123,359 research outputs found
Cryogenic seal remains leaktight during thermal displacement
Cryogenic seals protect the surfaces of a plastic member in a low-pressure system subjected to extreme temperature changes. The outer seal is an aluminum expansion ring bonded to the lens outer surface and the inner seal consists of a resin-filled aluminum U-ring bonded to the inner surface
Quantum phase transition in capacitively coupled double quantum dots
We investigate two equivalent, capacitively coupled semiconducting quantum
dots, each coupled to its own lead, in a regime where there are two electrons
on the double dot. With increasing interdot coupling a rich range of behavior
is uncovered: first a crossover from spin- to charge-Kondo physics, via an
intermediate SU(4) state with entangled spin and charge degrees of freedom;
followed by a quantum phase transition of Kosterlitz-Thouless type to a
non-Fermi liquid `charge-ordered' phase with finite residual entropy and
anomalous transport properties. Physical arguments and numerical
renormalization group methods are employed to obtain a detailed understanding
of the problem.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
Models for the Effects of G-seat Cuing on Roll-axis Tracking Performance
Including whole-body motion in a flight simulator improves performance for a variety of tasks requiring a pilot to compensate for the effects of unexpected disturbances. A possible mechanism for this improvement is that whole-body motion provides high derivative vehicle state information whic allows the pilot to generate more lead in responding to the external disturbances. During development of motion simulating algorithms for an advanced g-cuing system it was discovered that an algorithm based on aircraft roll acceleration producted little or no performance improvement. On the other hand, algorithms based on roll position or roll velocity produced performance equivalent to whole-body motion. The analysis and modeling conducted at both the sensory system and manual control performance levels to explain the above results are described
Temperature and frequency dependent optical properties of ultra-thin Au films
While the optical properties of thin metal films are well understood in the
visible and near-infrared range, little has been done in the mid- and
far-infrared region. Here we investigate ultra-thin gold films prepared on
Si(111)(7 x 7) in UHV by measuring in the frequency range between 500 cm-1 and
7000 cm-1 and for temperatures between 300 K and 5 K. The nominal thickness of
the gold layers ranges between one monolayer and 9 nm. The frequency and
temperature dependences of the thicker films can be well described by the Drude
model of a metal, when taking into account classical size effects due to
surface scattering. The films below the percolation threshold exhibit a
non-metallic behavior: the reflection increases with frequency and decreases
with temperature. The frequency dependence can partly be described by a
generalized Drude model. The temperature dependence does not follow a simple
activation process. For monolayers we observe a transition between surface
states around 1100 cm-1.Comment: 7 pages, 10 figure
Ejaculate allocation by male sand martins, Riparia riparia
Males of many species allocate sperm to ejaculates strategically in response to variation in the risk and intensity of sperm competition. The notable exception is passerine birds, in which evidence for strategic allocation is absent. Here we report the results of a study testing for strategic ejaculate allocation in a passerine bird, the sand martin (Riparia riparia). Natural ejaculates were collected from males copulating with a model female. Ejaculates transferred in the presence of a rival male contained significantly more sperm than ejaculates transferred in the absence of a rival male. There was no evidence that this difference was due to the confounding effects of the year of ejaculate collection, the identity of the model female, the colony, the stage of season or the period of the day in which ejaculates were collected. A more detailed examination of the ejaculate patterns of individual males, achieved by the DNA profiling of ejaculates, provided additional evidence for strategic allocation of sperm
Cavitation Inception in Spool Valves
Cavitation has been investigated in directional control valves in order to identify damage mechanisms characteristic of components of aircraft hydraulic systems. Tests have been conducted in a representative metal spool valve and in a model three times larger. Data taken under non-cavitating conditions with both valves showed that the position of the high-velocity annular jet shifts orientation depending upon valve opening and Reynolds number. By means of high-frequency response pressure transducers strategically placed in the valve chamber cavitation could be sensed by the correlation of noise with a cavitation index. The onset of cavitation can be detected by comparing energy spectra for a fixed valve opening and a constant discharge. Another sensitive indicator of cavitation inception is the ratio of cavitating to non-cavitating spectral densities. The incipient cavitation number as defined in this investigation is correlated with the Reynolds number for both valves
Fluctuations and correlations in population models with age structure
We study the population profile in a simple discrete time model of population
dynamics. Our model, which is closely related to certain ``bit-string'' models
of evolution, incorporates competition for resources via a population dependent
death probability, as well as a variable reproduction probability for each
individual as a function of age. We first solve for the steady-state of the
model in mean field theory, before developing analytic techniques to compute
Gaussian fluctuation corrections around the mean field fixed point. Our
computations are found to be in good agreement with Monte-Carlo simulations.
Finally we discuss how similar methods may be applied to fluctuations in
continuous time population models.Comment: 4 page
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