Solar-like oscillations in the metal-poor subgiant nu Indi: II. Acoustic spectrum and mode lifetime

Convection in stars excites resonant acoustic waves which depend on the sound speed inside the star, which in turn depends on properties of the stellar interior. Therefore, asteroseismology is an unrivaled method to probe the internal structure of a star. We made a seismic study of the metal-poor subgiant star nu Indi with the goal of constraining its interior structure. Our study is based on a time series of 1201 radial velocity measurements spread over 14 nights obtained from two sites, Siding Spring Observatory in Australia and ESO La Silla Observatory in Chile. The power spectrum of the high precision velocity time series clearly presents several identifiable peaks between 200 and 500 uHz showing regularity with a large and small spacing of 25.14 +- 0.09 uHz and 2.96 +- 0.22 uHz at 330 uHz. Thirteen individual modes have been identified with amplitudes in the range 53 to 173 cm/s. The mode damping time is estimated to be about 16 days (1-sigma range between 9 and 50 days), substantially longer than in other stars like the Sun, the alpha Cen system or the giant xi Hya.Comment: 5 pages, 7 figures, A&A accepte

A simple, efficient, and general treatment of the singularities in Hartree-Fock and exact-exchange Kohn-Sham methods for solids

We present a general scheme for treating the integrable singular terms within exact exchange (EXX) Kohn-Sham or Hartree-Fock (HF) methods for periodic solids. We show that the singularity corrections for treating these divergencies depend only on the total number and the positions of k-points and on the lattice vectors, in particular the unit cell volume, but not on the particular positions of atoms within the unit cell. The method proposed here to treat the singularities constitutes a stable, simple to implement, and general scheme that can be applied to systems with arbitrary lattice parameters within either the EXX Kohn-Sham or the HF formalism. We apply the singularity correction to a typical symmetric structure, diamond, and to a more general structure, trans-polyacetylene. We consider the effect of the singularity corrections on volume optimisations and k-point convergence. While the singularity corrections clearly depends on the total number of k-points, it exhibits a remarkably small dependence upon the choice of the specific arrangement of the k-points.Comment: 24 pages, 5 Figures, re-submitted to Phys. Rev. B after revision

The analytic structure of 2D Euler flow at short times

Using a very high precision spectral calculation applied to the incompressible and inviscid flow with initial condition $\psi_0(x_1, x_2) = \cos x_1+\cos 2x_2$, we find that the width $\delta(t)$ of its analyticity strip follows a $\ln(1/t)$ law at short times over eight decades. The asymptotic equation governing the structure of spatial complex-space singularities at short times (Frisch, Matsumoto and Bec 2003, J.Stat.Phys. 113, 761--781) is solved by a high-precision expansion method. Strong numerical evidence is obtained that singularities have infinite vorticity and lie on a complex manifold which is constructed explicitly as an envelope of analyticity disks.Comment: 19 pages, 14 figures, published versio

Stochastic Cutoff Method for Long-Range Interacting Systems

A new Monte-Carlo method for long-range interacting systems is presented. This method consists of eliminating interactions stochastically with the detailed balance condition satisfied. When a pairwise interaction $V_{ij}$ of a $N$-particle system decreases with the distance as $r_{ij}^{-\alpha}$, computational time per one Monte Carlo step is ${\cal O}(N)$ for $\alpha \ge d$ and ${\cal O}(N^{2-\alpha/d})$ for $\alpha < d$, where $d$ is the spatial dimension. We apply the method to a two-dimensional magnetic dipolar system. The method enables us to treat a huge system of $256^2$ spins with reasonable computational time, and reproduces a circular order originated from long-range dipolar interactions.Comment: 18 pages, 9 figures, 1 figure and 1 reference are adde

CO2 and temperature effects on the asphaltene phase envelope as determined by a quartz crystal resonator

