9,297 research outputs found
Free-piston Stirling engine/linear alternator 1000-hour endurance test
The Free Piston Stirling Engine (FPSE) has the potential to be a long lived, highly reliable, power conversion device attractive for many product applications such as space, residential or remote site power. The purpose of endurance testing the FPSE was to demonstrate its potential for long life. The endurance program was directed at obtaining 1000 operational hours under various test conditions: low power, full stroke, duty cycle and stop/start. Critical performance parameters were measured to note any change and/or trend. Inspections were conducted to measure and compare critical seal/bearing clearances. The engine performed well throughout the program, completing more than 1100 hours. Hardware inspection, including the critical clearances, showed no significant change in hardware or clearance dimensions. The performance parameters did not exhibit any increasing or decreasing trends. The test program confirms the potential for long life FPSE applications
Probing Sub-parsec Structure in the Lyman Alpha Forest with Gravitational Microlensing
We present the results of microlens ray-tracing simulations showing the
effect of absorbing material between a source quasar and a lensing galaxy in a
gravitational lens system. We find that, in addition to brightness fluctuations
due to microlensing, the strength of the absorption line relative to the
continuum varies with time, with the properties of the variations depending on
the structure of the absorbing material. We conclude that such variations will
be measurable via UV spectroscopy of image A of the gravitationally lensed
quasar Q2237+0305 if the Lyman Alpha clouds between the quasar and the lensing
galaxy possess structure on scales smaller than pc. The time scale
for the variations is on the order of order years to decades, although very
short term variability can occur. While the Lyman alpha lines may not be
accessible at all wavelengths, this approach is applicable to any absorption
system, including metal lines.Comment: 8 pages, 11 figures, to appear in MNRAS (note resolution of some
figures reduced due to size limitations
New intensity and visibility aspects of a double loop neutron interferometer
Various phase shifters and absorbers can be put into the arms of a double
loop neutron interferometer. The mean intensity levels of the forward and
diffracted beams behind an empty four plate interferometer of this type have
been calculated. It is shown that the intensities in the forward and diffracted
direction can be made equal using certain absorbers. In this case the
interferometer can be regarded as a 50/50 beam splitter. Furthermore the
visibilities of single and double loop interferometers are compared to each
other by varying the transmission in the first loop using different absorbers.
It can be shown that the visibility becomes exactly 1 using a phase shifter in
the second loop. In this case the phase shifter in the second loop must be
strongly correlated to the transmission coefficient of the absorber in the
first loop. Using such a device homodyne-like measurements of very weak signals
should become possible.Comment: 12 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in the Journal of
Optics B - Quantum and Semiclassical Optic
Star-forming Galactic Contrails at z=3.2 as a Source of Metal Enrichment and Ionizing Radiation
A spectroscopically detected Lyman alpha emitting halo at redshift 3.216 in
the GOODS-N field is found to reside at the convergence of several Lyman alpha
filaments. HST images show that some of the filaments are inhabited by
galaxies. Several of the galaxies in the field have pronounced head-tail
structures, which are partly aligned with each other. The blue colors of most
tails suggest the presence of young stars, with the emission from at least one
of the galaxies apparently dominated by high equivalent width Lyman alpha.
Faint, more diffuse, and similarly elongated, apparently stellar features, can
be seen over an area with a linear extent of at least 90 kpc. The region within
several arcseconds of the brightest galaxy exhibits spatially extended emission
by HeII, NV and various lower ionization metal lines. The gas-dynamical
features present are strongly reminiscent of ram-pressure stripped galaxies,
including evidence for recent star formation in the stripped contrails. Spatial
gradients in the appearance of several galaxies may represent a stream of
galaxies passing from a colder to a hotter intergalactic medium. The stripping
of gas from the in-falling galaxies, in conjunction with the occurrence of star
formation and stellar feedback in the galactic contrails suggests a mechanism
for the metal enrichment of the high redshift intergalactic medium that does
not depend on long-range galactic winds, at the same time opening a path for
the escape of ionizing radiation from galaxies.Comment: 12 pages, 9 figures, submitted to MNRA
Neutron wave packet tomography
A tomographic technique is introduced in order to determine the quantum state
of the center of mass motion of neutrons. An experiment is proposed and
numerically analyzed.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
Z\gamma\gamma production with leptonic decays and triple photon production at NLO QCD
We present a calculation of the O(alpha_s) QCD corrections to the production
of a Z boson in association with two photons and to triple photon production at
hadron colliders. All final-state photons are taken as real. For the Z boson,
we consider the decays both into charged leptons and into neutrinos including
all off-shell effects. Numerical results are obtained via a Monte Carlo program
based on the structure of the VBFNLO program package. This allows us to
implement general cuts and distributions of the final-state particles. We find
that the NLO QCD corrections are sizable and significantly exceed the
expectations from a scale variation of the leading-order result. In addition,
differential distributions of important observables change considerably. The
prediction of two-photon-associated Z production with Z decays into neutrinos
from the charged-lepton rate works well, once we use an additional cut on the
invariant mass of the charged-lepton pair.Comment: 14 pages, 10 figures, 2 table
How cold is cold dark matter? Small scales constraints from the flux power spectrum of the high-redshift Lyman-alpha forest
We present constraints on the mass of warm dark matter (WDM) particles
derived from the Lyman-alpha flux power spectrum of 55 high- resolution HIRES
spectra at 2.0 < z < 6.4. From the HIRES spectra, we obtain a lower limit of
mwdm > 1.2 keV 2 sigma if the WDM consists of early decoupled thermal relics
and mwdm > 5.6 keV (2 sigma) for sterile neutrinos. Adding the Sloan Digital
Sky Survey Lyman-alpha flux power spectrum, we get mwdm > 4 keV and mwdm > 28
keV (2 sigma) for thermal relics and sterile neutrinos. These results improve
previous constraints by a factor two.Comment: Some issues clarified (especially resolution related). Conclusions
unchanged. Accepted version by PR
Constraining reionization using the thermal history of the baryons
The thermal evolution of the intergalactic medium (IGM) depends on the
reionization history of the universe. Numerical simulations indicate that the
low density IGM, which is responsible for the low column density Ly-alpha
forest, follows a well defined temperature-density relation. This results in a
cut-off in the distribution of line widths as a function of column density. We
use hydrodynamic simulations to calibrate the relation between the cut-off and
the temperature-density relation and apply this relation to Keck spectra
spanning a redshift range z=2-4.5. We find that the temperature peaks at z~3
and interpret this as evidence for reheating due to the reionization of helium.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, to appear in "Cosmic evolution and galaxy
formation: Structure, interactions, and feedback", eds. J. Franco et a
- …