Toshisada Nishida (1941–2011): Chimpanzee Rapport

Frans de Waal pays tribute to pioneering primatologist Toshisada Nishida, who transformed our understanding of chimpanzee behavior and culture and galvanized efforts to ensure their conservation

Counting Majorana zero modes in superconductors

A counting formula for computing the number of (Majorana) zero modes bound to topological point defects is evaluated in a gradient expansion for systems with charge-conjugation symmetry. This semi-classical counting of zero modes is applied to some examples that include graphene and a chiral p-wave superconductor in two-dimensional space. In all cases, we explicitly relate the counting of zero modes to Chern numbers.Comment: 21 pages, 3 figure

THERMAL PERFORMANCE OF THERMOSYPHON FOR DIFFERENT WORKING FLUIDS

In this paper, an experimental investigation was performed of the thermal performance of different working fluids in thermosyphons that can be used in thermal control of electronic equipment. The working fluids were considered acetone, water, ethanol, and methanol. The thermosyphon are manufactured of copper with an outer diameter of 9.45 mm, an inner diameter of 7.75 mm, a total length of 200 mm, whereas an evaporator of 80 mm length, an adiabatic region of 20 mm in length and a condenser of 100 mm in length. They were loaded with 1.39 ml of the working fluid, corresponding to a filling ratio of 40% of the evaporator volume. Experimental tests were performed in a vertical position considering thermal loads between 5W and 25W. The thermosyphons operated satisfactorily in all the tests. The operating temperature distribution as a function of time and the heat resistance behavior as a function of power dissipation have been presented for each analyzed working fluid. These results indicated that acetone is the working fluid that has the best thermal performance

Thermodynamics of two-colour QCD and the Nambu Jona-Lasinio model

We investigate two-flavour and two-colour QCD at finite temperature and chemical potential in comparison with a corresponding Nambu and Jona-Lasinio model. By minimizing the thermodynamic potential of the system, we confirm that a second order phase transition occurs at a value of the chemical potential equal to half the mass of the chiral Goldstone mode. For chemical potentials beyond this value the scalar diquarks undergo Bose condensation and the diquark condensate is nonzero. We evaluate the behaviour of the chiral condensate, the diquark condensate, the baryon charge density and the masses of scalar diquark, antidiquark and pion, as functions of the chemical potential. Very good agreement is found with lattice QCD (N_c=2) results. We also compare with a model based on leading-order chiral effective field theory.Comment: 24 pages, 12 figure

Inhomogeneity of the intrinsic magnetic field in superconducting YBa2Cu3OX compounds as revealed by rare-earth EPR-probe

X-band electron paramagnetic resonance on doped Er3+ and Yb3+ ions in Y0.99(Yb,Er)0.01Ba2Cu3OX compounds with different oxygen contents in the wide temperature range (4-120)K have been made. In the superconducting species, the strong dependencies of the linewidth and resonance line position from the sweep direction of the applied magnetic field are revealed at the temperatures significantly below TC. The possible origins of the observed hysteresis are analyzed. Applicability of the presented EPR approach to extract information about the dynamics of the flux-line lattice and critical state parameters (critical current density, magnetic penetration depth, and characteristic spatial scale of the inhomogeneity) is discussedComment: 17 pages, 5 Figures. Renewed versio

Probing structural relaxation in complex fluids by critical fluctuations

Complex fluids, such as polymer solutions and blends, colloids and gels, are of growing interest in fundamental and applied soft-condensed-matter science. A common feature of all such systems is the presence of a mesoscopic structural length scale intermediate between atomic and macroscopic scales. This mesoscopic structure of complex fluids is often fragile and sensitive to external perturbations. Complex fluids are frequently viscoelastic (showing a combination of viscous and elastic behaviour) with their dynamic response depending on the time and length scales. Recently, non-invasive methods to infer the rheological response of complex fluids have gained popularity through the technique of microrheology, where the diffusion of probe spheres in a viscoelastic fluid is monitored with the aid of light scattering or microscopy. Here we propose an alternative to traditional microrheology that does not require doping of probe particles in the fluid (which can sometimes drastically alter the molecular environment). Instead, our proposed method makes use of the phenomenon of "avoided crossing" between modes associated with the structural relaxation and critical fluctuations that are spontaneously generated in the system.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Soundness of Unravelings for Conditional Term Rewriting Systems via Ultra-Properties Related to Linearity

Unravelings are transformations from a conditional term rewriting system (CTRS, for short) over an original signature into an unconditional term rewriting systems (TRS, for short) over an extended signature. They are not sound w.r.t. reduction for every CTRS, while they are complete w.r.t. reduction. Here, soundness w.r.t. reduction means that every reduction sequence of the corresponding unraveled TRS, of which the initial and end terms are over the original signature, can be simulated by the reduction of the original CTRS. In this paper, we show that an optimized variant of Ohlebusch's unraveling for a deterministic CTRS is sound w.r.t. reduction if the corresponding unraveled TRS is left-linear or both right-linear and non-erasing. We also show that soundness of the variant implies that of Ohlebusch's unraveling. Finally, we show that soundness of Ohlebusch's unraveling is the weakest in soundness of the other unravelings and a transformation, proposed by Serbanuta and Rosu, for (normal) deterministic CTRSs, i.e., soundness of them respectively implies that of Ohlebusch's unraveling.Comment: 49 pages, 1 table, publication in Special Issue: Selected papers of the "22nd International Conference on Rewriting Techniques and Applications (RTA'11)

Pion Excess, Nuclear Correlations, and the Interpretation of (p⃗,n⃗\vec p, \vec n) Spin Transfer Experiments

Conventional theories of nuclear interactions predict a net increase in the distribution of virtual pions in nuclei relative to free nucleons. Analysis of data from several nuclear experiments has led to claims of evidence against such a pion excess. These conclusions are usually based on a collective theory (RPA) of the pions, which may be inadequate. The issue is the energy dependence of the nuclear response, which differs for theories with strong NN correlations from the RPA predictions. In the present paper, information about the energy dependence is extracted from sum rules, which are calculated for such a correlated, noncollective nuclear theory. The results lead to much reduced sensitivity of nuclear reactions to the correlations that are responsible for the pion excess. The primary example is $(\vec p,\vec n)$ spin transfer, for which the expected effects are found to be smaller than the experimental uncertainties. The analysis has consequences for Deep Inelastic Scattering (DIS) experiments as well.Comment: 16 pages, LaTeX, no figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.

Urban energy exchanges monitoring from space

One important challenge facing the urbanization and global environmental change community is to understand the relation between urban form, energy use and carbon emissions. Missing from the current literature are scientific assessments that evaluate the impacts of different urban spatial units on energy fluxes; yet, this type of analysis is needed by urban planners, who recognize that local scale zoning affects energy consumption and local climate. However, satellite-based estimation of urban energy fluxes at neighbourhood scale is still a challenge. Here we show the potential of the current satellite missions to retrieve urban energy budget, supported by meteorological observations and evaluated by direct flux measurements. We found an agreement within 5% between satellite and in-situ derived net all-wave radiation; and identified that wall facet fraction and urban materials type are the most important parameters for estimating heat storage of the urban canopy. The satellite approaches were found to underestimate measured turbulent heat fluxes, with sensible heat flux being most sensitive to surface temperature variation (-64.1, +69.3 W m-2 for ±2 K perturbation); and also underestimate anthropogenic heat flux. However, reasonable spatial patterns are obtained for the latter allowing hot-spots to be identified, therefore supporting both urban planning and urban climate modelling

Stability of general-relativistic accretion disks

Self-gravitating relativistic disks around black holes can form as transient structures in a number of astrophysical scenarios such as binary neutron star and black hole-neutron star coalescences, as well as the core-collapse of massive stars. We explore the stability of such disks against runaway and non-axisymmetric instabilities using three-dimensional hydrodynamics simulations in full general relativity using the THOR code. We model the disk matter using the ideal fluid approximation with a $\Gamma$-law equation of state with $\Gamma=4/3$. We explore three disk models around non-rotating black holes with disk-to-black hole mass ratios of 0.24, 0.17 and 0.11. Due to metric blending in our initial data, all of our initial models contain an initial axisymmetric perturbation which induces radial disk oscillations. Despite these oscillations, our models do not develop the runaway instability during the first several orbital periods. Instead, all of the models develop unstable non-axisymmetric modes on a dynamical timescale. We observe two distinct types of instabilities: the Papaloizou-Pringle and the so-called intermediate type instabilities. The development of the non-axisymmetric mode with azimuthal number m = 1 is accompanied by an outspiraling motion of the black hole, which significantly amplifies the growth rate of the m = 1 mode in some cases. Overall, our simulations show that the properties of the unstable non-axisymmetric modes in our disk models are qualitatively similar to those in Newtonian theory.Comment: 30 pages, 21 figure