Flexible design of building integrated thin‐film photovoltaics

The high cost of building integrated photovoltaics is one of the main reasons preventing a more widespread application. We propose a panel-on-demand concept for flexible design of building integrated thin-film photovoltaics to address this issue. The concept is based on the use of semi-finished PV modules (standard mass products) with subsequent refinement into BIPV PV modules. In this study, we demonstrate the three processes necessary to realize this concept. First, a prototype tool to cut thin film photovoltaic elements on glass substrates based on laser perforation was developed. Damage to the processed samples did not exceed a distance of 50 μm from laser cuts. Second, oxide/metal/oxide-electrodes with integrated colour were applied on Cu (In, Ga)Se2 cells and standard monolithic interconnection structuring was used to produce modules sized 30 × 30 cm2 in red, green and blue with strong colours. Third, A back-end interconnection process was developed for amorphous silicon thin film cells, which allows for the structuring of modules from elements of custom shape. The panel-on-demand strategy may allow for a streamlined production of customized modules and a lower cost for aesthetically pleasing, fully building integrated solar modules

Clustering of dark matter tracers: generalizing bias for the coming era of precision LSS

On very large scales, density fluctuations in the Universe are small, suggesting a perturbative model for large-scale clustering of galaxies (or other dark matter tracers), in which the galaxy density is written as a Taylor series in the local mass density, delta, with the unknown coefficients in the series treated as free "bias" parameters. We extend this model to include dependence of the galaxy density on the local values of nabla_i nabla_j phi and nabla_i v_j, where phi is the potential and v is the peculiar velocity. We show that only two new free parameters are needed to model the power spectrum and bispectrum up to 4th order in the initial density perturbations, once symmetry considerations and equivalences between possible terms are accounted for. One of the new parameters is a bias multiplying s_ij s_ji, where s_ij=[nabla_i nabla_j \nabla^-2 - 1/3 delta^K_ij] delta. The other multiplies s_ij t_ji, where t_ij=[nabla_i nabla_j nabla^-2 - 1/3 delta^K_ij](theta-delta), with theta=-(a H dlnD/dlna)^-1 nabla_i v_i. (There are other, observationally equivalent, ways to write the two terms, e.g., using theta-delta instead of s_ij s_ji.) We show how short-range (non-gravitational) non-locality can be included through a controlled series of higher derivative terms, starting with R^2 nabla^2 delta, where R is the scale of non-locality (this term will be a small correction as long as k^2 R^2 is small, where k is the observed wavenumber). We suggest that there will be much more information in future huge redshift surveys in the range of scales where beyond-linear perturbation theory is both necessary and sufficient than in the fully linear regime.Comment: 24 pg., 5 fi

Renormalization and Effective Actions for General Relativity

Quantum gravity is analyzed from the viewpoint of the renormalization group. The analysis is based on methods introduced by J. Polchinski concerning the perturbative renormalization with flow equations. In the first part of this work, the program of renormalization with flow equations is reviewed and then extended to effective field theories that have a finite UV cutoff. This is done for a scalar field theory by imposing additional renormalization conditions for some of the nonrenormalizable couplings. It turns out that one so obtains a statement on the predictivity of the effective theory at scales far below the UV cutoff. In particular, nonrenormalizable theories can be treated without problems in the proposed framework. In the second part, the standard covariant BRS quantization program for Euclidean Einstein gravity is applied. A momentum cutoff regularization is imposed and the resulting violation of the Slavnov-Taylor identities is discussed. Deriving Polchinski's renormalization group equation for Euclidean quantum gravity, the predictivity of effective quantum gravity at scales far below the Planck scale is investigated with flow equations. A fine-tuning procedure for restoring the violated Slavnov-Taylor identities is proposed and it is argued that in the effective quantum gravity context, the restoration will only be accomplished with finite accuracy. Finally, the no-cutoff limit of Euclidean quantum gravity is analyz ed from the viewpoint of the Polchinski method. It is speculated whether a limit with nonvanishing gravitational constant might exist where the latter would ultimatively be determined by the cosmological constant and the masses of the elementary particles

Renormalization and effective actions for general relativity

Quantum gravity is analyzed from the viewpoint of the renormalization group. The analysis is based on methods introduced by J. Polchinski concerning the perturbative renormalization with flow equations. In the first part of this work, the program of renormalization with flow equations is reviewed and then extended to effective field theories that have a finite UV cutoff. This is done for a scalar field theory by imposing additional renormalization conditions for some of the nonrenormalizable couplings. It turns out that one so obtains a statement on the predictivity of the effective theory at scales far below the UV cutoff. In particular, nonrenormalizable theories can be treated without problems in the proposed framework. In the second part, the standard covariant BRS quantization program for Euclidean Einstein gravity is applied. A momentum cutoff regularization is imposed and the resulting violation of the Slavnov-Taylor identities is discussed. Deriving Polchinski's renormalization group equation for Euclidean quantum gravity, the predictivity of effective quantum gravity at scales far below the Planck scale is investigated with flow equations. A fine-tuning procedure for restoring the violated Slavnov-Taylor identities is proposed and it is argued that in the effective quantum gravity context, the restoration will only be accomplished with finite accuracy. Finally, the no-cutoff limit of Euclidean quantum gravity is analyzed from the viewpoint of the Polchinski method. It is speculated whether a limit with nonvanishing gravitational constant might exist where the latter would ultimatively be determined by the cosmological constant and the masses of the elementary particles