1,339 research outputs found
Fast reconnection in relativistic plasmas: the magnetohydrodynamics tearing instability revisited
Fast reconnection operating in magnetically dominated plasmas is often
invoked in models for magnetar giant flares, for magnetic dissipation in pulsar
winds, or to explain the gamma-ray flares observed in the Crab nebula, hence
its investigation is of paramount importance in high-energy astrophysics. Here
we study, by means of two dimensional numerical simulations, the linear phase
and the subsequent nonlinear evolution of the tearing instability within the
framework of relativistic resistive magnetohydrodynamics, as appropriate in
situations where the Alfven velocity approaches the speed of light. It is found
that the linear phase of the instability closely matches the analysis in
classical MHD, where the growth rate scales with the Lundquist number S as
S^-1/2, with the only exception of an enhanced inertial term due to the thermal
and magnetic energy contributions. In addition, when thin current sheets of
inverse aspect ratio scaling as S^-1/3 are considered, the so-called "ideal"
tearing regime is retrieved, with modes growing independently on S and
extremely fast, on only a few light crossing times of the sheet length. The
overall growth of fluctuations is seen to solely depend on the value of the
background Alfven velocity. In the fully nonlinear stage we observe an inverse
cascade towards the fundamental mode, with Petschek-type supersonic jets
propagating at the external Alfven speed from the X-point, and a fast
reconnection rate at the predicted value R~(ln S)^-1.Comment: 14 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication (MNRAS
Maximal Acceleration Corrections to the Lamb Shift of Muonic Hydrogen
The maximal acceleration corrections to the Lamb shift of muonic hydrogen are
calculated by using the relativistic Dirac wave functions. The correction for
the transition is meV and is higher than the accuracy of
present QED calculations and of the expected accuracy of experiments in
preparation.Comment: LaTex file, 9 pages, to be published in Il Nuovo Cimento
Can Gravity Distinguish Between Dirac and Majorana Neutrinos?
We show that spin-gravity interaction can distinguish between Dirac and
Majorana neutrino wave packets propagating in a Lense-Thirring background.
Using time-independent perturbation theory and gravitational phase to generate
a perturbation Hamiltonian with spin-gravity coupling, we show that the
associated matrix element for the Majorana neutrino differs significantly from
its Dirac counterpart. This difference can be demonstrated through significant
gravitational corrections to the neutrino oscillation length for a two-flavour
system, as shown explicitly for SN1987A.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures; minor changes of text; typo corrected; accepted
in Physical Review Letter
On the influence of the magnetic field of the GSI experimental storage ring on the time-modulation of the EC-decay rates of the H-like mother ions
We investigate the influence of the magnetic field of the
Experimental storage ring (ESR) at GSI on the periodic time-dependence of the
orbital K-shell electron capture decay ) rates of the H--like heavy ions.
We approximate the magnetic field of the ESR by a uniform magnetic field.
Unlike the assertion by Lambiase et al., arXiv: 0811.2302 [nucl-th], we show
that a motion of the H-like heavy ion in a uniform magnetic field cannot be the
origin of the periodic time-dependence of the EC-decay rates of the H-like
heavy ions.Comment: 3 pages, 1 figur
Nonlinear Model Reduction by Moment-Matching for a Point Absorber Wave Energy Conversion System
This paper presents a data-driven model reduction by moment-matching approach to construct control-oriented models for a point absorber device. The methodology chosen and developed
generates models which are input-to-state linear, with any nonlinear behaviour confined to the output
map. Such a map is the result of a data-driven approximation procedure, where the so-called moment
of the point absorber system is estimated via a least-squares procedure. The resulting control-oriented
model can inherently preserve steady-state properties of the target WEC system for a user-defined
class of input signals of interest, with the computation only dependent upon a suitably defined set of
input-output data
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