716 research outputs found
Grain boundary pinning and glassy dynamics in stripe phases
We study numerically and analytically the coarsening of stripe phases in two
spatial dimensions, and show that transient configurations do not achieve long
ranged orientational order but rather evolve into glassy configurations with
very slow dynamics. In the absence of thermal fluctuations, defects such as
grain boundaries become pinned in an effective periodic potential that is
induced by the underlying periodicity of the stripe pattern itself. Pinning
arises without quenched disorder from the non-adiabatic coupling between the
slowly varying envelope of the order parameter around a defect, and its fast
variation over the stripe wavelength. The characteristic size of ordered
domains asymptotes to a finite value $R_g \sim \lambda_0\
\epsilon^{-1/2}\exp(|a|/\sqrt{\epsilon})\epsilon\ll 1\lambda_0a$ a constant of order unity. Random fluctuations allow defect motion to
resume until a new characteristic scale is reached, function of the intensity
of the fluctuations. We finally discuss the relationship between defect pinning
and the coarsening laws obtained in the intermediate time regime.Comment: 17 pages, 8 figures. Corrected version with one new figur
Radio Frequency Spectra of 388 Bright 74 MHz Sources
As a service to the community, we have compiled radio frequency spectra from
the literature for all sources within the VLA Low Frequency Sky Survey (VLSS)
that are brighter than 15 Jy at 74 MHz. Over 160 references were used to
maximize the amount of spectral data used in the compilation of the spectra,
while also taking care to determine the corrections needed to put the flux
densities from all reference on the same absolute flux density scale. With the
new VLSS data, we are able to vastly improve upon previous efforts to compile
spectra of bright radio sources to frequencies below 100 MHz because (1) the
VLSS flux densities are more reliable than those from some previous low
frequency surveys and (2) the VLSS covers a much larger area of the sky
(declination >-30 deg.) than many other low frequency surveys (e.g., the 8C
survey). In this paper, we discuss how the spectra were constructed and how
parameters quantifying the shapes of the spectra were derived. Both the spectra
and the shape parameters are made available here to assist in the calibration
of observations made with current and future low frequency radio facilities.Comment: Accepted to ApJ
The Second Cambridge Pulsar Survey at 81.5 MHz
We have searched the northern sky for pulsars at the low radio frequency of
81.5 MHz, using the 3.6-hectare array at Cambridge, England. The survey covered
most of the sky north of declination -20 deg and provided sensitivities of
order 200 mJy for pulsars not too close to the galactic plane. A total of 20
pulsars were detected, all of them previously known. The effective
post-detection sampling rate was 1.3 kHz, and the sensitivity to low-dispersion
millisecond pulsars was sufficient to allow the detection of objects similar to
PSR J0437-4715 (period 5.7 ms, dispersion measure 2.6 cm^-3 pc, mean flux
density 1 Jy). No such pulsars were found.Comment: 19 pages, 5 figure
Biogeochemical signatures in the lichen Hypogymnia physodes in the mid Urals
Abstract Multi-element content and uranium (U) isotopes were investigated in the lichen Hypogymnia physodes (native and transplants) sampled across a 60-km transect, centred on Karabash smelter town, from Turgoyak Lake (SW) to Kyshtym (NE) to investigate the origin of U. Kyshtym was the site of a major nuclear accident in 1957. 234 U/ 238 U activity ratios in native thalli sampled during July 2001 were within the natural isotopic ratio in minerals. Uranium/thorium (U/Th) ratios were higher in native thalli towards the NE (average 0.73) than those in the SW (average 0.57). Element signatures in native thalli and transplants suggest U was derived from fossil fuel combustion from Karabash and sources lying further to the east. Systematic and significant U enrichment indicative of a nuclear fuel cycle source was not detected in any sample. Element signatures in epiphytic lichen transplants and native thalli provide a powerful method to evaluate U deposition
Photochemistry of Furyl- and Thienyldiazomethanes: Spectroscopic Characterization of Triplet 3-Thienylcarbene
Photolysis (λ \u3e 543 nm) of 3-thienyldiazomethane (1), matrix isolated in Ar or N2 at 10 K, yields triplet 3-thienylcarbene (13) and α-thial-methylenecyclopropene (9). Carbene 13 was characterized by IR, UV/vis, and EPR spectroscopy. The conformational isomers of 3-thienylcarbene (s-E and s-Z) exhibit an unusually large difference in zero-field splitting parameters in the triplet EPR spectrum (|D/hc| = 0.508 cm–1, |E/hc| = 0.0554 cm–1; |D/hc| = 0.579 cm–1, |E/hc| = 0.0315 cm–1). Natural Bond Orbital (NBO) calculations reveal substantially differing spin densities in the 3-thienyl ring at the positions adjacent to the carbene center, which is one factor contributing to the large difference in D values. NBO calculations also reveal a stabilizing interaction between the sp orbital of the carbene carbon in the s-Z rotamer of 13 and the antibonding σ orbital between sulfur and the neighboring carbon—an interaction that is not observed in the s-E rotamer of 13. In contrast to the EPR spectra, the electronic absorption spectra of the rotamers of triplet 3-thienylcarbene (13) are indistinguishable under our experimental conditions. The carbene exhibits a weak electronic absorption in the visible spectrum (λmax = 467 nm) that is characteristic of triplet arylcarbenes. Although studies of 2-thienyldiazomethane (2), 3-furyldiazomethane (3), or 2-furyldiazomethane (4) provided further insight into the photochemical interconversions among C5H4S or C5H4O isomers, these studies did not lead to the spectroscopic detection of the corresponding triplet carbenes (2-thienylcarbene (11), 3-furylcarbene (23), or 2-furylcarbene (22), respectively)