Knowledge of the asphaltene phase envelope (APE) is crucial for oil companies, especially when enhanced oil recovery is applied. An innovative quartz crystal resonator (QCR) technique was employed to assess the phase behavior of asphaltene under reservoir conditions. The effect of CO2 injection coupled to temperature changes on the APE of a recombined oil with a very low asphaltene content (0.235% w/w of C7 asphaltene in dead oil) are reported. It has been shown that QCR is an appropriate and highly sensitive nondestructive experimental technique for detecting asphaltene flocculation. Pressure onsets were found to be dependent on the depressurization rate.Knowledge of the asphaltene phase envelope (APE) is crucial for oil companies, especially when enhanced oil recovery is applied. An innovative quartz crystal resonator (QCR) technique was employed to assess the phase behavior of asphaltene under reservoir281167806787sem informaçãosem informação(2012), http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/key_world_energy_stats-1.pdf, International Energy Agency. 2011 Key World Energy Statistics. (accessed Aug 27)Speight, J.G., (1999) The Chemistry and Technology of Petroleum, pp. 215-241. , 3 rd ed. CRC Press: New YorkFan, T., Buckley, J.S., Rapid and Accurate SARA Analysis of Medium Gravity Crude Oils (2002) Energy Fuels, 16, pp. 1571-1575Andersen, S.I., Speight, J.G., Petroleum resins separation, character, and role in petroleum (2001) Pet. Sci. Technol., 19, pp. 1-34Durand, E., Clemancey, M., Lancelin, J.-M., Verstraete, J., Espinat, D., Quoineaud, A.-A., Effect of Chemical Composition on Asphaltenes Aggregation (2010) Energy Fuels, 24, pp. 1051-1062Hammami, A., Phelps, C.H., Monger-Mcclure, T., Little, T.M., Asphaltene Precipitation from Live Oils: An Experimental Investigation of Onset Conditions and Reversibility (2000) Energy Fuels, 14, pp. 14-18Guo, B., Song, S., Chacko, J., Ghalambor, A., Flow Assurance (2005) Offshore Pipelines, pp. 169-214. , Gulf Professional Publishing: Burlington, VT, Chapter 15Zekri, A.Y., Almehaideb, R.A., A Novel Technique to Treat Asphaltene Deposition in Carbonate Rocks (2001) Soc. Pet. Eng. J.Joshi, N.B., Mullins, O.C., Jamaluddin, A., Creek, J., McFadden, J., Asphaltene Precipitation from Live Crude Oil (2001) Energy Fuels, 15, pp. 979-986Vargas, F.M., Gonzalez, D.L., Hirasaki, G.J., Chapman, W.G., Modeling Asphaltene Phase Behavior in Crude Oil Systems Using the Perturbed Chain Form of the Statistical Associating Fluid Theory (PC-SAFT) Equation of State (2009) Energy Fuels, 23, pp. 1140-1146Gonzalez, D.L., Vargas, F.M., Hirasaki, G.J., Chapman, W.G., Modeling of CO2-induced asphaltene precipitation (2008) Energy Fuels, 22, pp. 757-762Deo, M., Parra, M., Characterization of Carbon-Dioxide-Induced Asphaltene Precipitation (2012) Energy Fuels, 26, pp. 2672-2679Sarma, H.K., Can We Ignore Asphaltene in a Gas Injection Project for Light-Oils? (2003) Soc. Pet. Eng. J.Daridon, J.L., Cassiěde, M., Nasri, D., Pauly, J., Carrier, H., Probing Asphaltene Flocculation by a Quartz Crystal Resonator (2013) Energy Fuels, 27, pp. 4639-4647Abudu, A., Goual, L., Adsorption of Crude Oil on Surfaces Using Quartz Crystal Microbalance with Dissipation (QCM-D) under Flow Conditions (2009) Energy Fuels, 23, pp. 1237-1248Farooq, U., Sjöblom, J., Øye, G., Desorption of Asphaltenes from Silica-Coated Quartz Crystal Surfaces in Low Saline Aqueous Solutions (2011) J. Dispersion Sci. Technol., 32, pp. 1388-1395Tavakkoli, M., Panuganti, S.R., Vargas, F.M., Taghikhani, V., Pishvaie, M.R., Chapman, W.G., Asphaltene Deposition in Different Depositing Environments: Part 1. Model Oil (2014) Energy Fuels, 28, pp. 1617-1628Daridon, J.L., Cassiěde, M., Paillol, J.H., Pauly, J., Viscosity Measurements of Liquids under Pressure by Using the Quartz Crystal Resonators (2011) Rev. Sci. 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An Arbitrary Curvilinear Coordinate Method for Particle-In-Cell Modeling

A new approach to the kinetic simulation of plasmas in complex geometries, based on the Particle-in- Cell (PIC) simulation method, is explored. In the two dimensional (2d) electrostatic version of our method, called the Arbitrary Curvilinear Coordinate PIC (ACC-PIC) method, all essential PIC operations are carried out in 2d on a uniform grid on the unit square logical domain, and mapped to a nonuniform boundary-fitted grid on the physical domain. As the resulting logical grid equations of motion are not separable, we have developed an extension of the semi-implicit Modified Leapfrog (ML) integration technique to preserve the symplectic nature of the logical grid particle mover. A generalized, curvilinear coordinate formulation of Poisson's equations to solve for the electrostatic fields on the uniform logical grid is also developed. By our formulation, we compute the plasma charge density on the logical grid based on the particles' positions on the logical domain. That is, the plasma particles are weighted to the uniform logical grid and the self-consistent mean electrostatic fields obtained from the solution of the logical grid Poisson equation are interpolated to the particle positions on the logical grid. This process eliminates the complexity associated with the weighting and interpolation processes on the nonuniform physical grid and allows us to run the PIC method on arbitrary boundary-fitted meshes.Comment: Submitted to Computational Science & Discovery December 201

Core properties of alpha Cen A using asteroseismology

A set of long and nearly continuous observations of alpha Centauri A should allow us to derive an accurate set of asteroseismic constraints to compare to models, and make inferences on the internal structure of our closest stellar neighbour. We intend to improve the knowledge of the interior of alpha Centauri A by determining the nature of its core. We combined the radial velocity time series obtained in May 2001 with three spectrographs in Chile and Australia: CORALIE, UVES, and UCLES. The resulting combined time series has a length of 12.45 days and contains over 10,000 data points and allows to greatly reduce the daily alias peaks in the power spectral window. We detected 44 frequencies that are in good overall agreement with previous studies, and found that 14 of these show possible rotational splittings. New values for the large and small separations have been derived. A comparison with stellar models indicates that the asteroseismic constraints determined in this study allows us to set an upper limit to the amount of convective-core overshooting needed to model stars of mass and metallicity similar to those of alpha Cen A.Comment: 8 pages, 11 figures, A&A accepte