48,949 research outputs found
Upstream-radiated rotor–stator interaction noise in mean swirling flow
A major component of the noise in modern aeroengines is rotor–stator interaction noise generated when the wake from the rotating fan impinges on a stator row downstream. An analytically based model for the prediction of upstream-radiated rotor–stator interaction noise is described, and includes the important effect of mean swirling flow on both the rotor wake evolution and the acoustic response. The analytic nature of the model allows for the inclusion of all wake harmonics and enables the response at all blade passing frequencies to be determined.
An asymptotic analysis based on large rotor blade number is used to model the evolution of the rotor wake downstream in a cylindrical duct carrying mean swirling flow. The equations governing the axial evolution of the wake simplify to three coupled first-order differential equations in the interior, while close to the duct walls, a boundary-layer correction is required in order to satisfy the impermeability conditions at the boundaries. At the stator location, the wake is used as input into a local linear cascade model at each radius. The interaction of each wake harmonic gives rise to acoustic waves of multiple azimuthal order which contribute to the pressure field radiated back upstream. This enables the total acoustic response to be determined in terms of cylindrical duct modes in mean swirling flow.
The effect of stator blade geometry (thickness, camber, angle of attack) and rotor–stator separation on the total upstream-radiated noise is determined. Blade geometry is shown to have a significant effect on the noise generated, and increasing the rotor–stator gap can lead to large reductions in noise levels. Asymptotic treatment of the acoustic field, based on large azimuthal order, is also considered and used to identify the dominant contributions to the total pressure field resulting from the rotor–stator interaction. The ray structure of the acoustic modes in swirl is shown to be very different in some cases from that in uniform flow
A confluence of new technology and the right to water: Experience and potential from South Africa's constitution and commons
South Africa's groundbreaking constitution explicitly confers a right of access to sufficient water (section 27). But the country is officially 'water-stressed' and around 10 % of the population still has no access to on-site or off-site piped or tap water. It is evident that a disconnect exists between this right and the reality for many; however the reasons for the continuation of such discrepancies are not always clear. While barriers to sufficient water are myriad, one significant factor contributing to insufficient and unpredictable access to water is the high percentage of broken water pumps. Previous studies have reported that between 20 and 50 % of all hand operated water pumps installed on the African continent are broken, or out of use. Monitoring and maintenance of pumps, which in South Africa is the responsibility of local municipalities is often ineffective, in part due to the distances between municipal centres and rural communities and the consequent costs of site visits, as well as breakdowns within the local bureaucratic system. The emergence of new telemetry tools that can remotely monitor water applications constitutes a novel and cost-efficient alternative to undertaking regular sites visits. Sustainable, appropriate, low-cost telemetry systems are emerging that could be used to monitor the operational performance of water pumps, or a wide range of other field parameters, and to communicate this information swiftly and cheaply to water service providers, using SMS messages. Data on the performance of water pumps could also be made available to the public online. This is an example of how ICT can be used for water resources management and environmental regulation, as well as in the governance of socio-economic rights: helping to optimize water allocation by improving communication and strengthening accountability. © 2014 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
Scattering Theory for Quantum Hall Anyons in a Saddle Point Potential
We study the theory of scattering of two anyons in the presence of a
quadratic saddle-point potential and a perpendicular magnetic field. The
scattering problem decouples in the centre-of-mass and the relative
coordinates. The scattering theory for the relative coordinate encodes the
effects of anyon statistics in the two-particle scattering. This is fully
characterized by two energy-dependent scattering phase shifts. We develop a
method to solve this scattering problem numerically, using a generalized lowest
Landau level approximation.Comment: 5 pages. Published version, with clarified presentatio
Dutch listeners' use of suprasegmental cues to English stress
Dutch listeners outperform native listeners in identifying syllable stress in English. This is because lexical stress is more useful in recognition of spoken words of Dutch than of English, so that Dutch listeners pay greater attention to stress in general. We examined Dutch listeners’ use of the acoustic correlates of English stress. Primary- and secondary-stressed syllables differ significantly on acoustic measures, and some differences, in F0 especially, correlate with data of earlier listening experiments. The correlations found in the Dutch responses were not paralleled in data from native listeners. Thus the acoustic cues which distinguish English primary versus secondary stress are better exploited by Dutch than by native listeners
Edge excitations and Topological orders in rotating Bose gases
The edge excitations and related topological orders of correlated states of a
fast rotating Bose gas are studied. Using exact diagonalization of small
systems, we compute the energies and number of edge excitations, as well as the
boson occupancy near the edge for various states. The chiral Luttinger-liquid
theory of Wen is found to be a good description of the edges of the bosonic
Laughlin and other states identified as members of the principal Jain sequence
for bosons. However, we find that in a harmonic trap the edge of the state
identified as the Moore-Read (Pfaffian) state shows a number of anomalies. An
experimental way of detecting these correlated states is also discussed.Comment: Results extended to larger systems. Improved presentatio
Vortex lattices in the lowest Landau level for confined Bose-Einstein condensates
We present the results of numerical calculations of the groundstates of
weakly-interacting Bose-Einstein condensates containing large numbers of
vortices. Our calculations show that these groundstates appear to be close to
uniform triangular vortex lattices. However, slight deviations from a uniform
triangular lattice have dramatic consequences on the overall particle
distribution. In particular, we demonstrate that the overall particle
distribution averaged on a lengthscale large compared to the vortex lattice
constant is well approximated by a Thomas-Fermi profile.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
The Power of Two Choices in Distributed Voting
Distributed voting is a fundamental topic in distributed computing. In pull
voting, in each step every vertex chooses a neighbour uniformly at random, and
adopts its opinion. The voting is completed when all vertices hold the same
opinion. On many graph classes including regular graphs, pull voting requires
expected steps to complete, even if initially there are only two
distinct opinions.
