473 research outputs found
Development of biodegradable flexible films of starch and poly(lactic acid) plasticized with adipate or citrate esters
AbstractBiodegradable films were produced from blends contained a high amount of thermoplastic starch (TPS) and poly(lactic acid) (PLA) plasticized with different adipate or citrate esters. It was not possible to obtain pellets for the production of films using only glycerol as a plasticizer. The plasticization of the PLA with the esters and mixture stages added through extrusion was critical to achieve a blend capable of producing films by blow extrusion. Adipate esters were the most effective plasticizers because they interacted best with the PLA and yielded films with appropriate mechanical properties
Continuous media interpretation of supersymmetric Wess-Zumino type models
Supersymmetric Wess-Zumino type models are considered as classical material
media that can be interpreted as fluids of ordered strings with heat flow along
the strings or a mixture of fluids of ordered strings with either a cloud of
particles or a flux of directed radiation.Comment: 14 pages, Latex, No Figure
Four dimensional "old minimal" N=2 supersymmetrization of R^4
We write in superspace the lagrangian containing the fourth power of the Weyl
tensor in the "old minimal" d=4, N=2 supergravity, without local SO(2)
symmetry. Using gauge completion, we analyze the lagrangian in components. We
find out that the auxiliary fields which belong to the Weyl and compensating
vector multiplets have derivative terms and therefore cannot be eliminated
on-shell. Only the auxiliary fields which belong to the compensating nonlinear
multiplet do not get derivatives and could still be eliminated; we check that
this is possible in the leading terms of the lagrangian. We compare this result
to the similar one of "old minimal" N=1 supergravity and we comment on possible
generalizations to other versions of N=1,2 supergravity.Comment: 31 pages, no figures. Minor corrections. Details of the full
calculation included as an appendix. Reference adde
Experimental properties of Bose-Einstein condensates in 1D optical lattices: Bloch oscillations, Landau-Zener tunneling and mean-field effects
We report experimental results on the properties of Bose-Einstein condensates
in 1D optical lattices. By accelerating the lattice, we observed Bloch
oscillations of the condensate in the lowest band, as well as Landau-Zener
(L-Z) tunneling into higher bands when the lattice depth was reduced and/or the
acceleration of the lattice was increased. The dependence of the L-Z tunneling
rate on the condensate density was then related to mean-field effects modifying
the effective potential acting on the condensate, yielding good agreement with
recent theoretical work. We also present several methods for measuring the
lattice depth and discuss the effects of the micromotion in the TOP-trap on our
experimental results.Comment: 11 pages, 14 figure
Statistical anisotropy of magnetohydrodynamic turbulence
Direct numerical simulations of decaying and forced magnetohydrodynamic (MHD)
turbulence without and with mean magnetic field are analyzed by higher-order
two-point statistics. The turbulence exhibits statistical anisotropy with
respect to the direction of the local magnetic field even in the case of global
isotropy. A mean magnetic field reduces the parallel-field dynamics while in
the perpendicular direction a gradual transition towards two-dimensional MHD
turbulence is observed with inertial-range scaling of the
perpendicular energy spectrum. An intermittency model based on the Log-Poisson
approach, , is able to describe the observed
structure function scalings.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures. To appear in Phys.Rev.
A methodology for ranking and hazard identification of xenobiotic organic compounds in urban stormwater
Optimal prediction for moment models: Crescendo diffusion and reordered equations
A direct numerical solution of the radiative transfer equation or any kinetic
equation is typically expensive, since the radiative intensity depends on time,
space and direction. An expansion in the direction variables yields an
equivalent system of infinitely many moments. A fundamental problem is how to
truncate the system. Various closures have been presented in the literature. We
want to study moment closure generally within the framework of optimal
prediction, a strategy to approximate the mean solution of a large system by a
smaller system, for radiation moment systems. We apply this strategy to
radiative transfer and show that several closures can be re-derived within this
framework, e.g. , diffusion, and diffusion correction closures. In
addition, the formalism gives rise to new parabolic systems, the reordered
equations, that are similar to the simplified equations.
Furthermore, we propose a modification to existing closures. Although simple
and with no extra cost, this newly derived crescendo diffusion yields better
approximations in numerical tests.Comment: Revised version: 17 pages, 6 figures, presented at Workshop on Moment
Methods in Kinetic Gas Theory, ETH Zurich, 2008 2 figures added, minor
correction
Creating a low-dimensional quantum gas using dark states in an inelastic evanescent-wave mirror
We discuss an experimental scheme to create a low-dimensional gas of
ultracold atoms, based on inelastic bouncing on an evanescent-wave mirror.
Close to the turning point of the mirror, the atoms are transferred into an
optical dipole trap. This scheme can compress the phase-space density and can
ultimately yield an optically-driven atom laser. An important issue is the
suppression of photon scattering due to ``cross-talk'' between the mirror
potential and the trapping potential. We propose that for alkali atoms the
photon scattering rate can be suppressed by several orders of magnitude if the
atoms are decoupled from the evanescent-wave light. We discuss how such dark
states can be achieved by making use of circularly-polarized evanescent waves.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure
- …