1,997 research outputs found
Displaying desire and distinction in housing
The article discusses the significance of cultural capital for the understanding of the field of housing in contemporary Britain. It explores the relationship between housing and the position of individuals in social space mapped out by means of a multiple correspondence analysis. It considers the material aspects of housing and the changing contexts that are linked to the creation and display of desire for social position and distinction expressed in talk about home decoration as personal expression and individuals' ideas of a `dream house'. It is based on an empirical investigation of taste and lifestyle using nationally representative survey data and qualitative interviews. The article shows both that personal resources and the imagination of home are linked to levels of cultural capital, and that rich methods of investigation are required to grasp the significance of these normally invisible assets to broaden the academic understanding of the field of housing in contemporary culture
Creep motion of a model frictional system
We report on the dynamics of a model frictional system submitted to minute
external perturbations. The system consists of a chain of sliders connected
through elastic springs that rest on an incline. By introducing cyclic
expansions and contractions of the springs we observe a reptation of the chain.
We account for the average reptation velocity theoretically. The velocity of
small systems exhibits a series of plateaus as a function of the incline angle.
Due to elastic e ects, there exists a critical amplitude below which the
reptation is expected to cease. However, rather than a full stop of the creep,
we observe in numerical simulations a transition between a continuous-creep and
an irregular-creep regime when the critical amplitude is approached. The latter
transition is reminiscent of the transition between the continuous and the
irregular compaction of granular matter submitted to periodic temperature
changes
Precision control of thermal transport in cryogenic single-crystal silicon devices
We report on the diffusive-ballistic thermal conductance of multi-moded
single-crystal silicon beams measured below 1 K. It is shown that the phonon
mean-free-path is a strong function of the surface roughness
characteristics of the beams. This effect is enhanced in diffuse beams with
lengths much larger than , even when the surface is fairly smooth, 5-10
nm rms, and the peak thermal wavelength is 0.6 m. Resonant phonon
scattering has been observed in beams with a pitted surface morphology and
characteristic pit depth of 30 nm. Hence, if the surface roughness is not
adequately controlled, the thermal conductance can vary significantly for
diffuse beams fabricated across a wafer. In contrast, when the beam length is
of order , the conductance is dominated by ballistic transport and is
effectively set by the beam area. We have demonstrated a uniformity of 8%
in fractional deviation for ballistic beams, and this deviation is largely set
by the thermal conductance of diffuse beams that support the
micro-electro-mechanical device and electrical leads. In addition, we have
found no evidence for excess specific heat in single-crystal silicon membranes.
This allows for the precise control of the device heat capacity with normal
metal films. We discuss the results in the context of the design and
fabrication of large-format arrays of far-infrared and millimeter wavelength
cryogenic detectors
The COBE Diffuse Infrared Background Experiment Search for the Cosmic Infrared Background: I. Limits and Detections
The DIRBE on the COBE spacecraft was designed primarily to conduct systematic
search for an isotropic CIB in ten photometric bands from 1.25 to 240 microns.
The results of that search are presented here. Conservative limits on the CIB
are obtained from the minimum observed brightness in all-sky maps at each
wavelength, with the faintest limits in the DIRBE spectral range being at 3.5
microns (\nu I_\nu < 64 nW/m^2/sr, 95% CL) and at 240 microns (\nu I_\nu < 28
nW/m^2/sr, 95% CL). The bright foregrounds from interplanetary dust scattering
and emission, stars, and interstellar dust emission are the principal
impediments to the DIRBE measurements of the CIB. These foregrounds have been
modeled and removed from the sky maps. Assessment of the random and systematic
uncertainties in the residuals and tests for isotropy show that only the 140
and 240 microns data provide candidate detections of the CIB. The residuals and
their uncertainties provide CIB upper limits more restrictive than the dark sky
limits at wavelengths from 1.25 to 100 microns. No plausible solar system or
Galactic source of the observed 140 and 240 microns residuals can be
identified, leading to the conclusion that the CIB has been detected at levels
of \nu I_\nu = 25+-7 and 14+-3 nW/m^2/sr at 140 and 240 microns respectively.
