Thermo-mechanical analysis of dental silicone polymers

Soft lining materials are used to replace the inner surface of a conventional complete denture, especially for weak elderly patients, with delicate health who cannot tolerate the hard acrylic denture base. Most of these patients have fragile supporting mucosa, excessive residual ridge resorption, particularly on the mandibular arch. The application of a soft liner to the mandibular denture allows absorbing impact forces during mastication and relieving oral mucosa. Actually, the silicone rubbers constitute the main family of commercialised soft lining materials. This study was conducted to understand the relationships between the mechanical properties and the physical structure of polysiloxanes. For this purpose, a series of polysiloxanes of various chemical compositions have been investigated. The evolution of their physical structure as a function of temperature has been followed by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). In order to facilitate comparisons, the mechanical modulus has been analysed upon the same heating rate using dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA). Polysiloxanes actually commercialised as soft denture liners are three-dimensional networks: the flexibility of chains allows a crystalline organisation in an amorphous phase leading to the low value of the shear modulus. The dynamic mechanical analysis shows that they are used in the rubbery state. So, polysiloxanes have steady mechanical properties during physiological utilisation

Anomalies and Hawking radiation from the Reissner-Nordstr\"om black hole with a global monopole

We extend the work by S. Iso, H. Umetsu and F. Wilczek [Phys. Rev. Lett. 96 (2006) 151302] to derive the Hawking flux via gauge and gravitational anomalies of a most general two-dimensional non-extremal black hole space-time with the determinant of its diagonal metric differing from the unity ($\sqrt{-g} \neq 1$) and use it to investigate Hawking radiation from the Reissner-Nordstrom black hole with a global monopole by requiring the cancellation of anomalies at the horizon. It is shown that the compensating energy momentum and gauge fluxes required to cancel gravitational and gauge anomalies at the horizon are precisely equivalent to the $(1+1)$-dimensional thermal fluxes associated with Hawking radiation emanating from the horizon at the Hawking temperature. These fluxes are universally determined by the value of anomalies at the horizon.Comment: 18 pages, 0 figure. 1 footnote and 4 new reference adde

Gregory-Laflamme encounters Superradiance

We investigate the effect of superradiant scattering of gravitational perturbations on the stability of rotating black strings, focusing on the six dimensional equal-spinning Myers-Perry black string. We find that rapidly rotating black strings are unstable to gravitational superradiant modes within a bounded range of string lengths. The instability occurs because momentum along the string direction creates a potential barrier that allows for the confinement of superradiant modes. Yet, five dimensional Myers-Perry black holes do not have stable particle orbits so, unlike other known superradiant systems, these black strings remain stable to perturbations with sufficiently high azimuthal mode number -- this is a `finite-$m$' superradiant instability. For some parameters, this instability competes with the Gregory-Laflamme instability, but otherwise exists independently. The onset of this instability is degenerate and branches to multiple steady-state solutions. This paper is the first of a trilogy: in the next two, we construct two distinct families of rotating strings emerging from the superradiant onset (the `black resonator strings' and `helical black strings'). We argue that similar physics is present in 5-dimensional Kerr black strings, but not in $D>6$ equal-spinning Myers-Perry black strings.Comment: 35 pages, 9 figure

Selection of the ground state for nonlinear Schroedinger equations

We prove for a class of nonlinear Schr\"odinger systems (NLS) having two nonlinear bound states that the (generic) large time behavior is characterized by decay of the excited state, asymptotic approach to the nonlinear ground state and dispersive radiation. Our analysis elucidates the mechanism through which initial conditions which are very near the excited state branch evolve into a (nonlinear) ground state, a phenomenon known as {\it ground state selection}. Key steps in the analysis are the introduction of a particular linearization and the derivation of a normal form which reflects the dynamics on all time scales and yields, in particular, nonlinear Master equations. Then, a novel multiple time scale dynamic stability theory is developed. Consequently, we give a detailed description of the asymptotic behavior of the two bound state NLS for all small initial data. The methods are general and can be extended to treat NLS with more than two bound states and more general nonlinearities including those of Hartree-Fock type.Comment: Revision of 2001 preprint; 108 pages Te

An electron correlation originated negative magnetoresistance in a system having a partly flat band

Inspired from an experimentally examined organic conductor, a novel mechanism for negative magnetoresistance is proposed for repulsively interacting electrons on a lattice whose band dispersion contains a flat portion (a flat bottom below a dispersive part here). When the Fermi level lies in the flat part, the electron correlation should cause ferromagnetic spin fluctuations to develop with an enhanced susceptibility. A relatively small magnetic field will then shift the majority-spin Fermi level to the dispersive part, resulting in a negative magnetoresistance. We have actually confirmed the idea by calculating the conductivity in magnetic fields, with the fluctuation exchange approximation, for the repulsive Hubbard model on a square lattice having a large second nearest-neighbor hopping.Comment: RevTex, 5 figures in Postscript, to be published in Phys. Rev.

Thermodynamic Studies on Non Centrosymmetric Superconductors by AC Calorimetry under High Pressures

We investigated the non centrosymmetric superconductors CePt$_3$Si and UIr by the ac heat capacity measurement under pressures. We determined the pressure phase diagrams of these compounds. In CePt$_3$Si, the N\'{e}el temperature $T_{\rm N}$ = 2.2 K decreases with increasing pressure and becomes zero at the critical pressure $P_{\rm AF}$ $\simeq$ 0.6 GPa. On the other hand, the superconducting phase exists in a wider pressure region from ambient pressure to $P_{\rm AF}$ $\simeq$ 1.5 GPa. The phase diagram of CePt$_3$Si is very unique and has never been reported before for other heavy fermion superconductors. In UIr, the heat capacity shows an anomaly at the Curie temperature $T_{\rm C1}$ = 46 K at ambient pressure, and the heat capacity anomaly shifts to lower temperatures with increasing pressure. The present pressure dependence of $T_{\rm C1}$ was consistent with the previous studies by the resistivity and magnetization measurements. Previous ac magnetic susceptibility and resistivity measurements suggested the existence of three ferromagnetic phases, FM1-3. $C_{\rm ac}$ shows a bending structure at 1.98, 2.21, and 2.40 GPa .The temperatures where these anomalies are observed are close to the phase boundary of the FM3 phase.Comment: This paper was presented at the international workshop ``Novel Pressure-induced Phenomena in Condensed Matter Systems(NP2CMS)" August 26-29 2006, Fukuoka Japa

The boundary state for a class of analytic solutions in open string field theory

We construct a boundary state for a class of analytic solutions in the Witten's open string field theory. The result is consistent with the property of the zero limit of a propagator's length, which was claimed in [19]. And we show that our boundary state becomes expected one for the perturbative vacuum solution and the tachyon vacuum solution. We also comment on possible presence of multi-brane solutions and ghost brane solutions from our boundary state.Comment: 19 pages, 2 figure

fMRI evidence of ‘mirror’ responses to geometric shapes

Mirror neurons may be a genetic adaptation for social interaction [1]. Alternatively, the associative hypothesis [2], [3] proposes that the development of mirror neurons is driven by sensorimotor learning, and that, given suitable experience, mirror neurons will respond to any stimulus. This hypothesis was tested using fMRI adaptation to index populations of cells with mirror properties. After sensorimotor training, where geometric shapes were paired with hand actions, BOLD response was measured while human participants experienced runs of events in which shape observation alternated with action execution or observation. Adaptation from shapes to action execution, and critically, observation, occurred in ventral premotor cortex (PMv) and inferior parietal lobule (IPL). Adaptation from shapes to execution indicates that neuronal populations responding to the shapes had motor properties, while adaptation to observation demonstrates that these populations had mirror properties. These results indicate that sensorimotor training induced populations of cells with mirror properties in PMv and IPL to respond to the observation of arbitrary shapes. They suggest that the mirror system has not been shaped by evolution to respond in a mirror fashion to biological actions; instead, its development is mediated by stimulus-general processes of learning within a system adapted for visuomotor control