An analytical study of transport, mixing and chaos in an unsteady vortical flow

We examine the transport properties of a particular two-dimensional, inviscid incompressible flow using dynamical systems techniques. The velocity field is time periodic and consists of the field induced by a vortex pair plus an oscillating strainrate field. In the absence of the strain-rate field the vortex pair moves with a constant velocity and carries with it a constant body of fluid. When the strain-rate field is added the picture changes dramatically; fluid is entrained and detrained from the neighbourhood of the vortices and chaotic particle motion occurs. We investigate the mechanism for this phenomenon and study the transport and mixing of fluid in this flow. Our work consists of both numerical and analytical studies. The analytical studies include the interpretation of the invariant manifolds as the underlying structure which govern the transport. For small values of strain-rate amplitude we use Melnikov's technique to investigate the behaviour of the manifolds as the parameters of the problem change and to prove the existence of a horseshoe map and thus the existence of chaotic particle paths in the flow. Using the Melnikov technique once more we develop an analytical estimate of the flux rate into and out of the vortex neighbourhood. We then develop a technique for determining the residence time distribution for fluid particles near the vortices that is valid for arbitrary strainrate amplitudes. The technique involves an understanding of the geometry of the tangling of the stable and unstable manifolds and results in a dramatic reduction in computational effort required for the determination of the residence time distributions. Additionally, we investigate the total stretch of material elements while they are in the vicinity of the vortex pair, using this quantity as a measure of the effect of the horseshoes on trajectories passing through this region. The numerical work verifies the analytical predictions regarding the structure of the invariant manifolds, the mechanism for entrainment and detrainment and the flux rate

Agency Disclosure in the Real Estate Transaction and the Impact of Related State Policies

Although agency disclosure is required by every state, recent national surveys of home buyers and sellers indicate that disclosure varies significantly across the United States. This study seeks to determine the causes of these disparities by examining states¡¯ educational standards, disclosure forms, regulatory environments, and buyer characteristics. The results identify several variables that have a deterministic impact on the probability of disclosure and suggest corrective actions and policies that states can implement to improve the effectiveness of agency disclosure in the real estate transaction.

Final State Interactions and the Transverse Structure of the Pion

In the factorized picture of semi-inclusive deep inelastic scattering the naive time reversal-odd parton distributions exist by virtue of the gauge link which is intrinsic to their definition. The link structure describes initial/final-state interactions of the active parton due to soft gluon exchanges with the target remnant. Though these interactions are non-perturbative, calculations of final-state interaction have been performed in a perturbative one-gluon approximation. We include higher-order contributions by applying non-perturbative eikonal methods to calculate the Boer-Mulders function of the pion. Using this framework we explore under what conditions the Boer-Mulders function can be described in terms of factorization of final state interactions and a spatial distortion.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures; Proceedings of the workshop, "Recent Advances in Perturbative QCD and Hadronic Physics" ECT*, Trento (Italy), in Honor of Anatoli V. Efremov on the occasion of his 75th Birthday, to appear in Mod. Phys. Lett.

An Investigation of Buyer Search in the Residential Real Estate Market under Different Market Conditions

The purpose of this research is to examine buyer search under different market conditions. We conduct a survival regression analysis of survey data generated by the National Association of Realtors for 1988, 1991 and 1993. We find, in all instances, that economic conditions are the dominant factor influencing search duration. Some evidence does indicate, however, that search is influenced by interest rates. Additionally, the evidence suggests that the probability of finding a home increases for broker-assisted search, while this is not the case for self-conducted search.

Optical polarimetric monitoring of the type II-plateau SN 2005af

Aims. Core-collapse supernovae may show significant polarization that implies non-spherically symmetric explosions. We observed the type II-plateau SN 2005af using optical polarimetry in order to verify whether any asphericity is present in the supernova temporal evolution. Methods. We used the IAGPOL imaging polarimeter to obtain optical linear polarization measurements in R (five epochs) and V (one epoch) broadbands. Interstellar polarization was estimated from the field stars in the CCD frames. The optical polarimetric monitoring began around one month after the explosion and lasted ~30 days, between the plateau and the early nebular phase. Results. The weighted mean observed polarization in R band was [1.89 +/- 0.03]% at position angle (PA) 54 deg. After foreground subtraction, the level of the average intrinsic polarization for SN 2005af was ~0.5% with a slight enhancement during the plateau phase and a decline at early nebular phase. A rotation in PA on a time scale of days was also observed. The polarimetric evolution of SN 2005af in the observed epochs is consistent with an overall asphericity of ~20% and an inclination of ~30 deg. Evidence for a more complex, evolving asphericity, possibly involving clumps in the SN 2005af envelope, is found.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, to be published A&

Ballistic spin transport in exciton gases

Traditional spintronics relies on spin transport by charge carriers, such as electrons in semiconductor crystals. This brings several complications: the Pauli principle prevents the carriers from moving with the same speed; Coulomb repulsion leads to rapid dephasing of electron flows. Spin-optronics is a valuable alternative to traditional spintronics. In spin-optronic devices the spin currents are carried by electrically neutral bosonic quasi-particles: excitons or exciton-polaritons. They can form highly coherent quantum liquids and carry spins over macroscopic distances. The price to pay is a finite life-time of the bosonic spin carriers. We present the theory of exciton ballistic spin transport which may be applied to a range of systems where bosonic spin transport has been reported, in particular, to indirect excitons in coupled GaAs/AlGaAs quantum wells. We describe the effect of spin-orbit interaction of electrons and holes on the exciton spin, account for the Zeeman effect induced by external magnetic fields, long range and short range exchange splittings of the exciton resonances. We also consider exciton transport in the non-linear regime and discuss the definitions of exciton spin current, polarization current and spin conductivity.Comment: 16 pages, 10 figures to be published in Phys. Rev.

Magnetic structure of the field-induced multiferroic GdFe3(BO3)4

We report a magnetic x-ray scattering study of the field-induced multiferroic GdFe3(BO3)4. Resonant x-ray magnetic scattering at the Gd LII,III edges indicates that the Gd moments order at TN ~ 37 K. The magnetic structure is incommensurate below TN, with the incommensurability decreasing monotonically with decreasing temperature until a transition to a commensurate magnetic phase is observed at T ~ 10 K. Both the Gd and Fe moments undergo a spin reorientation transition at TSR ~ 9 K such that the moments are oriented along the crystallographic c axis at low temperatures. With magnetic field applied along the a axis, our measurements suggest that the field-induced polarization phase has a commensurate magnetic structure with Gd moments rotated ~45 degrees toward the basal plane, which is similar to the magnetic structure of the Gd subsystem observed in zero field between 9 and 10 K, and the Fe subsystem has a ferromagnetic component in the basal plane.Comment: 27 pages, 7 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev.