Radiative return method as a tool in hadronic physics

A short review of both theoretical and experimental aspects of the radiative return method is presented. It is emphasised that the method gives not only possibility of the independent from the scan method measurement of the hadronic cross section, but also can provide information concerning details of the hadronic interactions. New developments in the PHOKHARA event generator are also reviewed. The 3 pion and kaon pair production is implemented within the version 5.0 of the program, together with contributions of the radiative phi decays to the 2 pion final states. Missing NLO radiative corrections to the e+e- -> mu+ mu- gamma process will be implemented in the forthcoming version of the generator

Levy--Brownian motion on finite intervals: Mean first passage time analysis

We present the analysis of the first passage time problem on a finite interval for the generalized Wiener process that is driven by L\'evy stable noises. The complexity of the first passage time statistics (mean first passage time, cumulative first passage time distribution) is elucidated together with a discussion of the proper setup of corresponding boundary conditions that correctly yield the statistics of first passages for these non-Gaussian noises. The validity of the method is tested numerically and compared against analytical formulae when the stability index $\alpha$ approaches 2, recovering in this limit the standard results for the Fokker-Planck dynamics driven by Gaussian white noise.Comment: 9 pages, 13 figure

On the wake of a Darrieus turbine

The theory and experimental measurements on the aerodynamic decay of a wake from high performance vertical axis wind turbine are discussed. In the initial experimental study, the wake downstream of a model Darrieus rotor, 28 cm diameter and a height of 45.5 cm, was measured in a Boundary Layer Wind Tunnel. The wind turbine was run at the design tip speed ratio of 5.5. It was found that the wake decayed at a slower rate with distance downstream of the turbine, than a wake from a screen with similar troposkein shape and drag force characteristics as the Darrieus rotor. The initial wind tunnel results indicated that the vertical axis wind turbines should be spaced at least forty diameters apart to avoid mutual power depreciation greater than ten per cent

Heat and work distributions for mixed Gauss-Cauchy process

We analyze energetics of a non-Gaussian process described by a stochastic differential equation of the Langevin type. The process represents a paradigmatic model of a nonequilibrium system subject to thermal fluctuations and additional external noise, with both sources of perturbations considered as additive and statistically independent forcings. We define thermodynamic quantities for trajectories of the process and analyze contributions to mechanical work and heat. As a working example we consider a particle subjected to a drag force and two independent Levy white noises with stability indices $\alpha=2$ and $\alpha=1$. The fluctuations of dissipated energy (heat) and distribution of work performed by the force acting on the system are addressed by examining contributions of Cauchy fluctuations to either bath or external force acting on the system

Dynamics and Decay of Heavy-Light Hadrons

Recent signals for narrow hadrons containing heavy and light flavours are compared with quark model predictions for spectroscopy, strong decays, and radiative transitions. In particular, the production and identification of excited charmed and cs states are examined with emphasis on elucidating the nature of $0^+$ and $1^+$ states. Roughly 200 strong decay amplitudes of $D$ and $D_s$ states up to 3.3 GeV are presented. Applications include determining flavour content in $\eta$ mesons and the mixing angle in $P$ and $D$ wave states and probes of putative molecular states. We advocate searching for radially excited $D_s^*$ states in B decays.Comment: 19 pages, 7 figures, revtex. A numerical error is corrected. Some strong decay rates have change

Transfer molding of PMR-15 polyimide resin

Transfer molding is an economically viable method of producing small shapes of PMR-15 polyimide. It is shown that with regard to flexural, compressive, and tribological properties transfer-molded PMR-15 polyimide is essentially equivalent to PMR-15 polyimide produced by the more common method of compression molding. Minor variations in anisotropy are predictable effects of molding design and secondary finishing operations