1,523 research outputs found
Crystalline misfit-angle implications for solid sliding
For the contact of two finite portions of interacting rigid crystalline
surfaces, we compute the dependence of the pinning energy barrier on the misfit
angle and contact area. The resulting data are used to investigate the
distribution of static frictional thresholds for a contact of polycrystal
surfaces, as occurs at the touching points of dry or even lubricated friction.
The simplicity of the model allows us to investigate a broad contact-size and
angular range, thus obtaining the statistical properties of the energy barriers
opposing sliding for a single asperity. These statistical properties are used
as the input of a master-equation model to predict the sliding properties of
two macroscopic surfaces in contact. The model is consistent with the
well-established result that low temperature should generally favor stick-slip
motion, while at high temperature sliding should be smooth.Comment: 11 pages, including 7 figure
Thermal formation of carbynes
We simulate the formation of carbon chains (carbynes) by thermal
decomposition of carbon heated by a hot discharge plasma, by means of
tight-binding molecular dynamics. We obtain and analyze the total quantity of
carbynes and their length distribution as a function of temperature and
density
Traffic Offloading/Onloading in Multi-RAT Cellular Networks
We analyze next generation cellular networks, offering connectivity to mobile users through multiple radio access technologies (RATs), namely LTE and WiFi. We develop a framework based on the Markovian agent formalism, which can model several aspects of the system, including user traffic dynamics and radio resource allocation. In particular, through a mean-field solution, we show the ability of our framework to capture the system behavior in flash-crowd scenarios, i.e., when a burst of traffic requests takes place in some parts of the network service area. We consider a distributed strategy for the user RAT selection, which aims at ensuring high user throughput, and investigate its performance under different resource allocation scheme
Jahn-Teller Spectral Fingerprint in Molecular Photoemission: C60
The h_u hole spectral intensity for C60 -> C60+ molecular photoemission is
calculated at finite temperature by a parameter-free Lanczos diagonalization of
the electron-vibration Hamiltonian, including the full 8 H_g, 6 G_g, and 2 A_g
mode couplings. The computed spectrum at 800 K is in striking agreement with
gas-phase data. The energy separation of the first main shoulder from the main
photoemission peak, 230 meV in C60, is shown to measure directly and rather
generally the strength of the final-state Jahn-Teller coupling.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure
Mesophases in Nearly 2D Room-Temperature Ionic Liquids
Computer simulations of (i) a [C12mim][Tf2N] film of nanometric thickness
squeezed at kbar pressure by a piecewise parabolic confining potential reveal a
mesoscopic in-plane density and composition modulation reminiscent of
mesophases seen in 3D samples of the same room-temperature ionic liquid (RTIL).
Near 2D confinement, enforced by a high normal load, relatively long aliphatic
chains are strictly required for the mesophase formation, as confirmed by
computations for two related systems made of (ii) the same [C12mim][Tf2N]
adsorbed at a neutral solid surface and (iii) a shorter-chain RTIL
([C4mim][Tf2N]) trapped in the potential well of part i. No in-plane modulation
is seen for ii and iii. In case ii, the optimal arrangement of charge and
neutral tails is achieved by layering parallel to the surface, while, in case
iii, weaker dispersion and packing interactions are unable to bring aliphatic
tails together into mesoscopic islands, against overwhelming entropy and
Coulomb forces. The onset of in-plane mesophases could greatly affect the
properties of long-chain RTILs used as lubricants.Comment: 24 pages 10 figure
Dependence of boundary lubrication on the misfit angle between the sliding surfaces
Using molecular dynamics based on Langevin equations with a coordinate- and
velocity-dependent damping coefficient, we study the frictional properties of a
thin layer of "soft" lubricant (where the interaction within the lubricant is
weaker than the lubricant-substrate interaction) confined between two solids.
At low driving velocities the system demonstrates stick-slip motion. The
lubricant may or may not be melted during sliding, thus exhibiting either the
"liquid sliding" (LS) or the "layer over layer sliding" (LoLS) regimes. The
LoLS regime mainly operates at low sliding velocities. We investigate the
dependence of friction properties on the misfit angle between the sliding
surfaces and calculate the distribution of static frictional thresholds for a
contact of polycrystalline surfaces.Comment: 8 pages, 11 figure
Exact zero-point energy shift in the , many modes dynamic Jahn-Teller systems at strong coupling
We find the exact semiclassical (strong coupling) zero-point energy shifts
applicable to the and dynamic Jahn-Teller
problems, for an arbitrary number of discrete vibrational modes
simultaneously coupled to one single electronic level. We also obtain an
analytical formula for the frequency of the resulting normal modes, which has
an attractive and apparently general Slater-Koster form. The limits of validity
of this approach are assessed by comparison with O'Brien's previous
effective-mode approach, and with accurate numerical diagonalizations.
Numerical values obtained for with and coupling
constants appropriate to C are used for this purpose, and are
discussed in the context of fullerene.Comment: 20 pages, 4 ps figure
Cross-sectional and longitudinal risk of physical impairment in a cohort of postmenopausal women who experience physical and verbal abuse.
BackgroundExposure to interpersonal violence, namely verbal and physical abuse, is a highly prevalent threat to women's health and well-being. Among older, post-menopausal women, several researchers have characterized a possible bi-directional relationship of abuse exposure and diminished physical functioning. However, studies that prospectively examine the relationship between interpersonal abuse exposure and physical functioning across multiple years of observation are lacking. To address this literature gap, we prospectively evaluate the association between abuse exposure and physical functioning in a large, national cohort of post-menopausal women across 12 years of follow-up observation.MethodsMultivariable logistic regression was used to measure the adjusted association between experiencing abuse and physical function score at baseline in 154,902 Women's Health Initiative (WHI) participants. Multilevel modeling, where the trajectories of decline in physical function were modeled as a function of time-varying abuse exposure, was used to evaluate the contribution of abuse to trajectories of physical function scores over time.ResultAbuse was prevalent among WHI participants, with 11 % of our study population reporting baseline exposure. Verbal abuse was the most commonly reported abuse type (10 %), followed by combined physical and verbal abuse (1 %), followed by physical abuse in the absence of verbal abuse (0.2 %). Abuse exposure (all types) was associated with diminished physical functioning, with women exposed to combined physical and verbal abuse presenting baseline physical functioning scores consistent with non-abused women 20 years senior. Results did not reveal a differential rate of decline over time in physical functioning based on abuse exposure.ConclusionsTaken together, our findings suggest a need for increased awareness of the prevalence of abuse exposure among postmenopausal women; they also underscore the importance of clinician's vigilance in their efforts toward the prevention, early detection and effective intervention with abuse exposure, including verbal abuse exposure, in post-menopausal women. Given our findings related to abuse exposure and women's diminished physical functioning at WHI baseline, our work illuminates a need for further study, particularly the investigation of this association in younger, pre-menopausal women so that the temporal ordering if this relationship may be better understood
Static friction on the fly: velocity depinning transitions of lubricants in motion
The dragging velocity of a model solid lubricant confined between sliding
periodic substrates exhibits a phase transition between two regimes,
respectively with quantized and with continuous lubricant center-of-mass
velocity. The transition, occurring for increasing external driving force F_ext
acting on the lubricant, displays a large hysteresis, and has the features of
depinning transitions in static friction, only taking place on the fly.
Although different in nature, this phenomenon appears isomorphic to a static
Aubry depinning transition in a Frenkel-Kontorova model, the role of particles
now taken by the moving kinks of the lubricant-substrate interface. We suggest
a possible realization in 2D optical lattice experiments.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, revtex, in print in Phys. Rev. Let
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