1,649 research outputs found
Fracture and Friction: Stick-Slip Motion
We discuss the stick-slip motion of an elastic block sliding along a rigid
substrate. We argue that for a given external shear stress this system shows a
discontinuous nonequilibrium transition from a uniform stick state to uniform
sliding at some critical stress which is nothing but the Griffith threshold for
crack propagation. An inhomogeneous mode of sliding occurs, when the driving
velocity is prescribed instead of the external stress. A transition to
homogeneous sliding occurs at a critical velocity, which is related to the
critical stress. We solve the elastic problem for a steady-state motion of a
periodic stick-slip pattern and derive equations of motion for the tip and
resticking end of the slip pulses. In the slip regions we use the linear
viscous friction law and do not assume any intrinsic instabilities even at
small sliding velocities. We find that, as in many other pattern forming
system, the steady-state analysis itself does not select uniquely all the
internal parameters of the pattern, especially the primary wavelength. Using
some plausible analogy to first order phase transitions we discuss a ``soft''
selection mechanism. This allows to estimate internal parameters such as crack
velocities, primary wavelength and relative fraction of the slip phase as
function of the driving velocity. The relevance of our results to recent
experiments is discussed.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figure
Structural compliance, misfit strain and stripe nanostructures in cuprate superconductors
Structural compliance is the ability of a crystal structure to accommodate
variations in local atomic bond-lengths without incurring large strain
energies. We show that the structural compliance of cuprates is relatively
small, so that short, highly doped, Cu-O-Cu bonds in stripes are subject to a
tensile misfit strain. We develop a model to describe the effect of misfit
strain on charge ordering in the copper oxygen planes of oxide materials and
illustrate some of the low energy stripe nanostructures that can result.Comment: 4 pages 5 figure
Spectroscopy of SMC Wolf-Rayet Stars Suggests that Wind-Clumping does not Depend on Ambient Metallicity
The mass-loss rates of hot, massive, luminous stars are considered a decisive
parameter in shaping the evolutionary tracks of such stars and influencing the
interstellar medium on galactic scales. The small-scale structures (clumps)
omnipresent in such winds may reduce empirical estimates of mass-loss rates by
an evolutionarily significant factor of >=3. So far, there has been no direct
observational evidence that wind-clumping may persist at the same level in
environments with a low ambient metallicity, where the wind-driving opacity is
reduced. Here we report the results of time-resolved spectroscopy of three
presumably single Population I Wolf-Rayet stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud,
where the ambient metallicity is ~1/5 Z_Sun.We detect numerous small-scale
emission peaks moving outwards in the accelerating parts of the stellar
winds.The general properties of the moving features, such as their velocity
dispersions,emissivities and average accelerations, closely match the
corresponding characteristics of small-scale inhomogeneities in the winds of
Galactic Wolf-Rayet stars.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures; accepted by ApJ Letter
The production of short-lived radionuclides by new non-rotating and rotating Wolf-Rayet model stars
It has been speculated that WR winds may have contaminated the forming solar
system, in particular with short-lived radionuclides (half-lives in the
approximate 10^5 - 10^8 y range) that are responsible for a class of isotopic
anomalies found in some meteoritic materials. We revisit the capability of the
WR winds to eject these radionuclides using new models of single non-exploding
WR stars with metallicity Z = 0.02. The earlier predictions for non-rotating WR
stars are updated, and models for rotating such stars are used for the first
time in this context. We find that (1) rotation has no significant influence on
the short-lived radionuclide production by neutron capture during the core
He-burning phase, and (2) 26Al, 36Cl, 41Ca, and 107Pd can be wind-ejected by a
variety of WR stars at relative levels that are compatible with the meteoritic
analyses for a period of free decay of around 10^5 y between production and
incorporation into the forming solar system solid bodies. We confirm the
previously published conclusions that the winds of WR stars have a radionuclide