Quantifying the impact of BOReal forest fires on Tropospheric oxidants over the Atlantic using Aircraft and Satellites (BORTAS) experiment: design, execution and science overview
We describe the design and execution of the BORTAS (Quantifying the impact of BOReal forest fires on Tropospheric oxidants over the Atlantic using Aircraft and Satellites) experiment, which has the overarching objective of understanding the chemical aging of air masses that contain the emission products from seasonal boreal wildfires and how these air masses subsequently impact downwind atmospheric composition. The central focus of the experiment was a two-week deployment of the UK BAe-146-301 Atmospheric Research Aircraft (ARA) over eastern Canada, based out of Halifax, Nova Scotia. Atmospheric ground-based and sonde measurements over Canada and the Azores associated with the planned July 2010 deployment of the ARA, which was postponed by 12 months due to UK-based flights related to the dispersal of material emitted by the Eyjafjallajökull volcano, went ahead and constituted phase A of the experiment. Phase B of BORTAS in July 2011 involved the same atmospheric measurements, but included the ARA, special satellite observations and a more comprehensive ground-based measurement suite. The high-frequency aircraft data provided a comprehensive chemical snapshot of pyrogenic plumes from wildfires, corresponding to photochemical (and physical) ages ranging from 45 sr 10 days, largely by virtue of widespread fires over Northwestern Ontario. Airborne measurements reported a large number of emitted gases including semi-volatile species, some of which have not been been previously reported in pyrogenic plumes, with the corresponding emission ratios agreeing with previous work for common gases. Analysis of the NOy data shows evidence of net ozone production in pyrogenic plumes, controlled by aerosol abundance, which increases as a function of photochemical age. The coordinated ground-based and sonde data provided detailed but spatially limited information that put the aircraft data into context of the longer burning season in the boundary layer. Ground-based measurements of particulate matter smaller than 2.5 μm (PM2.5) over Halifax show that forest fires can on an episodic basis represent a substantial contribution to total surface PM2.5
Correlation effects in MgO and CaO: Cohesive energies and lattice constants
A recently proposed computational scheme based on local increments has been
applied to the calculation of correlation contributions to the cohesive energy
of the CaO crystal. Using ab-initio quantum chemical methods for evaluating
individual increments, we obtain 80% of the difference between the experimental
and Hartree-Fock cohesive energies. Lattice constants corrected for correlation
effects deviate by less than 1% from experimental values, in the case of MgO
and CaO.Comment: LaTeX, 4 figure
Comfort radicalism and NEETs: a conservative praxis
Young people who are not in education, employment or training (NEET) are construed by policy makers as a pressing problem about which something should be done. Such young people's lack of employment is thought to pose difficulties for wider society in relation to social cohesion and inclusion and it is feared that they will become a 'lost generation'. This paper(1) draws upon English research, seeking to historicise the debate whilst acknowledging that these issues have a much wider purchase. The notion of NEETs rests alongside longstanding concerns of the English state and middle classes, addressing unruly male working class youth as well as the moral turpitude of working class girls. Waged labour and domesticity are seen as a means to integrate such groups into society thereby generating social cohesion. The paper places the debate within it socio-economic context and draws on theorisations of cognitive capitalism, Italian workerism, as well as emerging theories of antiwork to analyse these. It concludes by arguing that ‘radical’ approaches to NEETs that point towards inequities embedded in the social structure and call for social democratic solutions veer towards a form of comfort radicalism. Such approaches leave in place the dominance of capitalist relations as well as productivist orientations that celebrate waged labour
A network description of the non-Gaussian stress-optic and Raman scattering responses of elastomer networks
The ability to measure orientation in dual or multi-phase materials is of current relevance in the study conthe constitution and deformation characteristics of the separate phases in many technologically important polymeric systems. Raman spectroscopy is a very useful tool in this regard because separation of the scattered Raman intensities by phase is possible and because it can be used accurately on thick specimens. A three dimensional network model concept used previously to describe the stress and birefringence reponses of elastomers is extended to describe the components of the Raman tensor for amorphous elastomers under general finite deformations. The utility of the model is verified via its ability to predict the finite deformation responses of elastomeric networks under large shear deformations. Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) networks are tested to large deformations in uniaxial compression and in shear for comparison with the theory. Simultaneous displacement, load and optical retardation data are collected using apparatus specially designed to allow optical access throughout the deformation tests. The importance of properly accounting for finite rotations when relating the computational results to the experimentally measured optical data is discussed. The proposed network description of the Raman tensor is also compared to Raman intensity in the literature on polyethylene terephthalate (PET). The results indicate that the theory accurately predicts the anisotropic Raman tensor components over the full range of deformation for which data are available.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/41702/1/707_2005_Article_BF01170305.pd
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