Small distance expansion for radiative heat transfer between curved objects

We develop a small distance expansion for the radiative heat transfer between gently curved objects, in terms of the ratio of distance to radius of curvature. A gradient expansion allows us to go beyond the lowest order proximity transfer approximation. The range of validity of such expansion depends on temperature as well as material properties. Generally, the expansion converges faster for the derivative of the transfer than for the transfer itself, which we use by introducing a near-field adjusted plot. For the case of a sphere and a plate, the logarithmic correction to the leading term has a very small prefactor for all materials investigated.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

Acoustic detection and long-term monitoring of pygmy blue whales over the continental slope in southwest Australia

A 9-yr dataset of continuous sea noise recording made at the Cape Leeuwin station of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty hydroacoustic network in 2002–2010 was processed to detect calls from pygmy blue whales and to analyze diel, seasonal, and interannual variations in their vocal activity. Because the conventional spectrogram correlation method for recognizing whale calls in sea noise resulted in a too high false detection rate, alternative algorithms were tested and the most robust one applied to the multi-year dataset. The detection method was based on multivariate classification using two spectrogram features of transients in sea noise and Fisher's linear discriminant, which provided a misclassification rate of approximately 1% for missed and false detections at moderate sensitivity settings. An analysis of the detection results revealed a consistent seasonal pattern in the whale presence and considerable interannual changes with a steady increase in the number of calls detected in 2002–2006. An apparent diel pattern of whales' vocal activity was also observed. The acoustic detection range for pygmy blue whales was estimated to vary from about 50 km to nearly 200 km from the Cape Leeuwin station, depending on the ambient noise level, source level, and azimuth to a vocalizing whale

Casimir forces in the time domain II: Applications

Our preceding paper introduced a method to compute Casimir forces in arbitrary geometries and for arbitrary materials that was based on a finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) scheme. In this manuscript, we focus on the efficient implementation of our method for geometries of practical interest and extend our previous proof-of-concept algorithm in one dimension to problems in two and three dimensions, introducing a number of new optimizations. We consider Casimir piston-like problems with nonmonotonic and monotonic force dependence on sidewall separation, both for previously solved geometries to validate our method and also for new geometries involving magnetic sidewalls and/or cylindrical pistons. We include realistic dielectric materials to calculate the force between suspended silicon waveguides or on a suspended membrane with periodic grooves, also demonstrating the application of PML absorbing boundaries and/or periodic boundaries. In addition we apply this method to a realizable three-dimensional system in which a silica sphere is stably suspended in a fluid above an indented metallic substrate. More generally, the method allows off-the-shelf FDTD software, already supporting a wide variety of materials (including dielectric, magnetic, and even anisotropic materials) and boundary conditions, to be exploited for the Casimir problem.Comment: 11 pages, 12 figures. Includes additional examples (dispersive materials and fully three-dimensional systems

Steady inter and intra-annual decrease in the vocalization frequency of Antarctic blue whales

Time averaged narrow-band noise near 27 Hz produced by vocalizations of many distant Antarctic blue whales intensifies seasonally from early February to late October in the ocean off Australia’s South West. Spectral characteristics of long term patterns in this noise band were analyzed using ambient noise data collected at the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty hydroacoustic station off Cape Leeuwin, Western Australia over 2002–2010. Within 7 day averaged noise spectra derived from 4096-point FFT (~0.06 Hz frequency resolution), the −3-dB width of the spectral peak from the upper tone of Antarctic blue whale vocalization was about 0.5 Hz. The spectral frequency peak of this tonal call was regularly but not gradually decreasing over the 9 years of observation from ~27.7 Hz in 2002 to ~26.6 Hz in 2010. The average frequency peak steadily decreased at a greater rate within a season at 0.4–0.5 Hz/season but then in the next year recovered to approximately the mean value of the previous season. A regression analysis showed that the interannual decrease rate of the peak frequency of the upper tonal call was 0.135 ± 0.003 Hz/year over 2002–2010 (R 2 ≈ 0.99). Possible causes of such a decline in the whale vocalization frequency are considered

Casimir repulsion between metallic objects in vacuum

We give an example of a geometry in which two metallic objects in vacuum experience a repulsive Casimir force. The geometry consists of an elongated metal particle centered above a metal plate with a hole. We prove that this geometry has a repulsive regime using a symmetry argument and confirm it with numerical calculations for both perfect and realistic metals. The system does not support stable levitation, as the particle is unstable to displacements away from the symmetry axis.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures; added references, replaced Fig.

Achieving a Strongly Temperature-Dependent Casimir Effect

We propose a method of achieving large temperature sensitivity in the Casimir force that involves measuring the stable separation between dielectric objects immersed in fluid. We study the Casimir force between slabs and spheres using realistic material models, and find large > 2nm/K variations in their stable separations (hundreds of nanometers) near room temperature. In addition, we analyze the effects of Brownian motion on suspended objects, and show that the average separation is also sensitive to changes in temperature . Finally, this approach also leads to rich qualitative phenomena, such as irreversible transitions, from suspension to stiction, as the temperature is varied

Novel applications of Maxwell's equations to quantum and thermal phenomena

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Physics, 2011.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 229-244).This thesis is concerned with the extension of Maxwell's equations to situations far removed from standard electromagnetism, in order to discover novel phenomena. We discuss our contributions to the efforts to describe quantum fluctuations, known as Casimir forces, in terms of classical electromagnetism. We prove that chirality in metamaterials can have no appreciable effect on the Casimir force, and design an alternative metamaterial in which the structure can have a strong effect on the Casimir force. We present a geometry that exhibits a repulsive Casimir force between metallic objects in vacuum, and describe our efforts to enhance this repulsive force using the numerical techniques that we and others developed. We then show how our techniques can be extended to study the physics of near-field radiative heat transfer, computing for the first time the exact heat transfer and power flux profiles between a plate and non-spherical objects. We find in particular that the heat flux profile is non-monotonic in separation from the cone tip. Finally, we demonstrate how techniques to compute photonic bandstructures in periodic systems can be extended to certain types of quasi-periodic structures, termed photonic-quasicrystals (PQCs).by Alexander P. McCauley.Ph.D

Underwater noise sources in Fremantle inner harbour: dolphins, pile driving and traffic.

Underwater noise measurements were made over a period of 5 months within the Fremantle Inner Harbour (from April 1st-July 2nd, and July 26th-August 20th, 2010). Noise was recoded from a range of sources, including vessel traffic which was intense at periods, noise from trains and vehicles passing over a nearby bridge, machinery noise from regular operation of the Fremantle Port, and pile driving (either vibratory pile driving, impact pile driving, or both) recorded during wharf construction over approximately 57 days, (mainly during the months of May, July, and August). All sources recorded are common to a busy and expanding port. Noise levels in the port during periods when pile driving was not occurring were typically between 110 and 140 dB re 1μPa2 (mean squared pressure). Vibratory pile and impact pile driving increased noise levels within the Inner Harbour. Biological noises were also detected in the recordings. Dominant biological sources were snapping shrimp, followed by mulloway (Argyrosomus japonicus) chorusing in early to mid-April, and grunts from other fish species detected throughout the recordings. Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops aduncus) whistles were also detected in the noise logger recordings