6,651 research outputs found
A Simple Model for Estimating Water Balance and Salinity of Reservoirs and Outflow
Reservoir storage reduces fluctuation in streamflow salinity, yet increases outflow salinity
because of water evaporation. These processes are highly relevant to developing water
management strategy, yet the method to predict outflow salinity has not been adequately
examined. The study reported here examined the water and salt balance in a reservoir using a
two-layer model. This model assumes that inflow blends with the storage, but the water
evaporation takes place from the surface layer, and the percolation losses from the subsurface.
The thickness of the first layer where salinity increases with evaporation was estimated through
calibration against the measured outflow salinity. The changes in salinity were computed using a
moving average method on a monthly time step. This model was applied first to Red Bluff
Reservoir of the Middle Pecos River, then to Elephant Butte, Amistad, and Falcon along the Rio
Grande. The outflow salinity projected by the model was in good agreement with the measured,
except under a few circumstances where mixing of inflow and reservoir storage was suspected to
be incomplete. The accuracy of prediction can be improved by improving the estimate of initial
salinity of reservoir storage, which is currently taken as being equal to outflow salinity at the onset
of the simulation
Mechanically-Induced Transport Switching Effect in Graphene-based Nanojunctions
We report a theoretical study suggesting a novel type of electronic switching
effect, driven by the geometrical reconstruction of nanoscale graphene-based
junctions. We considered junction struc- tures which have alternative
metastable configurations transformed by rotations of local carbon dimers. The
use of external mechanical strain allows a control of the energy barrier
heights of the potential profiles and also changes the reaction character from
endothermic to exothermic or vice-versa. The reshaping of the atomic details of
the junction encode binary electronic ON or OFF states, with ON/OFF
transmission ratio that can reach up to 10^4-10^5. Our results suggest the
possibility to design modern logical switching devices or mechanophore sensors,
monitored by mechanical strain and structural rearrangements.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure
COSMOS: A Hybrid N-Body/Hydrodynamics Code for Cosmological Problems
We describe a new hybrid N-body/hydrodynamical code based on the
particle-mesh (PM) method and the piecewise-parabolic method (PPM) for use in
solving problems related to the evolution of large-scale structure, galaxy
clusters, and individual galaxies. The code, named COSMOS, possesses several
new features which distinguish it from other PM-PPM codes. In particular, to
solve the Poisson equation we have written a new multigrid solver which can
determine the gravitational potential of isolated matter distributions and
which properly takes into account the finite-volume discretization required by
PPM. All components of the code are constructed to work with a nonuniform mesh,
preserving second-order spatial differences. The PPM code uses vacuum boundary
conditions for isolated problems, preventing inflows when appropriate. The PM
code uses a second-order variable-timestep time integration scheme. Radiative
cooling and cosmological expansion terms are included. COSMOS has been
implemented for parallel computers using the Parallel Virtual Machine (PVM)
library, and it features a modular design which simplifies the addition of new
physics and the configuration of the code for different types of problems. We
discuss the equations solved by COSMOS and describe the algorithms used, with
emphasis on these features. We also discuss the results of tests we have
performed to establish that COSMOS works and to determine its range of
validity.Comment: 43 pages, 14 figures, submitted to ApJS and revised according to
referee's comment
Negative differential resistance in nanotube devices
Carbon nanotube junctions are predicted to exhibit negative differential
resistance, with very high peak-to-valley current ratios even at room
temperature. We treat both nanotube p-n junctions and undoped
metal-nanotube-metal junctions, calculating quantum transport through the
self-consistent potential within a tight-binding approximation. The undoped
junctions in particular may be suitable for device integration.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, to appear in Physical Review Letter
Magnetically Accreting Isolated Old Neutron Stars
Previous work on the emission from isolated old neutron stars (IONS)
accreting the inter-stellar medium (ISM) focussed on gravitational capture -