composition that can meet the necessary condition for them to be a possible
contaminating agent of the forming solar system. Still, it remains to be
demonstrated from detailed models that this is a sufficient condition for these
winds to have provided a level of pollution that is compatible with the
observations.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figure
Universal Aspects of Coulomb Frustrated Phase Separation
We study the consequences of Coulomb interactions on a system undergoing a
putative first order phase transition. In two dimensions (2D), near the
critical density, the system is universally unstable to the formation of new
intermediate phases, which we call ``electronic microemulsion phases,'' which
consist of an intermediate scale mixture of regions of the two competing
phases. A correlary is that there can be no direct transition as a function of
density from a 2D Wigner crystal to a uniform electron liquid. In 3D, %we find
that if the strength of the Coulomb interactions exceeds a critical value, no
phase separation occurs, while for weaker Coulomb strength, electronic
microemulsions are inevitable. This tendency is considerably more pronounced in
anisotropic (quasi 2D or quasi 1D) systems, where a devil's staircase of
transitions is possible.Comment: 4 pg
The massive eclipsing LMC Wolf-Rayet binary BAT99-129. 1 Orbital parameters, hydrogen content and spectroscopic characteristics
BAT99-129 in the LMC is one among a handful of extra-galactic eclipsing
Wolf-Rayet binaries known. We present blue, medium-resolution, phase-dependent
NTT-EMMI spectra of this system that allow us to separate the spectra of the
two components of the binary and to obtain a reliable orbital solution for both
stars. We assign an O5V spectral type to the companion, and WN3(h)a to the
Wolf-Rayet component. We discuss the spectroscopic characteristics of the
system: luminosity ratio, radii, rotation velocities. We find a possible
oversynchronous rotation velocity for the O star. Surprisingly, the extracted
Wolf-Rayet spectrum clearly shows the presence of blueshifted absorption lines,
similar to what has been found in all single hot WN stars in the SMC and some
in the LMC. We also discuss the presence of such intrinsic lines in the context
of hydrogen in SMC and LMC Wolf-Rayet stars, WR+O binary evolution and GRB
progenitors. Altogether, BAT99~129 is the extragalactic counterpart of the
well-known Galactic WR binary V444 Cygni.Comment: 14 pages, 9 figures, accepted by A&A for publicatio
Bunching Transitions on Vicinal Surfaces and Quantum N-mers
We study vicinal crystal surfaces with the terrace-step-kink model on a
discrete lattice. Including both a short-ranged attractive interaction and a
long-ranged repulsive interaction arising from elastic forces, we discover a
series of phases in which steps coalesce into bunches of n steps each. The
value of n varies with temperature and the ratio of short to long range
interaction strengths. We propose that the bunch phases have been observed in
very recent experiments on Si surfaces. Within the context of a mapping of the
model to a system of bosons on a 1D lattice, the bunch phases appear as quantum
n-mers.Comment: 5 pages, RevTex; to appear in Phys. Rev. Let
Transfer matrix solution of the Wako-Sait\^o-Mu\~noz-Eaton model augmented by arbitrary short range interactions
The Wako-Sait{\^o}-Mu\~noz-Eaton (WSME) model, initially introduced in the
theory of protein folding, has also been used in modeling the RNA folding and
some epitaxial phenomena. The advantage of this model is that it admits exact
solution in the general inhomogeneous case (Bruscolini and Pelizzola, 2002)
which facilitates the study of realistic systems. However, a shortcoming of the
model is that it accounts only for interactions within continuous stretches of
native bonds or atomic chains while neglecting interstretch (interchain)
interactions. But due to the biopolymer (atomic chain) flexibility, the
monomers (atoms) separated by several non-native bonds along the sequence can
become closely spaced. This produces their strong interaction. The inclusion of
non-WSME interactions into the model makes the model more realistic and
improves its performance. In this study we add arbitrary interactions of finite
range and solve the new model by means of the transfer matrix technique. We can
therefore exactly account for the interactions which in proteomics are
classified as medium- and moderately long-range ones.Comment: 15 pages, 2 figure
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