60,418 research outputs found
Density, short-range order and the quark-gluon plasma
We study the thermal part of the energy density spatial correlator in the
quark-gluon plasma. We describe its qualitative form at high temperatures. We
then calculate it out to distances approx. 1.5/T in SU(3) gauge theory lattice
simulations for the range of temperatures 0.9<= T/T_c<= 2.2. The
vacuum-subtracted correlator exhibits non-monotonic behavior, and is almost
conformal by 2T_c. Its broad maximum at r approx. 0.6/T suggests a dense medium
with only weak short-range order, similar to a non-relativistic fluid near the
liquid-gas phase transition, where eta/s is minimal.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
On the growth of normal faults and the existence of flats and ramps along the El Asnam active fold and thrust system
The combination of detailed topographic leveling on the southwest segment of the El Asnam thrust fault with existing seismic and geologic data implies that the geometry of this fault involves shallow dipping flats and steep ramps. The fault appears to be growing along strike toward the southwest end, where the main shock initiated in 1980. From a depth of about 10 km, the main thrust appears to ramp to the basement-Cenozoic cover interface on a plane striking N40°E and dipping 50°–55° to the northwest. Along the southwest segment where folding has not yet developed, the thrust continues steeply through the Cenozoic cover to the near surface where it flattens, causing normal faulting. Along the central and northeast segments, which display a more evolved fold structure, the deep thrust probably flattens at a depth of 5–6 km, into a decollement along the Cenozoic-Jurassic interface before ramping to the surface. The Sara El Marouf and Kef El Mes anticlines have thus formed as fault propagation folds. Normal faults at Beni Rached probably branch with the thrust to maintain kinematic compatibility between the deep ramp and decollement. The greater separation (∼7 km) between the normal faults at Beni Rached and the thrust where it crosses Oued Cheliff than along the southwest segment (∼1 km) reflects the greater depth of the ramp to flat bend. We infer that the September 9, 1954, earthquake activated only the central deep segment of the main thrust together with the Beni Rached normal faults, while that of October 10, 1980, activated the whole system of flat decollements, ramp thrusts and compatibility normal faults. Further complexities of the faulting in map view are related to changes of strike of the thrust (in particular north of Oued Cheliff)
Attachment priming and avoidant personality features as predictors of social-evaluation biases
Personality research has shown that negativity in social situations (e.g., negative evaluations of others) can be reduced by the activation of participants' sense of attachment security. Individuals with avoidant personality disorder (APD), however, are theoretically less responsive to context or situational cues because of the inflexible nature of their personality disposition. This idea of individual differences in context-responsiveness was tested in a sample of 169 undergraduates who were assessed for APD features and assigned to positive, negative, or neutral attachment priming conditions. More pronounced APD features were associated with more negative responses to vignettes describing potentially distressing social situations. A significant interaction showed that participants with more avoidant features consistently appraised the vignettes relatively more negatively, regardless of priming condition. Those without APD features, by contrast, did not exhibit negative appraisals/evaluations unless negatively primed (curvilinear effect). This effect could not be explained by depression, current mood, or attachment insecurity, all of which related to negative evaluative biases, but none of which related to situation inflexibility. These findings provide empirical support for the notion that negative information-processing is unusually inflexible and context-unresponsive among individuals with more pronounced features of APD
The limits of ex post implementation
The sensitivity of Bayesian implementation to agents' beliefs about others suggests the use of more robust notions of implementation such as ex-post implementation, which requires that each agent' s strategy be optimal for every possible realization of the types of other agents. We show that the only deterministic social choice functions that are ex-post implementable in generic mechanism design frameworks with multi-dimensional signals, interdependent valuations and transferable utilities, are constant functions. In other words, deterministic ex-post implementation requires that the same alternative must be chosen irrespective of agents' signals. The proof shows that
ex-post implementability of a non-trivial deterministic social choice function implies that certain rates of information substitution coincide for all agents.
This condition amounts to a system of differential equations that are not satis�ed by generic valuation functions
Role of electrostatics in the texture of islands in free standing ferroelectric liquid crystal films
Curved textures of ferroelectric smectic C* liquid crystals produce space
charge when they involve divergence of the spontaneous polarization field.
