9,072 research outputs found
Statistics of the General Circulation from Cumulant Expansions
Large-scale atmospheric flows may not be so nonlinear as to preclude their
statistical description by systematic expansions in cumulants. I extend
previous work by examining a two-layer baroclinic model of the general
circulation. The fixed point of the cumulant expansion describes the
statistically steady state of the out-of-equilibrium model. Equal-time
statistics so obtained agree well with those accumulated by direct numerical
simulation.Comment: 1 page paper with 4 figures that accompanies one of the winning
entries in the APS gallery of nonlinear images competitio
Convergent Chaos
Chaos is widely understood as being a consequence of sensitive dependence upon initial conditions. This is the result of an instability in phase space, which separates trajectories exponentially. Here, we demonstrate that this criterion should be refined. Despite their overall intrinsic instability, trajectories may be very strongly convergent in phase space over extremely long periods, as revealed by our investigation of a simple chaotic system (a realistic model for small bodies in a turbulent flow). We establish that this strong convergence is a multi-facetted phenomenon, in which the clustering is intense, widespread and balanced by lacunarity of other regions. Power laws, indicative of scale-free features, characterize the distribution of particles in the system. We use large-deviation and extreme-value statistics to explain the effect. Our results show that the interpretation of the 'butterfly effect' needs to be carefully qualified. We argue that the combination of mixing and clustering processes makes our specific model relevant to understanding the evolution of simple organisms. Lastly, this notion of convergent chaos, which implies the existence of conditions for which uncertainties are unexpectedly small, may also be relevant to the valuation of insurance and futures contracts
Size-independent Young's modulus of inverted conical GaAs nanowire resonators
We explore mechanical properties of top down fabricated, singly clamped
inverted conical GaAs nanowires. Combining nanowire lengths of 2-9 m with
foot diameters of 36-935 nm yields fundamental flexural eigenmodes spanning two
orders of magnitude from 200 kHz to 42 MHz. We extract a size-independent value
of Young's modulus of (453) GPa. With foot diameters down to a few tens of
nanometers, the investigated nanowires are promising candidates for
ultra-flexible and ultra-sensitive nanomechanical devices
Energetics, skeletal dynamics and long-term predictions in Kolmogorov-Lorenz systems
We study a particular return map for a class of low dimensional chaotic
models called Kolmogorov Lorenz systems, which received an elegant general
Hamiltonian description and includes also the famous Lorenz63 case, from the
viewpoint of energy and Casimir balance. In particular it is considered in
detail a subclass of these models, precisely those obtained from the Lorenz63
by a small perturbation on the standard parameters, which includes for example
the forced Lorenz case in Ref.[6]. The paper is divided into two parts. In the
first part the extremes of the mentioned state functions are considered, which
define an invariant manifold, used to construct an appropriate Poincare surface
for our return map. From the experimental observation of the simple orbital
motion around the two unstable fixed points, together with the circumstance
that these orbits are classified by their energy or Casimir maximum, we
construct a conceptually simple skeletal dynamics valid within our sub class,
reproducing quite well the Lorenz map for Casimir. This energetic approach
sheds some light on the physical mechanism underlying regime transitions. The
second part of the paper is devoted to the investigation of a new type of
maximum energy based long term predictions, by which the knowledge of a
particular maximum energy shell amounts to the knowledge of the future
(qualitative) behaviour of the system. It is shown that, in this respect, a
local analysis of predictability is not appropriate for a complete
characterization of this behaviour. A perspective on the possible extensions of
this type of predictability analysis to more realistic cases in (geo)fluid
dynamics is discussed at the end of the paper.Comment: 21 pages, 14 figure
The prediction of future from the past: an old problem from a modern perspective
The idea of predicting the future from the knowledge of the past is quite
natural when dealing with systems whose equations of motion are not known. Such
a long-standing issue is revisited in the light of modern ergodic theory of
dynamical systems and becomes particularly interesting from a pedagogical
perspective due to its close link with Poincar\'e's recurrence. Using such a
connection, a very general result of ergodic theory - Kac's lemma - can be used
to establish the intrinsic limitations to the possibility of predicting the
future from the past. In spite of a naive expectation, predictability results
to be hindered rather by the effective number of degrees of freedom of a system
than by the presence of chaos. If the effective number of degrees of freedom
becomes large enough, regardless the regular or chaotic nature of the system,
predictions turn out to be practically impossible. The discussion of these
issues is illustrated with the help of the numerical study of simple models.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figure
Polycrystalline silicon study: Low-cost silicon refining technology prospects and semiconductor-grade polycrystalline silicon availability through 1988
Photovoltaic arrays that convert solar energy into electrical energy can become a cost effective bulk energy generation alternative, provided that an adequate supply of low cost materials is available. One of the key requirements for economic photovoltaic cells is reasonably priced silicon. At present, the photovoltaic industry is dependent upon polycrystalline silicon refined by the Siemens process primarily for integrated circuits, power devices, and discrete semiconductor devices. This dependency is expected to continue until the DOE sponsored low cost silicon refining technology developments have matured to the point where they are in commercial use. The photovoltaic industry can then develop its own source of supply. Silicon material availability and market pricing projections through 1988 are updated based on data collected early in 1984. The silicon refining industry plans to meet the increasing demands of the semiconductor device and photovoltaic product industries are overviewed. In addition, the DOE sponsored technology research for producing low cost polycrystalline silicon, probabilistic cost analysis for the two most promising production processes for achieving the DOE cost goals, and the impacts of the DOE photovoltaics program silicon refining research upon the commercial polycrystalline silicon refining industry are addressed
Oscillators and relaxation phenomena in Pleistocene climate theory
Ice sheets appeared in the northern hemisphere around 3 million years ago and
glacial-interglacial cycles have paced Earth's climate since then. Superimposed
on these long glacial cycles comes an intricate pattern of millennial and
sub-millennial variability, including Dansgaard-Oeschger and Heinrich events.
