16,380 research outputs found
Dispersion of tracer particles in a compressible flow
The turbulent diffusion of Lagrangian tracer particles has been studied in a
flow on the surface of a large tank of water and in computer simulations. The
effect of flow compressibility is captured in images of particle fields. The
velocity field of floating particles has a divergence, whose probability
density function shows exponential tails. Also studied is the motion of pairs
and triplets of particles. The mean square separation is fitted to
the scaling form ~ t^alpha, and in contrast with the
Richardson-Kolmogorov prediction, an extended range with a reduced scaling
exponent of alpha=1.65 pm 0.1 is found. Clustering is also manifest in strongly
deformed triangles spanned within triplets of tracers.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure
Electrochemical Energy Storage Subsystems Study, Volume 2
The effects on life cycle costs (LCC) of major design and performance technology parameters for multi kW LEO and GEO energy storage subsystems using NiCd and NiH2 batteries and fuel cell/electrolysis cell devices were examined. Design, performance and LCC dynamic models are developed based on mission and system/subsystem requirements and existing or derived physical and cost data relationships. The models are exercised to define baseline designs and costs. Then the major design and performance parameters are each varied to determine their influence on LCC around the baseline values
Electrochemical energy storage subsystems study, volume 1
The effects on life cycle costs (LCC) of major design and performance technology parameters for multi kW LEO and GEO energy storage subsystems using NiCd and NiH2 batteries and fuel cell/electrolysis cell devices were examined. Design, performance and LCC dynamic models are developed based on mission and system/subsystem requirements and existing or derived physical and cost data relationships. The models define baseline designs and costs. The major design and performance parameters are each varied to determine their influence on LCC around the baseline values
Reaction Diffusion and Ballistic Annihilation Near an Impenetrable Boundary
The behavior of the single-species reaction process is examined
near an impenetrable boundary, representing the flask containing the reactants.
Two types of dynamics are considered for the reactants: diffusive and ballistic
propagation. It is shown that the effect of the boundary is quite different in
both cases: diffusion-reaction leads to a density excess, whereas ballistic
annihilation exhibits a density deficit, and in both cases the effect is not
localized at the boundary but penetrates into the system. The field-theoretic
renormalization group is used to obtain the universal properties of the density
excess in two dimensions and below for the reaction-diffusion system. In one
dimension the excess decays with the same exponent as the bulk and is found by
an exact solution. In two dimensions the excess is marginally less relevant
than the bulk decay and the density profile is again found exactly for late
times from the RG-improved field theory. The results obtained for the diffusive
case are relevant for Mg or Cd doping in the TMMC crystal's
exciton coalescence process and also imply a surprising result for the dynamic
magnetization in the critical one-dimensional Ising model with a fixed spin.
For the case of ballistic reactants, a model is introduced and solved exactly
in one dimension. The density-deficit profile is obtained, as is the density of
left and right moving reactants near the impenetrable boundary.Comment: to appear in J. Phys.
New Evidence of Discrete Scale Invariance in the Energy Dissipation of Three-Dimensional Turbulence: Correlation Approach and Direct Spectral Detection
We extend the analysis of [Zhou and Sornette, Physica D 165, 94-125, 2002]
showing statistically significant log-periodic corrections to scaling in the
moments of the energy dissipation rate in experiments at high Reynolds number
() of three-dimensional fully developed turbulence. First, we
develop a simple variant of the canonical averaging method using a rephasing
scheme between different samples based on pairwise correlations that confirms
Zhou and Sornette's previous results. The second analysis uses a simpler local
spectral approach and then performs averages over many local spectra. This
yields stronger evidence of the existence of underlying log-periodic
undulations, with the detection of more than 20 harmonics of a fundamental
logarithmic frequency corresponding to the preferred
scaling ratio .Comment: 9 RevTex4 papes including 8 eps figure
Diffusion and dispersion of passive tracers: Navier-Stokes versus MHD turbulence
A comparison of turbulent diffusion and pair-dispersion in homogeneous,
macroscopically isotropic Navier-Stokes (NS) and nonhelical magnetohydrodynamic
(MHD) turbulence based on high-resolution direct numerical simulations is
presented. Significant differences between MHD and NS systems are observed in
the pair-dispersion properties, in particular a strong reduction of the
separation velocity in MHD turbulence as compared to the NS case. It is shown
