Effect of Plasma Irradiation on CdI2Cd I_2 films

The effect of plasma irradiation is studied systematically on a 4H polytype (002) oriented ${\rm CdI_2}$ stoichiometric film having compressive residual stress. Plasma irradiation was found to change the orientation to (110) of the film at certain moderate irradiation distances. A linear decrease in grain size and residual stress was observed with decreasing irradiation distance (or increasing ion energy) consistent with both structural and morphological observations. The direct optical energy gap ${\rm E_g}$ was found to increase linearly at the rate ${\rm 15\mu eV/atm}$ with the compressive stress. The combined data of present compressive stress and from earlier reported tensile stress show a consistent trend of ${\rm E_g}$ change with stress. The iodine-iodine distance in the unit cell could be responsible for the observed change in ${\rm E_g}$ with stress.Comment: 13 pages and 10 fi

Phononic Rogue Waves

We present a theoretical study of extreme events occurring in phononic lattices. In particular, we focus on the formation of rogue or freak waves, which are characterized by their localization in both spatial and temporal domains. We consider two examples. The first one is the prototypical nonlinear mass-spring system in the form of a homogeneous Fermi-Pasta-Ulam-Tsingou (FPUT) lattice with a polynomial potential. By deriving an approximation based on the nonlinear Schroedinger (NLS) equation, we are able to initialize the FPUT model using a suitably transformed Peregrine soliton solution of the NLS, obtaining dynamics that resembles a rogue wave on the FPUT lattice. We also show that Gaussian initial data can lead to dynamics featuring rogue wave for sufficiently wide Gaussians. The second example is a diatomic granular crystal exhibiting rogue wave like dynamics, which we also obtain through an NLS reduction and numerical simulations. The granular crystal (a chain of particles that interact elastically) is a widely studied system that lends itself to experimental studies. This study serves to illustrate the potential of such dynamical lattices towards the experimental observation of acoustic rogue waves.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figure

Simple devices for concentration of microbial life: Experiments in Haughton impact structure

Simple devices that create environments with high levels of light and moisture could attract extant microbial life on a planetary surface and hence enhance the detection of it. Experience in the Haughton crater shows that this can occur readily

Structure and chemistry of Orion S

We present interferometric observations of the SiO J = 2-1, H^(13)CO^+ J = 1-0, HC_3N J = 11-10, CH_3OH J_K = 2_0-1_0, and SO_2 J(K_pK_0) = 8_(17)-8_(08) transitions along with the λ = 3.1 mm continuum toward the young stellar object Orion S. The HC_3N and H^(13)CO^+ emission trace similar spatial and velocity distributions which are extended and follow the Orion molecular ridge. The SiO emission is more spatially confined, peaking to the west of the λ = 3.1 mm continuum source, while the CH_3OH emission peaks to the southwest. Weak SO_2 emission was detected southeast of the continuum source position. Column densities and fractional abundances are derived for each species at different positions in the region. In general, the molecular abundances near the continuum source are similar to those in the quiescent material near IRc 2, but the abundances decrease toward the continuum source position indicating localized depletions of at least a factor of three. The presence of strong SiO emission with much weaker SO_2 emission is interpreted as resulting from high-velocity shock interactions between the outflow from Orion S and the surrounding cloud. The apparent molecular depletions directly toward Orion S, and the similarity of abundances between the Orion S region and quiescent ridge material, suggest that Orion S is at an early stage of chemical evolution, prior to when substantial chemical differentiation occurs

Critical behavior of the three- and ten-state short-range Potts glass: A Monte Carlo study

We study the critical behavior of the short-range p-state Potts spin glass in three and four dimensions using Monte Carlo simulations. In three dimensions, for p = 3, a finite-size scaling analysis of the correlation length shows clear evidence of a transition to a spin-glass phase at T_c = 0.273(5) for a Gaussian distribution of interactions and T_c = 0.377(5) for a bimodal distribution. These results indicate that the lower critical dimension of the 3-state Potts glass is below three. By contrast, the correlation length of the ten-state (p = 10) Potts glass in three dimensions remains small even at very low temperatures and thus shows no sign of a transition. In four dimensions we find that the p = 3 Potts glass with Gaussian interactions has a spin-glass transition at T_c =0.536(3).Comment: 11 pages, 13 figures, 6 table

Computational structures for robotic computations

The computational problem of inverse kinematics and inverse dynamics of robot manipulators by taking advantage of parallelism and pipelining architectures is discussed. For the computation of inverse kinematic position solution, a maximum pipelined CORDIC architecture has been designed based on a functional decomposition of the closed-form joint equations. For the inverse dynamics computation, an efficient p-fold parallel algorithm to overcome the recurrence problem of the Newton-Euler equations of motion to achieve the time lower bound of O(log sub 2 n) has also been developed

Microbial preservation in sulfates in the Haughton impact structure suggests target in search for life on Mars

Microbes occur within transparent gypsum crystals in the Haughton crater. The crystals transmit light for photosynthesis, but protect from dehydration and wind. Sulfates on the Martian surface should be a priority target in the search for life

Bose-Einstein Condensation Temperature of a Homogeneous Weakly Interacting Bose Gas : PIMC study

Using a finite-temperature Path Integral Monte Carlo simulation (PIMC) method and finite-size scaling, we have investigated the interaction-induced shift of the phase transition temperature for Bose-Einstein condensation of homogeneous weakly interacting Bose gases in three dimensions, which is given by a proposed analytical expression $T_{c} = T_{c}^{0}\{1 + c_{1}an^{1/3}+[c'_{2}\ln(an^{1/3})+c''_{2}]a^{2}n^{2/3} +O(a^{3}n)\}$, where $T_{c}^{0}$ is the critical temperature for an ideal gas, $a$ is the s-wave scattering length, and $n$ is the number density. We have used smaller number densities and more time slices than in the previous PIMC simulations [Gruter {\it et al.}, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 79}, 3549 (1997)] in order to understand the difference in the value of the coefficient $c_{1}$ between their results and the (apparently) other reliable results in the literature. Our results show that $\{(T_{c}-T_{c}^{0})/T_{c}^{0}\}/(an^{1/3})$ depends strongly on the interaction strength $an^{1/3}$ while the previous PIMC results are considerably flatter and smaller than our results. We obtain $c_{1}$ = 1.32 $\pm$ 0.14, in agreement with results from recent Monte Carlo methods of three-dimensional O(2) scalar $\phi^{4}$ field theory and variational perturbation theory