In this paper we consider a related process which we call two-sample voting:
every vertex chooses two random neighbours in each step. If the opinions of
these neighbours coincide, then the vertex revises its opinion according to the
chosen sample. Otherwise, it keeps its own opinion. We consider the performance
of this process in the case where two different opinions reside on vertices of
some (arbitrary) sets and , respectively. Here, is the
number of vertices of the graph.
We show that there is a constant such that if the initial imbalance
between the two opinions is ?, then with high probability two sample voting completes in a random
regular graph in steps and the initial majority opinion wins. We
also show the same performance for any regular graph, if where is the second largest eigenvalue of the transition
matrix. In the graphs we consider, standard pull voting requires
steps, and the minority can still win with probability .Comment: 22 page
Optical response of high- cuprates: possible role of scattering rate saturation and in-plane anisotropy
We present a generalized Drude analysis of the in-plane optical conductivity
(,) in cuprates taking into account the effects of
in-plane anisotropy. A simple ansatz for the scattering rate
(,), that includes anisotropy, a quadratic frequency
dependence and saturation at the Mott-Ioffe-Regel limit, is able to reproduce
recent normal state data on an optimally doped cuprate over a wide frequency
range. We highlight the potential importance of including anisotropy in the
full expression for (,) and challenge previous
determinations of () in which anisotropy was neglected and
() was indicated to be strictly linear in frequency over a wide
frequency range. Possible implications of our findings for understanding
thermodynamic properties and self-energy effects in high- cuprates will
also be discussed.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figures. To be published in Physical Review
Topological Kondo effect with Majorana fermions
The Kondo effect is a striking consequence of the coupling of itinerant
electrons to a quantum spin with degenerate energy levels. While degeneracies
are commonly thought to arise from symmetries or fine-tuning of parameters, the
recent emergence of Majorana fermions has brought to the fore an entirely
different possibility: a "topological degeneracy" which arises from the
nonlocal character of Majorana fermions. Here we show that nonlocal quantum
spins formed from these degrees of freedom give rise to a novel "topological
Kondo effect". This leads to a robust non-Fermi liquid behavior, known to be
difficult to achieve in the conventional Kondo context. Focusing on mesoscopic
superconductor devices, we predict several unique transport signatures of this
Kondo effect, which would demonstrate the non-local quantum dynamics of
Majorana fermions, and validate their potential for topological quantum
computation
Nuclear magnetic resonance probes for the Kondo scenario for the 0.7 feature in semiconductor quantum point contact devices
We propose a probe based on nuclear relaxation and Knight shift measurements
for the Kondo scenario for the "0.7 feature" in semiconductor quantum point
contact (QPC) devices. We show that the presence of a bound electron in the QPC
would lead to a much higher rate of nuclear relaxation compared to nuclear
relaxation through exchange of spin with conduction electrons. Furthermore, we
show that the temperature dependence of this nuclear relaxation is very
non-monotonic as opposed to the linear-T relaxation from coupling with
conduction electrons. We present a qualitative analysis for the additional
relaxation due to nuclear spin diffusion (NSD) and study the extent to which
NSD affects the range of validity of our method. The conclusion is that nuclear
relaxation, in combination with Knight shift measurements, can be used to
verify whether the 0.7 feature is indeed due to the presence of a bound
electron in the QPC.Comment: Published version. Appears in a Special Section on the 0.7 Feature
and Interactions in One-Dimensional Systems. 16 page
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