that in MHD turbulence the average pair-dispersion is slowed down for
, being
the Kolmogorov time, due to the alignment of the relative Lagrangian tracer
velocity with the local magnetic field. Significant differences in turbulent
single-particle diffusion in NS and MHD turbulence are not detected. The fluid
particle trajectories in the vicinity of the smallest dissipative structures
are found to be characterisically different although these comparably rare
events have a negligible influence on the statistics investigated in this work.Comment: Europhysics Letters, in prin
Thermodynamic properties of a small superconducting grain
The reduced BCS Hamiltonian for a metallic grain with a finite number of
electrons is considered. The crossover between the ultrasmall regime, in which
the level spacing, , is larger than the bulk superconducting gap, ,
and the small regime, where , is investigated analytically
and numerically. The condensation energy, spin magnetization and tunneling peak
spectrum are calculated analytically in the ultrasmall regime, using an
approximation controlled by as small parameter, where is the
number of interacting electron pairs. The condensation energy in this regime is
perturbative in the coupling constant , and is proportional to . We find that also in a large regime with
, in which pairing correlations are already rather well developed,
the perturbative part of the condensation energy is larger than the singular,
BCS, part. The condition for the condensation energy to be well approximated by
the BCS result is found to be roughly . We show how
the condensation energy can, in principle, be extracted from a measurement of
the spin magnetization curve, and find a re-entrant susceptibility at zero
temperature as a function of magnetic field, which can serve as a sensitive
probe for the existence of superconducting correlations in ultrasmall grains.
Numerical results are presented which suggest that in the large limit the
1/N correction to the BCS result for the condensation energy is larger than
.Comment: 17 pages, 7 figures, Submitted to Phys. Rev.
Cascading the use of Web 2.0 technology in secondary schools in the United Kingdom: identifying the barriers beyond pre-service training
This paper reports on research that took place at Nottingham Trent University and Sheffield Hallam University, United Kingdom, over two years. The research focuses on the use of Web 2.0 technology, specifically web logs, with pre-service teachers, both during their university programme and the first year of teaching as full-time newly qualified teachers (NQTs). The purpose of this research was to add a developing body of knowledge by identifying whether technology used by pre-service teachers during their training course can be cascaded into their practice once qualified. Key findings identify a number of enablers and barriers to cascading technology in the classroom; these include curriculum time, pupil skills and support. The research concludes that early professional support and development should be on-going and assumptions about new teachers as champions of cascading innovative use of Web 2 technologies into their practice as NQTs may be over optimisti
Formation of Structure in Snowfields: Penitentes, Suncups, and Dirt Cones
Penitentes and suncups are structures formed as snow melts, typically high in
the mountains. When the snow is dirty, dirt cones and other structures can form
instead. Building on previous field observations and experiments, this work
presents a theory of ablation morphologies, and the role of surface dirt in
determining the structures formed. The glaciological literature indicates that
sunlight, heating from air, and dirt all play a role in the formation of
structure on an ablating snow surface. The present work formulates a
mathematical model for the formation of ablation morphologies as a function of
measurable parameters. The dependence of ablation morphologies on weather
conditions and initial dirt thickness are studied, focusing on the initial
growth of perturbations away from a flat surface. We derive a single-parameter
expression for the melting rate as a function of dirt thickness, which agrees
well with a set of measurements by Driedger. An interesting result is the
prediction of a dirt-induced travelling instability for a range of parameters.Comment: 28 pages, 13 figure
Jahn-Teller stabilization of a "polar" metal oxide surface: Fe3O4(001)
Using ab initio thermodynamics we compile a phase diagram for the surface of
Fe3O4(001) as a function of temperature and oxygen pressures. A hitherto
ignored polar termination with octahedral iron and oxygen forming a wave-like
structure along the [110]-direction is identified as the lowest energy
configuration over a broad range of oxygen gas-phase conditions. This novel
geometry is confirmed in a x-ray diffraction analysis. The stabilization of the
Fe3O4(001)-surface goes together with dramatic changes in the electronic and
magnetic properties, e.g., a halfmetal-to-metal transition.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
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