Effective Rheology of Bubbles Moving in a Capillary Tube

We calculate the average volumetric flux versus pressure drop of bubbles moving in a single capillary tube with varying diameter, finding a square-root relation from mapping the flow equations onto that of a driven overdamped pendulum. The calculation is based on a derivation of the equation of motion of a bubble train from considering the capillary forces and the entropy production associated with the viscous flow. We also calculate the configurational probability of the positions of the bubbles.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figur

Alignment of the ALICE Inner Tracking System with cosmic-ray tracks

37 pages, 15 figures, revised version, accepted by JINSTALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) is the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) experiment devoted to investigating the strongly interacting matter created in nucleus-nucleus collisions at the LHC energies. The ALICE ITS, Inner Tracking System, consists of six cylindrical layers of silicon detectors with three different technologies; in the outward direction: two layers of pixel detectors, two layers each of drift, and strip detectors. The number of parameters to be determined in the spatial alignment of the 2198 sensor modules of the ITS is about 13,000. The target alignment precision is well below 10 micron in some cases (pixels). The sources of alignment information include survey measurements, and the reconstructed tracks from cosmic rays and from proton-proton collisions. The main track-based alignment method uses the Millepede global approach. An iterative local method was developed and used as well. We present the results obtained for the ITS alignment using about 10^5 charged tracks from cosmic rays that have been collected during summer 2008, with the ALICE solenoidal magnet switched off.Peer reviewe

Charged-particle multiplicity measurement in proton-proton collisions at √s = 7 TeV with ALICE at LHC

The pseudorapidity density and multiplicity distribution of charged particles produced in proton-proton collisions at the LHC, at a centre-of-mass energy √s= 7 TeV, were measured in the central pseudorapidity region {pipe}η{pipe} < 1. Comparisons are made with previous measurements at √s = 0.9 TeV and 2.36 TeV. At √s = 7 TeV, for events with at least one charged particle in {pipe}η{pipe} < 1, we obtain dNch/dη = 6.01 ± 0.01(stat.)+0.20-0.12(syst.). This corresponds to an increase of 57.6% ± 0.4%(stat.)+3.6-1.8%(syst.) relative to collisions at 0.9 TeV, significantly higher than calculations from commonly used models. The multiplicity distribution at 7 TeV is described fairly well by the negative binomial distribution. © 2010 CERN for the benefit of the ALICE collaboration

First proton-proton collisions at the LHC as observed with the ALICE detector: Measurement of the charged-particle pseudorapidity density at √s = 900 GeV

On 23rd November 2009, during the early commissioning of the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC), two counter-rotating proton bunches were circulated for the first time concurrently in the machine, at the LHC injection energy of 450 GeV per beam. Although the proton intensity was very low, with only one pilot bunch per beam, and no systematic attempt was made to optimize the collision optics, all LHC experiments reported a number of collision candidates. In the ALICE experiment, the collision region was centred very well in both the longitudinal and transverse directions and 284 events were recorded in coincidence with the two passing proton bunches. The events were immediately reconstructed and analyzed both online and offline. We have used these events to measure the pseudorapidity density of charged primary particles in the central region. In the range |η|<0.5, we obtain dNch/dη=3. 10±0. 13(stat.)±0. 22(syst.) for all inelastic interactions, and dNch/dη=3.51±0. 15(stat.)±0. 25(syst.) for non-single diffractive interactions. These results are consistent with previous measurements in proton-antiproton interactions at the same centre-of-mass energy at the CERN Spp̄S collider. They also illustrate the excellent functioning and rapid progress of the LHC accelerator, and of both the hardware and software of the ALICE experiment, in this early start-up phase. © CERN 2009

Charmonium and e+e- pair photoproduction at mid-rapidity in ultra-peripheral Pb-Pb collisions at [Formula: see text].

The ALICE Collaboration at the LHC has measured the J/ψ and ψ' photoproduction at mid-rapidity in ultra-peripheral Pb-Pb collisions at [Formula: see text]. The charmonium is identified via its leptonic decay for events where the hadronic activity is required to be minimal. The analysis is based on an event sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of about 23 μb-1. The cross section for coherent and incoherent J/ψ production in the rapidity interval -0.9<y<0.9, are [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text], respectively. The results are compared to theoretical models for J/ψ production and the coherent cross section is found to be in good agreement with those models incorporating moderate nuclear gluon shadowing at Bjorken-x around 10-3, such as EPS09 parametrization. In addition the cross section for the process γγ→e+e- has been measured and found to be in agreement with models implementing QED at leading order