There are numerous theories about theses oscillations. Here, we review a number
of them in order to draw a parallel between climatic concepts and dynamical
system concepts, including, in particular, the relaxation oscillator,
excitability, slow-fast dynamics and homoclinic orbits. Namely, almost all
theories of ice ages reviewed here feature a phenomenon of synchronisation
between internal climate dynamics and the astronomical forcing. However, these
theories differ in their bifurcation structure and this has an effect on the
way the ice age phenomenon could grow 3 million years ago. All theories on
rapid events reviewed here rely on the concept of a limit cycle in the ocean
circulation, which may be excited by changes in the surface freshwater surface
balance. The article also reviews basic effects of stochastic fluctuations on
these models, including the phenomenon of phase dispersion, shortening of the
limit cycle and stochastic resonance. It concludes with a more personal
statement about the potential for inference with simple stochastic dynamical
systems in palaeoclimate science.
Keywords: palaeoclimates, dynamical systems, limit cycle, ice ages,
Dansgaard-Oeschger eventsComment: Published in the Transactions of the Philosophical Transactions of
the Royal Society (Series A, Physical Mathematical and Engineering Sciences),
as a contribution to the Proceedings of the workshop on Stochastic Methods in
Climate Modelling, Newton Institute (23-27 August). Philosophical
Transactions of the Royal Society (Series A, Physical Mathematical and
Engineering Sciences), vol. 370, pp. xx-xx (2012); Source codes available on
request to author and on http://www.uclouvain.be/ito
Avalanches, breathers, and flow reversal in a continuous Lorenz-96 model
For the discrete model suggested by Lorenz in 1996, a one-dimensional long-wave approximation with nonlinear excitation and diffusion is derived. The model is energy conserving but non-Hamiltonian. In a low-order truncation, weak external forcing of the zonal mean flow induces avalanchelike breather solutions which cause reversal of the mean flow by a wave-mean flow interaction. The mechanism is an outburst-recharge process similar to avalanches in a sandpile model
Growth of non-infinitesimal perturbations in turbulence
We discuss the effects of finite perturbations in fully developed turbulence
by introducing a measure of the chaoticity degree associated to a given scale
of the velocity field. This allows one to determine the predictability time for
non-infinitesimal perturbations, generalizing the usual concept of maximum
Lyapunov exponent. We also determine the scaling law for our indicator in the
framework of the multifractal approach. We find that the scaling exponent is
not sensitive to intermittency corrections, but is an invariant of the
multifractal models. A numerical test of the results is performed in the shell
model for the turbulent energy cascade.Comment: 4 pages, 2 Postscript figures (included), RevTeX 3.0, files packed
with uufile
Predictability in Systems with Many Characteristic Times: The Case of Turbulence
In chaotic dynamical systems, an infinitesimal perturbation is exponentially
amplified at a time-rate given by the inverse of the maximum Lyapunov exponent
. In fully developed turbulence, grows as a power of the
Reynolds number. This result could seem in contrast with phenomenological
arguments suggesting that, as a consequence of `physical' perturbations, the
predictability time is roughly given by the characteristic life-time of the
large scale structures, and hence independent of the Reynolds number. We show
that such a situation is present in generic systems with many degrees of
freedom, since the growth of a non-infinitesimal perturbation is determined by
cumulative effects of many different characteristic times and is unrelated to
the maximum Lyapunov exponent. Our results are illustrated in a chain of
coupled maps and in a shell model for the energy cascade in turbulence.Comment: 24 pages, 10 Postscript figures (included), RevTeX 3.0, files packed
with uufile
- …