72 research outputs found
Positive and negative streamers in ambient air: modeling evolution and velocities
We simulate short positive and negative streamers in air at standard
temperature and pressure. They evolve in homogeneous electric fields or emerge
from needle electrodes with voltages of 10 to 20 kV. The streamer velocity at
given streamer length depends only weakly on the initial ionization seed,
except in the case of negative streamers in homogeneous fields. We characterize
the streamers by length, head radius, head charge and field enhancement. We
show that the velocity of positive streamers is mainly determined by their
radius and in quantitative agreement with recent experimental results both for
radius and velocity. The velocity of negative streamers is dominated by
electron drift in the enhanced field; in the low local fields of the present
simulations, it is little influenced by photo-ionization. Though negative
streamer fronts always move at least with the electron drift velocity in the
local field, this drift motion broadens the streamer head, decreases the field
enhancement and ultimately leads to slower propagation or even extinction of
the negative streamer.Comment: 18 pages, 10 figure
Probing photo-ionization: Experiments on positive streamers in pure gasses and mixtures
Positive streamers are thought to propagate by photo-ionization whose
parameters depend on the nitrogen:oxygen ratio. Therefore we study streamers in
nitrogen with 20%, 0.2% and 0.01% oxygen and in pure nitrogen, as well as in
pure oxygen and argon. Our new experimental set-up guarantees contamination of
the pure gases to be well below 1 ppm. Streamers in oxygen are difficult to
measure as they emit considerably less light in the sensitivity range of our
fast ICCD camera than the other gasses. Streamers in pure nitrogen and in all
nitrogen/oxygen mixtures look generally similar, but become somewhat thinner
and branch more with decreasing oxygen content. In pure nitrogen the streamers
can branch so much that they resemble feathers. This feature is even more
pronounced in pure argon, with approximately 10^2 hair tips/cm^3 in the
feathers at 200 mbar; this density could be interpreted as the free electron
density creating avalanches towards the streamer stem. It is remarkable that
the streamer velocity is essentially the same for similar voltage and pressure
in all nitrogen/oxygen mixtures as well as in pure nitrogen, while the oxygen
concentration and therefore the photo-ionization lengths vary by more than five
orders of magnitude. Streamers in argon have essentially the same velocity as
well. The physical similarity of streamers at different pressures is confirmed
in all gases; the minimal diameters are smaller than in earlier measurements.Comment: 28 pages, 14 figures. Major differences with v1: - appendix and
spectra removed - subsection regarding effects of repetition frequency added
- many more smaller change
The OSACA Database and a Kinematic Analysis of Stars in the Solar Neighborhood
We transformed radial velocities compiled from more than 1400 published
sources, including the Geneva--Copenhagen survey of the solar neighborhood
(CORAVEL-CfA), into a uniform system based on the radial velocities of 854
standard stars in our list. This enabled us to calculate the average weighted
radial velocities for more than 25~000 HIPPARCOS stars located in the local
Galactic spiral arm (Orion arm) with a median error of +-1 km/s. We use these
radial velocities together with the stars' coordinates, parallaxes, and proper
motions to determine their Galactic coordinates and space velocities. These
quantities, along with other parameters of the stars, are available from the
continuously updated Orion Spiral Arm CAtalogue (OSACA) and the associated
database. We perform a kinematic analysis of the stars by applying an
Ogorodnikov-Milne model to the OSACA data. The kinematics of the nearest single
and multiple main-sequence stars differ substantially. We used distant
(r\approx 0.2 kpc) stars of mixed spectral composition to estimate the angular
velocity of the Galactic rotation -25.7+-1.2 km/s/kpc, and the vertex
deviation,l=13+-2 degrees, and detect a negative K effect. This negative K
effect is most conspicuous in the motion of A0-A5 giants, and is equal to
K=-13.1+-2.0 km/s/kpc.Comment: 16 pages, 8 figure
Measurement of the atmospheric muon flux with the NEMO Phase-1 detector
The NEMO Collaboration installed and operated an underwater detector
including prototypes of the critical elements of a possible underwater km3
neutrino telescope: a four-floor tower (called Mini-Tower) and a Junction Box.