The integrated energy from 140 to 240 microns, 10.3 nW/m^2/sr, is about twice
the integrated optical light from the galaxies in the Hubble Deep Field,
suggesting that star formation might have been heavily enshrouded by dust at
high redshift. The detections and upper limits reported here provide new
constraints on models of the history of energy-releasing processes and dust
production since the decoupling of the cosmic microwave background from matter.Comment: 26 pages and 5 figures, accepted for publication in the Astrophyical
Journa
MUSTANG: 90 GHz Science with the Green Bank Telescope
MUSTANG is a 90 GHz bolometer camera built for use as a facility instrument
on the 100 m Robert C. Byrd Green Bank radio telescope (GBT). MUSTANG has an 8
by 8 focal plane array of transition edge sensor bolometers read out using
time-domain multiplexed SQUID electronics. As a continuum instrument on a large
single dish MUSTANG has a combination of high resolution (8") and good
sensitivity to extended emission which make it very competitive for a wide
range of galactic and extragalactic science. Commissioning finished in January
2008 and some of the first science data have been collected.Comment: 9 Pages, 5 figures, Presented at the SPIE conference on astronomical
instrumentation in 200
Mission Concept for the Single Aperture Far-Infrared (SAFIR) Observatory
The Single Aperture Far-InfraRed (SAFIR) Observatory's science goals are
driven by the fact that the earliest stages of almost all phenomena in the
universe are shrouded in absorption by and emission from cool dust and gas that
emits strongly in the far-infrared and submillimeter. Over the past several
years, there has been an increasing recognition of the critical importance of
this spectral region to addressing fundamental astrophysical problems, ranging
from cosmological questions to understanding how our own Solar System came into
being. The development of large, far-infrared telescopes in space has become
more feasible with the combination of developments for the James Webb Space
Telescope and of enabling breakthroughs in detector technology. We have
developed a preliminary but comprehensive mission concept for SAFIR, as a 10
m-class far-infrared and submillimeter observatory that would begin development
later in this decade to meet the needs outlined above. Its operating
temperature (<4K) and instrument complement would be optimized to reach the
natural sky confusion limit in the far-infrared with diffraction-limited
peformance down to at least 40 microns. This would provide a point source
sensitivity improvement of several orders of magnitude over that of Spitzer or
Herschel, with finer angular resolution, enabling imaging and spectroscopic
studies of individual galaxies in the early universe. We have considered many
aspects of the SAFIR mission, including the telescope technology, detector
needs and technologies, cooling method and required technology developments,
attitude and pointing, power systems, launch vehicle, and mission operations.
The most challenging requirements for this mission are operating temperature
and aperture size of the telescope, and the development of detector arrays.Comment: 36 page
Infrared Emission from Supernova Remnants: Formation and Destruction of Dust
We review the observations of dust emission in supernova rem- nants (SNRs)
and supernovae (SNe). Theoretical calculations suggest that SNe, particularly
core-collapse, should make significant quantities of dust, perhaps as much as a
solar mass. Observations of extragalactic SNe have yet to find anywhere near
this amount, but this may be the result of observa- tional limitations. SN
1987A, in the process of transitioning from a SN to an SNR, does show signs of
a significant amount of dust forming in its ejecta, but whether this dust will
survive the passage of the reverse shock to be injected into the ISM is
unknown. IR observations of SNRs have not turned up significant quantities of
dust, and the dust that is observed is generally swept-up by the forward shock,
rather than created in the ejecta. Because the shock waves also destroy dust in
the ISM, we explore the question of whether SNe might be net destroyers, rather
than net creators of dust in the universe.Comment: Published in the Springer Handbook of Supernova
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