Design, fabrication, and bench testing of a solar chemical receiver

Solar thermal energy can be effectively collected, transported, stored, and utilized by means of a chemical storage and transport system employing the reversible SO2 oxidation reaction. A solar chemical receiver for SO3 thermal decomposition to SO2 and oxygen was analyzed. Bench tests of a ten foot section of a receiver module were conducted with dissociated sulfuric acid (SO3 and H2O) in an electrical furnace. Measured percent conversion of SO3 was 85% of the equilibrium value. Methods were developed to fabricate and assemble a complete receiver module. These methods included applying an aluminide coating to certain exposed surfaces, assembling concentric tubes with a wire spacer, applying a platinum catalyst to the tubing wall, and coiling the entire assembly into the desired configuration

On-shell Techniques and Universal Results in Quantum Gravity

We compute the leading post-Newtonian and quantum corrections to the Coulomb and Newtonian potentials using the full modern arsenal of on-shell techniques; we employ spinor-helicity variables everywhere, use the Kawai-Lewellen-Tye (KLT) relations to derive gravity amplitudes from gauge theory and use unitarity methods to extract the terms needed at one-loop order. We stress that our results are universal and thus will hold in any quantum theory of gravity with the same low-energy degrees of freedom as we are considering. Previous results for the corrections to the same potentials, derived historically using Feynman graphs, are verified explicitly, but our approach presents a huge simplification, since starting points for the computations are compact and tedious index contractions and various complicated integral reductions are eliminated from the onset, streamlining the derivations. We also analyze the spin dependence of the results using the KLT factorization, and show how the spinless correction in the framework are easily seen to be independent of the interacting matter considered.Comment: 34 pages, 7 figures, typos corrected, published versio

Global General Relativistic Magnetohydrodynamic Simulations of Accretion Tori

This paper presents an initial survey of the properties of accretion flows in the Kerr metric from three-dimensional, general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic simulations of accretion tori. We consider three fiducial models of tori around rotating, both prograde and retrograde, and nonrotating black holes; these three fiducial models are also contrasted with axisymmetric simulations and a pseudo-Newtonian simulation with equivalent initial conditions to delineate the limitations of these approximations.Comment: Submitted to ApJ. 30 pages, 21 figures. Animations and high-resolution version of figures available at http://www.astro.virginia.edu/~jd5

A microscopic approach to nonlinear Reaction-Diffusion: the case of morphogen gradient formation

We develop a microscopic theory for reaction-difusion (R-D) processes based on a generalization of Einstein's master equation with a reactive term and we show how the mean field formulation leads to a generalized R-D equation with non-classical solutions. For the $n$-th order annihilation reaction $A+A+A+...+A\rightarrow 0$, we obtain a nonlinear reaction-diffusion equation for which we discuss scaling and non-scaling formulations. We find steady states with either solutions exhibiting long range power law behavior (for $n>\alpha$) showing the relative dominance of sub-diffusion over reaction effects in constrained systems, or conversely solutions (for $n<\alpha<n+1$) with finite support of the concentration distribution describing situations where diffusion is slow and extinction is fast. Theoretical results are compared with experimental data for morphogen gradient formation.Comment: Article, 10 pages, 5 figure

Non Equilibrium Noise as a Probe of the Kondo Effect in Mesoscopic Wires

We study the non-equilibrium noise in mesoscopic diffusive wires hosting magnetic impurities. We find that the shot-noise to current ratio develops a peak at intermediate source-drain biases of the order of the Kondo temperature. The enhanced impurity contribution at intermediate biases is also manifested in the effective distribution. The predicted peak represents increased inelastic scattering rate at the non-equilibrium Kondo crossover.Comment: 4+ pages, 4 figures, published versio

Dephasing by extremely dilute magnetic impurities revealed by Aharonov-Bohm oscillations

We have probed the magnetic field dependence of the electron phase coherence time $\tau_\phi$ by measuring the Aharonov-Bohm conductance oscillations of mesoscopic Cu rings. Whereas $\tau_\phi$ determined from the low-field magnetoresistance saturates below 1 K, the amplitude of Aharonov-Bohm $h/e$ oscillations increases strongly on a magnetic field scale proportional to the temperature. This provides strong evidence that a likely explanation for the frequently observed saturation of $\tau_\phi$ at low temperature in weakly disordered metallic thin films is the presence of extremely dilute magnetic impurities.Comment: Accepted for publication in Physical Review Letter

Energy relaxation due to magnetic impurities in mesoscopic wires: Logarithmic approach

The transport in mesoscopic wires with large applied bias voltage has recently attracted great interest by measuring the energy distribution of the electrons at a given point of the wire, in Saclay. In the diffusive limit with negligible energy relaxation that shows two sharp steps at the Fermi energies of the two contacts, which are broadened due to the energy relaxation. In some of the experiments the broadening is reflecting an anomalous energy relaxation rate proportional to $E^{-2}$ instead of $E^{-3/2}$ valid for Coulomb electron-electron interaction, where $E$ is the energy transfer. Later it has been suggested that such relaxation rate can be due to electron-electron interaction mediated by Kondo impurities. In the present paper the latter is systematically studied in the logarithmic approximation valid above the Kondo temperature. In the case of large applied bias voltage Kondo resonances are formed at the steps of the distribution function and they are narrowed by increasing the bias. An additional Korringa energy broadening occurs for the spins which smears the Kondo resonances, and the renormalized coupling can be replaced by a smooth but essentially enhanced average coupling (factor of 8-10). Thus the experimental data can be described by formulas without logarithmic Kondo corrections, but with enhanced coupling. In certain regions of large bias, that averaged coupling depends weakly on the bias. In those cases the distribution function depends only on the ratio of the electron energy and the bias, showing scaling behavior. The impurity concentrations estimated from those experiments and other dephasing experiments can be very different, and a possible explanation considering the surface spin anisotropy due to strong spin-orbit interaction is the subject of our earlier paper.Comment: 12 pages, RevTex

Magnetodielectric effect of Bi6Fe2Ti3O18 film under an ultra-low magnetic field

Good quality and fine grain Bi6Fe2Ti3O18 magnetic ferroelectric films with single-phase layered perovskite structure have been successfully prepared via metal organic decomposition (MOD) method. Results of low-temperature magnetocapacitance measurements reveal that an ultra-low magnetic field of 10 Oe can produce a nontrivial magnetodielectric (MD) response in zero-field-cooling condition, and the relative variation of dielectric constants in magnetic field is positive, i.e., MD=0.05, when T<55K, but negative with a maximum of MD=-0.14 when 55K<T<190K. The magnetodielectric effect appears a sign change at 55K, which is due to transition from antiferromagnetic to weak ferromagnetic; and vanishes abruptly around 190K, which is thought to be associated with order-disorder transition of iron ion at B site of perovskite structures. The ultra-low-field magnetodielectric behaviour of Bi6Fe2Ti3O18 film has been discussed in the light of quasi-two-dimension unique nature of local spin order in ferroelectric film. Our results allow expectation on low-cost applications of detectors and switches for extremely weak magnetic fields in a wide temperature range 55K-190K.Comment: 10 pages 4 figures, planned to submit to J. Phys.: Condensed Matte