The detector was developed to test some of the main systems of the km3
detector, including the data transmission, the power distribution, the timing
calibration and the acoustic positioning systems as well as to verify the
capabilities of a single tridimensional detection structure to reconstruct muon
tracks. We present results of the analysis of the data collected with the NEMO
Mini-Tower. The position of photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) is determined through
the acoustic position system. Signals detected with PMTs are used to
reconstruct the tracks of atmospheric muons. The angular distribution of
atmospheric muons was measured and results compared with Monte Carlo
simulations.Comment: Astrop. Phys., accepte
Malat1 RNA genetic factor and T1 bladder cancer
In this study, we collected overview data regarding the possible association of rs 3200401 polymorphism of the MALAT1 gene in patients with a single focus and multifocal bladder cancer stage T
Theory of Chemical Kinetics and Charge Transfer based on Nonequilibrium Thermodynamics
Classical theories of chemical kinetics assume independent reactions in
dilute solutions, whose rates are determined by mean concentrations. In
condensed matter, strong interactions alter chemical activities and create
inhomogeneities that can dramatically affect the reaction rate. The extreme
case is that of a reaction coupled to a phase transformation, whose kinetics
must depend on the order parameter -- and its gradients, at phase boundaries.
This Account presents a general theory of chemical kinetics based on
nonequilibrium thermodynamics. The reaction rate is a nonlinear function of the
thermodynamic driving force (free energy of reaction) expressed in terms of
variational chemical potentials. The Cahn-Hilliard and Allen-Cahn equations are
unified and extended via a master equation for non-equilibrium chemical
thermodynamics. For electrochemistry, both Marcus and Butler-Volmer kinetics
are generalized for concentrated solutions and ionic solids. The theory is
applied to intercalation dynamics in the phase separating Li-ion battery
material LiFePO.Comment: research account, 17 two-column pages, 12 figs, 78 refs - some typos
corrected Accounts of Chemical Research (2013
Hypervirulent Clostridium difficile PCR-Ribotypes Exhibit Resistance to Widely Used Disinfectants
The increased prevalence of Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) has coincided with enhanced transmissibility and severity of disease, which is often linked to two distinct clonal lineages designated PCR-ribotype 027 and 017 responsible for CDI outbreaks in the USA, Europe and Asia. We assessed sporulation and susceptibility of three PCR-ribotypes; 012, 017 and 027 to four classes of disinfectants; chlorine releasing agents (CRAs), peroxygens, quaternary ammonium compounds (QAC) and biguanides. The 017 PCR-ribotype, showed the highest sporulation frequency under these test conditions. The oxidizing biocides and CRAs were the most efficacious in decontamination of C. difficile vegetative cells and spores, the efficacy of the CRAs were concentration dependent irrespective of PCR-ribotype. However, there were differences observed in the susceptibility of the PCR-ribotypes, independent of the concentrations tested for Virkon®, Newgenn®, Proceine 40® and Hibiscrub®. Whereas, for Steri7® and Biocleanse® the difference observed between the disinfectants were dependent on both PCR-ribotype and concentration. The oxidizing agent Perasafe® was consistently efficacious across all three PCR ribotypes at varying concentrations; with a consistent five Log10 reduction in spore titre. The PCR-ribotype and concentration dependent differences in the efficacy of the disinfectants in this study indicate that disinfectant choice is a factor for llimiting the survival and transmission of C. difficile spores in healthcare settings
Simulation of the discharge propagation in a capillary tube in air at atmospheric pressure
International audienceThis paper presents simulations of an air plasma discharge at atmospheric pressure initiated by a needle anode set inside a dielectric capillary tube. We have studied the influence of the tube inner radius and its relative permittivity ε r on the discharge structure and dynamics. As a reference, we have used a relative permittivity ε r = 1 to study only the influence of the cylindrical constraint of the tube on the discharge. For a tube radius of 100 µm and ε r = 1, we have shown that the discharge fills the tube during its propagation and is rather homogeneous behind the discharge front. When the radius of the tube is in the range 300 to 600 µm, the discharge structure is tubular with peak values of electric field and electron density close to the dielectric surface. When the radius of the tube is larger than 700 µm, the tube has no influence on the discharge which propagates axially. For a tube radius of 100 µm, when ε r increases from 1 to 10, the discharge structure becomes tubular. We have noted that the velocity of propagation of the discharge in the tube increases when the front is more homogeneous and then, the discharge velocity increases with the decrease of the tube radius and ε r. Then, we have compared the relative influence of the value of tube radius and ε r on the discharge characteristics. Our simulations indicate that the geometrical constraint of the cylindrical tube has more influence than the value of ε r on the discharge structure and dynamics. Finally, we have studied the influence of photoemission processes on the discharge structure by varying the photoemission coefficient. As expected, we have shown that photoemission, as it increases the number of secondary electrons close to the dielectric surface, promotes the tubular structure of the discharge
- …