18,916 research outputs found
Proximity effect in Nb-Mo layered films: Transition temperature and critical current dependence on period
The behavior of the transition temperature and critical current density for a
Mo/Nb repeated bilayer system as a function of the number of periods was
explored. The measured values of the transition temperature are compared to the
theoretical predictions for the proximity effect in the dirty limit. We find
that the transition temperature does not decrease as the number of periods
increase. In addition, inductive critical current density measurements also
show a scaling that indicates the superconductivity properties are not
dependent on the number of bilayers.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figures, to be published Journal of Applied Physic
CMB power spectrum parameter degeneracies in the era of precision cosmology
Cosmological parameter constraints from the CMB power spectra alone suffer
several well-known degeneracies. These degeneracies can be broken by numerical
artefacts and also a variety of physical effects that become quantitatively
important with high-accuracy data e.g. from the Planck satellite. We study
degeneracies in models with flat and non-flat spatial sections, non-trivial
dark energy and massive neutrinos, and investigate the importance of various
physical degeneracy-breaking effects. We test the CAMB power spectrum code for
numerical accuracy, and demonstrate that the numerical calculations are
accurate enough for degeneracies to be broken mainly by true physical effects
(the integrated Sachs-Wolfe effect, CMB lensing and geometrical and other
effects through recombination) rather than numerical artefacts. We quantify the
impact of CMB lensing on the power spectra, which inevitably provides
degeneracy-breaking information even without using information in the
non-Gaussianity. Finally we check the numerical accuracy of sample-based
parameter constraints using CAMB and CosmoMC. In an appendix we document recent
changes to CAMB's numerical treatment of massive neutrino perturbations, which
are tested along with other recent improvements by our degeneracy exploration
results.Comment: 27 pages, 28 figures. Latest CAMB version available from
http://camb.info/. Reduced number of figures, plot legend corrected and minor
edits to match published versio
Can Modal Skepticism Defeat Humean Skepticism?
My topic is moderate modal skepticism in the spirit of Peter van Inwagen. Here understood, this is a conservative version of modal empiricism that severely limits the extent to which an ordinary agent can reasonably believe âexoticâ possibility claims. I offer a novel argument in support of this brand of skepticism: modal skepticism grounds an attractive (and novel) reply to Humean skepticism. Thus, I propose that modal skepticism be accepted on the basis of its theoretical utility as a tool for dissolving philosophical paradox
A deconvolution map-making method for experiments with circular scanning strategies
Aims. To investigate the performance of a deconvolution map-making algorithm
for an experiment with a circular scanning strategy, specifically in this case
for the analysis of Planck data, and to quantify the effects of making maps
using simplified approximations to the true beams. Methods. We present an
implementation of a map-making algorithm which allows the combined treatment of
temperature and polarisation data, and removal of instrumental effects, such as
detector time constants and finite sampling intervals, as well as the
deconvolution of arbitrarily complex beams from the maps. This method may be
applied to any experiment with a circular scanning-strategy. Results.
Low-resolution experiments were used to demonstrate the ability of this method
to remove the effects of arbitrary beams from the maps and to demonstrate the
effects on the maps of ignoring beam asymmetries. Additionally, results are
presented of an analysis of a realistic full-scale simulated data-set for the
Planck LFI 30 GHz channel. Conclusions. Our method successfully removes the
effects of the beams from the maps, and although it is computationally
expensive, the analysis of the Planck LFI data should be feasible with this
approach.Comment: 14 pages, 14 figures, accepte
Large deviations for ideal quantum systems
We consider a general d-dimensional quantum system of non-interacting
particles, with suitable statistics, in a very large (formally infinite)
container. We prove that, in equilibrium, the fluctuations in the density of
particles in a subdomain of the container are described by a large deviation
function related to the pressure of the system. That is, untypical densities
occur with a probability exponentially small in the volume of the subdomain,
with the coefficient in the exponent given by the appropriate thermodynamic
potential. Furthermore, small fluctuations satisfy the central limit theorem.Comment: 28 pages, LaTeX 2
Proof of Bose-Einstein Condensation for Interacting Gases with a One-Particle Spectral Gap
Using a specially tuned mean-field Bose gas as a reference system, we
establish a positive lower bound on the condensate density for continuous Bose
systems with superstable two-body interactions and a finite gap in the
one-particle excitations spectrum, i.e. we prove for the first time standard
homogeneous Bose-Einstein condensation for such interacting systems
Illusions of gunk
The possibility of gunk has been used to argue against mereological nihilism. This paper explores two responses on the part of the microphysical mereological nihilist: (1) the contingency defence, which maintains that nihilism is true of the actual world; but that at other worlds, composition occurs; (2) the impossibility defence, which maintains that nihilism is necessary true, and so gunk worlds are impossible. The former is argued to be ultimately unstable; the latter faces the explanatorily burden of explaining the illusion that gunk is possible. It is argued that we can discharge this burden by focussing on the contingency of the microphysicalist aspect of microphysical mereological nihilism. The upshot is that gunk-based arguments against microphysical mereological nihilism can be resisted
Solving the Cooling Flow Problem of Galaxy Clusters by Dark Matter Neutralino Annihilation
Recent X-ray observations revealed that strong cooling flow of intracluster
gas is not present in galaxy clusters, even though predicted theoretically if
there is no additional heating source. I show that relativistic particles
produced by dark matter neutralino annihilation in cluster cores provide a
sufficient heating source to suppress the cooling flow, under reasonable
astrophysical circumstances including adiabatic growth of central density
profile, with appropriate particle physics parameters for dark matter
neutralinos. In contrast to other astrophysical heat sources such as AGNs, this
process is a steady and stable feedback over cosmological time scales after
turned on.Comment: 4 pages, no figure. Accepted to Phys. Rev. Lett. A few minor
revisions and references adde
Diffusion of hydrogen in crystalline silicon
The coefficient of diffusion of hydrogen in crystalline silicon is calculated
using tight-binding molecular dynamics. Our results are in good quantitative
agreement with an earlier study by Panzarini and Colombo [Phys. Rev. Lett. 73,
1636 (1994)]. However, while our calculations indicate that long jumps dominate
over single hops at high temperatures, no abrupt change in the diffusion
coefficient can be observed with decreasing temperature. The (classical)
Arrhenius diffusion parameters, as a consequence, should extrapolate to low
temperatures.Comment: 4 pages, including 5 postscript figures; submitted to Phys. Rev. B
Brief Repor
Renormalisation-theoretic analysis of non-equilibrium phase transitions II: The effect of perturbations on rate coefficients in the Becker-Doring equations
We study in detail the application of renormalisation theory to models of
cluster aggregation and fragmentation of relevance to nucleation and growth
processes. In particular, we investigate the Becker-Doring (BD) equations,
originally formulated to describe and analyse non-equilibrium phase
transitions, but more recently generalised to describe a wide range of
physicochemical problems. We consider here rate coefficients which depend on
the cluster size in a power-law fashion, but now perturbed by small amplitude
random noise. Power-law rate coefficients arise naturally in the theory of
surface-controlled nucleation and growth processes. The noisy perturbations on
these rates reflect the effect of microscopic variations in such mean-field
coefficients, thermal fluctuations and/or experimental uncertainties. In the
present paper we generalise our earlier work that identified the nine classes
into which all dynamical behaviour must fall by investigating how random
perturbations of the rate coefficients influence the steady-state and kinetic
behaviour of the coarse-grained, renormalised system. We are hence able to
confirm the existence of a set of up to nine universality classes for such BD
systems.Comment: 30 pages, to appear in J Phys A Math Ge
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