Bondi accretion. We propose a new class of sources which accrete via magnetic
interaction with the ISM. While for the Bondi mechanism, the accretion rate
decreases with increasing NS velocity, in magnetic accretors (MAGACs="magics")
the accretion rate increases with increasing NS velocity. MAGACs will be
produced among high velocity (~> 100 km s-1) high magnetic field (B> 1e14 G)
radio pulsars - the ``magnetars'' - after they have evolved first through
magnetic dipole spin-down, followed by a ``propeller'' phase (when the object
sheds angular momentum on a timescale ~< 1e10 yr). The properties of MAGACS may
be summarized thus: dipole magnetic fields of B~>1e14 G; minimum velocities
relative to the ISM of >25-100 km s-1, depending on B, well below the median in
the observed radio-pulsar population; spin-periods of >days to years; accretion
luminosities of 1e28- 1e31 ergs s-1 ; and effective temperatures kT=0.3 - 2.5
keV if they accrete onto the magnetic polar cap. We find no examples of MAGACs
among previously observed source classes (anomalous X-ray pulsars,
soft-gamma-ray repeaters or known IONS). However, MAGACs may be more prevelant
in flux-limited X-ray catalogs than their gravitationally accreting
counterparts.Comment: ApJ, accepte
A Simple Model for Estimating Water Balance and Salinity of Reservoirs and Outflow
Reservoir storage reduces fluctuation in streamflow salinity, yet increases outflow salinity
because of water evaporation. These processes are highly relevant to developing water
management strategy, yet the method to predict outflow salinity has not been adequately
examined. The study reported here examined the water and salt balance in a reservoir using a
two-layer model. This model assumes that inflow blends with the storage, but the water
evaporation takes place from the surface layer, and the percolation losses from the subsurface.
The thickness of the first layer where salinity increases with evaporation was estimated through
calibration against the measured outflow salinity. The changes in salinity were computed using a
moving average method on a monthly time step. This model was applied first to Red Bluff
Reservoir of the Middle Pecos River, then to Elephant Butte, Amistad, and Falcon along the Rio
Grande. The outflow salinity projected by the model was in good agreement with the measured,
except under a few circumstances where mixing of inflow and reservoir storage was suspected to
be incomplete. The accuracy of prediction can be improved by improving the estimate of initial
salinity of reservoir storage, which is currently taken as being equal to outflow salinity at the onset
of the simulation
Kinematic Control of the Inertiality of the System of Tycho-2 and UCAC2 Stellar Proper Motions
Based on the Ogorodnikov-Milne model, we analyze the proper motions of
Tycho-2 and UCAC2 stars. We have established that the model component that
describes the rotation of all stars under consideration around the Galactic y
axis differs significantly from zero at various magnitudes. We interpret this
rotation found using the most distant stars as a residual rotation of the
ICRS/Tycho-2 system relative to the inertial reference frame. For the most
distant ( pc) Tycho-2 and UCAC2 stars, the mean rotation around
the Galactic y axis has been found to be mas yr.
The proper motions of UCAC2 stars with magnitudes in the range are
shown to be distorted appreciably by the magnitude equation in
, which has the strongest effect for northern-sky stars
with a coefficient of mas yr mag. We have detected
no significant effect of the magnitude equation in the proper motions of UCAC2
stars brighter than .Comment: 15 pages, 6 figure
On non-uniform smeared black branes
We investigate charged dilatonic black -branes smeared on a transverse
circle. The system can be reduced to neutral vacuum black branes, and we
perform static perturbations for the reduced system to construct non-uniform
solutions. At each order a single master equation is derived, and the
Gregory-Laflamme critical wavelength is determined. Based on the non-uniform
solutions, we discuss thermodynamic properties of this system and argue that in
a microcanonical ensemble the non-uniform smeared branes are entropically
disfavored even near the extremality, if the spacetime dimension is , which is the critical dimension for the vacuum case. However, the critical
dimension is not universal. In a canonical ensemble the vacuum non-uniform
black branes are thermodynamically favorable at , whereas the
non-uniform smeared branes are favorable at near the extremality.Comment: 24 pages, 2 figures; v2: typos corrected, submitted to
Class.Quant.Gra
Development of Profile and Turbulence Diagnostics for Improved Confinement Studies in Heliotron-J
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