgs mass in the range 160--180 Gev, and restores the consistency of the noncommutative geometric model with the low Higgs mass.Comment: 13 pages, more contours added to Higgs mass plot, one reference adde

The Viscous Lengths in Hydrodynamic Turbulence are Anomalous Scaling Functions

It is shown that the idea that scaling behavior in turbulence is limited by one outer length $L$ and one inner length $\eta$ is untenable. Every n'th order correlation function of velocity differences \bbox{\cal F}_n(\B.R_1,\B.R_2,\dots) exhibits its own cross-over length $\eta_{n}$ to dissipative behavior as a function of, say, $R_1$. This length depends on $n$ {and on the remaining separations} $R_2,R_3,\dots$. One result of this Letter is that when all these separations are of the same order $R$ this length scales like $\eta_n(R)\sim \eta (R/L)^{x_n}$ with $x_n=(\zeta_n-\zeta_{n+1}+\zeta_3-\zeta_2)/(2-\zeta_2)$, with $\zeta_n$ being the scaling exponent of the $n$'th order structure function. We derive a class of scaling relations including the ``bridge relation" for the scaling exponent of dissipation fluctuations $\mu=2-\zeta_6$.Comment: PRL, Submitted. REVTeX, 4 pages, I fig. (not included) PS Source of the paper with figure avalable at http://lvov.weizmann.ac.il/onlinelist.htm