1,558 research outputs found
Slippage of water past superhydrophobic carbon nanotube forests in microchannels
We present in this letter an experimental characterization of liquid flow
slippage over superhydrophobic surfaces made of carbon nanotube forests,
incorporated in microchannels. We make use of a micro-PIV (Particule Image
Velocimetry) technique to achieve the submicrometric resolution on the flow
profile necessary for accurate measurement of the surface hydrodynamic
properties. We demonstrate boundary slippage on the Cassie superhydrophobic
state, associated with slip lengths of a few microns, while a vanishing slip
length is found in the Wenzel state, when the liquid impregnates the surface.
Varying the lateral roughness scale L of our carbon nanotube forest-based
superhydrophobic surfaces, we demonstrate that the slip length varies linearly
with L in line with theoretical predictions for slippage on patterned surfaces.Comment: under revie
Microscopic Derivation of Non-Markovian Thermalization of a Brownian Particle
In this paper, the first microscopic approach to the Brownian motion is
developed in the case where the mass density of the suspending bath is of the
same order of magnitude as that of the Brownian (B) particle. Starting from an
extended Boltzmann equation, which describes correctly the interaction with the
fluid, we derive systematicaly via the multiple time-scale analysis a reduced
equation controlling the thermalization of the B particle, i.e. the relaxation
towards the Maxwell distribution in velocity space. In contradistinction to the
Fokker-Planck equation, the derived new evolution equation is non-local both in
time and in velocity space, owing to correlated recollision events between the
fluid and particle B. In the long-time limit, it describes a non-markovian
generalized Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process. However, in spite of this complex
dynamical behaviour, the Stokes-Einstein law relating the friction and
diffusion coefficients is shown to remain valid. A microscopic expression for
the friction coefficient is derived, which acquires the form of the Stokes law
in the limit where the mean-free in the gas is small compared to the radius of
particle B.Comment: 28 pages, no figure, submitted to Journal of Statistical Physic
Diffusion in pores and its dependence on boundary conditions
We study the influence of the boundary conditions at the solid liquid
interface on diffusion in a confined fluid. Using an hydrodynamic approach, we
compute numerical estimates for the diffusion of a particle confined between
two planes. Partial slip is shown to significantly influence the diffusion
coefficient near a wall. Analytical expressions are derived in the low and high
confinement limits, and are in good agreement with numerical results. These
calculations indicate that diffusion of tagged particles could be used as a
sensitive probe of the solid-liquid boundary conditions.Comment: soumis \`a J.Phys. Cond. Matt. special issue on "Diffusion in
Liquids, Polymers, Biophysics and Chemical Dynamics
On the fluid-fluid phase separation in charged-stabilized colloidal suspensions
We develop a thermodynamic description of particles held at a fixed surface
potential. This system is of particular interest in view of the continuing
controversy over the possibility of a fluid-fluid phase separation in aqueous
colloidal suspensions with monovalent counterions. The condition of fixed
surface potential allows in a natural way to account for the colloidal charge
renormalization. In a first approach, we assess the importance of the so called
``volume terms'', and find that in the absence of salt, charge renormalization
is sufficient to stabilize suspension against a fluid-fluid phase separation.
Presence of salt, on the other hand, is found to lead to an instability. A very
strong dependence on the approximations used, however, puts the reality of this
phase transition in a serious doubt. To further understand the nature of the
instability we next study a Jellium-like approximation, which does not lead to
a phase separation and produces a relatively accurate analytical equation of
state for a deionized suspensions of highly charged colloidal spheres. A
critical analysis of various theories of strongly asymmetric electrolytes is
presented to asses their reliability as compared to the Monte Carlo
simulations
WhiskyMHD: a new numerical code for general relativistic magnetohydrodynamics
The accurate modelling of astrophysical scenarios involving compact objects
and magnetic fields, such as the collapse of rotating magnetized stars to black
holes or the phenomenology of gamma-ray bursts, requires the solution of the
Einstein equations together with those of general-relativistic
magnetohydrodynamics. We present a new numerical code developed to solve the
full set of general-relativistic magnetohydrodynamics equations in a dynamical
and arbitrary spacetime with high-resolution shock-capturing techniques on
domains with adaptive mesh refinements. After a discussion of the equations
solved and of the techniques employed, we present a series of testbeds carried
out to validate the code and assess its accuracy. Such tests range from the
solution of relativistic Riemann problems in flat spacetime, over to the
stationary accretion onto a Schwarzschild black hole and up to the evolution of
oscillating magnetized stars in equilibrium and constructed as consistent
solutions of the coupled Einstein-Maxwell equations.Comment: minor changes to match the published versio
Gravitational waves from inspiralling compact binaries with magnetic dipole moments
We investigate the effects of the magnetic dipole-dipole coupling and the
electromagnetic radiation on the frequency evolution of gravitational waves
from inspiralling binary neutron stars with magnetic dipole moments. This study
is motivated by the discovery of the superstrongly magnetized neutron stars,
i.e., magnetar. We derive the contributions of the magnetic fields to the
accumulated cycles in gravitational waves as , where denotes the strength of the polar magnetic
fields of each neutron star in the binary system. It is found that the effects
