Indirect Evidence for L\'evy Walks in Squeeze Film Damping

Molecular flow gas damping of mechanical motion in confined geometries, and its associated noise, is important in a variety of fields, including precision measurement, gravitational wave detection, and MEMS devices. We used two torsion balance instruments to measure the strength and distance-dependence of `squeeze film' damping. Measured quality factors derived from free decay of oscillation are consistent with gas particle superdiffusion in L\'evy walks and inconsistent with those expected from traditional Gaussian random walk particle motion. The distance-dependence of squeeze film damping observed in our experiments is in agreement with a parameter-free Monte Carlo simulation. The squeeze film damping of the motion of a plate suspended a distance d away from a parallel surface scales with a fractional power between 1/d and 1/d^2.Comment: 5 pages 5 figures accepted for PRD; typo in equation 3 and figure 1 fixe

The Hagedorn temperature Revisited

The Hagedorn temperature, T_H is determined from the number of hadronic resonances including all mesons and baryons. This leads to a stable result T_H = 174 MeV consistent with the critical and the chemical freeze-out temperatures at zero chemical potential. We use this result to calculate the speed of sound and other thermodynamic quantities in the resonance hadron gas model for a wide range of baryon chemical potentials following the chemical freeze-out curve. We compare some of our results to those obtained previously in other papers.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figure

Stabilizing Hadron Resonance Gas Models against Future Discoveries

We examine the stability of hadron resonance gas models by extending them to take care of undiscovered resonances through the Hagedorn formula. We find that the influence of unknown resonances on thermodynamics is large but bounded. Hadron resonance gases are internally consistent up to a temperature higher than the cross over temperature in QCD; but by examining quark number susceptibilities we find that their region of applicability seems to end even below the QCD cross over. We model the decays of resonances and investigate the ratios of particle yields in heavy-ion collisions. We find that observables such as hydrodynamics and hadron yield ratios change little upon extending the model. As a result, heavy-ion collisions at RHIC and LHC are insensitive to a possible exponential rise in the hadronic density of states, thus increasing the stability of the predictions of hadron resonance gas models

Quantum Collective QCD String Dynamics

The string breaking model of particle production is extended in order to help explain the transverse momentum distribution in elementary collisions. Inspired by an idea of Bialas', we treat the string using a collective coordinate approach. This leads to a chromo-electric field strength which fluctuates, and in turn implies that quarks are produced according to a thermal distribution.Comment: 6 pages. Presented at SQM 2006. Submitted to J. Phys. G for publication in proceedings. Vers. 2: Minor revisions; final hadron spectrum calculation include

Single cell performance studies on the Fe/Cr Redox Energy Storage System using mixed reactant solutions at elevated temperature

Experimental studies in a 14.5 sq cm single cell system using mixed reactant solutions at 65 C are described. Systems were tested under isothermal conditions i.e., reactants and the cell were at the same temperature. Charging and discharging performance were evaluted by measuring watt-hour and coulombic efficiencies, voltage-current relationships, hydrogen evolution and membrane resistivity. Watt-hour efficiencies ranged from 86% at 43 ma/sq cm to 75% at 129 ma/sq cm with corresponding coulombic efficiencies of 92% and 97%, respectively. Hydrogen evolution was less than 1% of the charge coulombic capacity during charge-discharge cycling. Bismuth and bismuth-lead catalyzed chromium electrodes maintained reversible performance and low hydrogen evolution under normal and adverse cycling conditions. Reblending of the anode and cathode solutions was successfully demonstrated to compensate for osmotic volume changes. Improved performance was obtained with mixed reactant systems in comparison to the unmixed reactant systems

High Sensitivity Torsion Balance Tests for LISA Proof Mass Modeling

We have built a highly sensitive torsion balance to investigate small forces between closely spaced gold coated surfaces. Such forces will occur between the LISA proof mass and its housing. These forces are not well understood and experimental investigations are imperative. We describe our torsion balance and present the noise of the system. A significant contribution to the LISA noise budget at low frequencies is the fluctuation in the surface potential difference between the proof mass and its housing. We present first results of these measurements with our apparatus.Comment: 6th International LISA Symposiu

Charge Management for Gravitational Wave Observatories using UV LEDs

Accumulation of electrical charge on the end mirrors of gravitational wave observatories, such as the space-based LISA mission and ground-based LIGO detectors, can become a source of noise limiting the sensitivity of such detectors through electronic couplings to nearby surfaces. Torsion balances provide an ideal means for testing gravitational wave technologies due to their high sensitivity to small forces. Our torsion pendulum apparatus consists of a movable Au-coated Cu plate brought near a Au-coated Si plate pendulum suspended from a non-conducting quartz fiber. A UV LED located near the pendulum photoejects electrons from the surface, and a UV LED driven electron gun directs photoelectrons towards the pendulum surface. We have demonstrated both charging and discharging of the pendulum with equivalent charging rates of $\sim$$10^5 e/\mathrm{s}$, as well as spectral measurements of the pendulum charge resulting in a white noise level equivalent to $3\times10^5 e/\sqrt{Hz}$.Comment: 5 pages, submitted to PR

The Hagedorn Temperature and Partition Thermodynamics

We review the resonance gas formalism of hadron thermodynamics and recall that an exponential increase of the resonance spectrum leads to a limiting temperature of hadronic matter. We then show that the number p(n) of ordered partitions of an integer n grows exponentially with n and satisfies the integer counterpart of the statistical bootstrap equation. Considering the set of all partitions as a Gibbs ensemble provides a partition thermodynamics which is also governed by a limiting temperature, determined by the combinatorial structure of the problem. Further associating intrinsic quantum numbers to integers results in a phase diagram equivalent to that found in QCD for hadronic matter as function of temperature and baryochemical potential.Comment: Dedicated to Rolf Hagedorn, 1919-2003. 11 pages, 3 figures. Final version accepted for publication in the European Physical Journal

Semiclassical (QFT) and Quantum (String) anti - de Sitter Regimes: New Results

We compute the quantum string entropy S_s(m, H) from the microscopic string density of states of mass m in Anti de Sitter space-time. For high m, (high Hm -->c/\alpha'), no phase transition occurs at the Anti de Sitter string temperature T_{s} which is higher than the flat space (Hagedorn) temperature t_{s}. (the Hubble constant H acts as producing a smaller string constant and thus, a higher tension). T_s is the precise quantum dual of the semiclassical (QFT) Anti de Sitter temperature scale . We compute the quantum string emission by a black hole in Anti de Sitter space-time (bhAdS). In the early evaporation stage, it shows the QFT Hawking emission with temperature T_{sem~bhAdS}, (semiclassical regime). For T_{sem~bhAdS}--> T_{s}, it exhibits a phase transition into a Anti de Sitter string state. New string bounds on the black hole emerge in the bhAdS string regime. We find a new formula for the full (quantum regime included) Anti de Sitter entropy S_{sem}, as a function of the usual Bekenstein-Hawking entropy S_{sem}^(0). For low H (semiclassical regime), S_{sem}^(0) is the leading term but for high H (quantum regime), no phase transition operates, in contrast to de Sitter space, and the entropy S_{sem} is very different from the Bekenstein-Hawking term S_{sem}^(0).Comment: Comments 26 pages; no figure