4,108,953 research outputs found
Two-dimensional melting far from equilibrium in a granular monolayer
We report an experimental investigation of the transition from a hexagonally
ordered solid phase to a disordered liquid in a monolayer of vibrated spheres.
The transition occurs as the intensity of the vibration amplitude is increased.
Measurements of the density of dislocations and the positional and
orientational correlation functions show evidence for a dislocation-mediated
continuous transition from a solid phase with long-range order to a liquid with
only short-range order. The results show a strong similarity to simulations of
melting of hard disks in equilibrium, despite the fact that the granular
monolayer is far from equilibrium due to the effects of interparticle
dissipation and the vibrational forcing.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Functional determinants on certain domains
Functional determinants on various domains of the sphere and flat space are
presented for scalar and spinor fields.Comment: 14p, plain TeX, talk presented at the 6th Moscow Quantum Gravity
Seminar, Moscow, June 12-19, 1995.(Minor errors corrected.
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Improved Bar Impact Tests Using A Photonic Doppler Velocimeter
Bar impact tests, using the techniques described elsewhere in this symposium, were used to measure compressive and tensile strengths of borosilicate glass, soda lime glass, and a glass ceramic. The glass ceramic was 25% crystalline spinel, furnished by Corning Inc. There are two measures of compressive strength: the peak stress that can be transmitted in unconfined compression, and the >steady state> strength. For borosilicate glass and soda lime glass, these values were similar, being about 1.8 and 1.5 GPa, respectively. The glass ceramic (25% spinel) was almost 50% stronger. Tensile failure in the glass and glass ceramic takes places via surface flaws, and thus tensile strength is an extrinsic, as opposed to intrinsic property.Mechanical Engineerin
Deflationary cosmology: constraints from angular size and ages of globular clusters
Observational constraints to a large class of decaying vacuum cosmologies are
derived using the angular size data of compact radio sources and the latest age
estimates of globular clusters. For this class of deflationary
models, the present value of the vacuum energy density is quantified by a
positive parameter smaller than unity. In the case of milliarcsecond
compact radio-sources, we find that the allowed intervals for and the
matter density parameter are heavily dependent on the value of the
mean projected linear size . For pc, the best
fit occurs for , , and , , respectively. This analysis shows that if
one minimizes for the free parameters , and
, the best fit for these angular size data corresponds to a decaying
with and
pc. Constraints from age estimates of globular clusters and old high redshift
galaxies are not so restrictive, thereby suggesting that there is no age crisis
for this kind of cosmologies.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, revised version to appear in Phys. Rev.
Heat kernels on curved cones
A functorial derivation is presented of a heat-kernel expansion coefficient
on a manifold with a singular fixed point set of codimension two. The existence
of an extrinsic curvature term is pointed out.Comment: 4p.,sign errors corrected and a small addition,uses JyTeX,MUTP/94/0
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