of the magnetic fields will be negligible for the detection and the parameter
estimation of gravitational waves, if the upper limit for magnetic fields of
neutron stars are less than G, which is the maximum magnetic
field observed in the soft gamma repeaters and the anomalous X-ray pulsars up
to date. We also discuss the implications of electromagnetic radiation from the
inspiralling binary neutron stars for the precursory X-ray emission prior to
the gamma ray burst observed by the Ginga satellite.Comment: 15 pages, no figures, accepted for publication in Ap
Signal Transduction Pathways in the Pentameric Ligand-Gated Ion Channels
The mechanisms of allosteric action within pentameric ligand-gated ion channels (pLGICs) remain to be determined. Using crystallography, site-directed mutagenesis, and two-electrode voltage clamp measurements, we identified two functionally relevant sites in the extracellular (EC) domain of the bacterial pLGIC from Gloeobacter violaceus (GLIC). One site is at the C-loop region, where the NQN mutation (D91N, E177Q, and D178N) eliminated inter-subunit salt bridges in the open-channel GLIC structure and thereby shifted the channel activation to a higher agonist concentration. The other site is below the C-loop, where binding of the anesthetic ketamine inhibited GLIC currents in a concentration dependent manner. To understand how a perturbation signal in the EC domain, either resulting from the NQN mutation or ketamine binding, is transduced to the channel gate, we have used the Perturbation-based Markovian Transmission (PMT) model to determine dynamic responses of the GLIC channel and signaling pathways upon initial perturbations in the EC domain of GLIC. Despite the existence of many possible routes for the initial perturbation signal to reach the channel gate, the PMT model in combination with Yen's algorithm revealed that perturbation signals with the highest probability flow travel either via the ÎČ1-ÎČ2 loop or through pre-TM1. The ÎČ1-ÎČ2 loop occurs in either intra- or inter-subunit pathways, while pre-TM1 occurs exclusively in inter-subunit pathways. Residues involved in both types of pathways are well supported by previous experimental data on nAChR. The direct coupling between pre-TM1 and TM2 of the adjacent subunit adds new insight into the allosteric signaling mechanism in pLGICs. © 2013 Mowrey et al
DADA: data assimilation for the detection and attribution of weather and climate-related events
A new nudging method for data assimilation, delayâcoordinate nudging, is presented. Delayâcoordinate nudging makes explicit use of present and past observations in the formulation of the forcing driving the model evolution at each time step. Numerical experiments with a lowâorder chaotic system show that the new method systematically outperforms standard nudging in different model and observational scenarios, also when using an unoptimized formulation of the delayânudging coefficients. A connection between the optimal delay and the dominant Lyapunov exponent of the dynamics is found based on heuristic arguments and is confirmed by the numerical results, providing a guideline for the practical implementation of the algorithm. Delayâcoordinate nudging preserves the easiness of implementation, the intuitive functioning and the reduced computational cost of the standard nudging, making it a potential alternative especially in the field of seasonalâtoâdecadal predictions with large Earth system models that limit the use of more sophisticated data assimilation procedures
Equilibrium Configurations of Strongly Magnetized Neutron Stars with Realistic Equations of State
We investigate equilibrium sequences of magnetized rotating stars with four
kinds of realistic equations of state (EOSs) of SLy (Douchin et al.), FPS
(Pandharipande et al.), Shen (Shen et al.), and LS (Lattimer & Swesty).
Employing the Tomimura-Eriguchi scheme to construct the equilibrium
configurations. we study the basic physical properties of the sequences in the
framework of Newton gravity. In addition we newly take into account a general
relativistic effect to the magnetized rotating configurations. With these
computations, we find that the properties of the Newtonian magnetized stars,
e.g., structure of magnetic field, highly depends on the EOSs.
The toroidal magnetic fields concentrate rather near the surface for Shen and
LS EOSs than those for SLy and FPS EOSs. The poloidal fields are also affected
by the toroidal configurations. Paying attention to the stiffness of the EOSs,
we analyze this tendency in detail. In the general relativistic stars, we find
that the difference due to the EOSs becomes small because all the employed EOSs
become sufficiently stiff for the large maximum density, typically greater than
. The maximum baryon mass of the magnetized stars
with axis ratio increases about up to twenty percents for that of
spherical stars. We furthermore compute equilibrium sequences at finite
temperature, which should serve as an initial condition for the hydrodynamic
study of newly-born magnetars. Our results suggest that we may obtain
information about the EOSs from the observation of the masses of magnetars.Comment: submitted to MNRA
Cold ideal equation of state for strongly magnetized neutron-star matter: effects on muon production and pion condensationn
Neutron stars with very strong surface magnetic fields have been suggested as
the site for the origin of observed soft gamma repeaters (SGRs). In this paper
we investigate the influence of such strong magnetic fields on the properties
and internal structure of these magnetized neutron stars (magnetars). We study
properties of a degenerate equilibrium ideal neutron-proton-electron (npe) gas
with and without the effects of the anomalous nucleon magnetic moments in a
magnetic field. The presence of a sufficiently strong magnetic field changes
the ratio of protons to neutrons as well as the neutron drip density. We also
study the appearance of muons as well as pion condensation in strong magnetic
fields. We discuss the possibility that boson condensation in the interior of
magnetars might be a source of SGRs.Comment: 10 pages included 9 figures, ApJ in pres
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