Impurity ions can partially screen this space charge, reducing long range
interactions to local ones. Through studies of the textures of islands on very
thin free-standing smectic films, we see evidence of this effect, in which
materials with a large spontaneous polarization have static structures
described by a large effective bend elastic constant. To address this issue, we
calculated the electrostatic free energy of a free standing film of
ferroelectric liquid crystal, showing how the screened coulomb interaction
contributes a term to the effective bend elastic constant, in the static long
wavelength limit. We report experiments which support the main features of this
model
Continuum theory of tilted chiral smectic phases
We demonstrate that the sequence of distorted commensurate phases observed in
tilted chiral smectics is explained by the gain in electrostatic energy due to
the lock-in of the unit cell to a number of layers which is the integer closest
to the ratio pitch over thickness of the subjacent Sm-C phase. We
also explain the sign change of the helicity in the middle of the sequence by a
balance between two twist sources one intrinsic and another due to the
distortion of the Sm-C
In-flight load testing of advanced shuttle thermal protection systems
NASA Ames Research Center has conducted in-flight airload testing of some advanced thermal protection systems (TPS) at the Dryden Flight Research Center. The two flexible TPS materials tested, felt reusable surface insulation (FRSI) and advanced flexible reusable surface insulation (AFRSI), are currently certified for use on the Shuttle orbiter. The objectives of the flight tests were to evaluate the performance of FRSI and AFRSI at simulated launch airloads and to provide a data base for future advanced TPS flight tests. Five TPS configurations were evaluated in a flow field which was representative of relatively flat areas without secondary flows. The TPS materials were placed on a fin, the Flight Test fixture (FTF), that is attached to the underside of the fuselage of an F-104 aircraft. This paper describes the test approach and techniques used and presents the results of the advanced TPS flight test. There were no failures noted during post-flight inspections of the TPS materials which were exposed to airloads 40 percent higher than the design launch airloads
Isogrid design handbook
Handbook has been published which presents information needed for design of isogrid triangular integral-stiffened structures. It develops equations, methods, and graphs to handle wide variety of loadings, materials, and geometry. Handbook is divided into seven sections. Handbook may be used by marine and civil engineers and by students and designers without access to computers
Supernova enrichment and dynamical histories of solar-type stars in clusters
We use N-body simulations of star cluster evolution to explore the hypothesis
that short-lived radioactive isotopes found in meteorites, such as 26-Al, were
delivered to the Sun's protoplanetary disc from a supernova at the epoch of
Solar System formation. We cover a range of star cluster formation parameter
space and model both clusters with primordial substructure, and those with
smooth profiles. We also adopt different initial virial ratios - from cool,
collapsing clusters to warm, expanding associations. In each cluster we place
the same stellar population; the clusters each have 2100 stars, and contain one
massive 25M_Sun star which is expected to explode as a supernova at about
6.6Myr. We determine the number of Solar (G)-type stars that are within 0.1 -
0.3pc of the 25M_Sun star at the time of the supernova, which is the distance
required to enrich the protoplanetary disc with the 26-Al abundances found in
meteorites. We then determine how many of these G-dwarfs are unperturbed
`singletons'; stars which are never in close binaries, nor suffer sub-100au
encounters, and which also do not suffer strong dynamical perturbations.
The evolution of a suite of twenty initially identical clusters is highly
stochastic, with the supernova enriching over 10 G-dwarfs in some clusters, and
none at all in others. Typically only ~25 per cent of clusters contain
enriched, unperturbed singletons, and usually only 1 - 2 per cluster (from a
total of 96 G-dwarfs in each cluster). The initial conditions for star
formation do not strongly affect the results, although a higher fraction of
supervirial (expanding) clusters would contain enriched G-dwarfs if the
supernova occurred earlier than 6.6Myr. If we sum together simulations with
identical initial conditions, then ~1 per cent of all G-dwarfs in our
simulations are enriched, unperturbed singletons.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA
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