18,278 research outputs found
Heat metering: socio-technical challenges in district-heated social housing
Individual heat metering and charging (IMC) are seen as promising methods to reduce domestic heating and hot water use through the provision of financial incentives. The heat consumption measured by meters is influenced by both the dwelling characteristics and the behaviour of the occupant, but heating charges would ideally relate to occupant behaviour only. This dilemma can be especially relevant under two circumstances: if the thermal performance of the dwelling is poor and/or if heating costs represent a substantial part of the occupants’ income, i.e. in social housing. The case of a district-heated council block in London is presented where the installation of individual heat meters was planned in 2010 but had to be suspended due to concerns about implications for occupant heating costs in light of the thermal performance of the building. It illustrates a technically and socially complex environment where fairness in allocating heating costs is an important concern. The case also shows how lack of funding or other issues on the infrastructure side can hinder behaviour-orientated measures such as IMC. A holistic energy conservation strategy addressing both physical building properties and occupant behaviour is therefore essential and should be supported by policy
Density profiles of supernova matter and determination of neutrino parameters
The flavor conversion of supernova neutrinos can lead to observable
signatures related to the unknown neutrino parameters. As one of the
determinants in dictating the efficiency of resonant flavor conversion, the
local density profile near the MSW resonance in a supernova environment is,
however, not so well understood. In this analysis, variable power-law functions
are adopted to represent the independent local density profiles near the
locations of resonance. It is shown that the uncertain matter density profile
in a supernova, the possible neutrino mass hierarchies, and the undetermined
1-3 mixing angle would result in six distinct scenarios in terms of the
survival probabilities of and . The feasibility of
probing the undetermined neutrino mass hierarchy and the 1-3 mixing angle with
the supernova neutrinos is then examined using several proposed experimental
observables. Given the incomplete knowledge of the supernova matter profile,
the analysis is further expanded to incorporate the Earth matter effect. The
possible impact due to the choice of models, which differ in the average energy
and in the luminosity of neutrinos, is also addressed in the analysis.Comment: 27 pages, 10 figures. text and figures revised, references added, to
appear in Phys. Rev.
Solutions of the Ginsparg-Wilson Relation
We analyze general solutions of the Ginsparg-Wilson relation for lattice
Dirac operators and formulate a necessary condition for such operators to have
non-zero index in the topologically nontrivial background gauge fields.Comment: 6 pages, latex, no figures, set T to 1 in eqs. (10)--(13
Rephasing invariance and the neutrino mu-tau symmetry
The vacuum neutrino mixing is known to exhibit an approximate
symmetry, which was shown to be preserved for neutrino propagating in matter.
This symmetry reduces the neutrino transition probabilities to very simple
forms when expressed in a rephasing invariant parametrization introduced
earlier. Applications to long baseline experiments are discussed.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figure
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